++Rick Perry has signed on and Carly Fiorina intends to.
++Ole "Frothy Mix" Santorum is signing on as an act against the "Obama-Clinton-Kerry" foreign policy.
++Bobby Jindal says that Tehran Tom earns our respect, not our ridicule. He also says that any deal with Iran will change with the next President.
++Mike Malloy went off on the right pushing their neo-fascist agenda as far as it can go and there will be a reaction.
++I can't wait for the GOP's platform on the Middle East. They have already confused themselves.
++By the way where is the authorization of military force.
Showing posts with label Mike Malloy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Malloy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Friday, April 29, 2011
"Americans, You've Gotten Too Expensive", Your Corporate Overlords
That's the message Americans are hearing at the Republican townhall meetings and it's just beginning to dawn on a few people. The Koch Brothers must be howling in laughter about naming their creation after a gay sex practice and now seeing these people express astonishment that their teabagger congressmen have voted to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid.
Remember Jack Germond, the veteran political writer. He reappeared in the Daily Beast with an article titled "Is Paul Ryan delusional?" Germond recounts the diasterous days of Newt Gingrich when he thought he could pull off a revolution. What astonishes Germond is the sense that the House Republicans, controlling just one small square of our political system, actually believe no one will notice their destructive behavior and that Americans will simply accept Paul Ryan's fantasy world.
Well, apparently, even with new Koch funded ads praising freshmen Republicans for voting for Ryan's plan,those citizens coming out to the town hall meetings feel they got suckered. Ryan himself had to escape through the back with a police escort and make a getaway in a different car than his own because his constituents were furious with his ideas.
In New Hampshire, ethically challenged Frank Guinta who rode the teabagger faux outrage to victory confronted real outrage at his town hall meeting. A 73-year old asked him whether he was in his right mind when he voted for the Ryan Plan. Guinta, trying to do the new GOP shuffle about how it won't affect seniors, said that these changes would be phased in. Whereupon, one Joe Platte, an eight grader, piped up and asked,"I'm 14, what am I supposed to do?
In North Dakota, a freshman congressman tried to explain to his constituents that everyone over 55 will be covered and protected. He said that the GOP was reforming Medicare to save it. People weren't buying it. A younger constituent said that if the GOP plan was so terrific why doesn't it affect seniors now. This got great applause.
I am absolutely delighted to see that Americans are demanding answers to my question,
"Who is going to insure the elderly under this plan?" So far no Republican has been able to answer this question. But Col. West come up with a uniquely American solution,arrest the constituent asking the question. A liberal blogger happened to ask him this very question, was hauled off, taken to jail and maced.
Paul Krugman in his "Conscience of a Liberal" blog keeps coming back to the Ryan Budget like a mongoose to the cobra. Krugman notes that the question is not that the Ryan Plan reduces the deficit in the right way--on the backs of all Americans except the wealthy--but whether it reduces the deficit at all. Good point. It is simply an ideological exercise to prepare the American people for being absolutely and finally ripped off.
Glenn Kessler writing in today's Washington Post does a fact check on the GOP's talking point that Americans will now have the same health care as members of Congress. Actually, this would be true if the GOP would fund the health exchanges President Obama supports. But in the Ryan Plan, Kessler notes that the government subsidizes the congressional health plans and under the Ryan Plan the whole point was to jettison health costs from government expenses. Kessler, not the first to point this out,notes that the Ryan plan shifts trillions of expenses on the elderly who can least afford it.
In Michigan , "El Duce" Rick Snyder unveiled his educational program. Here he dramatically cuts educational spending in the state, thus weakening the state's educational districts to the point where he will be able to appoint his platoon of emergency managers. The idea is to make the educational system profitable--that is to sell it off like an asset. This remarkable plan has been the brainchild of the De Vos family of Amway fame and the Princes of Blackwater fame, two Christianist families. A similar plan has just been adopted in Florida where we will have a "voucher" educational system, which will defund public education, for one run by profit-making corporations and religious organizations.
Pennsylvania's new Governor Tom Corbett has gutted that state's excellent college system,which was seen by state residents as a magnificent resource. He has told colleges that if they have natural gas under their campuses that they should exploit it to make up for the differences.
Alan Simpson appearing on panels around the country has become quite cranky as people are demanding increased taxes on the wealthy. He rightfully points out that we can confiscate all the wealth of the top 1% and not eliminate our debt. True, but, Alan, we can at least try.
The one who is really enjoying the spectacle of these popular reactions to the Ryan Plan is leftwing radio broadcaster Mike Malloy. Mike, who can be very dyspeptic about the state of the nation, has been enjoying watching all the white-haired teabaggers finally waking up to the fact that ,while they were protesting the Kenyan Muslim President, their corporate handlers have made them commit economic suicide.
And that is what the teabagger phenomenon is --a Ghost Dance to national economic suicide.
Mike Malloy raised a question that should be asked of Mike Huckabee when he declares for the presidency. Malloy pointed out correctly that the religious Right or American evangelicals almost all vote for Republicans, who favor the rich and act against the poor. Now this is against the teachings of the Messiah of these people. So does that mean that everytime the religious Right votes Republican, they are voting themselves into Hell. A theologically good point. This should be asked of former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
What the outrage over the Ryan Plan shows is that some Americans are beginning to under the Republican Party and their corporate overlords believe they are just too expensive. They don't really bother to blame the blacks and the "welfare queens" anymore or the poor or undocumented workers as the cause of our economic woes. It's the American Middle Class. Now get used to it.
Make sure you get your "vouchers" at the door. Think they'll give you one for a time-share?
Remember Jack Germond, the veteran political writer. He reappeared in the Daily Beast with an article titled "Is Paul Ryan delusional?" Germond recounts the diasterous days of Newt Gingrich when he thought he could pull off a revolution. What astonishes Germond is the sense that the House Republicans, controlling just one small square of our political system, actually believe no one will notice their destructive behavior and that Americans will simply accept Paul Ryan's fantasy world.
Well, apparently, even with new Koch funded ads praising freshmen Republicans for voting for Ryan's plan,those citizens coming out to the town hall meetings feel they got suckered. Ryan himself had to escape through the back with a police escort and make a getaway in a different car than his own because his constituents were furious with his ideas.
In New Hampshire, ethically challenged Frank Guinta who rode the teabagger faux outrage to victory confronted real outrage at his town hall meeting. A 73-year old asked him whether he was in his right mind when he voted for the Ryan Plan. Guinta, trying to do the new GOP shuffle about how it won't affect seniors, said that these changes would be phased in. Whereupon, one Joe Platte, an eight grader, piped up and asked,"I'm 14, what am I supposed to do?
In North Dakota, a freshman congressman tried to explain to his constituents that everyone over 55 will be covered and protected. He said that the GOP was reforming Medicare to save it. People weren't buying it. A younger constituent said that if the GOP plan was so terrific why doesn't it affect seniors now. This got great applause.
I am absolutely delighted to see that Americans are demanding answers to my question,
"Who is going to insure the elderly under this plan?" So far no Republican has been able to answer this question. But Col. West come up with a uniquely American solution,arrest the constituent asking the question. A liberal blogger happened to ask him this very question, was hauled off, taken to jail and maced.
Paul Krugman in his "Conscience of a Liberal" blog keeps coming back to the Ryan Budget like a mongoose to the cobra. Krugman notes that the question is not that the Ryan Plan reduces the deficit in the right way--on the backs of all Americans except the wealthy--but whether it reduces the deficit at all. Good point. It is simply an ideological exercise to prepare the American people for being absolutely and finally ripped off.
Glenn Kessler writing in today's Washington Post does a fact check on the GOP's talking point that Americans will now have the same health care as members of Congress. Actually, this would be true if the GOP would fund the health exchanges President Obama supports. But in the Ryan Plan, Kessler notes that the government subsidizes the congressional health plans and under the Ryan Plan the whole point was to jettison health costs from government expenses. Kessler, not the first to point this out,notes that the Ryan plan shifts trillions of expenses on the elderly who can least afford it.
In Michigan , "El Duce" Rick Snyder unveiled his educational program. Here he dramatically cuts educational spending in the state, thus weakening the state's educational districts to the point where he will be able to appoint his platoon of emergency managers. The idea is to make the educational system profitable--that is to sell it off like an asset. This remarkable plan has been the brainchild of the De Vos family of Amway fame and the Princes of Blackwater fame, two Christianist families. A similar plan has just been adopted in Florida where we will have a "voucher" educational system, which will defund public education, for one run by profit-making corporations and religious organizations.
Pennsylvania's new Governor Tom Corbett has gutted that state's excellent college system,which was seen by state residents as a magnificent resource. He has told colleges that if they have natural gas under their campuses that they should exploit it to make up for the differences.
Alan Simpson appearing on panels around the country has become quite cranky as people are demanding increased taxes on the wealthy. He rightfully points out that we can confiscate all the wealth of the top 1% and not eliminate our debt. True, but, Alan, we can at least try.
The one who is really enjoying the spectacle of these popular reactions to the Ryan Plan is leftwing radio broadcaster Mike Malloy. Mike, who can be very dyspeptic about the state of the nation, has been enjoying watching all the white-haired teabaggers finally waking up to the fact that ,while they were protesting the Kenyan Muslim President, their corporate handlers have made them commit economic suicide.
And that is what the teabagger phenomenon is --a Ghost Dance to national economic suicide.
Mike Malloy raised a question that should be asked of Mike Huckabee when he declares for the presidency. Malloy pointed out correctly that the religious Right or American evangelicals almost all vote for Republicans, who favor the rich and act against the poor. Now this is against the teachings of the Messiah of these people. So does that mean that everytime the religious Right votes Republican, they are voting themselves into Hell. A theologically good point. This should be asked of former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
What the outrage over the Ryan Plan shows is that some Americans are beginning to under the Republican Party and their corporate overlords believe they are just too expensive. They don't really bother to blame the blacks and the "welfare queens" anymore or the poor or undocumented workers as the cause of our economic woes. It's the American Middle Class. Now get used to it.
Make sure you get your "vouchers" at the door. Think they'll give you one for a time-share?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Isn't It Grand, Isn't It Fine
If you want a good overview of the politics going on in the states right now, Rachel Maddow is in a groove. Last night's show highlighted the bizarre legislation in Michigan. Governor Snyder, who had vowed not to be a partisan,has raised taxes on the middle class and seniors, while cutting corporate taxes. His budget proposal would impoverish local and city governments. Not to worry, the Governor would be allowed to declare a "fiscal crisis" and appoint an overseer or corporation to run the beleaguered municipality. It's the most recent version of creating "Company Towns". The corporation or overseer then could remove from office any democratically elected officials. Sounds a little unconstitutional but that was in the old days.
To vent, I listen to Mike Malloy Truthseeker on progressive radio stations. The other night he raised an issue about Wisconsin that totally escaped me. Since his broadcast, leftwing blogs have picked it up. Scott Walker, the governor, talks to Jesus Christ every day in the morning and Walker says that Jesus tells him what to do--literally. Jesus Christ told him when he was a younger man to get a job at IBM even though he didn't want to. The same applies to his abandoning his last campaign for governor--Jesus told him to quit. The son of a Baptist minister Scott Walker revealed these sensitive moments to the Christian Businessmen's Group. He is only doing on the budget bill what Jesus wants. Interesting, however, that all the Christian denominations have come out against his budger repair bill. How does this square with what Jesus has been telling him?
This Saturday Wisconsin farmers will be riding their tractors and combines into Madison to protest the Budget Repair Bill. It's not union solidarity we're seeing here--well,some of it is. The farmers are pissed that the bill repeals a state-run insurance scheme that was created by progressive Republicans--remember them--during the insurance frauds of the early twentieth century. The plan pays for itself and has no budgetary consequences. Older farmers depend on this program. The other bone the farmers have is that their wives supplement the family income and keep the small farms going by being teachers or nurses. The budget repair bill would lead to greater unemployment.
The Republicans don't seem to think the Wisconsin recall laws are legal. Interesting. Efforts to mount recall campaigns are picking up steam and there are enough signatures to recall at least one Republican. Eight are targeted by this campaign.
Reversing Wisconsin's entire history, Republican legislators passed a law that regulates who can come in and out of the Capitol building and it warrants metal detactors and the usual security apparatus. To outsiders this would seem normal but it is a source of pride to people in the state that Wisconsin keeps its capitol open to everyone 24/7.
It turns out that the report of some $7 million in damages to the Capitol was bogus and put out by the Right to defame the demonstrators. Anyway the Painters' Union offered to repair any damage done for free.
Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded astroturf organization run by Abramoff's old lobbying buddy, held a bus tour of the state. Joe the Plumber, who is not named Joe nor is he a Plumber, asked the people of Wisconsin whether they sided with socialist America or the real America. The bus tour topped out at 600 in Madison, not a great showing for teabag nation.
Felon Rick Scott,Governor of Florida, managed to win a bipartisan court case that challenged his refusal to accept federal funds for the high-speed rail project from Tampa to Orlando, a project that has been on the drawing boards for a decade. Scott also managed to alienate the entire state with his budget address. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out twice so far, he's cutting $1.75 billion from public education and slashing property and corporate taxes by $1.68 billion, which will mean squat to the deficit. Demonstrators at the capitol are now far outdrawing the past teabag crowds by several thousand.
The first Iowa Republican events have started. Five would-be Presidential contenders spoke before a Faith Forum. New favorite Buddy Roemer, former Democratic senator and Governor from Louisiana, spoke about faith and didn't address his previous three marriages. But Newt was there railing against all the secular socialists in the Obama Administration. In a quiet moment, Newt talked to a Christian radio station and admitted that he did let his wallace flop out, as Captain Beefhart would say. Newt admitted he was working so hard to save the nation that he slipped and committed adultery. I'm sure Callista was pleased to hear she was an accident in his life. Unlike Scott Walker,Newt speaks with God and graciously God forgave him his adultery and rewarded him with a wonderful marriage. So if God forgave him, then there's no problem. As Newt said, if his past mattered, he would be irrelevant now but since the future is at stake then all bets are off.
Andrew Sullivan in his Daily Dish opined two days ago that the Republican Party no longer exists. He gave a detailed taxonomy of the fragments of the Republicans and the conservative movement and I agree with him. Proof of this is the sad spectacle of Dick Lugar now coming around to accepting the House budget proposal even though he had openly opposed them. Lugar is frightened of a teabag primary. Also only 33% of Maine Republicans now believe that Olympia Snowe should be renominated--this about a woman who won with over 70% of the vote last time. There really is no there there.
Dana Milbank said that John Boehner is using Richard Nixon's Mad Bomber strategy on the budget, using the insanity of the House proposals to muscle greater concessions from the Senate and the White House. I prefer the incompetence argument and that he has no control over the House Republicans. Hapless Harry Reid is miffed that he thought he had a budget deal with the Republicans only to see Mitch McConnell walk away. The Democrats today are trying to force a vote on the House budget proposal to get sitting Republicans to go on record for cuts to the most basic of programs.
Rep. Peter King is holding his I Hate Islam hearings on the House side. The irony of this is that when Ronald Reagan was going to speak at the Nassau Coliseum in new York the Secret Service put King on a watch list because of his fervent support of the IRA, who were then at their bombing best. King is trying to demonstrate that the Muslim community is not cooperating with law enforcement authorities. Unfortunately for him, Duke has done a study and the FBI confirms that over half the terrorists suspects are picked up on tips from the Muslim community. However, this doesn't deter anyone. One witness tried to implicate Rep. Ellison, the only Muslim in the House, and the Democratic Party in aiding terrorism.
The off shoot of this Islamophobia is the resurgent attacks on Sikhs, who have nothing to do with Islam. After 9-11, Sikhs here in Virginia and in Texas were killed as a reaction to the bombings. Now this has started up again in southern California. At Divinity School, one of the fun things was to see Sikhs unravel their turbans and after cleaning,hang them down five flight of stairs.
With the war continuing in Libya, Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News as "a friend" to announce that if he were President he would have created a No-Fly Zone last night. This is the type of rhetoric which got us into boatloads of trouble the last administration. As Secretary of Defense Gates pointed out, creating a No-Fly Zone entails preliminary bombing and disabling Libya's air force--which in former days was considered an act of war.
While President Obama continues calls for Muammar Qaddafhi to step down,Michael Scheuer, whose Bin Laden book I liked, reverted to his old obnoxious self and called Obama a "racist". He said that Obama was like "Kipling and Woodrow Wilson" in calling for democratic cghange in Libya. Scheuer said that Qaddafhi represented "zero" threat to the stability of the region. But only days before in a Washington Post op-ed he said that the unrest in the Arab world benefited Al Qaeda.
I don't know why organizations such as Planned Parenthood and NPR fall for the stunts of conservopunk Jim O'Keefe. NPR's chairperson resigned today after a video surfaced that their major fund-raising believed that the teabaggers were racist and maybe NPR was better off without federal funding.
President Obama's decision on Gitmo was terrible, even though understandable. Under the last Defense Bill, Democrats and Republicans prohibited Gitmo detainees from being tried in civil courts or if innocent being transferred to another country. Obama's decision to reinstate the flawed military commission process is being challenged by House Republicans, who want to eliminate the review process being proposed. What this all this means is that the United States has abandoned its own history and now accepts holding people indefinitely without trial. At issue are 45 cases, which could not be tried because we tortured the detainees and their testimony would not be admissable in a court of law.
But have good cheer, Canadian professors are teaching Omar Kadr at Gitmo so he won't go home hating our guts. They have developed a home schooling program for the child soldier who has been languishing there all these many years.
Meanwhile Bradley Manning still sleeps naked. Having been in solitary for the last seven months and only charged--some 59 of them--last week, Manning has been subjected to sleep deprivation and having to stand at attention naked at the morning roll calls. I bet money on the fact that he did not leak the diplomatic posts to Wikileaks. He did leak the footage of our armed forces killing civilians and reporters with gunships as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan files. Basically, his treatment is to send us and everyone in the military a lesson. But it might have been nice if the military had followed some rudimentary legal guidelines.
Oh by the way, Michelle Bachmann will decided whether she's going to run for President in June. Sarah Palin is going on a Faith tour and is scheduled to miss the first real Republican debate at the Reagan Center. The Donald really does have people in Iowa scouting out the feasibility of a Presidential run. While the faith gang was in Iowa, Ron Paul was running from town to town. This suggests that the Love Revolution might be back.
Client Number 9--Eliot Spitzer--is rumored to be exploring a run for the Mayor of New York.
To vent, I listen to Mike Malloy Truthseeker on progressive radio stations. The other night he raised an issue about Wisconsin that totally escaped me. Since his broadcast, leftwing blogs have picked it up. Scott Walker, the governor, talks to Jesus Christ every day in the morning and Walker says that Jesus tells him what to do--literally. Jesus Christ told him when he was a younger man to get a job at IBM even though he didn't want to. The same applies to his abandoning his last campaign for governor--Jesus told him to quit. The son of a Baptist minister Scott Walker revealed these sensitive moments to the Christian Businessmen's Group. He is only doing on the budget bill what Jesus wants. Interesting, however, that all the Christian denominations have come out against his budger repair bill. How does this square with what Jesus has been telling him?
This Saturday Wisconsin farmers will be riding their tractors and combines into Madison to protest the Budget Repair Bill. It's not union solidarity we're seeing here--well,some of it is. The farmers are pissed that the bill repeals a state-run insurance scheme that was created by progressive Republicans--remember them--during the insurance frauds of the early twentieth century. The plan pays for itself and has no budgetary consequences. Older farmers depend on this program. The other bone the farmers have is that their wives supplement the family income and keep the small farms going by being teachers or nurses. The budget repair bill would lead to greater unemployment.
The Republicans don't seem to think the Wisconsin recall laws are legal. Interesting. Efforts to mount recall campaigns are picking up steam and there are enough signatures to recall at least one Republican. Eight are targeted by this campaign.
Reversing Wisconsin's entire history, Republican legislators passed a law that regulates who can come in and out of the Capitol building and it warrants metal detactors and the usual security apparatus. To outsiders this would seem normal but it is a source of pride to people in the state that Wisconsin keeps its capitol open to everyone 24/7.
It turns out that the report of some $7 million in damages to the Capitol was bogus and put out by the Right to defame the demonstrators. Anyway the Painters' Union offered to repair any damage done for free.
Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-funded astroturf organization run by Abramoff's old lobbying buddy, held a bus tour of the state. Joe the Plumber, who is not named Joe nor is he a Plumber, asked the people of Wisconsin whether they sided with socialist America or the real America. The bus tour topped out at 600 in Madison, not a great showing for teabag nation.
Felon Rick Scott,Governor of Florida, managed to win a bipartisan court case that challenged his refusal to accept federal funds for the high-speed rail project from Tampa to Orlando, a project that has been on the drawing boards for a decade. Scott also managed to alienate the entire state with his budget address. As Rachel Maddow has pointed out twice so far, he's cutting $1.75 billion from public education and slashing property and corporate taxes by $1.68 billion, which will mean squat to the deficit. Demonstrators at the capitol are now far outdrawing the past teabag crowds by several thousand.
The first Iowa Republican events have started. Five would-be Presidential contenders spoke before a Faith Forum. New favorite Buddy Roemer, former Democratic senator and Governor from Louisiana, spoke about faith and didn't address his previous three marriages. But Newt was there railing against all the secular socialists in the Obama Administration. In a quiet moment, Newt talked to a Christian radio station and admitted that he did let his wallace flop out, as Captain Beefhart would say. Newt admitted he was working so hard to save the nation that he slipped and committed adultery. I'm sure Callista was pleased to hear she was an accident in his life. Unlike Scott Walker,Newt speaks with God and graciously God forgave him his adultery and rewarded him with a wonderful marriage. So if God forgave him, then there's no problem. As Newt said, if his past mattered, he would be irrelevant now but since the future is at stake then all bets are off.
Andrew Sullivan in his Daily Dish opined two days ago that the Republican Party no longer exists. He gave a detailed taxonomy of the fragments of the Republicans and the conservative movement and I agree with him. Proof of this is the sad spectacle of Dick Lugar now coming around to accepting the House budget proposal even though he had openly opposed them. Lugar is frightened of a teabag primary. Also only 33% of Maine Republicans now believe that Olympia Snowe should be renominated--this about a woman who won with over 70% of the vote last time. There really is no there there.
Dana Milbank said that John Boehner is using Richard Nixon's Mad Bomber strategy on the budget, using the insanity of the House proposals to muscle greater concessions from the Senate and the White House. I prefer the incompetence argument and that he has no control over the House Republicans. Hapless Harry Reid is miffed that he thought he had a budget deal with the Republicans only to see Mitch McConnell walk away. The Democrats today are trying to force a vote on the House budget proposal to get sitting Republicans to go on record for cuts to the most basic of programs.
Rep. Peter King is holding his I Hate Islam hearings on the House side. The irony of this is that when Ronald Reagan was going to speak at the Nassau Coliseum in new York the Secret Service put King on a watch list because of his fervent support of the IRA, who were then at their bombing best. King is trying to demonstrate that the Muslim community is not cooperating with law enforcement authorities. Unfortunately for him, Duke has done a study and the FBI confirms that over half the terrorists suspects are picked up on tips from the Muslim community. However, this doesn't deter anyone. One witness tried to implicate Rep. Ellison, the only Muslim in the House, and the Democratic Party in aiding terrorism.
The off shoot of this Islamophobia is the resurgent attacks on Sikhs, who have nothing to do with Islam. After 9-11, Sikhs here in Virginia and in Texas were killed as a reaction to the bombings. Now this has started up again in southern California. At Divinity School, one of the fun things was to see Sikhs unravel their turbans and after cleaning,hang them down five flight of stairs.
With the war continuing in Libya, Newt Gingrich appeared on Fox News as "a friend" to announce that if he were President he would have created a No-Fly Zone last night. This is the type of rhetoric which got us into boatloads of trouble the last administration. As Secretary of Defense Gates pointed out, creating a No-Fly Zone entails preliminary bombing and disabling Libya's air force--which in former days was considered an act of war.
While President Obama continues calls for Muammar Qaddafhi to step down,Michael Scheuer, whose Bin Laden book I liked, reverted to his old obnoxious self and called Obama a "racist". He said that Obama was like "Kipling and Woodrow Wilson" in calling for democratic cghange in Libya. Scheuer said that Qaddafhi represented "zero" threat to the stability of the region. But only days before in a Washington Post op-ed he said that the unrest in the Arab world benefited Al Qaeda.
I don't know why organizations such as Planned Parenthood and NPR fall for the stunts of conservopunk Jim O'Keefe. NPR's chairperson resigned today after a video surfaced that their major fund-raising believed that the teabaggers were racist and maybe NPR was better off without federal funding.
President Obama's decision on Gitmo was terrible, even though understandable. Under the last Defense Bill, Democrats and Republicans prohibited Gitmo detainees from being tried in civil courts or if innocent being transferred to another country. Obama's decision to reinstate the flawed military commission process is being challenged by House Republicans, who want to eliminate the review process being proposed. What this all this means is that the United States has abandoned its own history and now accepts holding people indefinitely without trial. At issue are 45 cases, which could not be tried because we tortured the detainees and their testimony would not be admissable in a court of law.
But have good cheer, Canadian professors are teaching Omar Kadr at Gitmo so he won't go home hating our guts. They have developed a home schooling program for the child soldier who has been languishing there all these many years.
Meanwhile Bradley Manning still sleeps naked. Having been in solitary for the last seven months and only charged--some 59 of them--last week, Manning has been subjected to sleep deprivation and having to stand at attention naked at the morning roll calls. I bet money on the fact that he did not leak the diplomatic posts to Wikileaks. He did leak the footage of our armed forces killing civilians and reporters with gunships as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan files. Basically, his treatment is to send us and everyone in the military a lesson. But it might have been nice if the military had followed some rudimentary legal guidelines.
Oh by the way, Michelle Bachmann will decided whether she's going to run for President in June. Sarah Palin is going on a Faith tour and is scheduled to miss the first real Republican debate at the Reagan Center. The Donald really does have people in Iowa scouting out the feasibility of a Presidential run. While the faith gang was in Iowa, Ron Paul was running from town to town. This suggests that the Love Revolution might be back.
Client Number 9--Eliot Spitzer--is rumored to be exploring a run for the Mayor of New York.
Friday, January 21, 2011
When Things Get Tough,The Weird Get Going
Australia has announced it will arrest Sarah Palin if she travels there because she urged violence on one of the country's citizens, Julien Assange, Mr. Wikileaks.
Seymour Hersh has a new book coming out that says that 8 or 9 neoconservatives hijacked our government and that a cabal of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei guide our military adventures abroad. Why not? It's as plausible as anything else.
The California Highway Patrol has stepped up its investigations into the death threats against Jerry Brown.
Rudy Guiliani says that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination if Sarah Palin does. Guiliani hopes to gather support as a moderate. Poor Rudy. He's been away from the GOP for a while. Even George W. Bush couldn't run as a Republican now.
While Barack Obama's re-election office will be in Chicago, Newt Gingrich is going to locate his in Georgia. I wonder whether he's going to invite the men in sheets to participate in the grand-opening.
Barack is running ahead of all Republicans in the swing states with the exception of being behind by a point to Huckabee in North Carolina. But watch out Mitt is running only one or two behind in the pivotal Midwestern states. Here in the land of the Cooch, Obama beats all comers by big margins. I would like to see a PPP poll of Palin versus Obama in Texas.
Speaking of classy, the Teabagger who lost to Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson called today for a special election and said he wants to run again. The former Marine captured news for holding a fund-raiser by having guests shoot M-16s at targets with Giffords' face on them.
I hope the news of Giffords' recovery is accurate but I can't conceive of a recovery that will be anything but brutal.
Rachel Maddow has spent the week exploring our tendency to violence. Nancy Pelosi gave her the best subject to focus on--mental health. The healthcare bill actually created parity for mental health treatment--which is long overdue. Meanwhile mental health funding is being cut across the states.
There is little or no chance for any serious gun control legislation,despite Dr. Maddow eloquent arguments. The fact of the matter is we are an enormously violent people and have mythologized violence so it has been so deeply internalized in our speech and actions. But one welcomes her delving into the issue once again. The attractive part of the Rachel Maddow show is that Dr. Maddow remains intellectually curious and wants to raise questions which others are too lazy or cynical to ask. Good for her.
It looks like the lab tests of the Spokane bomb are yielding clues that indicate the culprits live in nearby neighborhoods.
Mike Malloy went on a justifiably rampage on the air last night concerning one Glenn Beck. People had drawn a moral equivalence between Malloy's wishing ill on conservatives and the current violent rhetoric on right-wing talk radio. Last night he talked about Glenn Beck's obsession with Frances Fox Piven, the 78-year old City College professor and political theorist. Beck has been fixated on Dr.Piven calling her "an enemy of the constitution" and claiming her recent article in the Nation called for violent revolution, which it did not. Mike Malloy read the death threats against Piven on Glenn beck's own website and asked why a moderator did not shut down the violent threats against her. One person posted her home address and phone number. In the past week, Dr. Piven has reported receiving direct death threats because of Beck's tirades. The former chair of the American Sociological Association once proposed in 1966 the provocative idea that people overwhelm the public welfare rolls to bring about a guaranteed national income. Beck claims that ideas like these have made our economic system unsustainable.
The good news is that the Center for Constitutional Rights has mailed a letter to Roger Ailes, Beck's boss and mentor,requesting Ailes "order Mr. Beck to cease and desist his allegations against Dr. Piven." I wondered when some action would be taken on this issue. Beck is already linked to three cases of attempted assassination--the famous Tides Foundation case, the Pittsburgh police killings and the death threats against a Washington congresswoman.
While writing this, Keith Olbermann signed off on his last Countdown. Wonder what that is all about. MSNBC thanked Keith and sort of implied don't let the door hit you on your way out. One wonders about the corporate hijinks involved. The Young Turk now takes the 6pm slot and the rest is murky.
This also reminds me of some recent beefs with the progressives on their concerns about Barack Obama. It is true that Social Security has absolutely nothing to due with our national debt. While Republicans are chomping at the bit to eliminate social security, why all this concern about President Obama. Even the Catfood Commission with DLCer Erskine Bowles and conservative Alan Simpson repeatedly defended the centrality of social security to our social welfare system and only suggested the raising of the retirement age about a generation down the pike. The raise in retirement went up a year after a couple of decades and about 50 years further it would be two years up. In any event, it would affect my son by a year, and if I had grandchildren maybe two years. This proposal has drawn constant fire and the progressive caucus is up in arms challenging President Obama to defend social security. I respect the caucus to do so if they trained their guns at the real enemy, instead of the President.
The same applies to this criticism of Obama calling for a re-evaluation of business regulations. Here he already has implemented an overhaul of our food security system for the first time since the 1930s,created a Consumer Protection Agency, restricted offshore drilling, toughened mine regulations, passed financial reform. Why the concern that he would undo everything he has just fought for. This guy doesn't get a break from the Right or the Left. But at least the Left nowadays raises policy criticisms or concerns, while the Right has nothing left upstairs anymore.
As I wrote before President Obama looks like he has done Boehner's work for him, cutting $58 billion in the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coupled with the previous cuts ordered by Gates, Obama is now clocking in at about $100 billion in cuts, the target number for Republicans. FYI--President Obama also cut the deficit this year. You won't hear that on the major networks.
President Obama is moving toward Tuesday's speech with some significant news on the economic front and his own ideas about thoughtfully and gradually cutting the national debt. While the Washington Post thought the China-U.S. Summit was a symbolic success, it complained about its accomplishments. This seems to be the meme of every Summit. We didn't hear about the trade deals with India when he was there, we heard about his temporary failure in South Korea but not his ultimate success, and now we do not hear about the trade deals which will mean 230,000 more jobs for Americans.
The Council for Budget Priorities is out with their analysis of the Republican Study Group's prosed $2.5 trillion budget cut. They concluded it would gut vital government services. Interestingly, a recent poll shows that across the political spectrum the number 1 item to be cut is military spending. The House Republicans are claiming a mandate unlike the President Obama's victory with the largest popular vote in history. Somehow winning the House means a mandate. However, according to polls, the number one priority for the American people is jobs,cutting government spending is low on the list. It also should be remembered that both McCain and Obama ran on health reform but the House GOP has no plan to replace what they just repealed. Without any healthreform,the national debt will balloon unchecked for two decades. Likewise, they refuse to cut defense spending even though a plurality of Republicans support this and do not support cuts to Medicare and Social Security. The real problem is that having lost a decade already we can lost another one.
In the State of the Union, President Obama will have to lift us again,reassuring the American people that we are not in decline and that we must raise to the occasion to develop the technologies and energy sources for the 21st century. It's almost as if he must ignore the noise of the Right and maintain his steady composure as he tries to carve out the Vital Center. It is no mean task. Over two-thirds of our states face bankruptcy or its equivalent and without structural change we are looking at a permanent 8 percent unemployment figure. The social network is frayed and a whole sector of our society has abandoned the idea of a common good. Even if it is delusional, President Obama has to invoke the myths that strike a chord within the hardest of hearts. He also must remind America that its strength derives from diversity and replenishing our talents with immigrants. Somehow he must find the words to silence the growing voices for isolationism and xenophobia. This is his last chance before the end of his term. It's one of the few moments he can speak above the Congress directly to the American people.
Gore Vidal still is right, "President Barack Obama is too smart for the people he leads". Let's hope our Black Pilgrim meets the challenge.
Seymour Hersh has a new book coming out that says that 8 or 9 neoconservatives hijacked our government and that a cabal of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei guide our military adventures abroad. Why not? It's as plausible as anything else.
The California Highway Patrol has stepped up its investigations into the death threats against Jerry Brown.
Rudy Guiliani says that he will run for the Republican presidential nomination if Sarah Palin does. Guiliani hopes to gather support as a moderate. Poor Rudy. He's been away from the GOP for a while. Even George W. Bush couldn't run as a Republican now.
While Barack Obama's re-election office will be in Chicago, Newt Gingrich is going to locate his in Georgia. I wonder whether he's going to invite the men in sheets to participate in the grand-opening.
Barack is running ahead of all Republicans in the swing states with the exception of being behind by a point to Huckabee in North Carolina. But watch out Mitt is running only one or two behind in the pivotal Midwestern states. Here in the land of the Cooch, Obama beats all comers by big margins. I would like to see a PPP poll of Palin versus Obama in Texas.
Speaking of classy, the Teabagger who lost to Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson called today for a special election and said he wants to run again. The former Marine captured news for holding a fund-raiser by having guests shoot M-16s at targets with Giffords' face on them.
I hope the news of Giffords' recovery is accurate but I can't conceive of a recovery that will be anything but brutal.
Rachel Maddow has spent the week exploring our tendency to violence. Nancy Pelosi gave her the best subject to focus on--mental health. The healthcare bill actually created parity for mental health treatment--which is long overdue. Meanwhile mental health funding is being cut across the states.
There is little or no chance for any serious gun control legislation,despite Dr. Maddow eloquent arguments. The fact of the matter is we are an enormously violent people and have mythologized violence so it has been so deeply internalized in our speech and actions. But one welcomes her delving into the issue once again. The attractive part of the Rachel Maddow show is that Dr. Maddow remains intellectually curious and wants to raise questions which others are too lazy or cynical to ask. Good for her.
It looks like the lab tests of the Spokane bomb are yielding clues that indicate the culprits live in nearby neighborhoods.
Mike Malloy went on a justifiably rampage on the air last night concerning one Glenn Beck. People had drawn a moral equivalence between Malloy's wishing ill on conservatives and the current violent rhetoric on right-wing talk radio. Last night he talked about Glenn Beck's obsession with Frances Fox Piven, the 78-year old City College professor and political theorist. Beck has been fixated on Dr.Piven calling her "an enemy of the constitution" and claiming her recent article in the Nation called for violent revolution, which it did not. Mike Malloy read the death threats against Piven on Glenn beck's own website and asked why a moderator did not shut down the violent threats against her. One person posted her home address and phone number. In the past week, Dr. Piven has reported receiving direct death threats because of Beck's tirades. The former chair of the American Sociological Association once proposed in 1966 the provocative idea that people overwhelm the public welfare rolls to bring about a guaranteed national income. Beck claims that ideas like these have made our economic system unsustainable.
The good news is that the Center for Constitutional Rights has mailed a letter to Roger Ailes, Beck's boss and mentor,requesting Ailes "order Mr. Beck to cease and desist his allegations against Dr. Piven." I wondered when some action would be taken on this issue. Beck is already linked to three cases of attempted assassination--the famous Tides Foundation case, the Pittsburgh police killings and the death threats against a Washington congresswoman.
While writing this, Keith Olbermann signed off on his last Countdown. Wonder what that is all about. MSNBC thanked Keith and sort of implied don't let the door hit you on your way out. One wonders about the corporate hijinks involved. The Young Turk now takes the 6pm slot and the rest is murky.
This also reminds me of some recent beefs with the progressives on their concerns about Barack Obama. It is true that Social Security has absolutely nothing to due with our national debt. While Republicans are chomping at the bit to eliminate social security, why all this concern about President Obama. Even the Catfood Commission with DLCer Erskine Bowles and conservative Alan Simpson repeatedly defended the centrality of social security to our social welfare system and only suggested the raising of the retirement age about a generation down the pike. The raise in retirement went up a year after a couple of decades and about 50 years further it would be two years up. In any event, it would affect my son by a year, and if I had grandchildren maybe two years. This proposal has drawn constant fire and the progressive caucus is up in arms challenging President Obama to defend social security. I respect the caucus to do so if they trained their guns at the real enemy, instead of the President.
The same applies to this criticism of Obama calling for a re-evaluation of business regulations. Here he already has implemented an overhaul of our food security system for the first time since the 1930s,created a Consumer Protection Agency, restricted offshore drilling, toughened mine regulations, passed financial reform. Why the concern that he would undo everything he has just fought for. This guy doesn't get a break from the Right or the Left. But at least the Left nowadays raises policy criticisms or concerns, while the Right has nothing left upstairs anymore.
As I wrote before President Obama looks like he has done Boehner's work for him, cutting $58 billion in the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coupled with the previous cuts ordered by Gates, Obama is now clocking in at about $100 billion in cuts, the target number for Republicans. FYI--President Obama also cut the deficit this year. You won't hear that on the major networks.
President Obama is moving toward Tuesday's speech with some significant news on the economic front and his own ideas about thoughtfully and gradually cutting the national debt. While the Washington Post thought the China-U.S. Summit was a symbolic success, it complained about its accomplishments. This seems to be the meme of every Summit. We didn't hear about the trade deals with India when he was there, we heard about his temporary failure in South Korea but not his ultimate success, and now we do not hear about the trade deals which will mean 230,000 more jobs for Americans.
The Council for Budget Priorities is out with their analysis of the Republican Study Group's prosed $2.5 trillion budget cut. They concluded it would gut vital government services. Interestingly, a recent poll shows that across the political spectrum the number 1 item to be cut is military spending. The House Republicans are claiming a mandate unlike the President Obama's victory with the largest popular vote in history. Somehow winning the House means a mandate. However, according to polls, the number one priority for the American people is jobs,cutting government spending is low on the list. It also should be remembered that both McCain and Obama ran on health reform but the House GOP has no plan to replace what they just repealed. Without any healthreform,the national debt will balloon unchecked for two decades. Likewise, they refuse to cut defense spending even though a plurality of Republicans support this and do not support cuts to Medicare and Social Security. The real problem is that having lost a decade already we can lost another one.
In the State of the Union, President Obama will have to lift us again,reassuring the American people that we are not in decline and that we must raise to the occasion to develop the technologies and energy sources for the 21st century. It's almost as if he must ignore the noise of the Right and maintain his steady composure as he tries to carve out the Vital Center. It is no mean task. Over two-thirds of our states face bankruptcy or its equivalent and without structural change we are looking at a permanent 8 percent unemployment figure. The social network is frayed and a whole sector of our society has abandoned the idea of a common good. Even if it is delusional, President Obama has to invoke the myths that strike a chord within the hardest of hearts. He also must remind America that its strength derives from diversity and replenishing our talents with immigrants. Somehow he must find the words to silence the growing voices for isolationism and xenophobia. This is his last chance before the end of his term. It's one of the few moments he can speak above the Congress directly to the American people.
Gore Vidal still is right, "President Barack Obama is too smart for the people he leads". Let's hope our Black Pilgrim meets the challenge.
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