America the Strange--the Continuing Saga

It is looking like Sarah Palin may be making a run for the presidency. She commissioned a two-hour documentary extolling her virtues as Queen Esther, her Christianist persona. Frank Bailey's Blind Allegiance is out and gives an insider's look at Palin's gubernatorial campaign and her short-days at Governor of Alaska. If you forget your attitudes toward Sarah Palin, this is a fun book about the mayhem of political campaigns when your candidate is disorganized,vindictive, lacking any policy aptitude and corrupt in her own ways. Bailey does convey the freshness of Palin's persona and how she resonated with an electorate tired of dynastic and corrupt rule.

In a way, this memoir is about the first teabagger candidate and all the troubles that come with campaigns based on simple sloganeering. The book is based on her general factotum's e-mails back and forth with Sarah and Todd Palin and his years first as a volunteer and then later as a player in her inner circle. There will be more anti-Palin books coming out like Joe McGinness' and others. But this one is from a self-described Fox conservative and a person who gravitated to Palin as a self-proclaimed Christian.

Why would one think at this late day that Palin might make a go of it. Look at today's Gallup poll for the Republican nomination: Mitt Romney 17%, Palin at 15%, Ron Paul 10%, Newt 9% and Herman Cain 8%.

Or the more interesting Sachs/ Mason Dixon Poll on "Who would you rather have lunch with?"
All respondents: Obama 53%, Palin 16% and Romney 9%.
Democrats: Obama 85%, Palin 5%, and Romney 2%
Republicans: Palin 27%, Obama 25%, and Romney 19%
Independents: Obama 48%, Palin 16% . and Romney 8%

What is fascinating in Bailey's memoir is all the union support Palin had during her run for governor and her husband, who is a union member, canvassing the Alaskan union scene.

Then consider her recent purchase of a home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Local gossip suggested it was for a run for Jon Kyl's seat when he retires this year, but others suggest it would be the headquarters for a presidential run.

Then factor in that Freedomworks, teabag central, has announced its commitment to destroy Mitt Romney suggesting he is like Charlie Crist. Add in that Michele Bachmann's recent fizzle in her effort to create a Money bomb for her candidacy and there is a large opening for a teabag candidate that would woo Huckabee's Christian Right base.

And over a dozen potential candidates have dropped by the wayside. As I've written so many times before, Palin is the BASE incarnate and the forerunner of governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Her lackluster ability to pick winning candidates in 2010 is not a downside. Remember she did back Nikki Haley in South Carolina and is identified with the new Christian Right women candidates.

These is a smoldering question in the Republican Party. The emergence of the teabaggers is a phenomenon of extreme discontent with the Republican establishment and also a delayed reaction to the George W. Bush years and its expansion both of federal government powers and the national debt. In this scenario, all of Palin's vices become virtues and she is genuinely and emtoionally hostile to the party establishment and Newt Gingrich to her is a giant red flag. The situation is too tempting. She has already salted away more money in the last two years than her family will ever need the rest of her life. And there has to be some strong feelings that others are trying to coopt her appeal.

David Frum writes that while he expected Palin to be the Goldwater of 2012, he was actually wrong and it is none other than Paul Ryan. I happen to agree with him. Ryan has appeared after the defeat of Jane Corwin in NY26, Jack Kemp's old district, to double down on his Medicare position. He now says that all seniors should have to pay for their healthcare themselves. He even went on the airwaves and got his power point out to attack Democrats for misrepresenting his plan, which he then went on to explain exactly the details of the plan everyone objects to.

While Drudge reports that Obama's budget went down to defeat in the Senate, most of us watched the vote called by Harry Reid on the Ryan budget. 40 Senate Republicans, including Dick Lugar, voted for it, while five Republicans voted against it. Rand Paul opposed it because it did not go far enough. Only Scott Brown, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Lisa Murkowski voted against it. Olympia Snowe called Ryan's Plan " a recipe for the race to the bottom."

Dick Cheney says that he worships the ground Paul Ryan walks on. Apparently Ryan himself knows that the people of Wisconsin do not. The negative response to his Medicare plans at his townhall meetings persuaded him not to run for the Senate.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the new head of the DNC, managed a wonderful maneuver. She accused the leading Republican presidential candidates for not being sufficiently committed to American exceptionalism. Her argument was based on their reluctance to close tax loopholes for corporations who export jobs,loopholes for the oil companies and their refusal to tax the wealthiest, while hurting America's competitiveness in the world. Bravo! She did say,"I do not question their patriotism..at all." Nice thrust given that the Republicans have been yelling even since Obama took office he didn't believe in American exceptionalism and that he wasn't suffient appreciative of American reality. If I were in her position I would refer to the "Hate America Firsters".

I hope this was not a one off because Republicans have wrapped themselves in the flag for so long that they pretend to be patriots. It's time the Democrats turned the tables for a while.

Meanwhile I distinctly recall Mitt Romney going on network television to lambast President Obama for bailing out the auto industry. He didn't just do this once, he did it multiple times. I wondered at the time what the son of the head of American Motors was doing, especially when he needs Michigan. Hey, no problem. Mitt said the Obama plan was his idea but it would have worked better if he had done it. This is incredible! I hope the DNC runs the YouTube videos of Romney saying the bailout was a waste of money.

Let us remember that if the auto industry had gone under--17% of the American economy would have vanished overnight and America would have been plunged into a Depression greater than the last one. It would have ended American manufacturing ability.

Bob Corker of Tennessee, who was the most vocal opponent of the plan because he had coaxed BMW into his state with subsidies, actually came out this week and claimed credit. This goes beyond Republican congressmen claiming credit for stimulus programs in their districts when they voted against the stimulus bill en masse.

Wisconsin Dane County Court Judge Maryann Sim ruled that yes the Wisconsin legislature did violate the open meetings law when they jammed through the labor law. She did not decide the case on the merits of the law itself.

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, three Republicans now face recall elections and no Democrats. Petition drives have begun to recall Gov. Snyder in Michigan and Ohio is finishing up a petition drive to get the Kasich labor busting laws up for a state-wide referendum.

Yesterday President Obama hit a 53% approval rating , the highest in a year. Perhaps, more importantly, he hit 50% in Florida, while the very strange and very criminal Governor Rick Scott hit a low of 29%.

Sharron Angle decided not to run for the House in Nevada.

Crazywoman Virginia Foxx managed to get the House to pass a law that prohibits all medical schools who receive federal funding to teach abortion procedures.

Oh and by the way, these actions have brought the Pro-Choice Americans back up to 49%, compared to anti-abortion supporters who are at 42%. The Gallup poll reversed a previous finding of the other year that showed anti-abortion people had assumed the top position for the first time. I would suggest that occurred because everyone thought that this issue had been resolved in the courts so people who might dislike the procedure felt they could say so without it having any implications. I would also suggest that the number of pro-Choice Americans will increase as more attention is paid on the GOP war against the Uteri.

Let's Play--Let's Pretend Our Politics Are Normal

Rumors have President Obama already with a $1 billion in the bank with another $1 on the way for his $2 billion presidential campaign. So let's accept President Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

Now let's focus on the Republicans.

Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have natural advantages because the GOP always votes for someone who has run before. Both were Governors, which is a big GOP plus.

Now we've heard a slew of Republicans announce they would not run. So far we have the sense that former Governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty and former Senator Rick Santorum will run. Newt Gingrich is acting all authoritarian recently suggesting mentally he's running but physically I can't imagine it. Sarah Palin recently told Ann Coulter that Newt told her to suggest she's running for President so her speaking fees would be larger. Even though Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks salivate at the idea that Mitch Daniels would run,he has too many blackeyes against him from the Princeton drug busts to his being the man who spent Clinton's surplus in the George W administration.

So let's go one by one:
Mitt Romney, one-term Govenor of Massachusetts:
Advantage: Running since 2005, organization and money and access to money,presentable appearance, which this time may be the critical advantage
Liabilities: Romneycare,multiple positions on everything, looks terrible when he panders to the Right, former corporate positions, including Marriott Hotels with its porn connection, Mormon. Mitt Romney would have faced less prejudice in his father's time than today. Most visible Mormon in America is Glenn Beck. Even though Romney has tried to build ties with the evangelical community, his faith still believes Jesus was the brother of Lucifer and many simply won't vote for him because of that.

Mike Huckabee, who sounds more and more like he is not running:
Advantage: former Baptist Minister, has the whole range of social issues wrapped up from the New Republican point of view. He's anti-abortion and totally homophobic, even believing that gays should not be allowed to serve in the military. A Christian fundamentalist and does not believe in evolution. Ran last time and the organization is still in place. Populist in economics (also a liability with the corporate wing.
Liabilities: Doesn't have the ambition. Populist in economics. Says polite things about the First Family saying their are role models for family values. His personal policy views are vicious but he is not as a person. Probably could not raise enough money for a sustained campaign. Loves his new life as a Fox News contributor.

Newt Gingrich, disgraced Speaker of the House:
Advantages: Has ability to access millions from his conservative network. Fairly bright with an ability to throw off interesting ideas. Personally against Obama, claiming the President is trying to create a 'secular society". Has extensive links to the fundamentalist community and will say anything they tell him to. Has no known economic beliefs and will do what corporations tell him to. Basically amoral.
Liabilities: Convert to Catholicism from his Southern Baptist faith. May actually believe in evolution. Serial adulterer, which has not been forgotten by conservative Republicans. Notoriously unorganized personally and politically. May run simply to raise funds for a richer lifestyle.

Sarah Palin, former Mayor of Wasilla and half-term Governor of Alaska, former VP candidate:
Advantages: Perfectly mirrors the beliefs of the new GOP base. Authentically a teabagger. Member of a radical Christian sect. Pro-israel because the end-time will occur there. Has access to certain money. Has campaigned for ONE MONTH in a national campaign. Highly known.
Liabilities: A Quitter. Has marital problems. Doesn't seem to have the stamina for a national campaign. Only talks to tamed media and is hostile to the real press. Feels persecuted. Supremely egotistical. May turn off money people. High negatives within own party. Widely considered incompetent.

Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania and known as the frothy mix of lube and fecal material:
Advantages: Has every social conservative position down pat.
Liabilities: His Google problem courtesy of Dan Savage, no organizational structure, no ability to generate any enthusiasm, no demonstrated ability to raise money, and no known support.

Tim Pawlenty, former Governor of Minnesota and considered as McCain's running-mate:
Advantages: from the Midwest. Not elderly and fat.
Liabilities: Extremely boring and boring looking, changed all his policies to be more right-wing, now anti-abortion, anti-evolution, anti-his former policies. No known ability to raise funds or form an organization. Smattering of foreign policy experience because he would accompany McCain on trips.

Michelle Bachmann,congresswoman from Minnesota and Queen of the teaparty.
Advantages: Ability to raise millions from teabaggers. Also from the Midwest. Christianist.
Liabilities: Almost everything she says is a lie. Must rely on teabaggers for organization. Perceived by GOP and Americans as a wingnut. No known ability to organize or be organized herself. No known policy expertise. Believes Glenn Beck would solve the economic crisis.

Ron Paul, perennial Presidential candidate and Texas congressman and father of the teabaggers:
Advantages: Mobilizes through his Crusade for Liberty a grassroots following. Prodigious fund-raiser. Godfather of the teaparty movement. Pro-life. Comes from an important electoral state.
Liabilities: Against the military-terrorist-intelligence state. Against foreign aid, even policy. Against war. Against the Patriot Act. Comes across as an elderly small old man. Corporate Republicans are against him because , while he is against all regulations, he is also against corporate welfare.

Overall, the weakest field ever from either party. And remember it is no longer winner-take-all rules in the primaries so this could drag out way beyond our attention span.

Given the heavy corporate tilt to our elections now with the Roberts Court Limited Citizens United decision, I would bet more on Romney today than the past. But Romney has problems first diagnosed by Ted Kennedy. He called Romney "multiple choice mitt".Just his recent political book shows this. The hardcover analyzes the stimulus package of President Obama and said that it was basically the right thing to do and it had success but wasn't enough. The paperback edition has the stimulus package as a total failure and a waste of taxpayer money. And you could go on issue after issue.

But that may not matter in a time when money can wipe out all blemishes. But right now it's very tough to say that anyone has the advantage. That shows you how poor the field is. Most of these candidates should be showing signs of getting their campaigns ready. Except fpr Romney, I don't see it.

Monty Python's Flying Circus

To keep relatively sane after reading the madness on the internet, I sometimes chill out watching Monthy Python. Did you know John Cleese's father's name really was Cheese? Anyway Monty Python might be the model for a film on the teabaggers combining the visual mayhem with the verbal pyrotechnics.

Yesterday Scott Walker thought he was talking to David Koch about his plan to bust unions. For twenty minutes, Walker talked about how he chat with John Kasich everyday about the larger Republican plan to bust all public workers' unions. He also threw in Rick Scott of Florida in the plan. The idea was to lure the Democrats back to the state because they are afraid of losing their paychecks and once there ,declare a quorum even though they leave again. The details of the phone call promoted by the website Buffalo Beast has triggered an investigation in Wisconsin because Walker may have violated two state laws with his comments.

The real kicker for the Madison Chief of Police was Walker saying he thought about inserting troublemakers into the crowds to incite violence. The Chief, who had thanked protestors, was livid and said he stayed up all night fuming about this.

The National Guard's inspection of the penal institutions in the state is actually an assessment about what to do if the corrections officers go on strike.

Walker brags this is his Reagan moment. He believes that the fall of communism happened because Reagan, the only AFL member ever President,busted PATGO, the air traffic controller's union. One historical note--PATGO had rejected an offer from the Reagan administration and went out on a wildcat strike. There are no striking union members in Wisconsin. Another footnote--the busting of PATGO actually cost the airline industry billions of dollars.

Walker's moves will cost Wisconsin another $40 million in federal grants because the US government prohibits funds to specific programs where collective bargaining isn't recognized. Remember this guy refused the high-speed train funds already and cost the state over 7,000 new jobs. If he doesn't get his way, he says he will lay off another 5,000 state workers.

Mark Williams of the Tea Party Express, urged teabaggers to sign up as SEIU organizers and to mingle in the crowds shouting "You Owe Me" and other phrases.

Today, there will be the largest rallies held throughout Wisconsin. Another issue is that some 200 mayors are opposed to the bill, which would wipe out collective bargaining at every level of the state government.

So with union membership at the lowest level in the United States, how does the nation at large think? The Gallup poll showed that 61% favor retaining collective bargaining rights for workers. Another Gallup poll yesterday showed that the same percentage favored compromise between the Senate and the House to keep the federal government opening. Is this a brief moment of sanity breaking through?

Beltway Pundits were puzzled yeaterday about John Boehner's response to President Obama's statement that his administration refuses to defend DOMA (The Defense of Marraige Act) because it's unconstitutional. Boehner said "This will look like I'm biased against gays." Strange but it really makes sense. What Obama did was a deft political move that put the onus of defending the act onto the Republicans.The United States has not removed itself from the case. Instead,Congress can defend it if they want.

Mike Huckabee says that Obama's stance will endanger his credibility and re-election. He claims that if Obama had run against DOMA in 2008 he would not have won. Sorry, Charlie, he did run opposed to DOMA. You can look it up.

Republicans and newspapers are demanding David Wu, democratic congressman from Oregon resign because of his erratic behavior. I want to defend Wu. He is the first openly Furry congressperson. Check out Dan Savage on this phenomenon about dressing up in animal costumes and having sex. I salute Wu's courage.

Sometimes it's the little side comments on Rachel Maddow that deserve mention. Last night in a show from Lawrence, Kansas, the last home of Bill Burroughs, she interviewed the lawyer for murdered abortion provider Dr. Tiller. A conservative Republican, the lawyer commented how it used to be that the boards for Planned Parenthood were mostly Republican women and that the House behavior showed how far out the Republicans have become. Absolutely true. Planned Parenthood was like the League of Women Voters with alot of Republican women participating.

It should come as no surprise that Scott Walker went to Boys' State and got his inspiration for government there. I did too and surprised my local American Legion when I spoke on my return saying it was like a fascist state with its indoctrination.

Finally, the One Nation crowd is planning to beseige Republican townhall meetings with voters complaining about the budget cuts. Good luck. I would like to see a counter teabag movement.

If Obama doesn't excite his base anymore, he doesn't have to worry. The Republicans have hit every hot button to energize everyone from unions, enviromentalists,feminists and minorities. If you're not energeized now, you'll never be.

Andrew Sullivan posted a quote from Dwight David Eisenhower the other day speaking about the need for moderation in politics and how anyone who wanted to dismantle social security, health care and regulations was on the fringe of our society or else a Texas oilman. Little would he recognize the New GOP.

Progressives should have a field day now since they can cherry-pick any good Republican ideas and quote any good Republicans as well as combine them with the heritage of Democrats. Even Obama points out that the tax levels in the US and the size of government proportional to the society is the same as under Eisenhower. And Eisenhower is despised by the new teaparty people.

Yes, indeed, Indiana Republicans are going to primary Dick Lugar, Richard Nixon's favorite Mayor. He used to get annoyed whenever I mentioned that. Maine Republicans are going to primary Olympia Snowe. Don't you want to live in a state with a Senator named--Olympia Snowe? No sense of poetry. And Utah is going to primary Orrin Hatch, Patricia Cornwell's favorite politician. ( I don't know why she idolized him)

Sister Sarah Palin is off to India to burnish her presidential credentials. By the way, she had lasik surgery years ago and only wears glasses to look smart. It turns out that Joe McGinnis leaked the Frank Baily manuscript on Palin to sabotage the author. Interesting. Pretty clever.

The best robocall for the demonstrations came from the Teamsters--"This is Jimmy Hoffa calling..."

Oh, and if you need a job Koch industries are hiring in Wisconsin in anticipation of them being rewarded with the state heating plants.

Glenn Beck had been criticized by over 400 rabbis of every Jewish tendency. He upped the ante with his attack on Reformed Jews, saying they were the same as radical Muslims. I've been thinking of all the Reformed Jews I have ever known and well,I always considered them one of the strongest defenders of civil liberties and social justice in the United States. Well, apparently, so does Abe Foxman, whose Anti-Defamation League blasted Beck. Today, beck apologized sort of---not really.

Hate groups have now ballooned to 1,000 in the United States, according to the SPL.

The verdict is in on the House budget. The GOP's budget cuts will mean about 1 million jobs lost, an unemployment rate of 9.7-10%. Goldman Sachs weighed in and said that current GOP cuts would mean a 2% drop in our GDP and almost certainly a return of the recession.

There is brilliance to this madness. Almost all pollsters show that Obama wins with 8% unemployment--has a close race with 9%--and loses with over 9% unemployment.

Muammar Qaddafhi is still hanging on. Drudge puts center page a quote by Qaddafhi that "Obama is a friend." Qaddafhi blames Al Qaeda for the unrest and that the protestors are drinking NESCAFE with hallucingens. The real problem for American foreign policy types is that beneath the authoritarian surface of the Qaddafhi family the entire society as well as the security forces are totally decentralized. It's not like Egypt where structures exist after Mubarak quits. The civil war has led to thousands of deaths and an increasing number of refugees. Human rights groups are mobilizing for a humanitarian intervention by an international force.

The Washington Examiner published today an article about how the Obama administration is being salted with followers of the Muslim Brotherhood. What's so interesting about the piece is that everyone mentioned is either a known white protestant male or a Shiite Muslim. Shia Muslim Brotherhood--what a cool concept.

One problem is that the source for these accusations used to be a former analyst for the CIA. Now you have some idea about the problems we face.

Facebook cancelled Sarah Palin's false flag account "Lou Sarah" because it violated their rules.

Karl Rove weighed in on Wisconsin in the Wall Street Journal, claiming that Wisconsin is Obama's problem. Au contraire, it's a big-time Republican problem.

Did you know that the Koch Brothers paid for the Brooks Brothers riot in Florida during the 2000 presidential recount? The payoff was that the massive investigation of their pollution would be called off. It was.

The oil companies announced today through the Petroleum Institute, their lobby arm here in Washington, that they would now give campaign donations directly to candidates. Over 90% in the past were Republicans.

As Tom Friedman writes today in the New York Times, the upheaval in the Middle East is a wake-up call to Americans to end their dependence on oil. I agree.

Day 4 of the Love Revolution

Rachel Maddow finally crossed the line--she questioned the competence of Gentleman John Boehner. Unfortunately, Rachel ran a list of all the miscues by the House since Boehner became Speaker. They only reinforced her conclusion. But Ezra Klein gamely tried to defend Boehner's manhood by saying he was having problems with his party.

But one little factoid Ms. Maddow raised should frighten people. The Republicans do not have a budget for this year--even the crazy one proposed two weeks ago. They have 400 amendments filed on the proposed budget and, according to Rachel Maddow, only 4 have passed. Given the work habits of ole' Swizzle Stick Boehner the odds are slim to none that a Republican budget will pass the House by March 4th, when the continuing resolution expires. Hence, the shutdown of the government is not a Republican threat as a grand strategy to extract more cuts from the Obama Administration, It is an almost certainty, a result of incomptence. A government shutdown because you didn't work hard enough to even pass a budget, however horrible, is going to make the public reaction against Gingrich's shutdown look tame.

Everyone and their grandmother is criticizing President Obama because he neglected to put into his budget entitlement reform. Remember his budget is for 2012, not this year. But he was wise to let the GOP define the issue because they have overplayed their hand repeatedly. Obama knows that the House Republican proposals will be so outlandish that they will provoke a backlash and President Obama enters to save the day.

Someone did an analysis this morning of the effect on social security of the current Republican budget proposals. Hundreds of thousands of people will not received their disability payments and other Social Security services because the GOP wants to cut the administrative budget of SSA by 20%. This is incomptence married to ideology. The House GOP is clueless.

One moment of great chutzpah by the GOP was their blast at Obama for proposing cuts for the pro-democracy programs. They cited the events in Egypt and the Middle East as evidence of the need for continued funding of these programs. Yet their proposed budget cuts all these programs out anyway. So where did they think these programs would come from?

Washington is eagerly awaiting Newt Gingrich announcement in two weeks whether he intends to run for the Republican presidential nomination. Check out the time-frame. It would occur when the GOP fumbles with the budget and closes down the Government. Great timing for Newton Leroy. Vin Weber, now associated with TPaw or Governor Polenta,says that Newt has alot of baggage and will need to explain the finances of his little Newt conglomerate. Seeing him at CPAC, I can't see Gingrich physically able to campaign much at a retail level. He has the white man bloat and looks like he suffers from the gout. In 2012, Gingrich will be 67. Do we want another tired old white man?

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin got great news. 51% of Republican primary voters are birthers. 40% of the entire party are evangelical or fundamentalist Christians. Among these people she has an 83% approval rating. But even with a new chief of staff people are wondering why she's not making the necessary booking arrangements for Iowa. Generally meeting places for the Iowa Caucus are rented about now.

Mike Huckabee, Huckabee of Judea, says he would make abortion the central campaign issue in a presidential campaign. But word from his Iowa people suggest Huckabee hasn't hinted to them that he is running. One sign he may not is that he has just taken a $1.2 million mortgage out on a new home in Florida. People have suggested he is just earning a living at Fox News for the first time in his life and may not run this year.

Early polling shows Mitt Romney walking away with New Hampshire ad eeking out primary victories in the West. Interestingly, the Mormon issue still remains. Americans are more likely to vote for a black, a woman or a Jewish candidate than a Mormon for President. Running for President since 2005,Romney has become a familiar face by now but even 20% of the GOP are hesitant to vote for a Mormon.

Could someone tell people to knock it off about Planned Parenthood? I never thought of my sister as Emma Goldman for her work with Planned Parenthood. But now the right is ginning up a campaign like they did against ACORN. Planned Parenthood spends about 3-6% of their budget on abortion services, another 30% on contraception, and the rest of women's health issues in general. In many places,Planned Parenthood is the only available resource for women. This is especially true here in Virginia in rural places. But now Christianist congressman Steve King calls it a " criminal enterprise" and now Glenn Beck has embraced it as part of the on-going progressive plot against the United States. This is because of a James O'Keefe type Breibart fake journalist sting, which Planned Parenthood reported to the FBI.

The Dailkos and other progressive organizations are trying to recuit America's Sweetheart Elizabeth Warren to run for the Senate in Massachusetts against Scott Brown. I thought Rachel Maddow was already doing that. I want to see Elizabeth warren slugging it out with the GOP on the Consumer Protection Agency.

Oh, and it was the George W. State Department and MTV behind the Egyptian Revolution. So saith Glenn Beck.

Does anyone get the impression that the Right simply wants to create chaos, uncertainty and disorder so that the American people will be conditioned to accept order and discipline. That nothing they do has anything to solving a single problem but exacerbating them.

It is year 5 and Clarence Thomas is still silent.

Snow Blind

Washington is crippled by snow today. Ok, anytime it snows in Washington we're crippled.

It is the UN Holocaust Remembrance Day. The German government finally acknowledged the extermination of the Roma or Gypsies today. American Rabbis of all parts of Judaism took today to blast Fox News through an ad in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal for Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes constant reference to people as Nazis and their attacks on individuals misusing the Nazi analogy. Previously, Roger Ailes had joked that only liberal or left-wing rabbis were concerned with this. Today, he got the reaction of the entire spectrum. Whether anything will come of it, I'm doubtful. But it might be worth it to take the time to contemplate the real Holocaust.

For this I recommend Saul Friedlander's two volume history--"Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-39" and "Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945: the Years of Extermination." Even today in 2011, we are still finding out more details about the Holocaust and the worlds' reaction to it.

But apparently, the person who threatened California State Senator Leeland Lee, who had criticized Rush Limbaugh's mocking of Chinese, hasn't learned much about the Holocaust or hate language. He mailed to Mr. Lee a flyer that called the Senator a "Jobama Rectum-Sniffing Moron", "Fish Head Leland Lee", and said that "Rush Limbaugh will kick your chink ass". The flyer had a pickup truck with the American flag on the door pulling a noose. "Achtung". "Death to all Marxists--Foreign and Domestic". State police, who are still investigating threats against Jerry brown, now get a chance to look into this.

The police did arrest the man who threatened Washington Governor Gregoire by the internet. The man said the governor should be burned at the stake.

For bipartisan balance, Dallas police detonated a suspicious package mailed to John Cornyn's office.

Think of all the threats to politicians in the last two years. Do any of them pop right out as flagrantly obvious targets?

Having changed the political narrative in his direction,President Obama was out in Wisconsin yesterday hyping American innovation at a clean energy plant. The irony is that the new Republican governor has already shut down the high-speed rail plant, which now has moved to Illinois, and passed a law that will keep wind energy installations far away from any residences--like luxury vacation homes on the Lake.

Sarah Palin finally broke her tweeter silence by attacking President Obama's state of the Union address by saying that the Soviet Union collapsed because it invested so much in its space program. Do you put a laugh track over these remarks, ignore them or treat them as surrealism?

Mark Kirk says that Congress is in "shock" over the $1.5 trillion budget this year. He says he never knew that tax cuts actually led to an increase in the deficit.

John Boehner actually said something correct,"We're broke."

The CBO has released a study that shows that unemployment will remain around 9% for the next two years and that it will not return to "normal" until 2016. Which brings me to my old point that unless we structurally change our economy we will face about 8% unemployment for the foreseeable future.

Peter Orzag fears that we will do nothing about the national debt unless there is a fiscal crisis. John McCain's 2008 financial adviser said that our annual deficit is not worrisome it's that even if unemployment was 4.5% we would be facing a tremendous national debt. The four causes of the debt,in his opinion, are military spending, the entitlement programs and the interest on that debt, which will balloon once there is a recovery and interest rates rise.

While Republicans, including John Boehner, are backing off their attacks on Social Security, there is an insidious movement by people like Newt Gingrich to promote the idea that states should be able to go bankrupt. The idea behind this is to wipe out state obligations on pensions. So the government employed baby-boomers would be left with social security only.

One of the wackiest ideas circulating in the House is a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. In my lifetime, that has only been done three times-once by Eisenhower, once by LBJ and once by Clinton. Before that I think Calvin Coolidge did it. James Galbraith wrote a piece recently on why it physically can not be done given our interrelationship with the global economy. You might also want to consider that the states who want to declare bankruptcy also have balanced budget requirements.

The House cut the budget again today by eliminating public financing of campaigns, something that has been around since Richard Nixon. This is probably related to the House Ethics Committee dropping their investigations of about 12 members who suspiciously raised money from the finance industry before the last election.

Hell did freeze over in Washington yesterday. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO came out with a joint statement in defense of infrastructure spending. Now the Chamber, which owns the House Republicans, will have to see whether their Congress really was the best they could buy.

Government Watchdog groups are raising the issue of whether criminal charges should be brought against Chuckles Thomas. They claim that the Supreme Court Justice by not filing information about his wife's income for the last 20 years is in criminal violation of the law. The bad news for Clarence is that they cite case after case of federal officials being fined and given prison terms for the same offense. Is a Supreme Court justice above the law?

I'm relieved to hear that Sharron Angle has not ruled out a run for the presidency in 2012. We're already going to be treated to Randall Terry of Operation Rescue running as a Democrat against President Obama. Terry promises to run ads of dead babies to show Obama is a baby-killer. This should be as appealing as the anti-Muslim DVD and brown-colored flier on Bill Ayers that was sent around against President Obama here in Virginia in 2008.

If you liked the Big F...ing Deal t-shirt from OFA. You can now get "We Do Big Things" t-shirt.

I happen to believe David Axelrod's comments at a meeting with bloggers yesterday that the White House has held "no grand repositioning" meetings about tacking to the right. Actually Rachel Maddow captured this accurately when she said that Obama had defined a political middle which is based on principles. Now for some reason--unrelated--Don Imus claimed Rachel was "a gutless coward". Por que?

The army sent Lt. Choi a bill for $2,500 for his discharge on DADT. President Obama said that the military will not longer enforce DADT and Secretary of Defense Gates says DADT ends this year. lt. Choi says he is not paying the bill.

Ohio Governor John Kasich who campaigned on transparency and accountability declared that his JobsOhio program would not have to obey these principles.

The author of "O", the anonymous novel about Obama's 2012 president run that imitates without the sex the novbel about Bill Clinton, apparently was written by long-time McCain aide , Mark Salter. This we are told by good novelist turned political hack Mark Halperin. I suggest that the two Marks change vocations.

Before The Truce Fails

Tim Pawlenty says that the "elites" should stop criticizing Sarah Palin. It seems to me if you are a governor and a half-governor and someone who makes $15 million a year, you are a member of the elite. Maybe it's not deserved but you are. So what "elites" is Pawlenty talking about?

At least one is Howard Stern, who used his talents to blast Palin as a fake and several expletive deletes. Howard then said that whatever you think about Barack Obama you had to be proud of the man when he spoke in Tucson.

MSNBC had coverage that conservatives have finally accepted Barack Obama as President. I don't know how I feel about this. It's only been two years and the man handily beat John McCain, while the conservative hero George W. Bush won by one vote of the Supreme Court. But this whole theme only shows that conservatives feel entitled to political power and the presidency.

Since he failed to browbeat the Tucson Sheriff, Rushbo is now trying to intimidate the Fox news panel which praised the President's speech. Meanwhile, Clear Channel is going to take down Rush's "Straight Shooter" billboard.

No House Republicans would even comment on Palin's speech before the House's prayers for the victims. David Weigel says the whole party is embarrassed. But it seems to me the party never shut down the extreme rhetoric of the tea baggers so they are stuck with her.

Knowing she made a gaffe, Sarah Palin has consented to sit down for an interview with ace reporter--no, make that commentator Sean Hannity on Fox News. Talk about a tin ear, Palin has scheduled talking about the shooting on Martin Luther King, Jr. day.

Peggy Noonan, who has spent the last two years complaining Obama doesn't understand America, finally admitted his speech was more than excellent and significant.

The people of Tucson are miffed that the rest of us thought the memorial service was too much like a pep rally. People down there comment that they wanted a joyous occassion, somthing to celebrate, and were joyous the President came down. Who's to criticize?

Give credit to Rachel Maddow for using her show to probe both the mental illness aspects of the shooting and last night the issue of gun control. Whistling in the wind but it is important to frame the issue with the two subjects that loom large after the slaughter and actually have solutions.

The surgeons have done a superb job of briefing the media on the condition of the victims and the progress made by Gaby Giffords but what they say makes me uneasy. They always start at the top with the good news, which is a good technique, but if you listen long enough the true horror of the wounds and what the victims face in recovery become clear.

One leftwing blogger wrote that while the speech may have been Obama's best,she felt that Clinton delivered a better speech. I disagree. I think Clinton now is a better explainer than Obama of policies, but I found him to be boring back then. I also disagree that this was the best speech Obama has delivered. I still love his speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church about the Walls of Jericho delivered in the campaign. Others favor his Race speech.

Former Bush speechwriter Gerson writes today in the Washington Post that the shake-up in Obama's immediate staff will give him a second chance. I remind people this--the man has already achieved in domestic policy more than both Clinton and Carter combined. He also has outperformed in two years George W in his whole eight years. I love these arrogant pricks.

Oh, and yes, he has already created more private sector jobs than all 8 years of W. and by 2012 he will have surpassed the job creation of both Bush's combined--beat 12 years with his four. As Yogi said, you can look it up.

Have you noticed that the Right may have finally lost the moral high-ground? For years, it has tried to have the monopoly on national security, economics and family values. But you get a sense that they know with Tucson they lost it. While Obama's speech purposefully avoided assigning blame, the Right has been scrambling since Saturday's shooting to obfuscate the issue of their own vitriolic rhetoric. They have acted desparate, knowing they have lost big-time. This by the way happened after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The conservative talk show people were eclipsed for about a year or two.

Billy Graham's wayward son, Rev. Franklin Graham felt compelled to defend Sister Sarah because he had sponsored her trip to Haiti. You are missing the main narrative thrust of Palin if you do not see the Christian Right, especially the Dominionist, look at her as Esther. She is anointed and her line about "blood libel" signals that she will be persecuted. I'm not going to go into the eschatology of this. But it is scary.

When is Joe McGinness's book coming out on Sister Sarah? It would be useful for someone to penetrate behind her electronic wall and reveal her grifter lifestyle. I think we all need this as a public service.

The shooting and the Memorial broke the momentum of the new Republican House. Everything has been put on hold. Tuesday the House Republicans will start the vote to repeal the health reform bill. This was the bill for which Gaby Giffords was targeted by the Right. The GOP claims they will try to do this at a lower decibel.

President Obama has the wind at his back and he needs his State of the Union to be boffo box. He had lift in Tucson. He really needs political lift with his State of the Union Address. While he will talk about the tone of political debate, he really needs to reassure Americans that the country is not going down the tubes. He has to emphasize the Sputnik Moment as he and Secretary Chu talk about the challenges from China on clean energy and high-speed rails. He also has to reiterate the government's commitment to education. But here as in Tucson it will be the tone that will give him and us lift.

About all I see coming from this coming Congress is additional spending on infrastructure but nothing else. With the recent poll showing 71% of Americans opposing raising the debt ceiling, this rather mundane fact will be an unnecessary controversy. A right-winger e-mailed me about blocking the rise in the debt ceiling. I asked him why he never said anything the ten times it was done under George W.

Love Is In The Air

In this new age of civility and reconciliation, it's nice to see the American Spectator write that Obama hit a home-run with his speech. Even Glenn Beck said it was the best speech President Obama has ever done. He even chided Sarah Palin to get over her P.R. problems and help work with Beck to prevent another Tucson. No Comment.

And No Comment it was for the White House on Sarah Palin's "blood libel" speech, which even made it into Wikipedia as part of the description of the term.

But conservatives can't go all the way in their praise for President Obama. Beck said the speech came "about a week too late" (given the fact the assassinations were on Saturday--this makes it hard.) Erick Ericson of Redstate and CNN commentator called on President Obama to repent of his association with Bill Ayers and claimed he encouraged people to kill Sarah Palin. Andrew Breibart also blamed President Obama for the "death threats" aimed at Sarah Palin and claimed that Obama's silence for four days "says everything".

Except he wasn't silent for four days. He made an initial statement asking the nation to pray for everyone shot and wounded. Then he held the One Minute of Silence. All the time he was on the phone to all the families, all the first responders, all the government officials of Arizona and the FBI.

Conservatives are complaining about the T-shirts "Together We Thrive--Tucson and America", which were given out free at the service, saying Obama was using the event for a political rally. Others said the President lied about Gaby Giffords opening her eyes, which the doctors did verify.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line is angry because the service was not "christian" or "American" enough. Basically, he's pissed that Carlos Gonzalez recited his own geneaology in the opening prayer and mentioned the genocide of Indians.

John Hayward in Human Events claimed the speech was "mostly excellent" but claimed Obama put on a political rally to portray himself as a centrist for 2012, while he is really a "hard-core liberal." Hayward criticized Obama for supporting Sheriif Dupnik's call for tolerance. Since President Obama had called Dupnik to praise him on the job he was doing,Hayward says that Obama didn't tell the Sheriff to "lay off his wacko theories about Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin inspiring Loughner to commit murder."

World Nut Daily claimed that Jared Loughner was influenced by schoolteachers who were trained using Bill Ayers' books.

One of the DeMoss family, an evangelical Republican, and Lanny Davis, a Democrat had to cancel their Civility Project because of hostility of conservative members of Congress. As of last count, only three of the 538 members signed on. One being Frank Wolf,Republican from Virginia, who told WAMU he thought it was a great idea and that there was nothing controversial about the principles involved in the project.

CNN asked "Do you ever think it is ever justified for citizesn to take violent action against the government, or is it never justified?"

76% of Americans said never; 16% found it acceptable.

But the party breakdown is interesting:
Democrats: 81% never; 11% acceptable
Independents: 81% never; 11% acceptable.
Repubicans: 64% never; 28% acceptable.

It seems one major political party has a significant problem to handle.

Another poll was out today saying that President Obama was a better President than George W by a 46-30% margin, the largest since the poll question was first asked. Also, Americans believe the country is better off with President Obama as President than John McCain by a 43%-32% margin.

Huffingtonpost thinks Russ Limbaugh might want to reconsider his Tucson billboard--RUSH LIMBAUGH--Straight Shooter--complete with huge bullet hole graphics.

David Frum is trying to enter the debate by arguing that pot caused Loughner to murder. I guess David hasn't watched any Cheech and Chong movies. And, by the way, Cheech claims Sarah Palin has the best stash in town.

Louis "Terror Babies" Gohlmert of Texas is introdicing a bill that congresspeople can bring guns on to the floor of the U.S. Congress. The Texas legislature already has such a bill and an express lane for those bringing guns into the Capitol.

Dan Burton-Repubican from Indiana-has revived his twenty-year old idea to encase the Capitol in plexiglass. I never knew where he came up with this idea originally. He resurrectedit again after 9/11.

The head of the Tucson Tea Party says that the shooting is Gabrielle Guffords own fault for not having security.

Trent Franks, Republican from Arizona who has said that President Obama is committing crimes against humanity, said he wished there had been one extra gun at Giffords greet and meet. I have no idea what that means.

Don't expect to hear Love Train tomorrow.

Gunslinger Nation

Only two weeks before the Tucson tragedy, out-going New Mexico governor Bill Richardson decided not to pardon Billy the Kid. It was a good move. The historical Billy the Kid was a pathological killer, who was romanticized in myth. But he is part of our national myth--the Wild West and the ethos of gunslingers and quick draw artists. It wasn't High Noon with white hats and black hats but an environment of cheap killings and shots behind the head.

Tea baggers e-mailed that the Tucson killings would never have happened if everyone wore a gun. I'm sorry. A bunch of pot-bellied middle-age white guys would have ended up killing more people. We know from the Virginia Tech slaughter that motivated killers with semi-automatic weapons kill at such a rapid rate,there could be little effective response. Even with a woman taking one magazine from him and his second jamming, the Tucson assassin wounded 16 and killed several people. If he had another clip, he would have massacred everyone in the Safeway parking lot.

The events on Saturday have led to a useful debate on political rhetoric and its role in the shooting. Whatever pundits say, the political culture does have an effect on the mentally ill. Jared Loughner is said to have a thought disorder typical of post-adolescent onset schizophrenia. His friends have him all over the political map from pot-smoking liberal who listened to Mars Volta to an anti-government paranoid, who had absorbed the conspiracy theories of radical libertarians. With respect to Gabrielle Giffords, the first Jewish congresswoman from Arizona, it has been said that Jared tried to beat up Jews at high school and was anti-semitic but his mother was Jewish.

You can list symptoms and bizarre behavior all you want and draw whatever political conclusions you are inclined towards. But, we are dealing with a male in his early twenties, who just like the young American Muslims travelling to Yemen because they got hooked on the jihadi internet, has a fluid and unstable identity and ended up acting out with destructive behavior. His photo looked like a younger Uncle Festus from the Adams Family with a face of someone clearly in another zone. A friend of his talking to Mother Jones said that all he wanted was Chaos,and more Chaos, and that the circus around this tragedy was what he wanted.

It was clear that the Pima Community College wanted him to get a mental health evaluation before letting him re-enter school. His teachers and the older students in his class recorded his disruptive behavior in their e-mails. Unfortunately, neither he nor his parents made efforts to follow-up on the school's advice. Instead, he wrote a friend that "there were other ways to graduate in life."

The Right has been the most defensive during this whole episode because you can tell they feel quilty about their possible moral responsibility in triggering this man's behavior. For a mentally disturbed person, political rhetoric can serve as triggers even though they may not be processed lucidly by the subject. The Right, particularly Sarah Palin, has assumed the position of the victim. While people lie dead, the overpaid pundits pretend they have been victimized by the Left, wherever they may be these days. Judson Phillips of the Tea Party immediately sent out e-mails saying they would be attacked and to make sure the shooter was identified as a "lunatic liberal". That effort went into high gear with Drudge printing photos of the "satanic alter in the shooter's backyard" and quoting a high school acquaintance saying the shooter was a pot-smoking lefty. However, the skinhead we saw yesterday had morphed into an anti-government conspiracy theorist. Which should come as no surpise given his state of mind and where he lived.

Remember Gabrielle Giffords' district is highly polarized and has been since the last days of Jim Kolbe, the gay Republican who created NAFTA. Jim Kolbe told the press that he would have to have armed police at his town meetings in the last years because of the heat over the immigration issue. We know the local teaparty targeted Giffords for her healthcare vote and Sarah Palin marked her on a map of targets with "surveying marks" (cough). Other Arizona Democrats were also subject to death threats, including Raul Grijalva, the head of the Progressive Caucus and the congressman in the neighboring district. The high amp rhetoric has been in over-drive there for the last two years at least. Did it contribute to the shooting? It helped create the environment to reinforce the shooters' intentions.

Mental Illness, guns and politics merged on Saturday and produced another tragedy, which is rather routine by now in the United States. This time a political official and a federal judge were targets. But Rachel Maddow last night randomly reviewed the number of slaughters in the United States since Jared Laughner was born and pointed out how awful but similar they are all.

Over 30,000 Americans die per year from gunshot wounds, another 200,000 are wounded. The Brady Project counted gun deaths in the United States from 1979-1999 and found that they exceeded the American deaths in all our wars combined. For every 100 Americans, there are 90 guns. We are Number 1 in gunownership in the world. U.S.A! U.S.A! Number 2 is Yemen at 60 guns per 100 people. We are number 3 in the world in gun deaths. We are behind Colombia and Guatemala. I'm frankly surprised we aren't number 1.

Talk is cheap but guns may be cheaper. Jared managed to buy a Glock and passed the F.B.I's background check. He had only been arrested once and that was for putting"Christian" graffiti on walls. He bought the gun shortly after being expelled from school. On the day of the shooting, he bought his ammo at Walmart's. Strangely, one Walmart would not sell him ammo. I would love to know why. For his Glock, he had magazines which held over twice the number of bullets as the standard issue Glocks for law enforcement officials. All of this was in a radius of six blocks from his house and the target area. The taxi driver, who had first been reported as a person of interest,said Jared was cool, calm and collected.

This isn't going to stop. Only yesterday a white man was arrested for threatening to kill the staff of Democratic Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado. Prevously a Washington State citizens was arrested for threatening to kill Patty Murray for her healthcare vote. Jared Louchner also had a second congressional target--Congressman Davis from Illinois. Why? But it shows he wanted to take his show on the road. As long as semi-automatics are easily available, there will be more killings,some political, others not.

The other issue concerns mental health programs. Fortunately, some commentators are raising this aspect of the tragedy. Jan Brewer has cut the mental health budget of Arizona by 39%, some $36 million. Every state undergoing a budget crisis cuts the mental health budget as if this doesn't have consequences. The state of Minnesota created a pioneering mental health program but that has been gutted in Tim Pawlenty's drive to prove his conservative bona-fides. This doesn't mean people like Jared will not constantly fall through the cracks but others who might be susceptible to violent detructive behavior might be helped.

Tomorrow President Obama travels to Tucson to speak for the nation at a memorial service for the victims.

Romney's 2012 Problem

By conventional Republican wisdom, Mitt Romney is the next GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Republicans almost always pick who went around last time and came in second. 2008 was a rare election with two Senators running against it other. The last time a Senator won the presidency before Barack Obama was JFK. That's how rare Senators are as Presidential material. So reason would have a former Governor and a previous candidate in the primaries as a lock.

But there are roadblocks in the way for Mitten. Mitt Romney has worse approval/disapproval ratings than Bob Dole when he ran in 1996 and John McCain in 2008. Of course, not many Republicans have better ratings. And few have access to bottomless wealth, especially in this day of Citizens United.

A Gallup poll this week showed that Mitten was the first choice of Republicans with 19% and Sarah Palin second with 16. Mike Huckabee came in 3rd with double digits. Everyone else lagged far behind. The Gallup poll found that Republicans with postgraduate degrees favored Mitt by a 3 t0 1 margin, those with bachelors' degree 2 to 1. But with those lacking a college degree, Sarah Palin was even with Mitt.

In the old GOP--eight years ago!, the Republican Party's basic electoral strength was in the suburbs, precisely those people who would vote with Romney. As we have seen in the mayhem of the last 20 months, it has shifted to rural areas and solidified in the South. Romney desparately needs a string of GOP wins in the governors' mansions in the Midwest to build a beachhead for the primaries in 2012. Or else he will be upended by partial Alaskan governor Sarah Palin and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is handicapped because people like the Club of Greed consider him too populist in economic policies.

If we consider the Tea Party movement as the Republican base, which I do, then we are dealing with a much poorly educated voter than before. Electoral politics.com believes the Republican primaries will be open class warfare between Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. Palin would be the female equivalent of George Wallace--the final triumph of the true implications of the Southern Strategy. We would have the adoption by the Republicans of the culture of White Trash.

While Romney has jettisoned his 14-15 houses and settled in just a couple, he still labors under the burden of introducing a state-wide health care system in Massachusetts, changing his position on abortion (to anti-choice), and is vague of whether he's a creationist. No one believes me when I say that the next Republican nominee must be a creationist and against evolution. Even John McCain had to cave and support the teaching of intelligence design in school. Romney has placed high in the various polls at conservative fora simply because he pays for these votes. They are not a true indicator of popularity. With the new change in the primary rules, his road to victory may be in a smoke-filled room once the process gets deadlocked.

Goodnight Vienna*

*belated Happy Birthday to Ringo.

A fun political video is at www.FightTheRight.com , apparently made by the Democratic Governors' Association for the netroots conference in Las Vegas.

Andrew Breitbart claims he is "public enemy number 1 of the Democratic Party, the progressive movement and the Obama Administration" for his journalist successes. I guess this video and the whole ACORN scam. I didn't know he had been an assistant to Drudge and says that he was addicted to crack cocaine and been in rehab. Maybe he met Lindsey Lohan there. ( Could someone tell me what Lindsey Lohan ever did?) I guess he wants to be the Drudge of the YouTube age.

President Obama gave an interview to ABC and said that his Administration had erred and jumped the gun because of the media. His explanation as usual made alot of sense but doesn't end the bad taste left by this episode.

And speaking of bad taste, Rep. King , the Christianist from Iowa, wants to investigate how Shirley Sherrod was hired by the Ag Department in the first place. So put that on your list of investigations for next year. Darrell Issa wants to investigate the Obama Administration's connections to Google.

And also, add the whole Blag the Governor episode. That hasn't worked out so well for the Right. The Gov. complained about Obama just wanting to thank him if Ms. Jarrett was going to be appointed senator. He had bigger fish to fry. Unfortunately, the Governor let us down by refusing to take the stand in his defense.

Someone who should step down is our old friend Charlie Rangel, who faces a number of ethics charges in the House. Sorry Charlie, you've had a good run. Now hang it up.

FED Chair Bernanke told the House today that Congress has to keep on spending so the economy can recover. He said that the United States must produce plans to reduce the deficit and the national debt but recovery must take the first priority.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi slammed the door on continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy but did emphasize the Democrats' desire to help the middle class. Geitner himself weighed in to say the tax cuts for the wealthy would expire as planned. So the fat is in the proverbial fire.

Remember when Drudge criticized President Obama for not vacationing in the Gulf when he went to Maine. Now President Obama is vacationing in the Gulf. No doubt we'll hear about how many times he played golf. He becoming a regular Ike or maybe even John Boehner.

Meanwhile Vishnu Jindal says we don't need no stinkin' BP money. Even his full statement didn't make any sense.

Tom Tancredo, the friend of all illegal immigrants and a birther, has asked the Republicans running for Governor of Colorado to step aside so he can run. Sounds good to me.

Barbara Boxer has an 11-1 cash on hand advantage against Carly Fiorina. The problem is that Carly intends to write herself a seven figure check to make up the difference. That's what having two yachts can do for you.

Elaine Marshall has jumped out into the lead against Burr in North Carolina. She leads 37-35% with 23% undecided in a race people had automatically put into the Republican column.

Lt. Dan Choi has been discharged from the military for his gayness. Dan Choi drew attention to the cause of gay soldiers through acts of civil disobedience such as chaining himself to the White House fence. Dan has been an articulate spokesperson for repealing DADT. What I can't understand is why discharge him now when you are reviewing the whole policy. Surely, that could have waited.

Oliver North has made a video about DADT, warning Americans that NAMBLA members will now be allowed to enlist in the military and that the home schooled children we are recruiting for the military will quit. The last raises several interesting questions about who exactly are we recruiting into the military. Ollie also raises questions whether chaplains will have to perform same sex marriages and will same sex couples serve in the same units. Another soldier claimed that all the Christians would quit from the military if DADT was repealed. Are we opening a window here on a Christian army waging holy wars against Muslims?

If you're interested in the whole issue of whether Trig is really the son of Sarah Palin, check out Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish where this seems to be an obsessive topic. There is now a whole hermaneutics on what this would mean or does mean for her future.

Pastor Warren of Silent Cone Fame has blinded himself through an accident. No comment.

The Washington Post printed a fascinating piece today about how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $3 million a week in opposition to President Obama's major agenda items, breaking all lobbying records and losing big-time. They vow to spend $75 million or more on November's midterm election cycle and have even backed their own candidates in the Republican primaries. So far more than 6 of their hand-picked candidates have gone down to defeat. They claimed to have blocked the union "card check" bill, cap-and-trade climate legislation and the proposed public option. Frankly, in my opinion, they claim credit where nothing was proposed in the first place. They remind me of the NRA who claims to have blocked all sorts of anti-gun moves by the Obama Administration that never existed. The Chamber is simply bilking its members.

And speaking of the public option, the CBO number is out--it would save the country about $68 billion.

John Boehner may have been hitting the sauce because he admitted that the teabaggers "are anarchists who would kill all of us in office." Letting his hair down for the guys.

Afternoon Coffee at the Last Manatee

Drudge reports that Obama only met with BP executives for 20 minutes today. Pretty productive meeting since he got them to fork over $20 billion for an escrow fund for the region's victims. With additonal fines of $4,300 per barrel, this is looking better than the original Louisiana Purchase.

Newt told his Fox audience that in this case it was alright for Obama to use religious language during his address to the nation.

Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, one of the states affected by the spill worried that the escrow account would affect BP's profits.

Sarah Palin said the Dutch could clean up the spill. She was referring to their skimmer technology. A little late in the day, Dutch's skimmer machines have been in the Gulf for the last few days.

The House Republicans entered an amendment yesterday to strip the health reform bill of the individuals mandates. It was defeated. Look for this throughout the next few years.

The Senate Republicans managed to block the extension of unemployment and Cobra as well as the emergency $50 billion funds for the bailout of states.

Meg Whitman put another $20 million of her personal wealth into her campaign coffers. This means she has put in $90 million of her own dough. Apparently, Meg also has anger issues, having fought an employee in 2007. The poor woman was trying to prepare her for an interview. Should be interesting if she wins the California state house.

The Christian Right is back in all its lunacy, saying that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell would mean that God would make us lose wars. In case anyone has been watching, the United States hasn't won a clearcut battlefield victory in a long time. There has been so many statements and pronouncements by the Christian Right, you're better off checking www.rightwingwatch.com on a daily basis.

I think I've finally figured out this fascination of the Hard Right for the American revolution. It's the last "good war" in their minds that America fought. You can't embrace Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War because he was for big government, the wrong side won and the slaves were freed. You can't embrace WWII because FDR was the President and, in some minds on the right, the wrong side won again. And Vietnam doesn't do it because we lost and that was the period of the civil rights movement. And we know George W and Dick Cheney have been airbrushed out of the small government conservatives' history. The Spanish-American war is a no-no because it involves Hispanics and we want them deported.

Bill McCollum, who is running for the Republican nomination in Florida, is being successfully challenged by a hospital mongol, who has been convicted of felonies and forced to pay millions of dollars in fines. I guess the appeal is that this person was a CEO.

The final arguments for the Prop 8 trial are wrapping up today. The anti-gay lawyers are moving on another front to get the 18,000 legal gay marriages reversed. In my mind, the legal arguments have been all on the pro-gay side with the anti-gays having to invoke sociological studies done in the 1950s. But I am skeptical that the final arguments can move the current Supreme Court. Conservative lawyer Ted Olson disagrees but I believe he's naive about where the current court stands.

Jim Inhofe is doubling down on his anti-DADT repeal position. He went on the floor of the Senate yesterday saying that our armed forces simply won't fight with open gays in the military. Sort of like how it happened in Sparta and Rome.

All the polls this week except the AP poll show Republicans set to make big gains in the Congressional races. The volatility of these polls showing rapid changes in the generic congressional races and the vast ups and downs of Democrartic enthusiasm make me highly skeptical that we know anything about the state of the electorate. With jobs, the deficit and terrorism ranking as the top issues. I personally can't see how Republicans can capitalize on the jobs and deficit issue, although they talk a good game on terrorism.

Republicans have not created a job since 1990 and they have never acted as deficit hawks since Eisenhower. I can't see where they gain any credibility here, especially among independents. Unless something dramatic happens, terrorism doesn't trump the economy. As we've seen, Republicans are now embracing CEOs as their star candidates. But look at Whitman and Fiorina in California. Both of them gained their reputation by either outsourcing jobs or eliminating massive numbers of jobs nationwide but also in the very state they seek to represent.

On Taxes, Republicans claim they own the franchise in tax reduction but they opposed during the stimulus debate the largest tax cut for the middle class in history. Now they are framing the tax debate as if the financial concerns of the very wealthy are those of the rest of us. They may well pull that off with their spin machine. Most Americans don't believe Obama cut their taxes.

The fate of the free world hinges on Jack Nicholson just as it did in Mars Attacks. If Jack cheers on the Lakers well in Game 7, we will be saved. While not my favorite Laker team--Kareem and Magic--the Lakers must crush the Celtics if there is any justice in the world. As President Obama said, "the arc of history bends toward justice."

We salute Ken Griffey, who retired this past month. Finishing his career with 630 hrs, Griffey could have surpassed all homer records--natural or steroid infuenced--if his career in Cincinnati hadn't been plagued with injuries.

Yankee statisticians claim that Derek Jeter surpassed the 3,000 hit mark this week--if you include his playoff and world series hits. Hey, that's cheating. Let him do it straight. It should take two more months.

Meanwhile Nick Johnson made it another year in which he made the Disabled List. That makes every year that I have been following his career.

Shame on Brazil for only beating North Korea 2-1 in the World Cup. The North Korean team was made up of all males in the country who are given daily meals. Double shame on Spain for losing to Switzerland.

Washington is abuzz with the Rookie pitcher Stephen Strassburg, who struck out 14 in his first start and 7 of his last 10 and at one point 7 in a row. So far, he's won his first two games in the big leagues and won every start at all levels of the minor leagues. Unfortunately, the Nationals still blow.

The German austerity package if passed will trigger another Great Depression. So far the euro is barely hanging on with defaults in Greece and upcoming defaults in Spain and Portugal. As European commentators have mentioned, austerity does not necessarily lead to prosperity. So far we have been insulated from this stage of the European crisis but we can't be for long. With deficit hawks in the ascendency in the United States and Britain, these austerity programs may be this century's equivalent of protectionism in the 1930s.

The American Dream Is A Restless Night

Tip to anonymous blogger for the quote.

News from the alternative universe:

Newt Gingrich tells Politico Barack Obama only has a 20% chance of being re-elected. The House Republicans will pick up 40 seats and perhaps between 65 to 70, enough to take the House and make John Boehner Speaker. If the Republicans beat Barbara Boxer in California they will take the Senate. The former Speaker said that Obama does not understand change and argues that he--the Newt--will run for President if he can present a vision of complete change. He argues that the United States needs a complete wave of change from the school boards, city councils, county government and state legislatures. America needs to elect people who can get things done.

Dr. Glenn Beck will start exposing how Barack Obama is trying to take over "your church" through his faith-based initiatives. Beck will argue that the White House is compelling churches to embrace climate change and to make their physical churches energy efficient in line with progressive socialism.

Charlie Cook is wrong. Cao is not the only vulnerable Republican. Today, Indiana's Mark Souder announced he was resigning because of an affair with his female staffer.

Rolling Stone has an excellent article on Karl Rove's latest scheme of creating a parallel Republican Party of Fatcats because the wealthy donors don't trust Michael Steele but love Karl.

Steve Poizner, the right-winger challenging Meg Whitman, has another great ad attacking Meg. The ad titled "Adults Only" highlights Meg's creation of a separate Ebay for porn, which did become the internet's biggest porn site. Linking it to his previous Goldman Sachs ad, he concludes "Meg Whitman; Bad Judgment. Wrong Values." Dick Cheney came out of his crypt to endorse Meg.

Tom Campbell is cutting back his ad buys in his race against Carly Fiorina, while she's increasing her television spots. Observers can't figure out whether Campbell is overconfident or simply broke or both.

Rick "Secessionist" Perry in Texas is mired in a scandal of his own. Apparently, with his state budget with a huge whole in it, he's renting out a temporary governor mansion at over $300K a year and hosting political parties for his re-election using campiagn donations. With the Texas economic mess--remember he doesn't accept stimulus funds--this is getting traction.

The Arizona Governor continues her quest for excellence, firing teachers with pronounced accents. A little background, Arizona recruited teachers from South America for bilingual education in public schools. Now that the governor banned bilingual education, these teachers became vulnerable and now are expendable.

The Texas textbook scandal continues. The Guardian (U.K.) interviewed schoolboard member Cynthia Dunbar, an evangelical Christian lawyer, who is a major force behind the push to re-write history. Dunbar is a proponent of home and Christian private schooling and likens sending children to public schools like "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Because of the sheer numbers of Texas textbook purchases, the changes will eventually reach most of the states in the union.

In her interview, she said, " In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote partiotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

On "In God We Trust", Lincoln's Secretary of Treasury inserted it as a sop to clergymen during the Civil War. "One Nation Under God" was inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s to show we were different from godless Communism. The Pledge of Allegiance came about originally as an instrument to assimilate immigrants and lack any reference to God. The National Prayer day was begrudgingly accepted by Eisenhower as a way to buy off the evangelicals in the 1950s.

So what are some of the changes Ms. Dunbar suggests:
The slave trade wasn't " some evil buying and selling of human beings, it was simply Atlantic triangular trade".
The Civil Rights Movement created "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" for minorities in America. And Martin Luther King, Jr. Pretty much a Black Panther.
Thomas Jefferson? Who has been eliminated from the American history book. "He was an insignificant ,God-hating heathen who made sure that the church and state remained separate."
The right to bear arms is essential to democracy and kids really need to learn this in school.
Joe McCarthy was right to go after Godless commies in Hollywood and Washington. He will be vindicated.
We have military technology to thank for America's successes in science.
Moses was a greater influence on the US Constitution than Thomas Jefferson.
America can only flourish economically through 'minimal government intrusion and taxation."

Advising Dunbar is Glenn Beck's and Newt Gingrich's friend David Barton, the founder of the revisionist group WallBuilders, whose stated goal is "to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena."

Paul Krugman in a May 16 op-ed in the New York Times commented on how the defeat of Bob Bennett in Utah and the news of the Maine Republican Party underscored the extremism in the Republican party and that the media is finally paying attention. Krugman cited a paper by economists Markus Bruckner and Hans Peter Gruner on how economic crisis brings out right-wing extremism and nationalist political parties in both Europe and America. Krugman warns that we should not expect the Republican Party to escape the clutches of extremism anytime soon.

I have neglected returning to Mark Lilla's excellent piece in the New York Review of Books on the tea party phenomenon. Michael Kinsley has another one in this week's Atlantic. Just like Al Pacino in Godfather III, he just keeps getting pulled back--Bob Altemeyer has returned to his favorite subject,The Authoritarians, with very detailed analysis of both the history and psychology of the Tea Party Movement. Google it. It is well-worth reading.

I was wrong. I wanted to refrain talking about the Baked Alaskan because she is basically harmful to my mental health. When I saw she was negotiating a deal for a Reality show of her family, I thought this was a sign she was not going to run in 2012. Many moons ago I posted why I believe she is the incarnation of where the Republican Party is now. I also have written how while theocratic politics is in direct intellectual contradiction to libertarianism, it is being fused today in the tea party movement. Just look at James Dobson's embrace of Rand Paul in Kentucky. And then I have taken note of Sister Sarah's nomadic moves across our national landscape. Her recent appearance in Illinois, invoking Ronald Reagan,her fervent embrace of Jan Brewer in Arizona and her ditzy presentation to the NRA tell me she really is running in 2012.

The website Mudflats, my favorite Alaska news site, has been paying microscopic attention to the half-governor's every move. Yesterday they interviewed the author of the upcoming book The Lies of Sarah Palin, who reports that the internal memos he has shows she is preparing a race against Mitt Romney and is totally obsessed with Barack Obama and the loss of the 2008 election. And, of course, she feels that if she were allowed to continue to attack Obama as a terrorist-loving socialist McCain would have won. Her incessant twittering comments on everything the Obama Administration does or does not do (more often the case) indicates a compulsive nature, which will inform us that God told her to run.

The announcement of her second book is simply to say she like Obama has written two books. I thought it was the conservative syndrome of churning out books so that one can boost of the title "New York Times Best Seller"--a weird validation for people who hate liberals. But it's simply to show President Smarty-Pants that 'real Americans" can write books too.

To take a reasoned approach to this does not capture the fundamentally non-rational worldview of Sister Palin and her fundamentalist followers. All the usual political mechanics of campaign organization, staff, polling and fund-raising are tertiary to people who are divinely inspired. Right now she is the leader of the Tea Party Movement and she has the support of the Washington neocons, who advise her. Having a chief aide who is a scientologist and a minister who calls her Queen Esther are not encouragements to retire to a life making money. By the time she announces, she will have earned at least $25 million.

As I wrote before, the Republican primary schedule favors her over any other candidate. She would begin in evangelical country in Iowa and follow with a triumph in neo-confederate South Carolina. Romney might hold on to New Hampshire, but he will be behind until the middle of the race. I believe she really can win the nomination.

And I also believe she would choose a vice-president who would share her obsession with Barack Obama and restoring America's place as God's chosen country. Here Mike Huckabee is too weak because he likes Michelle Obama. Others are lackluster like Pawlenty, who has embraced creationism and just submitted a budget that would destroy Minnesota's rather progressive policies. She needs a Southerner since this is the regional heart of the Republican Party.

Enter the man whose next book is how to stop Obama's "secular-socialist machine"--Newt Gingrich. Newt can not raise the money to be a plausible presidential candidate and he is deeply disliked by older conservatives for everything from his treatment of women to his chaotic leadership style in the House. But he shares Palin's ambition, her cunning and her capacity of deceipt. Gingrich is presently touring the country with our Christian revisionist Dave Barton so he and Sister Sarah are perfect together. Newt would privately think he could be Palin's ideological svengali and his ambitions have never ebbed. I also believe that the choice of vice-presidential nominee would have nothing to do with reality-based politics, but totally on theological and ideological values.

I agree with Paul Krugman, there is no reason to believe that the Republican Party can escape the clutches of extremism-- certainly not by 2011 when people have to declare this candidacies for the presidential nomination.

Be forewarned, I predicted on radio the Palin choice by John McCain before little Billy Kristol or anyone in D.C. knew about her. So, defying all rational calculation, real-world politics and sense of commonsense, I predict it will be a Sarah Palin-Newt Gingrich ticket in 2012.

I am also absolutely certain that if, God forbid, she won that America would instantly cease to be a major power or force in the world. It would simply be folly for any other country to relate their policies to ours, especially in economic affairs.

And if I'm wrong, do I get to be an op-ed columnist at the Washington Post like torture man Marc Thiessen?

In Your Guts, You Know He's Nuts,and She is too

Emerging like a huge cartoon head from Monty Python, Dick Cheney returned to the video screen to lament the failure of the Obama Administration to waterboard the gonad bomber. Interviewed by my old executive assistant Jon Karl, Cheney again complained that Obama took away the tool of torture in fighting terrorism. But the Liberator of Buffalo did suppport the rescinding of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Cheney blasted Joe Biden's statements this week on Larry King supporting Obama's policy in Iraq. CNN--which has gone mental these days--referred to Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin as the voices of the GOP on national security.

Thank heaven, Joe Biden showed up to point out that Cheney is trying to rewrite history. Joe pointed to the Obama Administration eliminating 12 out of 24 of the top Al Qaeda leaders and 100s more of their affiliates. Al Qaeda is now in disarray and running for cover, which inhibits their chance to wage sophisticated attacks. He also repeated the refrain that the gonad bomber was not treated any differently than the Shoe Bomber. Biden also got the dig in that so far over the 300 terrorists tried in criminal courts, none are free and all are in prison. But two out of the three tried by military commissions are free on the streets. He also blasted Cheney for being responsible for shredding the Constitution.

My point about trying terrorists in crimnal court is pretty simple. These are people bent on killing, they are not warriors; they are not combatants and to treat them any different is to afford them the status they don't deserve and that they crave.

The Washington Post printed an article today rehashing the criticism that Obama is killing more terrorists through drones, depriving our intelligence services of the chance to capture terrorists and interrogating them for more information. The sourcing of the material is indicative of the internal fight. Anonymous intelligence agents decry their lack of human materials to work on, while the military positively respond to the new policy and say the Commander-in-Chief often gives the go-ahead himself. They also cite the killing of the person responsible for the Kenyan embassy bombing in Somalia and how fast Obama responded in attacking Al Qaeda in Yemen.

So far we haven't heard from Cheney and his acolytes about the Obama Administration breaking up a large-scale plan to attack New York City on the anniversary of 9/11. That was done by the FBI and not the spooks. Nor have we heard about the killing of the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole. But conservatives did send e-mails out purporting to be from a window of a sailor slain in the incident claiming Obama was weak on terrorism. Nor have we heard from our vaunted media about how Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula is the sole creation of Dick Cheney himself who personally released the men from Gitmo.

Ms. Lindsey Graham weighed in today calling for Jack Brennen's resignation as counter-terrorism czar. Brennen, who has served several Presidents, doesn't take prisoners as witnessed by his sharp response to the Republicans this past week.

Sarah Palin said on Fox News that Obama would try to win re-election by declaring war on Iran. Now today, she believes he should declare war on Iran. The Republican adoption of pre-emptive war, an unprecedented doctrine in American history, got us where we are today. Apparently, it doesn't matter that Obama has beefed up defense systems for the Gulf states, looked sideways at Israeli assassinations of Iranian agents and Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, and sent Hillary Clinton to the Gulf to prepare for the next stage of sanctions on Iran. Presumably, we should declare war--the Congress' role, not the President's--and wing it like in Iraq. I don't think we have the manpower or the $1 or 2 trillion to do the job. Or I don't think we can take the massive hit again on American prestige in the world.

But, never fear, operatives in the RNC are preparing for Ms. Sarah. Rumors have it that there is such bad blood after the last election that knives are being sharpened for 2011 to take Palin out. RNC operatives believe Palin was a massive mistake and that she is dangerous. When you hear negative news about her, it will be Republican leakers. We already know from the words of Steven Schmidt and others on the McCain campaign some of the politically juicy stuff but there is alot more to follow. Apparently, Sarah has an open marriage with her husband "The First Dude", who was revealed this week to be a major decider on policies in her State House. While the Obama campaign purposively avoided frontal attacks on Palin during the campaign, we should expect Republicans to be not so queasy. They claimed she had sex all along the campaign trail with leading Republicans. They also know that at least two affairs in Alaska led to her family businesses being closed--the laundromat and a snowmobile franchise. They also claim that her business woes far surpass Clinton's Whitewater 's problems. They also know that her son serving in Iraq was giving a choice of jail or enlistment by an Alaskan judge for his rampage vandalizing school busses. RNC people promise they will not let her get off the ground in 2011.

The Conservative Crack-Up

While in Ethiopia, I received an e-mail with a large Black Face with Red Lips crying ,"It's all Bush's fault" from one of the many conservatives I know. This was a cartoon with commentary on the president's State of the Union address. My response was that Obama basically took and owns the entire Republican vocabulary on tax cuts for small businesses and the middle class, while leaving the Republicans to defend the banks, the rich and propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Throw in torture, Gitmo and endless wars and I'm not so sure I would want to defend the Republican positions on anything. While on-line in Addis, I watched as Obama slaughtered the Republican House members at their retreat in Baltimore. But none of my right-wing correspondents will acknowledge this, even cherry-picking a response where they thought one representative got the better of Obama (in the full context the guy looked like a fool.) I've concluded long ago that Republicans, conservatives and their tea bag allies have never listened to a single Obama speech or policy proposal. The President is deluding himself when he just invited the Republicans to debate health care at the White House this month.

While at the African Union heads of state meeting in Ethiopia, I noticed their agenda consisted of the topics of peace and security; maintaining constitutional government; and the role of IT in development. Having dealt with these issues for decades I thought I would find them just the same old same old. But today I find them refreshing. Whoever the African leaders might be and how little political will they may possess to implement what they discussed, the fact of the matter is that their discussion was rational and modern, a bracing change from the insanity of our own political discussions in the United States.

Yes, terrorism is a problem for them as they showed concern about developments in Somalia but it was discussed without the hysteria we now find in the United States. I found it amusing that the plane from Germany had a stop-over in Yemen, where a considerable number of German tourists were heading for just that--tourism.

Reviewing television news coverage of global events while in Africa it dawned on me that the United States was not that much of a story or even a factor political pundits even discussed. While this would seem parochial in the past, it comes across now that the United States is not "the indispensable country" Charles Krauthammer argued in 2000. Developments in alternative energy sources and new methods of manufacturing were covered by examining the role of Asian and European countries. In the dozens of shows I watched nothing innovative shown was of American origin. At most we received a tangential reference as a country warring here and there. The coverage of political causes around the world showed hundreds of voices from a variety of non-governmental organizations, few of whom had support from America.

The tone I picked up at the African Union was a fond remembrance of America as it existed decades ago and a certain support for Barack Obama, a son of Africa but more importantly as a leader of a developing country. The delegations at the African Union dealt with their own agenda as dictated by their own needs. A healthy development after all these years but somewhat disconcerting to an American, who now really stands outside their development priorities.

This all brings me back to the collapse of conservative thought in the United States and the shards of right-wing protests and rage. Since Woodrow Wilson, American exceptionalism had an intellectual content and policy implications. Now with the implosion of conservatives, it has taken a darker, some would say, sinister tone. The European and Asian communities still look toward the United States for leadership on a host of issues, particularly on the global financial crisis. They assume a fairly pragmatic leadership aimed at stabilizing the world's economy and putting in place a regulatory regime to prevent another fiscal meltdown. In return, they afford us forebearance on the issue of Afghanistan and perhaps even Iran. They have welcomed a new Administration, which is not prone to act unilaterally on issues and to bully former allies into compliance. But all that would change if the radical right ever see power in the United States.

Upon my return I was treated to the Teabag Convention in Nashville, which drew a whopping 600 members. For an historical footnote, the Unitarian Universalist Church held a convention in the same place in the late 1990s with over 1,500 delegates from different churches. the UUs are a very minor religion in the United States. They did not receive wall-to-wall coverage by our networks. The same will apply to the netroots convention in Las vegas later this year, which will outdraw even the UUs but will receive no media attention.

The Teabag Convention brought to a national audience Tom Tancredo, a second generation Italian-American, who raged against immigrants, called for literacy tests for voting and criticized voters who didn't speak English. He even called for all non-Christians to be expelled from the country. The entrepeneur Joseph Farah of World Net Daily spent a good amount of his address on the issue of whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, although anyone reading this blog knows this is irrelevant to anything other than to denounce the "other". The Queen of the Birthers Orly Taitz was there to drum up more funding for her futile attempts to make Obama's birth certificate a legal issue. When was the last time an American President was ever asked for his birth certificate?

The star of the show was Sarah Palin, who received a speaking fee of $100,000 for the gig. Deliberately eschewing a teleprompter in a criticism of Obama's eloquence, she fumbled through notecards and delivered a speech in her imitation hillbilly voice. She wore a US-Israeli flag pin since her religious beliefs call for the return of Jesus to Israel after a global war and the resurrection of the believers in "rapture". For this to occur, Jews must return to Israel and Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands must be extended if there is to be enough room. Of course, in the end days the Jews all get exterminated. Why Israel plays with these people is still beyond me.

One could dismiss this all if the polls of Republicans demonstrated any rationality. The Reseaarch 2000 poll of 2,000 Republicans showed that 65% believe Obama is a socialist; a plurality believe he should be impeached, about a half either believe he wasn't born in the United States or have doubts, and a majority believe Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be President. That's not a serious party.

The conservative paradigm has failed and the religious right is filling it. One of the discussions at the Teabag Conventions was encouraging the end of the separation between Church and State. What we see now is that cultural conservatives are deliberating dividing the middle class, playing on the old wedge issues of abortion, gays and guns. The fact that many of these teabaggers actually share critics of government and the economy not unlike the Democrats is being diverted by all these peripheral issues.

The economic Republicans are no longer for the middle class or small businesses. They are in full tilt support of large corporations and the wealthiest of us. This is simply no sympathy for the vanishing Middle Class. The Middle Class is supposed to be kept in line by cultural conservatives, especially the religious right.

Neoconservatives have been trying to make a comeback through critiques of Obama's foreign policy, which in private they can not find much to disagree with. However, married to whatever emerges in Republican circles they will just be reduced to a position of bellicosity in the Middle East, which will satisfy the Religious Right.

But I noticed another e-mail from a former colleague who is running for the House as a Republican in Michigan. He is running against the stimulus package, for smaller government, for constitutional government, against closing Gitmo and giving terrorists Miranda rights. I have not had the heart to ask him whether smaller government means dismantling the $1 trillion military-terrorist complex. But when you look at all the anti-government proposals and spending cut rhetoric you have an argument to dismantle the entire social welfare system in the United States. The House Republican budget plan of privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare only flag the return of the 1920s economic theories of the Republicans.

Today, 30% of Americans are now in poverty--which these people would like to believe are the black underclass and Hispanics but the vast majority are white. The Middle Class in the United States has lost income steadily for twenty years and its quality of life is vanishing. In many ways, the teabaggers are a delayed reaction to the economic disaster of the Bush-Cheney years. That also explains why corporate interests are heavily funding parts of their organizations so that they can channel this anger at the Obama Administration. A few teabaggers did recoil at the Supreme Court's ruling on corporate giving to political campaigns but not the majority of their spokespeople.

The political answer for these people is a pugnacious nationalism based on the perceived grievances of the white middle-class. If you are not white,Christian and heterosexual, you are the "other" that is bringing the country down. We see this in the arguments of the anti-gay lawyers for Prop 8, arguing from books and studies written in the 1950s, wishing that Ozzie and Harriet were the model parental unit. The scree by Tom Tancredo brings back the anti-immigrant rhetoric found in many populist movements but also the longing to return to an America pre-civil rights.

No sober assessment will come from the conservative circles--they have become a conservative nomenklatura--the conservative foundation welfare queens. These people who control talk radio, Fox News and a myriad of think-tanks in Washington and elsewhere simply can not think questions anew. They are stuck in the Old Think. They still believe after a generation of Reagan that they are the minority pitted against the liberal media and secular culture of America. They fervantly believe despite their six-figure salaries they are the intellectually oppressed, who face ridicule for their beliefs.

This is also a theme being picked up by the Religious Right--somehow their freedom of religion is being jeopardized as their control over certain segments of the society slip away. We have seen that in the health reform debate when Catholics and evangelicals protested over the ability for women to choose. We see this in the whole anti-gay debate that gay marriage would be an imposition on the churches and their religious teaching. And we see this everyday in the attacks on science at the school board levels.

Personally, I resent like hell that the Religious Right dominates the parameters of the whole discussion on religion in this society. I have just come back from a society who has practiced Christianity since 330 and in every diocese of their church is an administrative unit that deals with poverty because they believe that is essential to Christianity. Across the street from the major Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Addis is Lucy, our primitive ancestor, along with other examples of pre-Homo Sapiens. There are no religious protestors here. There are no attacks on evolution or the insistance on creationism in what is still and underdeveloped country. Just a week away from our own neurosis allows one to get a perspective on how far down a wrong path we have gone.

The pattern emerging is the bleeding of radical extremes from white and Christian nationalism into the discourse of conservatives. There is a deliberate and frontal assault on the separation of church and state. There is the age-old recurrence of anti-immigration rhetoric we know from the Know-Nothings. In a situation where we seem to have lost control, there is a desire for law and order as well as social control. Because we Americans really believe we may win the lottery or get rich someday, these people do not want to tax the wealthy, large corporations or the banks because they have been conditioned to believe that they or their children might luck out.

Certainly, there is some reason to believe this. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are college dropouts who make over $50 million each and Sarah Palin has become a millionaire, despite quitting as elected Governor of Alaska and needing four colleges and five years to get a B.A. This has coarsened our debate.

But it has also led to a more dangerous situation--the denigration of education or anyone who is educated. What is fascinating to me is that neoconservatives prided themselves in the beginning on their elitism and their education. Irving Kristol was an accomplished social scientist, who believed that rational analysis would support policy arguments. Instead, now we have corporate funded think-tanks attacking everything from climate change to evolution. During the beginning of the Iraq War, the Pentagon hired a free-lance journalist to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, while all the people with linguistic skills, regional expertise and religious understanding who concluded the opposite were cast aside. It will take a few more years of the Obama Administration before we can unravel the nonsense of the past in our fight against terrorism.

I believe the pattern of the right represents a incipient fascism. But let's say this does not fully mature. If these people return to power, what major power in the world will deal with the United States. The current climate on the right makes George W. Bush look like a moderate. No responsible economic power in the world could deal with a Palin or a Huckabee. The only ally the United States would have is Israel and only as long as the Likud and the far-right parties are in power. No one in their right mind would buy US Treasuries. We would automatically cease to be a major country on the world stage. This would indeed be American exceptionalism but not for the good.

And what about the "common good"--will there exist such a thing. Our own constitutional government is deeply threatened not only from the radical right but by the Supreme Court itself. The discovery by the Right of our Constitution goes back to the Christian Nationalist movement and their belief in full citizens and those after the civil war. Imagine having a woman married to a secessionist (Sarah Plain) extolling the virtues of the 14th amendment? You could not have made that up a few years ago without getting a laugh.

As I have written before, America's economic fate might be grim but it is essential that the idea of America be kept alive because even when we are dead people around the world can take solace and draw strength on the idea of America. Let's not be the instrument to kill the idea.