Conservatives are Hysterical and Think Brave Americas Should be Too

Craving terrorist melodrama - By Glenn Greenwald
Scampering back to Washington -- "hotfooted" or otherwise -- would have been the worst possible thing that Obama could have done. It would have created a climate of frenzy and panic and thus helped to terrorize the country even more -- which, one might want to recall, is the goal, by definition, of Terrorists. The fact that Obama doesn't hysterically run around like some sort of frightened chicken with his head cut off every time Al Qaeda sneezes -- or swagger to the nearest camera to beat his chest and play the role of protective daddy-cowboy -- is one of the things I like best about him. As for Armao's "point" about how Janet Napolitano probably took it easy because the "boss was away" -- and her belief that Terrorists will strike more on holidays if Obama isn't affixed to his chair in the Oval Office, as though he's the Supreme Airport Screener...

Chickenhawks Coulter, Breitbart and Bolling Strut Their National Security Mojo By Calling For Racial Profiling And Showing How Much They Hate Their Fellow Citizens

In a segment titled, “Terror and Politics,” Bolling began by asking the laughable question, “Are some politicizing this attack?” Then he and the rest of the panel spent the next 15 minutes or so doing exactly that. Of course, there was no Democrat to offer another opinion.

Bolling, whose specialty is business, set the tone early by saying, “Can’t we all just get along? Gets people killed, does it not?”

Two-time voter fraud suspect Coulter is hardly a poster child for what I like to think of as American values. And, like everyone else on the panel. She has never served in the military and has no national security credentials. Wearing more eye makeup than ever, she predictably wasted no time blaming the Obama administration for the Christmas attack. She said it’s “not a surprise that we’ve already had in his first year in office three terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.” Coulter acknowledged that there were “a bunch of them” right after 9/11 under Bush, “but then it was pretty quiet on American soil for the next years, certainly when we invaded Iraq. It wasn’t just a talking point to say we want to fight them there rather than here.

News flash for “Boombox” Coulter: We’re still fighting them over there so why are they here? Because we’re not racially profiling? You might think so, based on the rest of the segment.

Andrew “I’m going to blackmail the Obama administration” Breitbart said, “It’s a selective, politically expedient brand of political correctness where only Americans and red state Americans are looked upon, to be looked upon suspiciously.” Breitbart went on to accuse Obama and the “MoveOn.org left” of doing “everything… in terms of trying to keep America not safe from radical Islam and radical jihad.” So what are Breitbart's credentials? He's, basically, a political blogger.

Coulter and Breitbart's problem seems to be a highly sensitive personal phobia. One that has to do with things that make them dive under their beds cowering in fair, like a heightened fair of bugs or heights. Coulter should be grateful that thanks to friends with power she is not serving jail time for voter fraud. Beitbart has recently been found to be complicit in a criminal conspiracy to doctor video tapes to make it seem as though a group called ACORN that works to advocate and help the poor, had committed a crime. Certainly both of them are unqualified chickenhawks who said nothing in 2001 when we had 9-11 a month after Bush recieved a warning Al-Queda might attack.

Oh No Health Care Reform Will Bankrupt the Country

The conservative movement seems to be deathly afraid of everything and everyone. Or maybe they are simply afraid of those urban myths that ricochet inside their Chicken-Little heads. If the sky was actually falling every time conservatives made some shrill claim about existential threats or improving public policy we should all be dead by now, Fox News advances falsehood that health bill will "bankrupt" country

On Fox News' America's Newsroom, anchor Patti Ann Browne allowed Citizens Against Government Waste's David Williams to falsely claim that the Senate health care bill is "going to bankrupt this country in a matter of years." Browne at no point noted that the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] reported that the Senate's health reform bill will reduce federal deficits by $130 billion through 2019.

Its a kind of nationwide joke. Fox and conservatives keep accusing everyone and their mother of being a communist, but its Fox and conservative rumor mongers are the ones that act like the old Soviet Pravda.

Conservatives Freak Out Over Nigerian Terror Suspect

The Odds of Airborne Terror
by Nate Silver

There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.

Again, no editorializing (for now). These are just the numbers.

Fox is calling for profiling of course. Which says more about their bedwetting fears than knowledge about detecting terrorists before they act.

Conservatives are always if nothing else ready to be two faced hypocrites - Republicans Who Opposed The Stimulus Continue To Pan It As A ‘Failure,’ While Also Taking Credit For Its Success

Conservatives Use Botched Airliner Incident to Attack American Workers

DeMint Uses Failed Terrorist Bombing To Attack Unions

Appearing on Fox News Sunday this morning, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) used the recent failed attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up an airliner at the Detroit airport as an opportunity to attack the Obama administration for “appeasement,” as well as to attack unions and collective bargaining.

Asked by host Chris Wallace whether he was concerned that “the Obama administration has not done as good a job as it should have in connecting the dots,” DeMint replied “Chris, I am concerned, because it’s related to another issue that we’re dealing with now in the Senate. The administration is intent on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses’ collective bargaining”:

DEMINT: And this is at a time, as Senator Lieberman said, that we’ve got to use our imaginations, we’ve got to be constantly flexible, we have to out-think the terrorists. And when we formed the airport security system, we realized we could not use collective bargaining because of that need to be flexible. Yet that appears now to be the top priority of the administration. And this whole thing should remind us, Chris, that the soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not gonna appease the terrorists. They’re gonna keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.



Actually, “politics as usual” is what we’ve got with Sen. DeMint’s blatant attempt to exploit a failed terrorist attack to go after two conservative bugaboos, “appeasement” and unions. But neither engagement nor closing Gitmo represent anything like “appeasement.” Obama’s engagement with Iran, while it hasn’t yet produced an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, has done a lot to forge the international unity that will be necessary if and when the administration chooses to go the sanctions route.

On Guantanamo, General David Petraeus, among others, has recognized that closing the detention center is a wise and necessary step in the ideological battle against extremism, one that “sends an important message to the world” regarding “the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.” DeMint’s deriding these measures as “soft talk” shows that he still subscribes to the failed Bush-Cheney policies that Americans rejected in 2008.

It’s unclear what, if anything, “union bosses’ collective bargaining” has to do with the failed airliner attack, other than that DeMint doesn’t like unions, and will use any excuse to attack them.

Demint lied to the American people about Iraq's alleged terrorists connections and WMD that did not exist. Blind ideologues like Demint are the ones that need to start thinking and stop reciting talking points out of the scare America into voting for far Right idiots. Something Republicans exploited in the 2004 conservative nuts playbook.

Modern Conservatism: Orwellian and Lazy Minded

A blast from the recent past: Building Blue-Collar … Burgers? Bush Report: Fast Food Work A Form Of Manufacturing?

Manufacturing jobs making things like airplane engines, cars and farm equipment are disappearing from the American economy.

Or are they? According to a White House report, new manufacturing jobs might be as close as your nearest drive-thru.

The annual Economic Report of the President has already stirred controversy by suggesting the loss of U.S. jobs overseas might be beneficial, and predicting that a whopping 2.6 million jobs will be created in the country this year.

As first reported by The New York Times, the fast food issue is taken up on page 73 of the lengthy report in a special box headlined "What is manufacturing?"

"The definition of a manufactured product," the box reads, "is not straightforward."

"When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?" it asks.

Manufacturing is defined by the Census Bureau as work involving employees who are "engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products."

But, the president's report notes, even the Census Bureau has acknowledged that its definition "can be somewhat blurry," with bakeries, candy stores, custom tailors and tire retreading services considered manufacturing.

"Mixing water and concentrate to produce soft drinks is classified as manufacturing," the president's report reads. "However, if that activity is performed at a snack bar, it is considered a service."

The report does not recommend that burger-flippers be counted alongside factory workers.

Instead, it concludes that the fuzziness of the manufacturing definition is problematic, because policies — like, for example, a tax credit for manufacturers — may miss their target if the definition is overly broad or narrow.

But reclassifying fast food workers as manufacturing employees could have other advantages for the administration.

It would offset somewhat the ongoing loss of manufacturing jobs in national employment statistics. Since the month President Bush was inaugurated, the economy has lost about 2.7 million manufacturing jobs, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That continues a long-term trend.

Bush was a failure at National Security, but conservatives and the media portrayed him as strong and resolute. Bush and conservative Republican policies were great at creating jobs....for Asia anyway. So the conservative powers that be change a definition here and there and bam they've created "manufacturing jobs". Did conservatives learn anything from the last eight years. Yep. They learned to deny all responsibility despite The Great Recession.

All politicians fudge the truth. When they do its not to difficult to look up the facts. Fox Opinion Network, Neil Cavuto and a former genuflecting speech writer for Tricky Dick Nixon could not be bothered with such standards. Its called being lazy. Ben and Neil school yard name callers. Sad to see two aging men act this way. Where are their ethics. Such poor standards are set on a regular basis at conservative's favorite network, Panelist Calls Obama “A Stunning Liar” Who Is “Betraying The Constitution” Without Challenge From Host Neil Cavuto

Ben Stein channeled Glenn Beck. "We have abandoned Constitutional principles,” he said. He called the scare tactics “unconscionable” and added, “They're the biggest lie I think I've ever seen any President tell. The country will not go bankrupt if they don't pass that bill."

Cavuto let that remark go unchallenged. Later, Stein added to it by saying, "We have in this President not only a stunning liar, although he has some very good qualities, I’m saying, other than that, but also a man who is betraying the Constitution.”

Once again, Cavuto did not challenge Stein. He had made a very serious allegation but Cavuto did not even ask for particulars about how Obama is “betraying the Constitution.” Is it just a given on Fox News?

Actually, Cavuto did challenge Stein – for saying Obama “has some very good qualities.” Cavuto joked, "He (Stein) calls (Obama) a stunning liar, but not a bad guy."

"I know many liars who are nice guys," Stein said.

Was Stein thinking of his former boss, Richard Nixon?

Will Ben Stein and Cavuto stand up for their "principles" and demand repeal of supposedly unconstitutional government programs like veterans health care and Medicare.

Republican Noise Machine Financed by Conservative Elite

The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations
Moving a Public Policy Agenda

For more than three decades, conservative strategists have mounted an extraordinary effort to reshape politics and public policy priorities at the national, state and local level. Although this effort has often been described as a "war of ideas," it has involved far more than scholarly debate within the halls of academe.

Indeed, waging the war of ideas has required the development of a vast and interconnected institutional apparatus. Since the 1960s, conservative forces have shaped public consciousness and influenced elite opinion, recruited and trained new leaders, mobilized core constituencies, and applied significant rightward pressure on mainstream institutions, such as Congress, state legislatures, colleges and universities, the federal judiciary and philanthropy itself.

Thirteen years ago, this apparatus was appropriately described by moderate Republican and author John Saloma as the "new conservative labyrinth." At the time he wrote, Saloma was warning that this labyrinth constituted "a major new presence in American politics." If left unchecked, Saloma predicted, it would continue to pull the nation's political center sharply to the right.

His analysis was prescient. Today, the conservative labyrinth is larger, more sophisticated, and increasingly able to influence what gets on - and what stays off - the public policy agenda. From the decision to abandon the federal guarantee of cash assistance to the poor to on-going debates about the federal tax structure to growing discussion of medical savings accounts and the privatization of social security, conservative policy ideas and political rhetoric continue to dominate the nation's political conversation, reflecting what political scientist Walter Dean Burnham has called the "hegemony of market theology."

In a major research report, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) documented the role that conservative foundations have played in developing and sustaining America's conservative labyrinth. It offers an aggregate accounting and detailed analysis of the 1992-1994 grantmaking of 12 core conservative foundations, the results of which confirm what has been reported in more anecdotal terms: that conservative foundations have invested sizable resources to create and sustain an infrastructure of policy, advocacy and training institutions committed to the achievement of conservative policy goals.

In just a three-year period, the 12 foundations awarded $210 million to support a wide array of conservative projects and institutions. It is not simply the volume of money being invested that merits serious attention, but the way in which these investments have helped to build the power and influence of the conservative policy movement. These 12 funders directed a majority of their grants to organizations and programs that pursue an overtly ideological agenda based on industrial and environmental deregulation, the privatization of government services, deep reductions in federal anti-poverty spending and the transfer of authority and responsibility for social welfare from the national government to the charitable sector and state and local government. Unlike many nonprofits which feel the dual pressure to demonstrate their uniqueness to funders and to downplay their ideology and public policy advocacy, conservative grantees are rewarded for their shared political vision and public policy activism. They are heavily supported to market policy ideas, cultivate public leadership, lobby policy makers, and build their constituency base.
Conservative Foundation Grants
A Summary

In a presentation at the Philanthropy Roundtable's 1995 annual conference, Richard Fink, president of the Charles G. Koch and Claude R. Lambe charitable foundations, made good use of market metaphors to outline how foundations can exert the greatest impact on public policy. Adapting laissez-faire economist Friedreich Hayek's model of the production process to social change grant-making, Fink argued that the translation of ideas into action requires the development of intellectual raw materials, their conversion into specific policy products, and the marketing and distribution of these products to citizen-consumers.

Grantmakers, Fink argued, would do well to invest in change along the entire production continuum, funding scholars and university programs where the intellectual framework for social transformation is developed, think tanks where scholarly ideas get translated into specific policy proposals, and implementation groups to bring these proposals into the political marketplace and eventually to consumers.

Over the past two decades, conservative foundations have broadly followed such a model, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a cross-section of institutions dedicated to conservative political and policy change. This [web site] examines 12 of these foundations. They include:

* Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
* Carthage Foundation
* Earhart Foundation
* Charles G.Koch, David H. Koch and Claude R. Lambe charitable foundations
* Phillip M. McKenna Foundation
* J.M. Foundation
* John M. Olin Foundation
* Henry Salvatori Foundation
* Sarah Scaife Foundation
* Smith Richardson Foundation

In 1994 these foundations controlled over $1 billion in assets [Editor's note: By 2000, the philanthropies had given away at least $1 billion since 1985, according to the Media Transparency grants database], awarded $300 million in grants, and targeted $210 million to support conservative policy and institutional reform objectives.

The money was targeted at the following areas:

* Conservative scholarship programs, training the next generation of conservative thinkers and activists and reverse progressive curricula and policy trends on the nation's college and university campuses.
* Build and strengthen a national infrastructure of think tanks and advocacy groups, much to institutions with a major focus on domestic policy issues, and to institutes focused on American national security interests, foreign policy and global affairs.
* Finance alternative media outlets, media watchdog groups,and public television and radio for specific, issue-oriented public affairs or news reporting.
* Assist conservative pro-market law firms and other law-related projects and organizations.
* Support a network of regional and state-based think tanks and advocacy institutions. Work to transform the social views and giving practices of the nation's religious and philanthropic leaders.

While the size of these foundations' grantmaking programs may pale in comparison to some of the nation's largest foundations, these funders have contributed in significant ways to the rightward shift in the nation's political conversation and public policy priorities. Several factors account for their effectiveness:

* 1) First, these foundations bring a clarity of vision and strong political intention to their grantmaking programs. The grants data themselves, as well as public information gathered on the missions and program activities of major grantees, reveal the willingness of these foundations to fund agressive and entrepreneurial organizations committed to advancing the basic tenets of modern American conservatism: uregulated markets and limited government.
* 2) Second, conservative grantmaking has focused on building strong institutionsacross almost every major strategic sector of America. The analysis of grants reveals that these foundations have provided substantial general operating rather than project-specific support to a variety of institutions. Almost half of all non-academic grant dollars to think tanks, advocacy organizations, media outlets, and other groups with a public policy or institutional reform orientation was awarded on an unrestricted basis.
* 3) Third, the foundations have recognized that federal budget priorities and policy decisions exert such significant impact on the issues and concerns at the state, local and neighborhood level that the national policy framework cannot be ignored. They thus invested substantial resources in think tanks and advocacy organizations with a major focus on national policy and the capacity to reach a broad national audience. Also, the foundations concentrated their grant resources, as just 18 percent of the grantees received over 75 percent of grant dollars awarded.
* 4) Fourth, the foundations have invested heavily in institutions and projects geared toward the marketing of conservative policy ideas Through the provision of both general operating and project-specific support, these funders have enabled policy institutions to develop aggressive marketing campaigns, media outreach efforts, and new communications tools with which to build their constituency base, mobilize public opinion and network with other organizations around a common reform agenda.
* 5) Fifth, the foundations have provided considerable support to create and cultivate public intellectuals and policy leaders with strong free market, limited government perspectives. They provided tens of millions of dollars to subsidize students' education and place them as intems in conservative policy institutions, media outlets, advocacy organizations and law firms. They spent millions more to help established conservatives maintain public prominence and visibility through senior fellowships and residencies at prominent think tanks and research institutions.
* 6) Sixth, the foundations targeted grants across the institutional spectrum in recognition that a variety of institutions and reform strategies are required for effective transformation and policy change.
* 7) Finally, many of these foundations have engaged in similar funding efforts for as long as two decades. Their steady and generous support has anchored key conservative institutions financially, giving them a tremendous offensive capacity to influence specific policies and audiences, and also to shape the overall framework in which important fiscal, regulatory and social policy decisions are made.

Never assume the news you hear about any area of public policy is unbiased. Through continuous special interest pressure, corporate centralization of the media itself and a disproportionate bias toward far Right leaning spokespersons on "news" shows, the new always has at the least a slight Right of center slant. The "liberal" media is a myth that serves the Right's agenda and is part of their ongoing efforts to paint themselves as the poor victim of big bad liberals.

Tea Baggers Least Informed. Opinions Based on Urban Rightwing Myths

Faux News has been the single biggest promoter of the rabid tea bagger movement. Which speaks volumes about how well the average tea bagger is. Fox promotes the tea baggers and Fox is the favorite "news" source of the soft-fascist movement known as tea baggers. Tea baggers or Fox Viewers are the least well informed of all news viewers. If someone bases their opinions on biased right-wing opinion and urban myths its impossible for them to make a valauable contribution to any debate about public policy.
Surveys: Fox News viewers misinformed on issues

NBC News poll: Fox News viewers more misinformed on health care. An August 19 blog post from NBC News' Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg wrote that Fox News viewers are more likely to believe health care misinformation that "nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue about the legislation that has emerged so far from Congress." From their blog post:

*** FOX vs. CNN/MSNBC: Here's another way to look at the misinformation: In our poll, 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% of them say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing care for the elderly. But it would be incorrect to suggest that this is ONLY coming from conservative viewers who tune in to FOX. In fact, 41% of CNN/MSNBC viewers believe the misinformation about illegal immigrants, 39% believe the government takeover stuff, 40% believe the abortion misperception, and 30% believe the stuff about pulling the plug on grandma. What's more, a good chunk of folks who get their news from broadcast TV (NBC, ABC, CBS) believe these things, too. This is about credible messengers using the media to get some of this misinformation out there, not as much about the filter itself. These numbers should worry Democratic operatives, as well as the news media that have been covering this story.

University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes: "Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions" about Iraq/WMD. An October 2003 study conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) found Fox News viewers were "significantly more likely to have misperceptions" about the Iraq war than all other media consumers. The study was "based on a series of seven US polls conducted from January through September" 2003 and measured respondents' "key perceptions and beliefs" on "US policy" in Iraq. The study found that "[t]hose who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions." For instance, of the "three key misperceptions" -- which the study listed as "the beliefs that ... links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD [weapons of mass destruction] have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq" -- Fox News watchers were found not only to be the "most likely to hold misperceptions," but "were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions." The PIPA study found that 80 percent of Fox News viewers held at least one of the three misperceptions.

Its also sad the other networks are doing almost as badly as Fox at providing fact checks on daily events. Fox actively spreads disinformation even in segments of their programming billed as "straight news".

The Media Helped Bush Mislead The United States in War

How the Pentagon Spread Its Message

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.

Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.

Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. “No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,” he said.

Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.

“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.

General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus. Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help — “He’s got the heart of a lion” — or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

He had made similar arguments before he was hired by Defense Solutions, but this time he went further. In his testimony to Congress, General McCaffrey criticized a Pentagon plan to supply Iraq with several hundred armored vehicles made in the United States by a competitor of Defense Solutions. He called the plan “not in the right ballpark” and urged Congress to instead equip Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles.

“We’ve got Iraqi army battalions driving around in Toyota trucks,” he said, echoing an argument made to General Petraeus in the Defense Solutions briefing packet.

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey.

General McCaffrey, 66, has long been a force in Washington’s power elite. A consummate networker, he cultivated politicians and journalists of all stripes as drug czar in the Clinton cabinet, and his ties run deep to a new generation of generals, some of whom he taught at West Point or commanded in the Persian Gulf war, when he rose to fame leading the “left hook” assault on Iraqi forces.

But it was 9/11 that thrust General McCaffrey to the forefront of the national security debate. In the years since he has made nearly 1,000 appearances on NBC and its cable sisters, delivering crisp sound bites in a blunt, hyperbolic style. He commands up to $25,000 for speeches, his commentary regularly turns up in The Wall Street Journal, and he has been quoted or cited in thousands of news articles, including dozens in The New York Times.

His influence is such that President Bush and Congressional leaders from both parties have invited him for war consultations. His access is such that, despite a contentious relationship with former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Pentagon has arranged numerous trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and other hotspots solely for his benefit.

Blame Conservative Ideologues Blocking the Will of Working Americans

Conservative Ideologues Block the Will of Working Americans
Unless some legislator pulls off a last-minute double-cross, health care reform will pass the Senate this week. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It's a seriously flawed bill, we'll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it's nonetheless a huge step forward.

It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate - and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole - has become ominously dysfunctional.

After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster - a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule - turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.

Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit. What are the chances that we can do all that - or, I'm tempted to say, any of it - if doing anything requires 60 votes in a deeply polarized Senate?

Some people will say that it has always been this way, and that we've managed so far. But it wasn't always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past - most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn't like, is a recent creation.

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, "extended-debate-related problems" - threatened or actual filibusters - affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

Some conservatives argue that the Senate's rules didn't stop former President George W. Bush from getting things done. But this is misleading, on two levels.

First, Bush-era Democrats weren't nearly as determined to frustrate the majority party, at any cost, as Obama-era Republicans. Certainly, Democrats never did anything like what Republicans did last week: G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department - which was on the verge of running out of money - in an attempt to delay action on health care.

More important, however, Mr. Bush was a buy-now-pay-later president. He pushed through big tax cuts, but never tried to pass spending cuts to make up for the revenue loss. He rushed the nation into war, but never asked Congress to pay for it. He added an expensive drug benefit to Medicare, but left it completely unfunded. Yes, he had legislative victories; but he didn't show that Congress can make hard choices and act responsibly, because he never asked it to.

So now that hard choices must be made, how can we reform the Senate to make such choices possible?

Back in the mid-1990s two senators - Tom Harkin and, believe it or not, Joe Lieberman - introduced a bill to reform Senate procedures. (Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn't endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.) Sixty votes would still be needed to end a filibuster at the beginning of debate, but if that vote failed, another vote could be held a couple of days later requiring only 57 senators, then another, and eventually a simple majority could end debate. Mr. Harkin says that he's considering reintroducing that proposal, and he should.

But if such legislation is itself blocked by a filibuster - which it almost surely would be - reformers should turn to other options. Remember, the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority - not supermajority - rule. So the rule of 60 can be changed. A Congressional Research Service report from 2005, when a Republican majority was threatening to abolish the filibuster so it could push through Bush judicial nominees, suggests several ways this could happen - for example, through a majority vote changing Senate rules on the first day of a new session.

Nobody should meddle lightly with long-established parliamentary procedure. But our current situation is unprecedented: America is caught between severe problems that must be addressed and a minority party determined to block action on every front. Doing nothing is not an option - not unless you want the nation to sit motionless, with an effectively paralyzed government, waiting for financial, environmental and fiscal crises to strike.

There Are Legitimate Gun Rights, Then There are Gun Nuts

A Gun-Nut Win On Health Reform
A fringe group muzzles health insurers on gun ownership

Score one for the Gun Owners of America, a lobby group positioned well to the right of the National Rifle Association. Last month I described how this fringe group zeroed in on a health reform provision encouraging insurers to reward healthy habits and, by implication, to punish unhealthy ones like smoking and obesity. GOA got it into its head that, if health reform were passed, the health and human services secretary would compel insurers to punish gun ownership as an unhealthy lifestyle. Although an adverse health impact (or threat of same) on man or beast is pretty much the whole point of owning a gun, nothing in the bill remotely suggested Congress wanted to wade into these politically treacherous shoals.

Nonetheless, to pacify GOA, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (who represents the gun-loving state of Nevada) has inserted into his "manager's amendment" a section titled "Protecting 2nd Amendment Gun Rights." It states that no wellness program implemented under health reform may require disclosure or collection of any information relating to gun ownership. Since collecting information about gun ownership was the last thing health reformers wanted to do, this concession represents no particular sacrifice on the government's part.

But gun owners also won another provision forbidding private insurers participating in the bill's exchanges from charging higher premiums, or denying coverage, or denying wellness discounts on the basis of gun ownership. Unlike the previous section, this one doesn't place a restriction on what government may do. It places a restriction on what the private sector may choose to do on its own. It inhibits that most holy of right-wing sacred cows: free enteprise.

There's no point pretending this has anything to do with conservative principle. Seven years ago GOA got its knickers in a twist when State Farm and Prudential cancelled a couple of insurance policies because of gun ownership. One policyholder alarmed Prudential because he owned a military-style Mossberg 500 pump-action rifle. The other alarmed State Farm because he had a shooting range on his property. Both of these policies were for property insurance, not health insurance. But apparently GOA is worried that private health insurers may, even in the absence of government pressure, take notice of studies like this one and this one and this one that show gun owners are (duh) more likely to injure or kill themselves or others, and adjust their risk tables accordingly. Now they can't, thanks to GOA's newfound enthusiasm for the heavy hand of government regulation.

How Many Faces Does Conservative Newt Gingrich Have

Gingrich Can’t Make Up His Mind On CO2 Emissions

Newt Gingrich wrote a column in the Washington Examiner yesterday addressing climate policy. In the op-ed, the former House Speaker attacks the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to classify CO2 emissions as a dangerous pollutant:

The Obama administration has been explicit about how its decision to have the Environmental Protection Agency regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant was meant as a threat to Congress.

Gingrich, who is currently heading a coal-industry front group that has been working fervently to oppose climate change reform, has demonstrated an inconsistent stance on carbon emissions. In a 2007 climate change debate with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Gingrich stated that there is a need to reduce carbon “urgently”:

KERRY: What would you say to Senator Inhofe and to others in the Senate who are resisting even the science. What’s your message to them here today?

GINGRICH: My message I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading in the atmosphere.

KERRY: And do it urgently – now?

GINGRICH: And do it urgently, yes.

Watch it: video at link

In 2008, Gingrich called for action on climate change in an ad campaign for the Alliance for Climate Protection. Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future is airing television ads opposing climate reforms that the former Speaker once supported.

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
Evidence for human interference with Earth's climate continues to accumulate

Why Does Glenn Beck Hate the Truth

Beck selectively quoted interview to falsely suggest Sunstein and FDR wanted to "pass" a second Bill of Rights

By selectively quoting an interview during which Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Director Cass Sunstein discussed his support for Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposed "second Bill of Rights," Glenn Beck falsely suggested that Sunstein supported amending the U.S. Constitution to include a right to health care. However, in the interview Beck cited, Sunstein made clear that he shared Roosevelt's view that he "didn't want to change the text of the Constitution."

--Beck questions the need for FDR's "second Bill of Rights," which "neo-progressives have" revived. On the December 17 edition of his Fox News show, Beck aired audio from Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union address -- during which Roosevelt discussed a second Bill of Rights, "so to speak" -- and said: "Why would we need a second Bill of Rights? He just said we need a second Bill of Rights, one that says that there is a right to adequate medical care." Beck continued: "Why would we need that if you could pass just some stuff in the Congress with the original Constitution?" He later compared Roosevelt's second Bill of Rights to "the Soviet Union and China" and stated that "that's why the second Bill of Rights ended up on the scrap heap of history." He further stated, "This new progressive, the neo-progressives have pulled it off that heap. They've dusted it off, shined it up, and put a fresh coat of lipstick on the same old disgusting pig."

Beck contrasted constitutional volatility in several European states with the U.S. "one Constitution" to suggest Sunstein supports altering Constitution. Beck said: "You might think, oh, that second Bill of Rights, that's crazy" and asserted that "the premise is you don't need a second Bill of Rights if you can do" health care reform "constitutionally." Beck then called Sunstein "the most dangerous man in America because no one is paying attention to him," and stated that Sunstein "also wrote a book called The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever." After playing a segment from Sunstein's appearance on the public television program The Open Mind where Sunstein commented that FDR's "second Bill of Rights has turned out to be one of the best American exports," Beck stated that "in more than 200 years since ratification of this document, we have had one Constitution, one government in the United States." He then noted the volatility in some European states, and commented: "Why would we want to covet the European example of chaos, tyranny, and instability?" Beck later said that America achieved prosperity because of the Constitution and "the original Bill of Rights."
But Sunstein said he (and FDR) "didn't want to change the text of the Constitution"

Sunstein: "Roosevelt didn't want to change the text of the Constitution," but to create "a declaration which isn't part of our legally binding text." In the Open Mind interview Beck cited, Sunstein further commented: "Roosevelt didn't want to change the text of the Constitution. So he didn't want to add the right to a good education or the right to a home or the right to Social Security in the text of the Constitution." Sunstein added: "What Roosevelt wanted to do was not to put the Second Bill in the Constitution, but to follow the model of his hero Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for the Declaration of Independence, a declaration which isn't part of our legally binding text, but which helps animate our self understanding of the Declaration of Independence." [The Open Mind, 9/8/04]

Saving the Environment Means Saving Humanity. Conservatives Hate the Enviroment.

Six Reasons Why Earth Won't Cope for Long

The world faces a dangerous convergence of environmental and resource crises, not all directly climate related. All, however, are increasingly difficult to resolve in a rapidly warming world. Taken together, they are not amenable to a business-as-usual political response. Here, in no particular order, are six:

1. Biodiversity: “The world is currently undergoing a very rapid loss of biodiversity comparable with the great mass extinction events that have previously occurred only five or six times in the Earth’s history,” says the World Wildlife Fund. It has tracked an astonishing 30 per cent decline in the Earth’s biodiversity between 1970-2003. Hunting, habitat destruction, deforestation, pollution and the spread of agriculture are leading to as many as 1,000 entire species going extinct every week – that’s a species every 10 minutes. The economic cost of destroying biodiversity is also immense. A 2008 EU study estimated the cost of forest loss alone is running at $2-$5 trillion (€1.3-€3.4 trillion) annually.

2. Ocean acidification: The evidence of the effects of increased CO2 levels on the world’s oceans is unequivocal. Surface ocean acidity has increased by 30 per cent since 1800, with half this increase occurring in just the last three decades. The rate of change in oceanic pH levels is around 100 times faster than any observed natural rate. Increasing acidity is impeding the ability of plankton called foraminifera to produce shells. These creatures form the base of the entire marine food system. The world’s vital reef systems are also in peril from acidification.

3. Population pressure: Broadcaster Sir David Attenborough has witnessed how the natural world is being crushed by humanity. “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder – and ultimately impossible – with more,” he says. The Earth must provide for around 80 million more people than this time last year. It took us almost 10,000 years to reach a billion people. We now add that many every 12 years.

4. Peak oil: This month, the International Energy Agency formally predicted global peak oil by 2020. Today, the world burns the equivalent of 82 million barrels of oil every day. Projected growth in energy demand will see this rise to almost 100 million barrels within a decade, but by then, output from the oilfields currently in production will have plummeted to barely a third of that. A massive energy gap is looming, and with discoveries having peaked in the mid-1960s, we are approaching the bottom of the cheap oil barrel. Non-conventional oil, renewables and nuclear will be nowhere near capable of bridging this energy gap in time. The oil shocks of the coming decade will be intense.

5. Peak food: the global food system is predicated on lashings of cheap oil, fresh water, soil and natural gas. All four are in decline. The food riots of 2008 were an early warning of a global system in crisis. In the US, it is estimated every calorie of food energy requires 10 calories of fossil fuel energy. More food production is now being channelled into fattening animals. Meat is a tasty but entirely inefficient way to use finite food resources. Meanwhile, the UN predicts the collapse of all global commercial marine fisheries by 2048, depriving up to two billion people of food.

6. Peak water: During the 20th century, human water usage increased nine-fold, with irrigation (for agriculture) alone using two-thirds of this total. With almost all major glaciers retreating, many river systems are at risk. Groundwater in aquifers is another key fresh water source. Over-extraction, mostly for agriculture, has caused their levels worldwide to plummet. Pollution, especially from fertiliser overuse, adds to the loss of fresh water. The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday reported only 17 per cent of Ireland’s rivers are of “high ecological status”.

Conservatives Refuse to Take Responsibility for Economic Crisis

As parents know the cornerstone of values is taking responsibility for one's actions. To deny responsibility for one's wrong doing makes the claim to have values hollow and meaningless, The tea partiers

All of this said, there is still a contingent of tea partiers who are doing their part to ensure the movement is not taken seriously. Before the rally, a group of singers was belting out a health care themed rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas." The last verse went:

"On the 10th day of Christmas, Obama gave to me:/ High unemployment,/ No end to earmarks,/ Mandating health care,/ Czars with power,/ Bankruptcy looming,/ No Transpaaaaareeeencyyyy,/ Fed printing dollars,/ Big bailouts,/ Welfare for all,/ And the loss of liberty."

"This is gonna be on Glenn Beck!" the organizer, Steve Haimbaugh, promised. The usual silly posters were there, too, including one that labeled the Democratic plan "Gulag Care." And FreedomWorks founder Dick Armey did little to diminish the movement's reputation by referring to cable-TV host Rachel "Maddox."

The movement must also contend with a lack of focus. Tea partiers are generally for small government, against taxes, and pro-"freedom." But they have nothing resembling a platform, and their popular image has been more about opposing Obama than advocating realistic alternatives.

They must be drinking something besides tea if they're a grass roots movement, Spontaneous Uprising? Corporate Lobbyists Helping To Orchestrate Radical Anti-Obama Tea Party Protests

Most of these people were Bush supporters and certainly voted the conservative ticket in the last six elections. The economy sucks, the environment in peril, health care costs are sky rocketing - have the tea partiers been in a coma for eight years or are they in a deep state of denial about being enablers of the policies that got us where we are,

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Conservatives continue to lack real values and an appreciation of the historical role of progressive policy that created a middle-class in the U.S. They really should call themselves the Morally Repugnant Party that is running on a platform of ignorance and bizarre urban myths.

Conservatives Go Too Far In Attacks on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings

Unraveling the Right's false attacks on Kevin Jennings

Media Matters for America examines and debunks the wide array of falsehoods and distortions the right-wing media have used in their attempts to smear and discredit Department of Education official Kevin Jennings and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which Jennings founded and previously served as executive director.

....3) SMEAR: Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student

4) SMEAR: Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"

5) SMEAR: Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA

6) SMEAR: Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service

7) SMEAR: Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"

8) SMEAR: Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"

9) SMEAR: Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"

10) SMEAR: Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance

11) SMEAR: High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference

12) SMEAR: GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children

13) SMEAR: GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago

If conservatives - a synonym for unhinged - were a baseball team they'd be 0 for seventeen attempts at bat. They cannot seem to get a single fact straight. Though let's not be nieve, it is not as though the attacks on Jennings are born of honor and values. Theses attacks are pure deranged hatred.

Conservatives Trample Over Essential Truths

Fair and Balanced (and Phony) Science

Consider the career of Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the leading skeptic and former chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who has vowed to travel to the Copenhagen Climate Conference as a one-man “truth squad.” Back when he still chaired that Senate panel, Inhofe sent out a press release with the following bold headline in huge typeface: “Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007.” Described as a U.S. Senate report, this release claimed to debunk the scientific consensus on climate change.

When examined more closely, however, the Inhofe report was exposed as an amateurish fraud. Those 400 prominent scientists included more than 80 who had received funding either directly or indirectly from the oil and coal industries and more than 90 who had no scientific expertise in climate science, along with 49 retired scientists and 44 television weathermen.

The Oklahoma senator’s attempt to obscure the verdict of actual scientists reflected the advice of Frank Luntz, the GOP public relations adviser and pollster who authored a notorious 2002 memo telling Republicans that they could “win” the global warming debate only by doing exactly that.

Conservatives consistently displays their deep ignorance by claiming climate, and day to day weather are the same thing. In addition to getting the story patently wrong about the e-mails from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Glenn Beck Compares Himself To Galileo, Gets Galileo’s Significance Wrong. This is also strange since some fundamentalists still believe the earth is the center of the universe - because that is what the Bible claims..

The conservative conspiracy site that Human Events that frequently bemoans the lack of values in the U.S. shows their hatred for American values, Human Events Posts Racist Version Of 'Feliz Navidad' Called 'The Illegal Alien Christmas Song

Conservatives Embrace Soft-fascism

Its is not outright Nazism since they do not have the legal grounds or moral standing to carry out their plan, but some conservatives continue to flirt with soft-fascism - BREAKING: Glenn Beck's climate czar called for quarantining AIDS patients "for life"

Media Matters Action Network, our partner organization, has unearthed a 1987 American Spectator article (available here) in which Lord Christopher Monckton -- one of the right's favorite global warming deniers -- advocates requiring the entire population to undergo monthly HIV tests and forcibly quarantining "for life" those who test positive.

Beck and Monckton need to do a few things - read some history, develop some genuine values and respect the right's of Americans and humanity in general.

W we made it mandatory for conservatives to meet some minimum intellectual standard before they could hold office, idiots like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) could not be elected to office. America and Oklahoma deserve better, Fox’s ‘Fair And Balanced’ Debate: ‘Does Climate Change Exist?’

The debate pitted prominent global warming denier, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), against the author of climate change legislation in the House, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). When Wallace pressed Inhofe to confront the fact that the last decade has been the hottest in recorded history, Inhofe — true to form — denied the reality..

New Cost Estimate on Senate Health Reform Bill

New Cost Estimate on Senate Health Reform Bill

Over time, the cumulative effect of these changes will grow, so that the gap between what we'd spend on health care without reform and what we'd spend with it will shrink. In 2019, the last year of the projection, the difference--that is, the amount of extra money our society devotes to health care--is a measly $23 billion out of more than $4.5 trillion total.

That's 0.5 percent--not five percent, but zero-point-five percent. If that were the price of expanding insurance to around 40 million people, it'd be an absolute bargain.

But the actual price may be even lower, at least as time goes forward.

Its the Holiday Season for Some. For Republicans its Time to be Anti-American

Merry Hyatt, Tea Party Patriot, Wants Mandatory Christmas Carols In Public Schools

The Tea Party movement is supposed to be all about keeping the government out of your business. But if some California members get their way, the state will force public schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols.

It's called the "Freedom to Present Christmas Music in Public School Classrooms or Assemblies" initiative.

Merry Hyatt, a substitute teacher and member of the Redding Tea Party Patriots, is behind the push. The Record Searchlight reports:

The initiative would require schools to provide children the opportunity to listen to or perform Christmas carols, and would subject the schools to litigation if the rule isn't followed.

The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom to worship as one chooses, not the right to shove your religion down someone's throat. Its funny how much fundamentalist conservatives have in common with radical Muslims.

Big news, Sarah Palin told another lie, In Attempting To Justify Her Denier Op-Ed, Palin Lies About Her Past Climate Change Views. The concept of integrity is apparently lost on Mrs. Palin.

Contradictory Republicans Still Flummoxed By Medicare

If it weren't for the fact that the Washington media establishment is gamed in favor of Republicans, it's very likely that they would have long since been relegated to nothing more than a LaRouche-style crackpot cult, handing out mimeographed pamphlets outside the post office.

How else, other than via the self-conscious deference afforded it by the press, do the Republicans get away with issuing the following two press releases within a single 24 hour span:

Sunday: "Cutting Medicare is not what Americans want."

Monday: "Expanding Medicare a plan for financial ruin."

In case you're wondering, these statements didn't come from one of the many far out wingnuts like Steve King, Michele Bachmann or Virginia Foxx (Medicare recipient). They were, in fact, dispatched from Senate Minority Leader (And Real-Life Albino Sleestak) Mitch McConnell's office. Yes, the highest ranking Republican in Congress wrote-up both headlines, ostensibly proof-read and unapologetically shoved into the public record.

Two press releases that exactly contradict each other.

Mitch has been a Senator from Kentucky for over twenty years. He is walking proof that America's problems are not a mystery. People keep reelecting anti-American twits like Mitch year after year.

O'Keefe, Giles, BigGovernment.com and Andrew Breitbart all partners in fraud. ACORN videos were clearly edited.

O'Keefe, Giles, BigGovernment.com and Andrew Breitbart all partners in fraud. ACORN videos were clearly edited.

We should have known it. The videos that made ACORN into a household word and nearly destroyed one of the most effective community advocacy organizations in the country turn out to be largely faked. I had anticipated that the internal investigation of ACORN would find no wrong doing by ACORN. Not anticipated was the extent to which the videos had been doctored to make the ACORN employees look like criminal conspirators. A reading of the available transcripts of the videotape taken by the right wing crusaders reveals that the tapes that were released were heavily edited and did not tell the true story.

There were a number of small lies, but the biggest one was the pretext for the discussions with the ACORN employees.

Maybe the Entire Conservative Movement Needs Therapy

Conservatives were recently working up a ttremendous amount of fake and plainly hypocritical outrage over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stating the plain fact that Conservatives have been the anti-progress party for decades and that ....wait for it, with Republicans claiming they were not the party of racism, Rush Limbaugh: 'The Black Frame Of Mind' Is 'Terrible' And 'Tiger Woods's Choice Of Females Is Not Helping'

On Tuesday's "Rush Limbaugh Show", the radio talk-show host weighed in on the "the black frame of mind," which he said is "terrible."

Limbaugh argues that a contributing factor to this bad state of affairs is Tiger Woods's choice of white mistresses.

"Black unemployment is terrible," started Limbaugh. "The black frame of mind is terrible. They're depressed..." After a brief dig at President Obama for failing African Americans, Limbaugh paused and turned his attention to Woods:

"I'm sure Tiger Woods' choice of females is not helping 'em out with their attitudes there either."

Its hard to tell whether the draft dodger and drug addict Limbaugh was back on drugs or just plain drunk when he babbles that incoherent nonsense. So much for making millions of dollars doing actual work. Get a job in radio and jabber away with the strangest incoherent nonsense. Conservatives do set a fine example of all-American values. take for example Rod Jetton, Former House Speaker Charged With Felony Assault After Sexual Encounter

The former speaker of the Missouri House has been charged with a felony after what looks like a bout of sado-masochistic sex that went way too far.

Details are still unconfirmed, we should note. But a woman appears to have suggested to police that Rod Jetton, a Republican who now works as a political consultant, may have slipped something into her drink, then beat her up during sex, after she failed to use the safe word they had agreed upon as a signal to calm things down.

Who knows if Limbaugh and Jetton are friends, but they do appear to be soul-mates of sorts.

Congressional Conservatives Acting Like Soviet Politburo

Congressional Conservatives Acting Like Soviet Politburo

In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:

GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yesterday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) delivered an address on unprecedented minority obstruction of reform. ThinkProgress spoke to him afterwards, and the Majority Leader confirmed that even the House parliamentarian had criticized Republicans for this very tactic. Hoyer admonished what he called “such a transparent effort at solely delay”:

HOYER: Well we’ve seen a couple of instances of that. Not so much forgetting their cards, but not using their cards and voting by the cards that are available at the desk. You have to write in and stand in a long line. And very frankly, the parliamentarian himself criticized that as delaying tactics which are not countenance by the rules. Obviously, every member has the right to vote. I thought they were unfortunate because it was such a transparent effort at solely delay as supposed to giving opportunity, fair opportunity to voting to every member.


*In a democracy the people's representatives should be allowed to vote with out dealing with the childish tactics of a party that has lost two election cycles in a row. Conservatives do not think elections - the people's opinions expressed at the ballot box - have consequences and have made it clear that have no desire to work for the common good of the American people.

Conservative Obstructionist Have No Idea How to Create Jobs

Conservative Obstructionist Have No Idea How to Create Jobs

Today, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) appeared at the Economist’s World in 2010 conference (attended by ThinkProgress), where he took exception to NBC’s David Gregory characterizing Republicans as “not really a party of ideas, because they don’t want to be.” Cantor claimed that it’s actually the media’s fault that no one hears about Republican ideas, because “it’s not as sexy of a story to cover our ideas right now.” But when the Economist’s Daniel Franklin gave Cantor an opportunity to present his big idea for job creation, Cantor couldn’t come through:

FRANKLIN: What is the big idea? “Jobs” is not an idea.

CANTOR: The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again. And see, that’s where the Obama administration’s agenda so clearly disadvantages the Democrats in this upcoming election in eleven months and advantages us.

Watch it: video at link

If Cantor’s goal is “to produce an environment where we can have job creation again,” shouldn’t he have supported the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e the economic stimulus), which has boosted GDP growth and lending to small businesses, while cutting taxes for workers, thereby boosting demand? And shouldn’t he be supporting further efforts in Congress to craft a jobs bill that emphasizes infrastructure spending and lending to small businesses?