Glenn Beck and His Fans Are Rational Wonderful People

Glenn Beck and His Fans Are Rational Wonderful People

If you wondered how long it would take Glenn Beck to make his simulation of President Obama pouring gasoline on a person look comparatively tame, the answer is about 13 months.

Welcome to the meltdown. It isn't pretty.

Apparently feeling pressure from an investigation by Rep. Anthony Weiner into his promotion of Goldline and ongoing scrutiny from Media Matters and others, Beck uncorked an impressively paranoid conspiracy theory this week. According to Beck, the SEIU, AFL-CIO, Van Jones, Jim Wallis, the White House, Rep. Weiner and Media Matters are engaged in "Alinskyite" plots that seek to "destroy" him, his family, Fox News, Christianity, and the Founding Fathers.

Though all facets of this conspiracy theory are equally absurd, it's worth noting that Beck's call to "leave the families alone" rings especially hollow when viewed in light of the fact that earlier in the same radio show he suggested that Sasha and Malia Obama think "Jews are destroying the world" because they were exposed to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Later in the week, he mocked 11-year-old Malia for several minutes on his radio show by impersonating her voice and saying things like "Daddy, why do you hate black people?" He proceeded to attack "the level" of Obama's daughters' "education." Despicable -- and entirely in character. While Beck subsequently apologized for his comments mocking Malia Obama, he has yet to address the balance of his attacks against the first family.

Earlier this week, while lauding his supposed Nostradamus-like ability to predict future atrocities, Beck suggested that his detractors merely rely on labeling him crazy, rather than factually debunking his paranoid ranting. Trying to "factually" debunk ideas like a widespread progressive effort to destroy Beck's family and the Founding Fathers is akin to trying to debunk the conspiracy theory that the world is actually controlled by shape-shifting lizard people: It is self-refuting ridiculousness.

And while the idea that nobody can refute Beck on factual issues is a good line for his viewers, it simply isn't true. Here are several examples just from this week.

Yet, Beck's factual inaccuracies pale in comparison to his recent use of violent rhetoric. Starting with his speeches at Liberty University and the National Rifle Association two weeks ago, Beck's fearmongering about impending violence from progressives has reached a fever pitch.

During a tear-soaked, unhinged commencement speech at Liberty, Beck told graduates that they "have a responsibility" to speak out, or "blood ... will be on our hands." His advice for graduates (as well as his daughter) included "shoot to kill." He also claimed that God installed an "alarm bell" in people that is telling them that "your rights are being taken." If you were wondering which rights these might be, he cleared up any confusion later that night during his speech at the NRA, when Beck agreed with Mao Zedong that "power comes from the barrel of a gun," and then asked the audience, "Why do you think they want to take yours away?"

Since then -- keep in mind we're just talking about the last two weeks here -- Beck:

    * informed listeners that "what's coming is horrific. I don't even want to speak it out loud."

    * continued his bizarre obsession with administration official Cass Sunstein, who Beck suggested has "frightening similarities" to Joseph Goebbels and who "controls everything" and "will control your every move."

    * talked about how the "world is on edge" and told his viewers that "those who survive" will "stand in the truth" and "listen."

    * discussed the ongoing controversy over Arizona's immigration law, telling his listeners that "we are being pushed" toward civil war and that Obama is "trying to destroy the country."

    * told his listeners that "you have to be prepared to take rocks to the head. You have to be prepared to lose everything."

    * responded to criticism from Media Matters and said, "You will have to shoot me in the head. We are not stopping."

    * and attacked Jewish Funds for Justice's Simon Greer for putting "the common good" first, which Beck claimed "leads to death camps," adding, "a Jew, of all people, should know this."

While he previously relied on vague hints about what progressives were going to do to people by running "documentaries" supposedly linking Hilter, Stalin, and Mao to progressivism, Beck has now discarded the relative subtlety. On Thursday, Beck continued his recent fearmongering about the "soft revolution" that is supposedly taking place in America (purportedly designed to silence voices like Beck's), and claimed that if the administration "can't get everyone to silence, that's when the arrests come, or that's when they start a hard revolution. That's when they start just shooting people."

Rational arguments are composed of a series of rational statements and facts. Each one building on the other. Beck and his comrades simply make a series of claims unsupported by facts. That tells us something about the veracity of Beck's histrionics and about the character of the person who says them and the people that believe them.

Watch: LAPD caught kicking cyclist at anti-BP protest

The Los Angeles Police Department has launched an internal investigation after one of its officers was caught on camera apparently kicking a cyclist during a protest against oil giant BP on Friday.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the incident took place on Hollywood Boulevard during a "Critical Mass" cycling event. Critical Masses -- which involve cyclists riding through the streets to call for cyclists' rights -- typically take place on the last Friday of every month. This particular event targeted BP for its role in the Gulf oil spill.

Video of the incident, which was posted to YouTube, shows what appears to be a police officer stepping out and kicking at a passing bicycle.

"Whoa, what the f*** was that for?" the unidentified cameraman can be heard saying. Moments later, the video shows two officers converge on the cameraman and take him down to the ground.

"Get up," one officer can be heard saying, as another says "Stay down."


"What did I do?" the cameraman can be heard saying.

Conservatives and Even Some Liberals Are Getting Silly Over Gulf Spill Response

Peggy Noonan says his presidency is doomed. Even Democrats want him to be more "emotional." This is getting silly

From cable television, 24/7, we're told that even if there's nothing more Obama and his administration could do to stop the leak and contain the damage, he's at fault because he's just not feeling our pain. On MSNBC Friday morning I watched former Rep. David Bonior, last seen peddling John Edwards to Democrats, complain about Obama's cool. "He's got to get emotional," the Democrat (who was there to balance the anti-Obama ranting of Pat Buchanan) insisted.

So Obama traveled to the Gulf today, to examine damaged beaches and wetlands, reassure the region, and emote a little. "I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone," the president told Gulf residents. "You will not be abandoned. You will not be left behind."

Will that be enough to stop the carping? Probably not. We're a silly people sometimes. Let me amend that: Our Beltway opinion makers, the folks the great Digby named "the Villagers," are a silly people. They want our president to be our daddy. They need Daddy to emote, to be a SNAP — a sensitive new age president. But also an angry, avenging daddy. (Maybe that's why Obama referenced his daughter Malia's worries about the Gulf, kind of weirdly in my opinion, in his Thursday press conference.)

 
The criticism from the right isn't surprising, and it isn't particularly hard to refute. The loopy Peggy Noonan wrote one of her loopiest columns of all time today, predicting that the oil spill will mark the end of Obama's presidency. But she loses her train of thought almost immediately. Americans aren't angriest about the oil spill, but about government spending and the government "gushing dollars," a tone-deaf metaphor while the Deepwater Horizon is still gushing oil. Noonan never really tells us exactly how the spill dooms Obama's presidency; she's hoping we'll be too caught up in her gauzy, fact-free prose to ask.

Predictably, Karl Rove says the crisis is "Obama's Katrina." It isn't. Sarah Palin, the Quitta from Wasilla, charged that Obama's handling of the spill reflects the "culture of buck-passing at the heart of this administration." The woman who only served half her term as Alaska governor is lecturing the president about responsibility. Hilarious.

The complaints from the left are a little harder to refute, but even there I see a frenzy to lay blame I don't entirely understand. Obama compromised his ability to stay untainted by the oil spill when he flip-flopped and endorsed opening up new areas to offshore oil drilling. Now he's not merely cleaning up the mess of the oil-friendly Bush-Cheney administration, but a mess that's a byproduct of drilling policies he supports.

The same far Right loopy pundit Peggy Noonan, like your average right-wing pundit is entitled to their opinion - no matter how stupid, but not their own facts - Noonan falsely claims EPA chief "went to a New York fund-raiser" during oil spill 

In her Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan falsely claimed that EPA administrator Lisa Jackson "went to a New York fund-raiser in the middle of the [Gulf oil spill] disaster." In fact, Jackson canceled her appearance at the fundraiser, which she had reportedly scheduled weeks before the oil spill.

 How about a flashback to what real incompetence looks like in handling disasters - White House Issues Defense Of Bush's Handling of Storm

Three days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans, President Bush appeared on television and said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." His staff has spent the past six months trying to take back, modify or explain away those 10 words.

....The video leaves little doubt that key people in government did anticipate that the levees might not hold. To critics, especially Democrats but even some Republicans, it reinforces the conclusion that the government at its highest levels failed to respond aggressively enough to the danger bearing down on New Orleans.

Why is Rethuglican Andrew Breitbart a Lying Spineless Coward

Why is Rethuglican Breitbart a Lying Spineless Coward

C'mon Andrew you can do it. Courage. Courage.

In the wake of James O'Keefe's New Orleans guilty plea, Breitbart's site is pulling down out of storage one of its old talking points and pretending it's a very big deal that when the O'Keefe story first broke in January some news outlets got a key fact wrong: O'Keefe was never charged with trying to wiretap, or bug, Sen. Mary Landrieu's phone.

Apparently that's the beset Team Breitbart can do following O'Keefe's embarrassing guilty plea and confronting the fact that the judge overseeing the case condemned O'Keefe's undercover actions as "unconscionable," "nefarious," and "potentially dangerous."

But here's the evergreen problem with the correction tact: lots of right-wing sites got the exact same fact wrong about O'Keefe and the alleged wiretapping and bugging charges [emphasis added]:  

-"Filmmaker who targeted ACORN arrested for trying to bug La. senator's office" (NY Post)

-"Feds Cuff ACORN 'Pimp' in Attempt to Bug Sen. Landrieu's Phones"  (NRO's The Corner)

-"James O'Keefe Arrested for Attempting to Bug Senator Mary Landrieu's Offices?" (Ace of Spades)

-"ACORN Sting Man James O'Keefe Arrested for Allegedly Trying to Bug Mary Landrieu's Office." (The Lonely Conservative)

-"James O'Keefe arrested for attempting to bug Mary Landrieu's office" (Another Black Conservative)  

Oh my, were they on the get-O'Keefe conspiracy, too?

So yeah, last winter you could detect the screaming hypocrisy of Breitbart whining about the press coverage over a single fact, yet while at the same time he remained stoically silent when right-wing sites made the exact same factual error.

But as I mentioned, the whole charade has been pulled out of the moth balls in the wake of the O'Keefe guilty plea and Breitbart's now calling for more O'Keefe-related corrections. But you know what would make those requests seem even slightly legitimate? If Breitbart would finally, after months of cowardly behavior, buck up and demand that the New York Post formally correct its egregious O'Keefe reporting when the newspaper recklessly claimed the activist tried to "bug" the senator's office.

Until Breitbart gets up the nerve to call out Rupert Murdoch, we'll continue to see this correction petition for what it is, more empty, right-wing posturing.

Andrew does have a huge issue with the facts - they must be bent or ignored when they do not support the extremist anti-American agenda of the rabid Republican Right.



Sean Hannity And Fox News Give Credibility To Conspiracy Theory Accusing The Left Of Working With Muslims To Instate Sharia Law And Sabotage America. Legend has it that Hannity tried to do a show once that was free of lies and wacko conspiracy theories. It was 10 minutes of silence.

Why BP is the Anti-Katrina

Yuval Levin today:

    I think it’s actually right to say that the BP oil spill is something like Obama’s Katrina, but not in the sense in which most critics seem to mean it.

    It’s like Katrina in that many people's attitudes regarding the response to it reveal completely unreasonable expectations of government. The fact is, accidents (not to mention storms) happen. We can work to prepare for them, we can have various preventive rules and measures in place. We can build the capacity for response and recovery in advance. But these things happen, and sometimes they happen on a scale that is just too great to be easily addressed. It is totally unreasonable to expect the government to be able to easily address them — and the kind of government that would be capable of that is not the kind of government that we should want.

This conflates two very different things. Katrina was an example of the type of disaster that the federal government is specifically tasked with handling. And for most of the 90s, it was very good at handling them. But when George Bush became president and Joe Allbaugh became director of FEMA, everything changed. Allbaugh neither knew nor cared about disaster preparedness. For ideological reasons, FEMA was downsized and much of its work outsourced.

Think of all the emergencies that happened on Bush and a Republican Congress's watch - from 9-11 to Katrina - to the collapse of the financial sector and massive unemployment. These are the same people that nw have the nerve to invent crap about how negligence by an oil company is the fault of Democrats. Republicans, sleazy as ever.

Sistak and Obama Talks Not an Impeachable Offense

Morris fabricates "impeachable offense" out of alleged Sestak job offer

Fox News' Dick Morris' baselessly claimed that an alleged job offer by the Obama administration to Rep. Joe Sestak would constitute an "impeachable offense." However, the Reagan administration reportedly made a similar offer to a candidate, and legal experts have rejected the claims that such offers are illegal.
Morris baselessly claims alleged job offer was "clearly a violation of law"

Reagan adviser reportedly offered CA senator a job with the administration "if he decided not to seek re-election." A November 25, 1981, Associated Press article (from the Nexis database) reported that President Reagan's political adviser Ed Rollins planned to offer former California Sen. S.I. Hayakawa a job in the administration in exchange for not seeking re-election.

From the AP article:

Sen. S.I. Hayakawa on Wednesday spurned a Reagan administration suggestion that if he drops out of the crowded Republican Senate primary race in California, President Reagan would find him a job.

"I'm not interested," said the 75-year-old Hayakawa.

"I do not want to be an ambassador, and I do not want an administration post."

[...]

In an interview earlier this week, Ed Rollins, who will become the president's chief political adviser in January, said Hayakawa would be offered an administration post if he decided not to seek re-election. No offer has been made directly to Hayakawa, Rollins said.

Similarly, Hayakawa said in a statement, "I have not contacted the White House in regard to any administration or ambassadorial post, and they have not been in contact with me."

AP: "Ethics attorneys in Washington said such offers are common." A February 19 Associated Press article reported: "Ethics attorneys in Washington said such offers are common. Melanie Sloan, director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, described it as 'politics as usual.' "

Wash. Post: "This would hardly be the first administration" to offer a job to "clear the field." A May 25 Washington Post editorial critical of the Obama administration's response stated: "At the same time, of course, political considerations play a role in political appointments. This would hardly be the first administration to use appointments to try to clear the field for a favored candidate."
Legal experts dispute claims that a crime was committed

Bush ethics lawyer calls claim that a job offer is a bribe "difficult to support." In a post on the Legal Ethics Forum blog, former Bush administration chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter wrote: "The allegation that the job offer was somehow a 'bribe' in return for Sestak not running in the primary is difficult to support." Painter also wrote:

The job offer may have been a way of getting Sestak out of Specter's way, but this also is nothing new. Many candidates for top Administration appointments are politically active in the President's political party. Many are candidates or are considering candidacy in primaries. White House political operatives don't like contentious fights in their own party primaries and sometimes suggest jobs in the Administration for persons who otherwise would be contenders. For the White House, this is usually a "win-win" situation, giving the Administration politically savvy appointees in the Executive Branch and fewer contentious primaries for the Legislative Branch. This may not be best for voters who have less choice as a result, and Sestak thus should be commended for saying "no". The job offer, however, is hardly a "bribe" when it is one of two alternatives that are mutually exclusive.

Painter: "[D]ifficult to envision applying" bribery statute to Sestak job offer. In a subsequent blog post replying to a call by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate possible criminal charges, Painter wrote: "The Administration probably should provide the information needed to clarify what happened, but the bribery statute citied by Congressman Issa is, for reasons explained in my previous post, difficult to envision applying to this situation."

The way this kind of faux outrage/manufactured scandal works is a few wing-nuts work themselves into a foaming at the mouth fit. The media decides there must be something there so they join in the witch hunt. Someone is eventually made to resign - a ritual sacrifice for the right-wing lynch mob. Later it turns out - Remember Bill Clinton and Whitewater - that no one in the White House did anything wrong, but the damage has already been done and those like Senate Republicans, Fox and Dick Morris sure are not going to admit they were wrong and apologize. If the media is so liberal how come they always seem to be helping the conservative wing-nuts carry out their character assassinations.

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) once threatened to have Texas secede from the U.S. because of the stimulus ( Recovery Act) - Stimulus-Critic Rick Perry Only Able To Balance His State’s Budget Because Of Stimulus

Texas faces an $18 billion shortfall in its next two-year budget, which amounts to 20 percent of the total. And Perry’s refusal to consider tax increases is setting the state up for draconian cuts. “There is no way that they will be able to come up with $18 billion in cuts,” said Eva DeLuna Castro, a senior budget analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities. “They would have to shut down our prison system.”

Perry is not the only governor to rail against the stimulus while relying on it to balance his budget. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) called the stimulus “incoherent” and “largely wasted,” but still used it to fix one-third of his state’s budget hole.

According to the latest report from the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus not only helped states stave off budget cuts, but also raised GDP by between 1.7 and 4 percentage points, lowered the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points, and created up to 2.8 million jobs. This is 250,000 to 500,000 more jobs than projected. CBO estimates that the stimulus will be responsible for up to 3.7 million jobs by September.

Like many in the radical anti-American conservative movement, Perry has multiple faces.

Republican Thinks Fox is Smoking Some Wacky Weed

GOP Rep. Slams Fox News: ‘I Don’t Know What They’re Doing At Fox News, But They Should Stop Smoking It’

This morning, Fox and Friends characterized Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act as a “$165 billion bailout” of union pensions. “It has been decades since you’ve seen an administration so prone to the influence of unions as this one is. I’m not going to say this is owned by the unions, but their influence on this administration is simply enormous,” Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney claimed of the legislation, which is actually designed to partition “specific types of union pensions that are deemed to be insolvent.” Later in the day, the network went after House Republicans for co-sponsoring similar legislation in the House. On America Live with Megyn Kelly, the network showed a chart of the nine Republicans supporting the measure and questioned their sanity.

This didn’t go over well with Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), a co-sponsor of the House measure, who took to the floor this afternoon to criticize Fox for its coverage. “I think as a Republican, I’m supposed to love Fox News and hate MSNBC,” he began. “Now, I’m going to tell you, I do hate MSNBC, but something just happened on Fox News that compelled me to come to the floor”:

LATOURETTE: They’ve run this diagram and it really is a, I think, blaspheming my good friend Pat Tiberi from Ohio and indicating that there are nine Republicans supporting a bill that will bail out unions. Well, that’s nonsense and I don’t know who the pin head and weenie is at Fox News that decided to put that story together. But the true facts of this piece of legislation are as follows. This bill will save the taxpayers by saying to those corporations that have union pension plans, if you find yourselves in a bind, rather than thrusting that upon the taxpayer, it spreads out over five years the ability to bring those pension plans up to speed. That’s good government, it’s a good bill. It’s a good Tiberi bill and I don’t know what they’re doing at Fox News, but they should stop smoking it and get back to reporting the facts.

Rep. LaTourette must not have gotten that memo. Fox has two loyalties - to their bank accounts and conservative propaganda. Fox has no loyalty to America and honest debate. For them its all about the right-wing agenda and they're happy to throw patriotism and honor under the bus to further that agenda. Not to mention their audience of morons eat up the garbage Fox delivers.

Sarah Palin's strange, unprofessional and paranoid grudge

Sarah Palin took to her Facebook account today to inform her readers that Joe McGinniss, an award-winning reporter and author, had rented the house next door.

I saw Ben Smith flag this earlier today but did not really appreciate how strange and, frankly, immature Palin's post was until I read it.

Palin informs her readers that McGinniss is "overlooking my children’s play area" and "overlooking Piper’s bedroom." Alternately sounding angry and mocking, she refers to "the family’s swimming hole," which at first reference sounds like she's accusing McGinniss of checking out the Palins in their bathing suits, until you realize the family's "swimming hole" is Lake Lucille. And she posts a photo of the space McGinniss is renting, captioning it, "Can I call you Joe?"

Can somebody explain to me how this isn't a despicable thing for Palin to do? She describes McGinniss as the author of "the bizarre anti-Palin administration oil development pieces that resulted in my Department of Natural Resources announcing that his work is the most twisted energy-related yellow journalism they’d ever encountered."

Another way of putting it would be that McGinniss is an investigative journalist who wrote his first best-seller at age 26 and was shopping a book about Alaska and the oil industry when Palin was named John McCain's running mate. And another way of describing those "bizarre" pieces is that no one has ever challenged the facts in them.

Palin, who has an undergraduate degree in journalism, should understand that articles don't become untrue when the subjects don't agree with them.

Has McGinniss gone to an extreme to get a story? Well, we don't have his side yet -- not that this has prevented every other media outlet from typing up Palin's Facebook post like some lost Gospel. But assuming he's rented the house near the Palins for some period of time, assuming the Palins know he's there and that he's writing a book, then what, exactly, is wrong with this?

Politicians don't have veto power over who gets to write about them, or how they research their stories, as long as they're within the bounds of the law.

Palin's paranoia and love of grudges is what endears her to the paranoid ignorant sheeple that have made her a multi-millionaire. So there is no financial incentive for her to stop being a serial lying paranoid personality with a chip on her shoulder. Even if she wanted to stop, Todd Palin - puppet master wouldn't let her.

Classic American Book Refutes Rand Paul's Brand of Conservatism

The great American book that refutes Rand Paul

As a native of Texas, where white-only businesses were legal until the Civil Rights Act passed, where interracial marriage was illegal until the Supreme Court issued its holding in Loving v. Virginia in 1967, and where private racial discrimination in housing was legal until President Johnson pushed through one of his personal obsessions, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, I can suggest a book that Rand Paul and like-minded libertarians really ought to read: John Howard Griffin's "Black Like Me."

...Having been forced out of his home and his town and into hiding by white supremacists, Griffin had no patience for the kind of sophistry employed by people like Barry Goldwater and Rand Paul, who argue that, while they are personally opposed to private sector racism, they believe that a commitment to individual liberty requires us to tolerate racial discrimination by private businesses, but not by public agencies.

On rereading "Black Like Me" with Rand Paul's controversial comments in mind, I was struck by how very few truly public places there were in the apartheid South. Employers, subdivisions, stores, restaurants, gas stations, hotels -- Rand Paul would have allowed all of these to be segregated to this day because they are privately owned. According to this disingenuous theory, in the segregated South everyone, black or white, should have had a right to work, eat and sleep at the small-town post office or police station, because they were public agencies -- but no right to work, eat or sleep anywhere else.

Private employment? Disguised as a "Negro," Griffin tried to get a job at a plant in Mobile, Ala., by offering to accept less pay than a white man would:

"No use trying down here," he said. "We're gradually getting you people weeded out from the better jobs at this plant. We're taking it slow, but we're doing it. Pretty soon we'll have it so the only jobs you can get here are the ones no white man would have."

"How can we live?" I asked hopelessly, careful not to give the impression I was arguing.

"That's the whole point," he said, looking me square in the eyes, but with some faint sympathy, as though he regretted the need to say what followed: "We're going to do our damndest to drive every one of you out of the state."

Private real estate transactions? Until struck down by federal law, restrictive covenants barring homeowners from selling to blacks, Latinos and sometimes Catholics and Jews were common in every region of the country. Griffin tells the story of a talk he gave at a college where an industrial psychologist was the only black in attendance. A white college professor, proud of his paternalistic liberalism, asked the black doctor of industrial psychology whether he considered the lecture a turning point in the community's history, and was shocked to be told no:

The doctor said, "It's true that I have a good job in this town, and I seem to be respected, and I am certainly paid a wage commensurate with my skills. But -- so long as I have to house my wife and children in a town twenty miles away because I can't buy, rent, lease or build a home here, don't expect me to get too excited over your 'historic turning points.'"

Privately-owned stores?

No matter where you are, the nearest Negro café is always far away, it seems. I learned to eat a great deal when it was available and convenient, because it might not be available or convenient when the belly next indicated its hunger ... It is not that they crave service in the white man’s café over their own -- it is simply that in many sparsely settled areas Negro cafes do not exist; and even in densely settled areas, one must sometimes cross town for a glass of water. It is rankling, too, to be encouraged to buy all of one's goods in white stores and then be refused soda fountain or rest-room service.

Rand Paul is a year younger than I am, born like me in Texas during the final years of segregation. I have difficulty believing that any white Southerner my age who questions the civil rights laws that broke down the all-encompassing system of "private" economic and social segregation in our native region does so purely out of libertarian principle. I would have trouble believing that, even if not for recent revelations that his father’s supposedly libertarian newsletter for decades was filled with unsigned racist rants.

I have known and worked with many conservatives and libertarians in my life, and in my experience states' rights arguments and libertarian arguments against the Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Fair Housing Acts are used opportunistically by people who are covert, if not overt, bigots.

The courts have ruled that public accommodations may not discriminate against class of people - such as women, Catholics, tall people etc. because it violates the 14th Amendment and since almost all businesses engage in interstate commerce, those businesses can be regulated under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. One of many court cases that have lead to enactment of Civil Rights legislation is the Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States decision.

Why does the media give Sarah Palin a soapbox to echo her inane rantings - Palin suggests Obama oil ties impede spill cleanup

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate who helped popularize "Drill, baby, drill" as a slogan, suggested Sunday that President Obama's campaign ties to the oil industry were impeding cleanup of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded that Palin should better inform herself about oil politics and policy.

Speaking on " Fox News Sunday," the former Alaska governor said she remained a "big supporter" of oil drilling but believed "these oil companies have got to be held accountable."

...Pointing to what she termed the White House's relationship with "the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign and are supportive of him now," Palin questioned whether "there's any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico."

Gibbs, on CBS News' "Face the Nation," suggested Palin do some homework.

"I'm almost sure that the oil companies don't consider the Obama administration a huge ally," Gibbs said. "We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge more for gasoline."

Gibbs said, "My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what's going on in and around oil drilling in this country."

The oil and gas industry donated $2.4 million to Palin's running mate, Republican John McCain, in the 2008 election cycle, and nearly $900,000 to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' opensecrets.org website.

Sarah Palin Proves Once Again She Has No Honor with BP Spill Lie

Palin A Slip on Oil Industry Ties?

Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin stirred up more controversy over the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday when she suggested that the administration’s response was linked to “the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign.”

Palin’s support for expanded oil exploration as the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate helped turn “Drill, Baby, Drill” into a party mantra. Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” she said she remains “a big supporter of domestic extraction of the resources that we are so reliant on, versus relying on foreign sources.”

Asked whether she thought the administration of President Barack Obama was doing a good job handling the crisis caused by the British Petroleum spill, Palin said, “I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.”

[ ]...According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.

So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.

This is a decades-long trend, the center says: Since 1990, oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties, with 75% of the money going to Republicans.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” couldn’t resist weighing in. “Well, Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don’t think apparently was paying a whole lot of attention,” Gibbs said. “I’m almost sure that the oil companies don’t consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge more for gasoline.
“My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what’s going on in and around oil drilling in this country.”

Palin's list of lies and distortions and, along with her highly uninformed opinions on issues of the day and public policy continue to poison reasonable and patriotic discussion. Palin is rumored to be considering a run for the preidency in 2012. Those voters who do not care about having a competent president will surely be pleased.

The Future of Conservatism is so Bright

Conservative intellectual and practitioner of smiley-faced fascism Newt Gingrich projects his thoughts into the president, Says Comparing Obama Administration To Nazi Threat Is ‘Pretty Reasoned And Compelling’

Newt Gingrich has made headlines recently by writing in his new book, To Save America, that the Obama administration’s “secular socialist machine” represents “as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.” Even Fox News hosts have questioned whether Newt went a bit too far with the comparison.

...GINGRICH: No. Because I’m not talking about moral equivalence of the people, I’m talking about the end result. If the Nazis had defeated us, then America as we know it would have disappeared. If the Soviet Union had defeated us, the America as we know it would have disappeared. I argue in this book — and I think it’s a pretty reasoned and compelling argument — that the fact is, the values of a secular socialist movement are antithetical — and you hear from President Obama all the time. … The secular socialist left doesn’t want God anywhere in public life and doesn’t want to acknowledge God anywhere in public life.



Of course, Gingrich never provides any actual evidence of this alleged “threat.” And it’s unclear exactly what Gingrich is hearing from the President “all the time,” but it certainly isn’t anything about taking God out of public life or turning America into a socialist state. In fact, Obama (and the Vice President, the House Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader) regularly refers to God in public statements and speeches. The Obama administration is even appealing a court decision that found the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional.

An editor from the National Review noted to the former Speaker that swaths of Christian and religious leaders actually supported the President’s health care reform plan — what Gingrich has linked to socialism — but he brushed this fact aside, claiming they were just a bunch of socialists.

Gingrich fails to mention that is was Franklin Roosevelt, a liberal president and more liberal than Obama, defeated the Nazis and it was liberal policies of containment that defeated the Soviet Empire. What great enemy of the U.S. has Newt and his fellow conservative draft evaders defeated? Obama saved Wall St and capitalism - that is an awfully strange thing for a socialist to do. Newt's sick and distorted world view has been embraced by many "conservatives".

The Fox News Witch Hunt Against Asst. Secretary Of State Posner Continues

Yesterday, I reported on Fox News’ latest witch hunt for an Obama administration official: Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner. Just as they did with Van Jones before him, Fox News has taken a soundbite from Posner, twisted its meaning into something he never meant and then foamed at the mouth that he must be anti-American.

Would Fox's "evidence' against anyone hold up under unbiased scrutiny. No, That is why they have their regular trials conducted via sound bites and smears. They have all the honor of witch burners and authoritarians that seek ideological purity at any cost. Sleaze bags propagandist like that do not get to decide what is UnAmerican.

Richard Blumenthal is no George W. Bush

Bush lied about his military service, and so did Reagan
Bush's account of his Guard service and Reagan's story of the Nazi death camp were huge lies -- but never big news
By Joe Conason

In the same book Bush also suggests that he tried to volunteer for service in Vietnam "to relieve active duty pilots" fighting the war. But, of course, the entire purpose of his privileged (and questionable) enlistment in the TANG was to avoid the Vietnam draft, as he hinted in a 1998 newspaper interview when he said: "I don't want to play like I was somebody out there marching [to war] when I wasn't. It was either Canada or the service and I was headed into the service." Two years later, under the tutelage of Hughes, that momentary candor evaporated.

Yet Bush's self-serving revisions cannot compare with the fantastic recollections of the late Ronald Reagan, whose veneration by Republicans was never diminished by his bizarre utterances. In November 1983, he told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir during a White House visit that while serving in the U. S. Army film corps, his unit had shot footage of the Nazi concentration camps as they were liberated. He repeated the same tale to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and other witnesses. Reagan had indeed served in the Army and worked on morale-boosting movies for the War Department. But he had done so without ever leaving Hollywood for the entire duration of the war.

The media and conservatives worship the ground Drudge walks on. Since he has a tendency to tell them what they want to hear regardless whether it is factual or not, their worship in understandable - Paper: Drudge is falsely portraying our Obama story

Wednesday afternoon the huge top headline on the news site read: "Students asked for 'citizen status' prior to Obama commencement."

Drudge linked to an article published by the Kalamazoo Gazette two days earlier, Monday morning, about routine background checks performed ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to Kalamazoo Central High School.

"K-Central students are not being asked to provide proof of citizenship status," Kalamazoo Gazette public editor Joyce Pines writes. "They have been asked to fill out the same paperwork and answer the same questions throughout their entire public school career."

Von Washington Jr., the principal of Kalamazoo Central High School, said he has been told this will not stop any senior from participating in the graduation ceremony, and it's also his understanding that this is standard operating procedure for audiences who will be close to the president.
Story continues below...

K-Central found out May 4 that the school won a national competition, for which the school submitted a video, that will bring Obama to its commencement as graduation speaker. The ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. June 7 at Western Michigan University’s basketball arena.

"The students in the Drudge photo are not K-Central students, by the way," she added.

FalseDrudge 300x113 Paper: Drudge is falsely portraying our Obama story

In fact, the photo used by Drudge Report to suggest the Secret Service is looking for illegal immigrants in the mix of the winning school's students was taken in November. According to Politico, that was when President Obama launched the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a $260 million public-private investment to improve American science and math education.

Drudge is typical on most modern conservatives. In a choice between having honor or having more money they pick money.

Money Doesn't Grow on Trees, Just Republican Hypocrites and Perverts

Anti-Gay GOP 'Family Values' Lawmaker Mark Souder Resigning Over Affair with Staffer

Souder "Eight-term Rep. Mark Souder will announce his resignation Tuesday after it came to light that he was conducting an affair with a female aide who worked in his district office, Fox News has learned. Multiple senior House sources indicated that the extent of the affair with the 45-year-old staffer would have landed Souder before the House Ethics Committee. Elected as a family values conservative as part of the Republican revolution in 1994, Souder survived a tough re-election challenge in 2008 and survived a contested primary two weeks ago. Souder was absent from Washington most of last week, missing multiple votes and only voting on Thursday. While the rumors had been flying, Souder claimed that he was at home tending to his ill wife."

Oh, the hypocrisy. Souder's website reads:

"I believe that Congress must fight to uphold the traditional values that undergird the strength of our nation. The family plays a fundamental role in our society. Studies consistently demonstrate that it is best for a child to have a mother and father, and I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman."

He doesn't seem to have a problem with one man and multiple women.

Jonah Goldberg may not be the dumbest conservative to ever live though he is up there with conservatism's top contenders such as James Inhofe (R-OK), Conspiracy A-Dough Dough

Could someone explain to me again how Jonah Goldberg became a valued intellectual in American political life? (Oh that's right, it's because his mother was a professional character assassin who befriended a horrible harpy named Linda Tripp. )

Here's Jonah's latest:

As I wrote last year, I find it amazing that the "Birthers" are considered more dangerous and evil than the "Truthers." The Birthers believe that an ambitious man who travelled a lot as a kid has concealed the circumstances of his birth so he could be eligible for the presidency. I don't think they've made their case. And, frankly, I'm not sure I'd want them to at this point. Aside from the horror of a Biden presidency, I for one don't yearn for a constitutional crisis. And while I am sure there are more elaborate and crazier versions of Birtherism, the basic allegation isn't that crazy, at least in the abstract.



Ok. I don't think I need to explain why Jonah is a blithering idiot in that statement. But he's a big intellectual and I'm just a lowly DFH so you can draw your own conclusions.

But this is really amazing:

Now, Trutherism, on the other hand, is a really insidious and evil claim: that the White House was "in" on 9/11 and that it either passively or actively aided and abetted the murder of 3,000 Americans and the attempted murder of tens of thousands more (surely the hijackers hoped to kill far more people inside the World Trade Towers). Indeed, the upshot of Trutherism is that "the government" sought to kill countless congressmen and effectively incapacitate the legislative branch and our military leadership indefinitely. Depending on which version of Trutherism you buy into, you'd have to believe dozens or even thousands of government agents were in on the whole thing, too. Moreover, if this had been proven true, the only moral, legal, or rational response would have been not just impeachment and criminal prosecution, but literally the formal executions of the president, the vice president, and much of the national-security establishment. They'd all have to hang.
And yet, "Birtherism" is dangerous and paranoid and "Trutherism" is quirky and no big deal, according to liberals.



First of all, I don't know that liberals think "Truthers" are quirky and no big deal, while we consider "Birthers" dangerous and paranoid. I think both groups are nutty as fruitcakes. But what I do find fairly dangerous is the fact that Republican elected politicians and conservative "intellectuals" can entertain such a silly crackpot notion that it would even matter if the president were born outside the US (which he wasn't.) In order for this to be meaningful in any way you have to believe in some kind of long term Manchurian candidate nonsense that takes this one into the realm of the super kooky, alien abduction style of conspiracy mongering.

Liberals as a group do not think much of "truthers". The rumor that liberals are the main force behind 9-11 truthers is more a smear by the far Right conservative fanatics to draw attention away from their own involvement - here is one Republican truther and here is a conservative Oklahoma City bombing truther who has advocated violent treason.

Deep Conservative Thoughts on Miss USA

Right Wing Reacts With Rage To First Muslim American Miss USA: ‘An Odd Form Of Affirmative Action’

Last night, the Miss USA pageant crowned Miss Michigan Rima Fakih the 2010 Miss USA. Fakih, who hails from the large Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan, is a Lebanese American and the first Muslim to ever win the crown. (Miss USA 1983 Julie Hayek was reportedly the first Arab American to get the title).

In winning the title, Fakih defeated first runner-up Miss Oklahoma Morgan Elizabeth Woolard, who garnered headlines when she responded to a judge’s question about immigration policy by saying that she was “perfectly fine” with Arizona’s radical new immigration law. Just as they erupted over Carrie Prejean’s loss in the Miss USA contest 2009, the right is again alleging a liberal bias against Woolard. But many more right-wingers are enraged over Fakih’s crowning:

– Conservative radio host Debbie Schlussel blamed Fakih’s win on a supposed “politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate” in America and labeled her a “Lebanese Muslim Hezbollah supporter with relatives who are top terrorists.” [5/16/10]

– Right wing pundit and Fox contributor Michelle Malkin ranted that “Fakih’s cheerleaders are too busy tooting the identity politics horn to care what comes out of her mouth” and that “the Miss USA pageant didn’t want to risk the wrath of the open-borders mob.” [5/16/10]

– Conservative author Daniel Pipes, who was briefly appointed by former President George W. Bush to the U.S. Institute of Peace, opined that “this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.” [5/16/10]

– Fox News’s Gretchen Carlson complained that Woolard’s “informed opinion” may have cost her the crown, and said that Fakih may have won because we live in a “PC society.” [5/17/10]

“This is the real face of Arab Americans, not the stereotypes you hear about,” said Fakih supporter and Arab American Zouheir Alawieh following her win. “We have culture. We have beauty. We have history, and today we made history. … She believed in her dreams.”

Probably just an odd coincidence - with the exception of race baiter Michelle Malkin - these conservatives are white and all really believe anything a white person does is the result of merit and achievement, while anything achieved by a non-white is affirmative action or PC. One would think conservatives would cheer on someone that has embraced and celebrates American culture, but cons once again expose the racist elitism that guides Republican's deranged world view.

Its just a shame that conservatives have no voice in the media. At least that is what they keep whining about, The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio

As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:

* Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.
* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
* A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

This dynamic is repeated over and over again no matter how the data is analyzed, whether one looks at the number of stations, number of hours, power of stations, or the number of programs. While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast.

Fox Fascist Glenn Beck Attacks Net Neutrality. Echoes Corporate Astroturf Talking Points

Glenn Beck's war on the FCC (and Satan worshippers)

It's not often that you hear about the inner workings of the FCC on cable news, especially coming from one of TV's most popular talkers. But Beck has mounted a one-man war on the FCC for the last 18 months, and he is determined to keep the "Marxists" from silencing him.
The Marxists are coming for me

Back in April, Beck railed against net neutrality, saying that "it's about eliminating traditional, constitutional points of view from the public arena. But that's not the way it's being billed. It is about stopping debate. But nobody will tell you that. It's about ending free speech. It is about Marxism."

Julius Genachowski, a former tech executive who worked with startups and media mogul Barry Diller, is pushing unfettered Marxism? The idea is risible, but Beck seems to believe that the FCC has been infiltrated by radical groups who will help to implement Obama's secret censorship agenda. Chief among these groups is Free Press, the nonprofit that pushed the FCC to censure Comcast for its P2P blocking. (Genachowski's press secretary previously worked for the group.)

Beck's name calling is complete projection of his and his supporter's own thoughts. Like fascist before him he has created a bogeyman existential enemy - and THAT enemy is the threat. Hitler used Jews, socialists, intellectuals and liberals as his enemy. Which is eerily similar to Beck. Beck does not support the military, he supports militarism just like European fascists of the 1940s. Beck never provides evidence - which would be required of a high school research paper - he ties things together in a convenient conspiratorial manner relying on a pile of bullsh*t. If the Beckster's talking points on net neutrality sound familiar it is because they come right off the Wall Street fax machine - Telecoms’ Secret Plan To Attack Net Neutrality: Target Video Gamers And Stoke Fear Of Chinese Censorship

Net neutrality, a guiding principle for preserving a free and fair Internet, means that Internet service providers are not allowed to discriminate based on content for its customers.

Bill O'Reilly is still a pervert and since he makes millions being one there is little chance he'll stop anytime soon - Is Bill O’Reilly Obsessed With Miley Cyrus?

Aging conservative Catholic, “traditionalist” Bill O’Reilly does seem to have a penchant for voyeurism - as seen by the “prurient” content of much of Bill’s show which focuses on sexual behavior and imagery – complete with the videos of scantily clad women. Bill, of course, does some of these “reports” in the “context” of his need to expose this naughty behavior....

The only thing Bill regularly "exposes" is his perverse obsessions. Those are what passes for values among modern conservatives.

Just Please Don't Tell Anyone! Republican Senators Say Bailouts Worked

Republican Senators Say Bailouts Worked -- Just Please Don't Tell Anyone!

Perhaps the most fascinating political conundrum of the 2010 election is one faced by GOP senators, almost all of whom voted for TARP and supported some of the other bailouts in the thick of the financial crisis. The good news is that, for all their shortcomings, the bailouts did the trick, preventing a deeper economic crisis. The bad news is those bailouts are now considered political poison by the tea partying conservative base.

That puts Republicans in a strange position: unable to say the legislation failed, but at pains to distance themselves from their vote nonetheless. Over the past couple days, I've asked a number of GOP senators whether, nearly two years later, they think the bailout bill was effective. Their answers were revealing.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who's retiring at the end of the year and is therefore unencumbered by the need to defend himself from the GOP base, has nothing to run away from.

"It was extremely effective," Gregg told me. "Not only was it effective and stabilized the financial industry, it also returned to the taxpayers almost $20 billion in interest and dividends that they would have otherwise not have."

Compare that to John McCain, who will face a primary of his own this summer. He says he and the rest of the country were lied to.

"It's not been effective because they deceived the American people," McCain said. "They said it would go to address the housing issue instead they gave it to the financial institutions. It's been well documented that it was sold to the American people as going to address what caused the crisis--that was the housing market--we gave $10 billion to Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs doesn't have anything to do with the housing market.... They lied to the American people."

Who lied, exactly?

"The former administration," McCain said. "Paulson and all of them...Geithner, whoever else was in charge. Primarily it was Paulson."

Of course, by late September 2008, everyone was calling the TARP legislation "the bailout bill" and McCain himself referred to it as a "financial rescue."

Other Republicans aren't so conspiratorial, though. Regrettable as the circumstances were, bailing out the financial sector was ineluctable--"a necessary evil," according to NRSC Chairman John Cornyn.

"We were all told by Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson that the financial system would collapse," Cornyn said. "What I'm so upset about is that the previous administration and this administration have used the TARP for purposes never contemplated by Congress."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had a similar take. The bill was necessary, and indeed effective, but the executive branch abused it and we'd all be better off if the entire episode--from the collapse of the economy to the ensuing political fallout--had never happened.

"I can explain it," Alexander said. "I wish we didn't have to deal with it."

And they really don't want to deal with it, politically. After primary voters in Utah ousted Sen. Bob Bennett (R) this past weekend, likely ending his career, Republicans in Washington did whatever they could not to find meaning in it. Though reports overwhelmingly indicate that it was Bennett's positions on a handful of issues--particularly the bailout--that cost him the election, his colleagues on the Hill have been wishfully pretending otherwise. At the very least, they've been trying to beat back the obvious conclusion that the GOP base has gone so far off the deep end that even a truly conservative senator like Bennett can get scalped.

With his fate is written in stone, Bennett says he'd do it all over again, even if he knew it would cost him his career. He just wishes he got more of a fair shake

.The TARP bail-out and stimulus package were necessary to keep the economy from collapsing. Despite some disagreements over the details of where it should be spent, those actions did keep the economy from collapsing. Republicans don't like that fact because it was good for the country and Democrats stepped up and had the courage to do the right thing for America. For fifty years - and not bound to change anytime soon - conservatives are all about what is good them, not what is good for the country.

Conservatism is Bright Shiny and Well Informed

The Dark Side of The Republican Tea Party

Tea party protesters repeat the conservative catchwords of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who built their careers fighting the “creeping socialism” of civil rights legislation, Social Security and Medicare.

Tea partiers also have echoes of a well-known grass-roots movement of the 1950s and ’60s — the John Birch Society. The JBS organized in upper-middle-class neighborhoods and among business groups for anti-Communist and conservative causes.

In tone and substance, tea partiers even sound like the JBS did. When they claim that a moderate American president is a “Communist,” it recalls the old JBS attacks on “Communist” President Dwight Eisenhower.

As today’s tea partiers shout their slogans to end the Federal Reserve, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and restore the gold standard, they seem to be lifting a page from the old JBS playbook.

For its part, the JBS followed in the tradition of the Liberty League, a right-wing citizens’ group organized by the DuPont family in the 1930s to overturn President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Yet commentators resist linking tea parties to this radical right.

Perhaps this is because of the Liberty League’s association with shadowy corporate conspiracies. Or it could be because of the John Birch Society’s reputation for secrecy and extremism. But the lineage of today’s tea parties doesn’t change just because they parade in the glare of a major TV network.

Instead, commentators prefer to call the tea partiers “populists.” Exactly what links tea parties and historic populism usually goes unexplained. But part of the logic is that the tea partiers have angrily taken to the streets — like pitchfork-wielding Populists of old.

But the original populism of the 1890s had little to do with that pitchfork stereotype. Populist farmers and workers listened to lectures, read reform literature, joined associations and voted for independent candidates.

They rarely marched.

The one exception offers a useful lesson for today. The nation’s first march on Washington was in the spring of 1894. The country was gripped by a terrible depression. Jacob Coxey, an Ohio Populist, led a march of the unemployed, some from as far as the West Coast. “Coxey’s Army” arrived at the Capitol on May 1.

These Populists sought to petition Congress for help. With local and state governments in fiscal ruin, only the federal government had the resources to keep millions of working families in their homes.

Coxey petitioned for a Good Roads Bill to create jobs and build the infrastructure of prosperity.

As for funding it, Coxey proposed that the Treasury literally print money. The Populists believed — with good reason — that inflating the currency would reduce the weight of mortgages and debts, stimulate investment and pull the economy out of its deflationary death spiral.

Now, let’s turn to the recent big tea party march. The Tea Party Express spent three weeks crossing the country, arriving in Washington on tax day, April 15.

As in 1894, the economy is mired in a deep recession. But real parallels end there.

Tea part conservatives have grasped rewritten history and an anti-American agenda founded on bizarre theories and utter ignorance of public policy. Which reminds many Americans of Bush's platform in 1999. Obama versus the Republicans, now 'til Election Day

"You would have thought at a time of historic crisis that Republican leaders would have been more willing to help us find a way out of this mess," Obama added. "Particularly since they created the mess."

Instead, Obama accused the Republicans of making a "political decision" to not cooperate, figuring, "if we didn't do anything, and if it didn't work out so well, maybe the other side would take the blame."

"So," he added in turning to the Nov. 2 congressional elections, "after they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive!"

Republicans Are Darn Honorable. Remember in November

Operation Chaos Redux: Conservative Blogger Hatches Plan To Pad Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) Numbers

Call it Operation Chaos, the sequel. It's the battle for the Keystone State and Rep. Joe Sestak has made up huge ground to catch up with Sen. Arlen Specter with days to go before Tuesday's primary. Some Republicans who sneered at Specter and called him a RINO when he was on their side now think he'd be the easier Democrat to beat come November.

It's a bit early to game out the general election since Republican candidate Pat Toomey is holding strong, but one conservative blogger is urging GOPers to get involved -- in the Democratic primary -- just in case. Sound familiar? Back during the battle royale between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, radio host Rush Limbaugh asked the GOP to vote for Clinton in state primaries to prolong the fight and (the idea was) to wound the eventual nominee before the general election.

Where is Republican honor? If it can be found at all the gutter would be the first place to look.

Harvard Law military recruitment not diminished by Kagan's tenure

Right-wing media figures have perpetuated the falsehood that Elena Kagan banned military recruiters from Harvard Law School during her tenure as dean. Not only did students have access to military recruiters throughout Kagan's tenure, Media Matters for America has learned that military recruitment did not drop as a result of Kagan's actions.
Right-wing media push false claim that Kagan "kick[ed] military recruiters" off campus

As Media Matters has noted, right-wing media figures have stubbornly latched on to the falsehood that Kagan "banned military recruiters" from campus while she was dean of Harvard Law School. Examples include the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Gateway Pundit, and Erick Erickson.

The New York Post, Glenn Reynolds, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, Gateway Pundit, and Erick Erickson lies so often their lapses in integrity could fill an encyclopedia. We all tell a fib once in a while but a political movement that is based primarily on lies is a danger to an enlightened modern democracy.

Eric Cantor (R-Va) and Republicans Come Out With Brilliant New Budget Strategy

Eric Cantor (R-Va) and Republicans Come Out With Brilliant New Budget strategy

YOUCUT.... Oh, good, another gimmick pretending to be policy work.

House Republicans will launch a project Wednesday in which they will offer bills to eliminate spending programs that Americans vote online to cut.

House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) will unveil the project, called "YouCut," which will combine Republicans' push for spending cuts with attempts toward online engagement.

People can vote online or through text message on a list of five proposals to reduce types of spending, on which House Republicans will then force a vote in the House the following week.

The List of cuts is pretty underwhelming. For example, participants in this little exercise can eliminate the Presidential Election Fund, saving $260 million over five years -- but in the process making national candidates more dependent on outside fundraising. Folks can also vote to eliminate $200,000 a year in HUD grants for doctoral research on housing policy.

What's especially interesting, though, is that all of the proposals don't amount to much given the larger budget picture. Merit aside, if officials were to scrap every penny of the spending on Cantor's list, it would save taxpayers about $1.1 billion a year.

Obviously, for regular American households, $1.1 billion is an enormous amount of money. But when we're talking about a federal budget that's nearly $4 trillion, Cantor's money saving ideas, taken together, represent far less than 1% of the total.

In contrast, Democratic plans on health care, student loans, and energy policy would produce significant budget savings -- but generated apoplectic opposition from Cantor and other Republicans.

I guess this isn't too big a surprise. When President Obama reached out to congressional Republicans last summer, urging them to put together a list of spending cuts they'd like to see, the GOP caucus came up with $23 billion in proposed cuts over five years -- far less than the White House plan to reduce spending over the same period.

Cantor would obviously like to position Republicans as the party of fiscal responsibility and discipline, but I'm hard pressed to imagine why anyone would take this seriously.

( Republicans and Bush left the country a $1.4 trillion deficit and a wrecked economy. Problems that no one can rectify overnight)

The Repubvliican/Cantor plan will save far less than the recently passed health-care reform - Did Obamacare's Cost Savings Just Evaporate? No. They merely took a moderate and unsurprising dip.

More to the point, Boehner's( the serial lying Republican Congressman from Ohio) calculation of the additional cost to the health care law (widely repeated in the press) is simply wrong. Boehner says it's $115 billion, which would reduce the law's 10-year budget savings from $143 billion to a mere $28 billion. That would be a startling change. But roughly $85 billion of that $115 billion is money that's already being spent. The true spending increase attributable to Obamacare is therefore more like $30 billion. Subtract $30 billion from $143 billion in savings and you get a still-respectable $113 billion in savings. (It should be noted that neither the CBO's revised analysis nor a blog post by CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf explains any of this.)

Is the general public more ignorant than ever. It looks that way. many voters seem to be getting their perception of Democratic and Obama policies from multi-millionaire right-wing Republican pundits that are dumber than a tree and have an agenda that is anything but pro-America, Voters' anxiety clouds Obama's historic successes

Republican Confirms Tea Party Are Closed Minded

Hatch Explains Bennett’s Defeat: Tea Party Doesn’t ‘Have An Open Mind And They Won’t Listen’

Hatch — who has previously warned the Tea Party to start working more closely with the Republican Party — criticized the Tea Party for rallying against Bennett:

HATCH: A lot of these Tea Party people are angry, and I’m angry too. … I mean my gosh, They’re mad. They have a right to be mad and I think these Tea Party people are doing the country a service. But when they don’t have an open mind and they won’t listen, that’s another matter and that’s something I think anybody would find fault with.

Far right-wing policies got us into the Great Recession and now Republicans ( Tea Party is just another name for right-wingers allergic to responsibility) want to go even further in their anti-American policies...damn the facts, let's bring back the worse crony capitalism excesses of the Bush years. They'll probably succeed because such a large segment of the population are unthinking sheeple.

Republicans embrace a talking point about jobs that lacks, surprise, a basis in facts. Bid a fond farewell to a talking point

Republicans embrace a talking point about jobs that lacks, surprise, a basis in facts. Bid a fond farewell to a talking point
It's a quandary for House Republicans: How do you talk about the best job growth in four years when your mantra has been, "Where are the jobs?"

Riding high and hopeful that they can retake the House in the fall, GOP leaders so far are largely sticking to last year's playbook despite last week's jobs report showing 290,000 jobs were added in April and 573,000 so far this year.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) even used the "Where are the jobs?" line in a seeming non sequitur last week reacting to the jobs report.

As Rachel Maddow put it the other day, "Dude, they're right here. What a weird thing to say."

Conservative economic policies from 2000 to 2008 are responsible for the greatest lost of jobs since the Great Depression.

Another Reason to Vote Republican They're Not Anti-semitic

Gov. McDonnell appoints Nixon’s ‘Jew counter’ to help reform Virginia’s government.

When former President Richard Nixon became paranoid that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had come under the control of Democrats and a “Jewish cabal,” he ordered adviser Fred Malek to create a list of “important Jewish officials” within the bureau, several of whom were later demoted or transferred. “It was the last recorded act of official anti-Semitism by the United States government,” Slate’s Timothy Noah noted. Malek has since apologized for serving as Nixon’s “Jew counter,” and has gone on to be a perennial Republican operative, serving as national finance co-chair for Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign, and as deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee under President George H. W. Bush. Now, right-wing Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has hired Malek to chair a 31-member commission charged with making recommendations on how to reform government...

...“[I]t is deeply disturbing that Governor McDonnell would appoint as its chair Fred Malek, whose history in ‘reforming’ government includes creating lists of Jews serving in government to track and remove from government service,” Virginia Del. David Englin (D) said in a statement. Reflecting on Malek, Matt Yglesias previously observed, “One of the enduring mysteries of American life is how it is, exactly, that so many people guilty of serious breaches of the public trust manage to maintain respectability in virtue of having committed this breaches while working for Republican presidents.”

Over the years Conservatives have tried to recast themselves as the big tent party. They proceed to claim they are not racist, Anti-semitic or homophobic yet they have these regular displays of rewarding anti-American behavior.

Myths and falsehoods about Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination

Republicans Are the Party of Wisdom. They Know Everyone is a Socialist

Republican arguments against people tend to have all the substance of a vicious gossip - Myths and falsehoods about Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination

CLAIM: Kagan's policies regarding military recruiters at Harvard indicate that she is an "anti-military" "radical" who "defied" the law . Phyllis Schlafly claimed in her March 31 syndicated column that Kagan "defied the Solomon Amendment" -- a statute requiring schools to provide the same access to military recruiters that they provide to other potential employers or lose federal funding. Liz Cheney called Kagan's actions "radical," and other conservatives have also distorted Kagan's position regarding military recruiters on Harvard Law School's campus. And The Washington Times published a 2009 op-ed referring to Kagan as "an anti-military zealot."

REALITY: Kagan consistently followed the law, and Harvard students had access to military recruiters during her entire tenure as dean. Throughout Kagan's tenure as dean, Harvard law students had access to military recruiters -- either through Harvard's Office of Career Services or through the Harvard Law School Veterans Association. Moreover, Kagan consistently followed existing law regarding access to military recruiters. Kagan briefly restricted (but did not eliminate) access to recruiters only after the U.S Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that law schools could do so. As The New York Times explained in a May 6 article:

[Kagan's] management of the recruiting dispute shows her to have been, above all, a pragmatist, asserting her principles but all the while following the law, so that Harvard never lost its financing.

[...]

[E]ven when she ... briefly barred the military from using the law school's main recruitment office, she continued a policy of allowing the military recruiters access to students. [emphases added]

Moreover, during her confirmation hearing as solicitor general in 2009, Kagan pledged to defend the Solomon Amendment.

CLAIM: Kagan's actions and statements on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and military recruiters were extremist and hypocritical. In an April 18 article, The Washington Post noted that Kagan had called Don't Ask, Don't Tell "a profound wrong -- a moral injustice of the first order" and said her decision to continue allowing military recruiters to access Harvard's career center "causes me deep distress. ... I abhor the military's discriminatory recruitment policy." The Post quoted Ed Whelan suggesting that Kagan's quote was somehow "extreme":

"For someone who has been so guarded on so many issues, she used strikingly extreme rhetoric. 'Moral injustice of the first order' would seem fit for something like the Holocaust," said Ed Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. "This is one issue that provides some jurisprudential clues as to how much her reading of the law will be biased by her policy views. If she is the nominee, that is an angle that I would press."

Whelan has separately clamed that the fact that Kagan relented to Bush administration pressure to allow military recruiters to access the career center is evidence that Kagan is a hypocrite who engaged in "cheap and contemptible moral posturing."

REALITY: Kagan's objections to DADT are mainstream, and her willingness to comply with and, as solicitor general, defend the Solomon Amendment demonstrate devotion to the rule of law. Kagan's moral objection to Don't Ask, Don't Tell is hardly "extreme." For example, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has suggested that the ban on openly gay service members compromises the military's "integrity." Moreover, Kagan's decision to abide by the Solomon Amendment doesn't indicate hypocrisy; it indicates a commitment to the rule of law.

FACT: Kagan allowed military recruiters access to Harvard Law School's Office of Career Services. In the 1990s, based on its anti-discrimination policy, Harvard Law School refused to allow military recruiters to use the school's Office of Career Services (OCS) because of the military's discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. In 2002, after the Bush administration threatened federal funding at Harvard, Kagan's predecessor as dean created an exception to Harvard's anti-discrimination policy and allowed military recruiters access to OCS. When Kagan became dean in 2003, she continued to allow military recruiters access to OCS.

FACT: After an appellate court -- including a Reagan appointee -- ruled Solomon Amendment unconstitutional, Kagan prohibited Harvard's career office from working with recruiters for one semester. In 2004, a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit held 2-1 in FAIR v. Rumsfeld that the Solomon Amendment violated First Amendment free-speech rights: "The Solomon Amendment requires law schools to express a message that is incompatible with their educational objectives, and no compelling governmental interest has been shown to deny this freedom." Judge Walter Stapleton, a Reagan appointee, joined the majority opinion in the case. Following the 3rd Circuit's ruling, Kagan reinstated the ban against military recruitment through OCS for one semester in 2005. After the Bush administration threatened to revoke Harvard's federal funding, Kagan once again granted military recruiters access to OCS. In 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the 3rd Circuit decision.

FACT: During that one semester, students still had access to military recruiters via the Harvard Law School Veterans Association. The New York Times noted on May 6 that "even when [Kagan] ... briefly barred the military from using the law school's main recruitment office, she continued a policy of allowing the military recruiters access to students." As Kagan explained in a September 2005 letter to her colleagues:

The Law School's anti-discrimination policy, adopted in 1979, provides that any employer that uses the services of OCS to recruit at the school must sign a statement indicating that that it does not discriminate on various bases, including sexual orientation. As a result of this policy, the military was barred for many years from using the services of OCS. The military retained full access to our students (and vice versa) through the good offices of the Harvard Law School Veterans Association, which essentially took the place of OCS in enabling interviews to occur.

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I reinstated the application of our anti-discrimination policy to the military (after appropriate consultation with University officials) in the wake of the Third Circuit's decision; as a result, the military did not receive OCS assistance during our spring 2005 recruiting season.

FACT: Military veterans at Harvard Law dispelled notion that Kagan was "anti-military." Military veterans at Harvard Law School strongly dispute the idea that Kagan was anti-military and stated that she had a "strong record of welcoming and honoring veterans on campus." In response to the Washington Times op-ed, three military veterans who were Harvard law students at the time wrote a letter to the Judiciary Committee that said, in part: "As Iraq War veterans who currently attend Harvard Law School, we wanted to inform the Committee of Dean Kagan's strong record of welcoming and honoring veterans on campus." The veterans also wrote a letter to The Washington Timesthat stated, in part, that while they opposed the restrictions on military recruiters, "During [Kagan's] time as dean, she has created an environment that is highly supportive of students who have served in the military."

FACT: Dozens of law professors, other law schools, and the Cato Institute argued against government's interpretation of Solomon Amendment. Kagan's legal actions and statements regarding Don't Ask, Don't Tell were by no means extreme. As Media Matters has documented, Kagan joined a brief filed on behalf of 40 Harvard law professors arguing against the government's interpretation of the Solomon Amendment. Briefs filed on behalf of 100 other law professors also argued against the Solomon Amendment or the government's interpretation of that amendment, as did other organizations, including the Cato Institute.

FACT: Numerous law schools restricted military recruiters' access because of the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The Joint Appendix filed in connection with the appeal of FAIR v. Rumsfeld to the Supreme Court contains statements from numerous law professors detailing their law schools' attempts to restrict military recruiters' access to career services offices. Following the 3rd Circuit's decision, in addition to Harvard, Yale and New York Law School also reportedly reinstituted their restrictions against military recruiters.

FACT: Mullen said DADT compromises military's "integrity." While conservatives like Whelan have claimed Kagan's rhetoric opposing the ban on openly gay service members is somehow extreme, Mullen has similarly argued that the policy compromises the military's "integrity." In February 2 Senate testimony, Mullen stated:

Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.

For me, personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.

I also believe that the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change. I never underestimate their ability to adapt.

FACT: Kagan pledged to defend Solomon Amendment as solicitor general despite her personal views. In a written statement during her confirmation process for solicitor general, Kagan wrote:

As I stated at my confirmation hearing, I know well the facts and issues involved in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, 547 U.S. 47 (2006), and I feel confident in saying that had I been Solicitor General at the time that the 3rd Circuit held the Solomon Amendment unconstitutional, I would have sought certiorari in the Supreme Court, exactly as then-Solicitor General Paul Clement did. A fortiori, now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Solomon Amendment, if confirmed I would vigorously defend it against constitutional challenge. I would not recuse myself from participating in or personally arguing such a case because I would feel confident in my ability to supply such a defense given the responsibilities and role of the Solicitor General. I understand that role as representing the interests of the United States, not my personal views. I indeed think that I would enjoy, as well as be deeply honored by, the Solicitor General's position if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed. The advocate's role is frequently to put aside any interests or positions other than those of her clients. And as I hope I expressed at my confirmation hearing, I would take enormous pride in representing and advancing the interests of the United States as a client -- even if I would not myself have voted for every one of its statutes. [emphasis added]

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Myth: Kagan is "radical"

CLAIM: Kagan is a "radical" who is "outside the mainstream." Conservatives have indicated they will brand any Obama Supreme Court nominee -- including Kagan -- as a radical. For example, conservative activist Richard Viguerie has reportedly said, "The more quickly we can identify [the nominee] as an ideological liberal, the easier it is for us to communicate to the American people how radical the president is and the nominee is." Similarly, Glenn Beck has said that President Obama is going to pick a "radical" nominee. In a March 19, 2009, Family Research Council Action press release, Tony Perkins claimed that Kagan "is well outside the mainstream of public opinion and to the left even of President Obama."

FACT: Kagan is considered to be relatively moderate. Reuters noted on May 7 that Kagan is "considered one of the more moderate choices on Obama's short list of potential court nominees."

FACT: Numerous conservatives have praised Kagan.

* NRO's Daniel Foster praised Kagan as being "well-respected by just about everybody on both sides." In an April 9 post on The Corner, National Review Onlinenews editor Daniel Foster wrote that Kagan "is well-respected by just about everybody on both sides."

* Bush assistant AG: "Kagan combines principle, pragmatism, and good judgment better than anyone I have ever met." In a letter supporting Kagan's nomination for solicitor general, Jack Goldsmith -- former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration -- stated: "It might seem over the top to say that Kagan combines principle, pragmatism, and good judgment better than anyone I have ever met. But it is true."

* Starr, Olson and bipartisan group of former solicitors general: Kagan held in "high regard" by "persons of a wide variety of political and social views." In a letter sent by people who "serv[ed] as Solicitor General over the past quarter century, from 1985 to 2009," Charles Fried, Kenneth Starr, Drew Days, Walter Dellinger, Seth Waxman, Theodore Olson, Paul Clement, and Gregory Garre stated:

The well-deserved stature that Kagan has achieved in the legal profession will enhance her tenure as Solicitor General, ensuring that, within the executive branch, her voice and the conclusions reached by the Solicitor General will be accorded the highest respect. The extraordinary skill she has demonstrated in bringing to Harvard an impressive array of new scholars, her ability to manage and lead a complex institution, and the high regard in which she is held by persons of a wide variety of political and social views, suggest that she will excel at the important job of melding the views of various agencies and departments into coherent positions that advance the best interests of the national government.

* Former Bush lawyer Berenson lauded Kagan's "fair-minded consideration of competing views." From a letter by former Bush administration associate White House counsel Bradford Berenson supporting Kagan's solicitor general nomination:

Her legal acumen is more than equal to the task she faces, as reflected in her scholarship. The spirit of toleration and fair-minded consideration of competing views she brought to the Deanship reflect the sort of temperament and judgment that will inspire confidence in the Justices of the Supreme Court as well as the private parties with whom she will need to interact as SG. The same institutional loyalty that has enabled her to put Harvard Law School's interests ahead of her own will undoubtedly cause her to do likewise in service of the United States.

Steve Hayes: Kagan is "persuasive to people who might not otherwise be predisposed to agree with her." On the May 7 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, Fox News contributor Steve Hayes stated that Kagan is "someone who can make convincing and compelling arguments and marshal her arguments in a way that is persuasive to people who might not otherwise be predisposed to agree with her. And I think you're seeing that to a certain extent in the sort of half-embrace that she's getting from some conservatives, particularly conservative academics."

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Myth: Kagan's thesis shows she's a socialist

CLAIM: Kagan's thesis shows that she was a radical or a socialist. In a May 6, 2009, Weekly Standard blog post, Michael Goldfarb wrote that Kagan's college thesis -- which was titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933" -- demonstrates Kagan's supposed "radical roots" and that "her political sympathies (at the time) seem quite clear -- and radical." In a May 3, 2010, National Review blog post, Ed Whelan cited Kagan's thesis as evidence that she "was well on the Left" at the time. Whelan wrote: "To be clear: I am certainly not contending that Kagan's views might not have changed over the years; I am merely pointing out the utter dearth of evidence that Kagan might secretly harbor conservative views."

REALITY: Kagan is not and was not a radical or a socialist; her thesis simply explored historical questions about socialism. Kagan did not express personal support for socialism or radicalism in her thesis. Rather, she explored the historical question of why socialism did not become a major political movement in the United States as it had elsewhere in the world. Kagan's thesis adviser has said that Kagan has never been a socialist, and one of her college peers described her views in college as "well within the mainstream of the ... sort of liberal, democratic, progressive tradition." Despite the fact that Kagan's thesis is publicly available, Republicans did not raise the issue during her confirmation as solicitor general, suggesting that none of them believed that she was actually a socialist.

FACT: Kagan's thesis did not state that she is a socialist. Kagan's 130-plus-page undergraduate senior thesis, which she wrote as a history student at Princeton in 1981, discussed the rise and fall of socialism in New York City in the early 20th century, with a particular emphasis on why the movement collapsed. At no point in the thesis did Kagan say she personally supported socialism.

FACT: Republicans did not raise thesis "socialism" issue during Kagan's solicitor general confirmation. The title of Kagan's thesis is publicly available on Princeton's website, and the thesis itself can be easily obtained by contacting Princeton. Thus, if Republicans actually believed the thesis is evidence that Kagan harbored socialist views, they presumably would have raised the issue during her confirmation for solicitor general in 2009. But at no point during Kagan's February 10, 2009, Senate hearing, the written questions following the hearing, or the March 19, 2009, floor debate on her nomination did any senator -- Republican or Democratic -- address Kagan's undergraduate thesis or concerns that she held socialist beliefs.

Kagan thesis adviser: "Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period." From a May 3 Daily Princetonian article:

Under [history professor Sean] Wilentz's direction, Kagan spent her senior year conducting research for her thesis on the history of the socialist movement, which was titled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900--1933." Her thesis has been criticized by her opponents for revealing sympathies with the Socialist Party and became a source of controversy when she was a potential nominee for Associate Justice David Souter's seat on the Supreme Court last spring -- a position which instead went to Sonia Sotomayor '76 -- and when she was nominated for her current position of solicitor general in January 2009.

"Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness," she wrote in her thesis. "Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation."

She called the story of the socialist movement's demise "a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America ... In unity lies their only hope."

But Wilentz defended Kagan against her critics, noting that she was adept at removing her personal beliefs from her academic research on labor and radical history. "Sympathy for the movement of people who were trying to better their lives isn't something to look down on," he explained. "Studying something doesn't necessarily mean that you endorse it. It means you're into it. That's what historians do."

Kagan said in her thesis acknowledgements that her brother's "involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas."

Yet even if a deeper understanding of the Socialist movement helped Kagan understand her own beliefs, she did not follow her brother's path.

"Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period," Wilentz explained.

If Kagan has a bad side it is that she is a very moderate mainstream Democrat. The kind of Democrat a genuine conservative like General Dwight Eisenhower would be today. Today's far right-wing Republican party has no room for those that are not rabid fascist-lite ideologue.