Sharron Angle Endorses South American Dictator's Agenda

Sharron Angle Endorses South American Dictator's Agenda

Reid opponent Sharron Angle stumps for military dictators retirement program. To those who've actually studied recent history, former Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was a cruel tyrant.

But to Sharron Angle, the tea parties' favorite U.S. Senate candidate from Nevada, he had at least one good idea: replacing the country's Social Security-like program with compulsory private retirement savings accounts.

Or, that's at least what she said -- that Medicare and Social Security must be "phased out" for "private" programs -- in a recent interview.


Sound familiar? That's because Pinochet's former labor minister, has since become one of the world's leading advocates of privatizing pension accounts. After demolishing the nation's political stronghold, he went to work for the conservative-leaning Cato Institute to advocate around the world for private retirement accounts. He's even credited as the man who convinced former U.S. President George W. Bush to pursue an agenda of privatizing Social Security.
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Angle, in a recent interview with News 8 Now in Las Vegas, appeared taken aback when asked if her position on Social Security is a "flip flop". While she's been advocating privatization as of late, she's also released a television advertisement that would seem to convey quite the opposite message.

Watch:

Confronted by a journalist with the apparent conflict in her messaging, she replied, according to the report: "It is when we have a $2.5 trillion raid and pillaging going on and an empty trust fund and now we are upside down. As of last Friday, they said, (there was a) $41 billion shortfall in Social Security. $41 billion less going in than coming out. It's broken.

"When I said privatize, that's what I meant. That I thought we would just have to go to the private sector for a template on how this is supposed to be done. However, I've since been studying and Chile has done this."
And just what happened in Chile after the country's public pension system was taken private? Barbara T. Dreyfuss, writing for Mother Jones in April, 2005, explained:

    The transition was expensive and funded by slashing government programs, selling off state-owned industries, selling bonds to the new pension funds, and raising taxes. Privatization costs, which also included a government subsidy for workers unable to accumulate enough in their private accounts to guarantee a minimum income in retirement, averaged more than 6 percent of Chile's gross domestic product in the 1980s and are expected to average more than 4 percent of GDP each year until 2037.

    [...]

    The [World Bank] found that exorbitant fees and other costs charged by private pension fund managers eat up as much as 15 percent of the contributions made by average Chilean workers, and even more for poorer workers. Investment returns have been far more modest than the hefty 11 percent return claimed by the private managers. The Chilean government's pension superintendent says actual returns for someone earning Chile's minimum wage were only 3.7 percent between 1994 and 2000.

    A recent report by the Chilean government brought more grim news, forecasting that as many as half of all workers won't be able to save enough to receive the minimum pension when they retire.

 

Angle is clearly too extreme for America. Why is she taking her economic guidance from a far right fascist dictator. Angle is established a record as a pathological liar.

Wisconsin Far Right-wing Republican Ron Johnson is the Know Nothing Candidate

Wisconsin Far Right-wing Republican Ron Johnson is the Know Nothing Candidate

I cannot vote for Ron Johnson. He's too unrealistic about his aspirations in Washington. If elected, he will be just one of 100 Senators. He will have no rank, record, or reputation. Or any political IOU's either! Chances are he will just be a pawn, subject to manipulation by the Republican leadership. How much can he really do for Wisconsin under those circumstances?

His understanding of government is limited. He laments the number of lawyers in the Senate. Legislators write laws, not pursue lawsuits. They debate philosophies, policies, regulations and overall budgets.

He's contradictory about "creating jobs." He says he knows how to create jobs, but then contends that governments cannot create jobs. What does he really believe about this issue? And why won't he answer questions about those beliefs?

His statements indicate he may serve only one term of six years. It takes decades to achieve major initiatives in government. How can he do anything significant in just six years?

He decries "career politicians." We need long-term office holders to protect us from the inertia of bureaucrats and the aggressive antics of lobbyists from special interest groups. Amateur politicians in office for a few years are often stalled or easily "conned" by the more sophisticated.

His negative "attack ads" are ridiculously obvious attempts to scare the ignorant and uneducated. Political hacks he pays for have produced these blatant insults to Wisconsin's voters. And then he "approves of them." He criticizes "career politicians," but seems to be acting like the worse of them!

He has refused to have more than three debates and also declined to be interviewed by newspaper editorial staffs. What is he hiding about his political philosophies and policies on various issues? We voters need to know!

R.E. Schallert

Winneconne

Far Right Bush Conservative Ron Johnson lacks answers and leadership skills

The election for the United States Senate is coming soon. I think we should have more information about Ron Johnson's positions. The political ads have shown he is a strong family man, a successful businessman. He and his wife are active in the area's parochial schools and he is going to cut government spending.

Is he in favor of withdrawing the military from Iraq and Afghanistan? How about the 100,000 military personnel that have been stationed in Japan and Germany since the end of World War II? It would reduce the defense budget considerably. Will there be jobs for them? Are you willing to reduce the defense budget? The Pentagon has contracts in every Congressional district in the United States. One of the largest is here in Oshkosh.

If you eliminate the recent medical insurance program, do you have a paper on how to help those who cannot afford health insurance premiums or have pre-existing health problems? Are you really serious about the changes you mentioned about Social Security and Medicare?

You have said government cannot create jobs, only the private sector can. What about the Great Depression of the 1930s with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the building of the Hoover Dam which created the industries and agriculture in Arizona, Nevada and southern California, or the dams on the Columbia River, which provided electricity to refine aluminum.

In Wisconsin we have had government assistance for our airports and the dams on the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers.

Nearly $200 million of stimulus money has been or is being spent in Winnebago County. Should these local units of government return this money and finance these projects themselves through the property tax?

Talk is cheap; it takes money to buy whiskey.

John Allen

Oshkosh

Republicans Love China. America Not So Much

Republicans Love China. America Not So Much

On Tuesday, the residents of New Jersey saw the future - in China. On the same day that Governor Chris Christie killed funding for the badly needed second Hudson River rail tunnel, Beijing rolled out its fastest bullet train yet. As it turns out, Christie's budget ax is just the latest symptom of a growing epidemic. Across the country, the United States is walking away from its crumbling infrastructure even as America's competitors commit the resources to win in the 21st century global economy.

To be sure, China is making those investments. America's largest credit not only dominates the U.S. in launching cleaner coal-fired power plants, but by January leapfrogged the West to become the world's largest producer of wind turbines and solar panels. Just last week, an Australian study found that the China, the globe's biggest polluter, is now the clear leader in clean energy efforts.

And the Chinese make really fast trains, too. As the Wall Street Journal announced today:

    Yesterday marked the launch of the latest link in China's high-speed rail network: A service between Shanghai and Hangzhou with sustained speeds of more than 245 miles per hour. The slick new train, which set a speed record during a trial run last month, covers the 200 kilometers between the two southern cities in 45 minutes -- twice as fast as the older rail service.

Meanwhile in the Garden State, Republican poster child Chris Christie guaranteed that by standing still, Americans will fall further behind.

Two weeks after first declaring he would end New Jersey's $2.7 billion contribution to what Paul Krugman deemed "America's most important current public works project," Governor Christie announced the final nail in the coffin of the long-planned and much-needed second rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Despite appeals from Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, Christie pulled the plug on a new link to Manhattan over 20 years in the making. As AP reported:

    Christie, a rising star in the Republican Party for his fearless budget-slashing, has argued that his cash-strapped state can't afford to pay for any overruns on the $9 billion-plus rail tunnel under the Hudson River. The state is on the hook for $2.7 billion plus overruns.

    "In the end, my decision does not change," Christie said. "I cannot place upon the citizens of New Jersey an open-ended letter of credit, and that's what this project represents."

    The federal government and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are each contributing $3 billion.

By refusing to complete an effort that would double the capacity now provided by a century-old tunnel into New York, Christie isn't merely turning his back on his state's 185,000 daily rail commuters. Even as the economy struggles to recover from the deepest recession in three generations, he's also walking away from badly needed jobs:

    Officials estimated it would provide 6,000 construction jobs immediately and as many as 40,000 jobs after its completion in 2018.

As Krugman explained earlier this month, "Canceling the tunnel was also a blow to national hopes of recovery, part of a pattern of penny-pinching that has played a large role in our continuing economic stagnation." The combination of the economic downturn and Republican anti-government orthodoxy is toxic for the nation's dilapidated infrastructure:

    New Jersey's governor wants to kill a $9 billion-plus train tunnel to New York City because of runaway costs. Six thousand miles away, Hawaii's outgoing governor is having second thoughts about a proposed $5.5 billion rail line in Honolulu.

    In many of the 48 states in between, infrastructure projects are languishing on the drawing board, awaiting the right mix of creative financing, political arm-twisting and timing to move forward. And a struggling economy and a surge of political candidates opposed to big spending could make it a long wait.

For its part, the AP lamented:

    Has the nation that built the Hoover Dam, brought electricity to the rural South and engineered the interstate highway system lost its appetite for big public works projects? At a time when other countries are pouring money into steel and concrete, is the U.S. unwilling to think long-term?

Undoubtedly, the answer is yes. In the UK, a $45 billion high-speed rail link between London and the West Midlands is in the works. By 2020, Japan will complete a $70 billion freeway between Osaka and Tokyo. And while Australia is pouring $38 billion into relieving traffic congestion in Melbourne, even Algeria is committing over $11 billion to create an east-west highway.

Back in Trenton, Assembly Transportation committee chairman John Wisniewski called Christie's decision a "monumental failure of leadership."

Christie is said to be a rising star of the Republican Party. A party increasingly pro growth for China and every other country, but ready to slash funds for any project that will take America's infrastructure into the 21st Century. Ironic that from 1982 to 1992 and again from 2000 to 2008 Republicans thought big government and running up big debts was fine as long as they were the ones handing out the checks. In both instances they left America in sad shape and Democratic administrations had to clean up the mess.  Now that its time to invest in America, Republicans want to cut and run.

Like clockwork: Conservatives return to baseless voter fraud allegations

Continuing a pattern in which media conservatives stoke fears about election fraud by Democrats, Bill O'Reilly baselessly raised the specter of voter fraud in Washington state and Illinois in the midterm elections. In fact, voter fraud occurs infrequently, and many of the past claims by the conservative media that election fraud took place have been false.



....ustice Department report shows very few prosecutions for illegally casting ballots. According to a report by the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department, from October 2002 through September 2005, the Justice Department charged 95 people with "election fraud" and convicted 55. Among those, however, just 17 individuals were convicted for casting fraudulent ballots; cases against three other individuals were pending at the time of the report. In addition, the Justice Department convicted one election official of submitting fraudulent ballots and convicted five individuals of registration fraud, with cases against 12 individuals pending at the time of the report. Thirty-two individuals were convicted of other "election fraud" issues, including Republicans convicted of offenses arising from "a scheme to block the phone lines used by two Manchester [New Hampshire] organizations to arrange drives to the polls during the 2002 general election" -- in other words, these convictions were connected to voter suppression efforts, not voter fraud. Several other people listed in the report were convicted of vote-buying.

NYU's Brennan Center: Allegations of voter fraud "simply do not pan out" and distract from "real [election] problems that need real solutions." From a 2007 report by New York University's Brennan Center for Justice:

    Perhaps because these stories are dramatic, voter fraud makes a popular scapegoat. In the aftermath of a close election, losing candidates are often quick to blame voter fraud for the results. Legislators cite voter fraud as justification for various new restrictions on the exercise of the franchise. And pundits trot out the same few anecdotes time and again as proof that a wave of fraud is imminent.

    Allegations of widespread voter fraud, however, often prove greatly exaggerated. It is easy to grab headlines with a lurid claim ("Tens of thousands may be voting illegally!"); the follow-up -- when any exists -- is not usually deemed newsworthy. Yet on closer examination, many of the claims of voter fraud amount to a great deal of smoke without much fire. The allegations simply do not pan out.

    These inflated claims are not harmless. Crying "wolf" when the allegations are unsubstantiated distracts attention from real problems that need real solutions.

Senate Candidate Ron Johnson Dismissive of Vets But Looks Out for Rights of Child Molesters

Senate Candidate Ron Johnson Dismissive of Vets But Looks Out for Rights of Child Molesters

Amid sporadic and below-the-political-radar Tea Party threats to privatize the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA), Wisconsin Republican-Tea Party Senate candidate Ron Johnson maintains his secret policy specifics to be revealed should he assume office.

Asked what the Department of Veterans Affairs’ responsibility is to homeless veterans, Johnson recently declared that his election campaign is not “about details” such as the welfare of America’s 107,000 homeless veterans.

The Wisconsin Senate race is being portrayed nationally as a bellwether election on the strength and political vitality of the Tea Party, and the inclination of the American electorate to stand behind President Baa in the face of near constant, unanimous GOP opposition that is long on talking-point criticism and short on policy initiatives.

Johnson’s opponent, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton, Wisconsin), has stepped up his criticism of Johnson, blasting his GOP opponent for a lack of specifics in their final debate last week.

Feingold now has hit back with a new ad blasting Johnson for maintaining his silence on specific initiatives addressing policy issues. - video at link.

Johnson has generally kept his actual solutions to any problem a secret. he was a Bush-Cheney supporter so that means he was an enabler of the current recession. Ron's apathy towards veterans is also ironic when compared to his support of the rights of child molesters. Ron Johnson, WI Senate Candidate, Opposed Wisconsin Child Victims Act

Overseas Ballots and the Military

Overseas Ballots and the Military

We were recently contacted by a representative of the Federal Voting Assistance Program in response to our posts about Fox News' faux military ballots controversy. As a companion piece to their trumped up accusations about the New Black Panther Party, Fox is now accusing the Obama administration of not enforcing a deadline for getting out military and overseas ballots, despite a lack of evidence that that's really the case. Now, we've got evidence to the contrary. Some states have an agreement with the DOJ to extend the deadline to receive ballots from military service members and other U.S. citizens living overseas. Military and overseas voters can also access their ballots online via FVAP.gov.

Erin E St Pierre, Communications Specialist for the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), told us that voters can get their ballot from FVAP.gov, complete it and print it with just a few clicks. Here's St. Pierre's explanation:

    For example, choose who you are (military or overseas citizen, 1st click), then choose your state from the map (2nd click), then choose “get your ballot” (3rd click). Complete the ballot, print and sign it. It takes less than ten minutes.

    When completed, the package presented includes the ballot, envelope template, and instructions on submitting the ballot (address, fax and email for election official are included). Postage is even free when using the envelope template (http://www.fvap.gov/resources/media/returnenvelope.pdf), and the Military Postal System Agency has provided free express mail and tracking for overseas military (go to the MPO and ask for form Label 11-DOD). Also, FedEx has special options for overseas citizens (https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/overseas/ExpressYourVote.htm). It’s that easy.

St. Pierre also noted, "Just because the state didn’t get the paper ballots out in time, does not mean military and overseas citizens cannot vote, they can... With elections less than two weeks away, voters need to know they can still request and receive their ballots within a matter of minutes. Absentee voting no longer takes weeks, but minutes."

So don't buy Fox News' hype. *From a post by Ellen at Newshounds

Tea Nut conservative Sharron Angle Releases Yet Another Race-Baiting Ad

First, Republican senatorial candidate Sharron Angle ran offensive images of menacing Latino men with flashlights walking along a fence alongside a snapshot of an innocent looking white family in order to make the point that her opponent Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is the “best friend an illegal alien ever had.” Then her campaign released a second commercial with a new image of scowling Latino men juxtaposed against a photo of white college graduates. Despite the fact that her ads have sparked outrage in the Latino community, Angle has decided to continue with her anti-Latino campaign theme.

In her newest attack ad, Angle pits brown against white in order to make the case that Reid is a friend of dark-skinned, scary looking “illegal aliens” and an enemy of white Nevadans like her:

Watch it: Angle's despicable race bating video at the link.

Angle’s third ad is especially surprising considering the fact that many outlets are reporting that Latinos may decide the tight Nevada senatorial race. “Angle has made few friends among Latinos after she supported neighboring Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 law, the strictest in the nation to curb illegal immigrants. And as polling day gets closer, her gaffes and missteps are helping to bring the Latino vote out for Reid,” reported Reuters last week.

Tea Party Bought and Paid for by Greedy Corporate Interests

Tea Party Inc.: The Big Money and Powerful Elites Behind the Right-Wing's Latest Uprising

But it has now become clear that these Tea Party "outsiders" are all part of an inside game, a battle for control of the Republican party.

Though billed as a people's movement, the Tea Party wouldn't exist without a gusher of cash from oil billionaire David H. Koch and the vast media empire of Rupert Murdoch. Many of the small donations to Tea Party candidates have been cultivated by either Fox News Channel, a property of Murdoch's News Corporation, or the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, chaired by Koch. The movement's major organizations are all run, not by first-time, mad-as-hell activists, but by former GOP officials or operatives.

Taken together, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks (another far-right political group seeded by the Kochs) and Murdoch's News Corp, owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, form the corporate headquarters of a conglomerate one might call Tea Party, Inc. This is the syndicate that funds the organizing, crafts the messages, and channels the rage of conservative Americans at their falling fortunes into an oppositional force to President Obama and to any government solution to the current economic calamity. Groups such as Tea Party Express, Tea Party Nation, and the FreedomWorks-affiliated Tea Party Patriots; the bevy of political consultants for hire; and various allied elected officials can be understood as Tea Party, Inc.'s loosely affiliated subsidiaries. The Web sites of FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party side projects of Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck are linked with those of Tea Party Express and Tea Party Patriots, all of which in turn solicit support for Tea Party candidates.

The armies of angry white people with their "Don't Tread on Me" flags, the actual grassroots activists, are not the agents of the Tea Party revolt, but its end users, enriching the Tea Party's corporate owners just as you and I enrich Google through our clicks.

....The Capitol Hill Franchise

The self-appointed head of Tea Party, Inc.'s Capitol Hill division is the junior senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint. DeMint is the top Senate recipient of donations from the Koch Industries' PAC, reeling in $22,000 in the current election cycle for a race he stands virtually no chance of losing. The Kochs' PAC is also the number three donor to DeMint's PAC, the Senate Conservatives Fund, which he spends on other races.

In DeMint, the Kochs found a politician who will make no compromises on their far-right agenda, favoring tax cuts and opposing health-care reform, green energy, labor unions and regulation of any kind. Last year, DeMint received the Americans for Prosperity Foundation's George Washington Award, bestowed upon the senator by Koch himself. Speaking at the organization's summit in August, Koch said DeMint "has consistently stood for freedom against this big-government agenda." In backing DeMint's power play against leaders of the Republican establishment, particularly his challenge to the power of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kochs stand poised to push those establishment leaders into the same uncompromising positions.

Echoing DeMint's agenda are Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican who, in July, founded a Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, and Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, who is House GOP conference chairman and a charter member of the new caucus. Both are Tea Party favorites, and Bachmann is a regular speaker at Americans for Prosperity events. At the Americans for Prosperity Foundation's RightOnline conference, held in Las Vegas in July, Pence used a luncheon address to make the case for melding the free-market Tea Party agenda with the values of the religious right, while Bachmann entertained a banquet crowd with herplan to phase out Social Security.

FreedomWorks has its eye on a political transformation in the Senate, and is closely allied with DeMint, whose PAC is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on behalf of many of the same Tea Party-backed Senate candidates endorsed by the FreedomWorks PAC, including Sharron Angle (currently in a tight race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid), Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, and Utah's Mike Lee. (Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus was announced the day after Paul, addressing FreedomWorks activists on a July 13 conference call, suggested a Tea Party caucus for the Senate.) Each of these candidacies began as primary challenges to establishment Republicans endorsed by McConnell.

In September, Huffington Post political columnist Sam Stein cited a Democratic strategist who said that by the midterms' close, Americans for Prosperity will have spent $45 million on organizing "voter education" and get-out-the-vote activities that test the limits of legal nonprofit expenditures. Actually, Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips told me his plan was to raise and spend even more, though he wouldn't name a figure. Even the lesser amount, according to tax filings, would represent a tripling of its funds since 2008.

FreedomWorks also hopes to triple its revenue, from $3 million in 2008, according to tax filings, to an anticipated $10 million this election cycle, according to Adam Brandon, the group's communications director. In a fundraising video sent by FreedomWorks to new members, leaders announce that every dollar raised will be matched by an unnamed donor. Both Brandon and Koch Industries spokesperson Melissa Cohlmia say that FreedomWorks has received no funding from the Kochs or their foundations since 2004, so there is likely another high-roller involved. But neither FreedomWorks nor Americans for Prosperity,nor its foundation, is required by law to disclose its donors and -- like advocacy organizations across the political spectrum -- they don't.

At any rate, the vast expenditures on organizing have worked in at least one way: FreedomWorks' membership had reached nearly 1.1 million by mid-October, according to the group's Web site ticker. Americans for Prosperity claims 1.5 million members and chapters in 31 states.

....The Tea Party’s two major patrons are fabulously wealthy. David Koch is heir to the fortunes of Koch Industries, described in 2008 by Fortune as the largest privately held corporation in the United States, and was ranked by Forbes as one of the world's richest people, with an estimated personal wealth of $17.5 billion. Rupert Murdoch, founder and CEO of News Corp -- ranked by Fortune as world's second-largest entertainment company -- was also rated by Forbes among the world's wealthiest, with personal wealth of $6.3 billion.

Koch Industries, with David as executive vice-president and his brother Charles as CEO, presides over a vast conglomerate of oil and gas interests, as well as holdings in timber and chemicals. Since the 1970s, the two men have funded and controlled a large network of right-wing institutions, launching the libertarian Cato Institute in 1977 and the Mercatus Institute in 1985, all of which advocate business deregulation under the rubric of "free markets."

Both cornerstones of Tea Party Inc. -- FreedomWorks and the two entities comprising Americans for Prosperity -- sprang from Koch's riches. FreedomWorks rose from the ashes of Citizens for a Sound Economy, an early Astroturf group and think tank he founded during the Reagan years to advocate for lower taxes, less regulation, and smaller government. CSE was rebranded as FreedomWorks in 2004, after a corporate-style merger with Empower America, founded by the late Republican Congressman Jack Kemp to limit government and privatize government services.

That same year, Koch rebranded CSE's foundation as the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and founded its sibling organization, Americans for Prosperity.[i] Koch hired the politically connected Tim Phillips to serve as president of both organizations. (Phillips is a business partner of former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed in a political consulting firm, Century Strategies, which was implicated, but never charged, in the bribery scandal that sent Jack Abramoff to prison.)

Koch and his allies built the underpinnings for a movement not quite ready to be born. The absent ingredient was rage. But by 2009, with the collapse of the economy and the election of the nation's first African-American president, the supply chain of rage was complete, and the Tea Party came roaring to life. Rupert Murdoch gave the new movement legitimacy by means of sympathetic columns in the Wall Street Journal, boosterism from Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and a regular media platform on Fox News Channel for Tea Party personalities and candidates. As Jane Mayer remarked in her New Yorker profile of the Kochs, the Tea Party had at last turned their private agenda into a mass movement.

The role of these groups in launching the movement is indisputable. In concert with Glenn Beck's 912 Project, FreedomWorks did the logistical organizing for the first Tea Party march on Washington, in September 2009. Beck launched the 912 Project on his Fox News Channel show, promoted the march on his show and mobilized for it through a social networking Web site built by his production company.

Since then, the groups have been tearing through the Murdoch-Koch agenda. Americans for Prosperity says it convened, through an offshoot, some 300 rallies against health-care reform, and once the healthcare bill was passed in March, the organization quickly moved to block cap-and-trade as a means of regulating carbon emissions. In fact, at an Americans for Prosperity Foundation conference I attended in Pittsburgh in August 2009, cap-and-trade was already being introduced as the next Tea Party battle. This is a longstanding priority for Koch Industries, a major polluter heavily invested in old energy technologies. In a March 2010 report, Greenpeace said that, over the years, the Koch brothers have "quietly funneled" nearly $50 million to "climate-denial front groups that are working to delay policies and regulations aimed at stopping global warming."

Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore -- a member of the newspaper's editorial board and a former fellow at the Koch-funded Cato Institute -- told the gathering of Tea Party activists he thought global warming was "the greatest hoax of the last 100 years." He called the climate change agenda "not just evil, but…contrary to the free-market system that made this country great."

The Media Storm

It is not unusual for op-ed pages to reflect the bias of an outlet's owners. It is highly unusual, however, for news operations to engage in outright political organizing on behalf of a CEO's agenda. Yet that's just what certain Fox News hosts and Wall Street Journal columnists seem to be doing on behalf of Rupert Murdoch, who is opposed to regulation of any kind, hates taxes, and despises labor unions -- having famously broken unions at his UK newspapers.

News Corp's best-known personalities accomplish this by working hand in glove with the like-minded ideologues at Americans for Prosperity. Fox News hosts, along with Stephen Moore and fellow Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, are regular speakers at conferences sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. At the group's 2009 RightOnline conference, a third of the plenary speakers were News Corp writers and pundits, including Moore and Fund, as well as Jim Pinkerton and Michelle Malkin, who were paid Fox commentators at the time. Fox News personality John Stossel spoke against health-care reform at three rallies sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, while Sean Hannity, host of a prime-time Fox News show, live-broadcast Americans for Prosperity's 2009 Tax Day protest in Atlanta -- and the network preempted regular programming to present it. Moore and Fund also shill for the foundation's anti-regulatory "worker education" project, known as Prosperity101. 

Do the average tea partier know the goals of the Koch brothers and FreedomWorks/ It is to roll back many of the most noble aspects of a modern democracy. They'd like to do way with all environmental laws, open up our national parks and forests to greedy developers, they'd like to do away with Social Security and Medicare ( or make these problems have so little benefits they are of little use). The heads of the tea party would like to do away with Workman's compensation, with overtime pay and the five day work week. They would like to be free to export jobs to anywhere there is some poor jerk will to to the work for chump change per hour. In other words that want to return America to the mid-1800s when most Americans lived in poverty and died in middle-age. The 10 Republican House candidates with the most bizarre, unnerving and downright alarming baggage who just might sneak through next week.

Taxed Enough Already. Not in the Real World

Taxed Enough Already. Not in the Real World

On Monday, the New York Times asked, "What if a president cut Americans' income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?" As it turns out, that question neatly sums up the sad dynamic at play in the 2010 midterm elections. On the one hand, President Obama and his Democratic allies have utterly failed to tout the tax cuts delivered as promised to 95% of working households. On the other, Republican mythmaking and Tea Party fury have succeeded in drowning out both the Democrats' message - and the truth.

Stephen Colbert famously declared that "reality has a well-known liberal bias." But not, the New York Times explained, when no one is paying attention to it.

    In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.

    In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, "This was the tax cut that fell in the woods -- nobody heard it."

Of course, it was impossible to hear about what Steve Benen deemed the largest two-year tax cut in American history over the jet-engine decibel level of right-wing rage, a cacophony willingly amplified by the media. Among the almost endless Tea Party delusions about Obama's birth, his religion, death panels, "keeping government out of Medicare" and so much more, the Tea Bagger fraud that income taxes have gone up under President Obama is perhaps the most successful.

Another CBS News poll in February revealed the mass delusion of the American people in general and Tea Baggers in particular when it comes to the Obama tax cuts. A quarter of respondents said the Obama administration increased taxes while 53% said they were unchanged. Only 12% rightly answered that federal income taxes had come down under President Obama.

But among the confused Tea Party crowd, the belief is akin to asserting the sun orbits the earth:

    Of people who support the grassroots, "Tea Party" movement, only 2 percent think taxes have been decreased, 46 percent say taxes are the same, and a whopping 44 percent say they believe taxes have gone up.

It's no wonder that former Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett aptly concluded, ""For an antitax group," Bartlett aptly concluded, "they don't know much about taxes."

There are lots of achievements in the history of the United States. Unfortunately malicious ignorance remains one thing we cannot seem to overcome. Thanks to conservatives for making ignorance of the facts an ongoing tradition.

Support For Veterans Shows Sharp Partisan Divide

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America Action Fund, Republicans in Congress have dramatically failed to support our troops after they come home. IAVA’s 2010 Veteran Report Card, based on the key veterans’ legislation that came to a vote during the 111th Congress, exposed a sharp partisan divide on the level of support for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow tabulated yesterday. Of the 94 elected officials that earned an A or A+ rating from IAVA, 91 were Democrats. Of the 154 officials who received a D or F, 142 were Republicans:

Another conservative tradition. Using the military as a partisan tool, but not appreciating their sacrifices.

Every time conservative czar Glenn Beck falls out of the bed of his mansion we get another lame conspiracy: Conservative media link Beck's "spooky dude" Soros to Williams firing theory 

Vote Republican. They're Not Strange or Contradictory.

Time for Dems to slam the GOP hypocrites - Obama's GOP antagonists offer empty rhetoric even they don't believe. But does he have the heart to call them out?

Take Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota, for example. Campaigning for reelection, the photogenic Tea Party heroine postures boldly against taxes and government spending. A bitter critic of the Obama administration's efforts to improve the economy, she specifically and repeatedly derides "the failed Pelosi trillion-dollar stimulus."

Somewhat less publicly, Bachmann has taken a different position. Researchers for the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity released a bunch of letters she wrote to various federal agencies seeking stimulus grants for her district. Perhaps the most telling is one she sent to the Transportation Department seeking money for a bridge over the St. Croix River.

Funding the project, Bachmann argued "would directly produce 1,407 new jobs per year while indirectly producing 1,563 a year -- a total of 2,970 jobs each year after the project's completion."

A more basic conflict with Tea Party theology is hardly possible.

Government spending creates jobs? That's heresy.

In Washington parlance, they're called "lettermarks" -- basically identical to the dreaded "earmarks" Republicans rail against, except more devious. Bachmann's far from the only Republican quietly seeking funding she voted against and publicly derides. Frauds and fakers every one.

The ink was barely dry on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act before Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell told CNN in July 2009: "The stimulus was a big mistake. I think we can fairly safely declare it now a failure." Over the next two months, the Kentucky Republican nevertheless sought federal largesse for five projects, including a railroad he said had the potential to "attract industry, create jobs and move goods through areas underserved by national highways."

Name a Tea Party hero, and they're on the Center for Public Integrity's "lettermarks" list: Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. Also a number of "Blue Dog" Democrats like Rep. Walter Minnick, D-Idaho.

All voted against the stimulus, supposedly on grounds of principle, then sought funding for their constituents on the less abstract grounds that building bridges, tunnels, railroads and stringing broadband cable provide jobs, public and private, stimulating secondary economic activity in the bargain.

Politically speaking, this should be dynamite. Despite the attention it gets, the Tea Party's basically a joke, hearkening back to a mythical Golden Age in American life that never existed. Prior to New Deal and Great Society spending, for example, large parts of McConnell's Kentucky -- like much of the rural South -- enjoyed Third World living standards. Nobody really wants to go backward. But voters are scared and confused.

Alas, somebody's got to light the fuse. Which is where President Obama comes in, or would if he had the heart for it, by no means clear. See, it's not merely the garden-variety hypocrisy he should be mocking -- juxtaposing the demagogic rhetoric of his GOP antagonists with the home truths in their "lettermarks." It's the crass political opportunism.

For reasons of sheer partisan advantage, he should say, the Republicans bet unanimously against the U.S. economy, wagering that short of a miraculous recovery from the 2008 financial meltdown, the White House would be blamed. Put the GOP back in power, that's all you'll get. It's all they've got: empty rhetoric even they don't believe.

As Obama himself (channeling Bill Clinton) repeatedly told New York Times reporter Peter Baker during a recent interview, "They're not serious." Indeed, they're not. The GOP War on Arithmetic that began under Ronald Reagan and reached its apotheosis under George W. Bush proceeds apace.

Then why do we also find Obama telling the Times he thinks he can make nice with the GOP after November? "It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more responsible," he said, "either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them, or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way."

Dream on, Mr. President. Obama sounds like a battered wife. Elsewhere, Obama speculates that including tax cuts in the stimulus was a mistake. Perhaps had he "let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts" it would have given the appearance as well as the reality of bipartisanship.

Alas, that's too subtle by half. A recent New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that fewer than 10 percent of Americans even know the stimulus lowered their income taxes -- much less who proposed it.

Why do Republicans actions always seem contrary to what they actually do. No conservatives seem to care. Republicans seem to run and win on the illusion of standing for something - a return to most of the nation living in poverty with no minimum wage, no child labor laws, no five day work week and dozens of other modern achievements which make better for everyone. Republicans call those achievements, socialism. Maybe they should stop inadvertently giving a discredited economic theory a good name. Things like workman's compensation, overtime and medicare are the hallmarks of America's enlightened liberal legacy. Too bad tea baggers and other conservatives can't "man up" and admit it.

The Right On Juan Williams: Don't Diss The Jews! But Muslims? Eh, No Problem.

Pamela Geller wrote today: "No one is safe, not even liberals, from islamic supremacism and the assault on free speech. I am no fan of Juan Williams, but I will defend to my death his right to speak his mind."

The day Nasr stepped down, she was thrilled: "Today the Nazi lover resigned. In a word, GOOD!"

And on the Sanchez firing, Geller said: "In another Jew-hating gaffe, a well known CNN anchor has been terminated over outrageous, hateful remarks about Jews." She added: "This is systemic. And it should be raising red flags in media corporate offices. You have a problem. And so does Jon Stewart; he shills for these goons and their ideology."

Of course, no controversy would be complete without a Sarah Palin tweet, which she provided today:

    NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left's hypocrisy,they screwed up firing you

On her Facebook page, Palin elaborated:

    I don't expect Juan Williams to support me (he's said some tough things about me in the past) - but I will always support his right and the right of all Americans to speak honestly about the threats this country faces. And for Juan, speaking honestly about these issues isn't just his right, it's his job. Up until yesterday, he was doing that job at NPR. Firing him is their loss.

    If NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it's time for "National Public Radio" to become "National Private Radio." It's time for Congress to defund this organization.

But about the Helen Thomas controversy, she (a touch incomprehensibly) tweeted:

    Helen Thomas press pals condone racist rant?Heaven forbid"esteemed"press corps represent society's enlightened elite;Rest of us choose truth

The pattern is obvious. As long as you're saying what right-wing zealots think you should say that is protected free speech. vary a little from their inconsistent rules and you're against free speech.

Is Sharron Angle a Christian Reconstructionist? - A unified theory of the Nevada's Senate candidate's stranger musings.

Christian Reconstructionism, on its own, is a fringe movement in the Christian right. Most of the Christian right is comprised of pre-millennial evangelicals who believe Christ will return to Earth to kick-start the 1,000 years of the Kingdom of God. Christian Reconstructionists, on the other hand, believe the world is already the Kingdom of God, and that Jesus will return after they have transformed society and government into one that follows Biblical law. Because of this, Reconstructionists prioritize reforming America into what they consider a godly country and bringing the legal structures of our country in line with Old Testament law, with a specific eye toward pushing the government out of all arenas they consider the sole province of church and family.

Angle's odd-ball beliefs are fine as a personal matter. Should she be elected to high office to then try to shove them down the throat of every American. The Constitution says she shouldn't, bu that apparently has no meaning for Sharron Angle or her supporters - many of whom may not realize how dangerous she is.

Right-Wing Conservative Film I Want Your Money Packed With Lies

Right-Wing Conservative Film "I Want Your Money" Packed With Lies

In his documentary I Want Your Money, filmmaker Ray Griggs employs an all-star cast of right-wing misinformation propagators who fill the film with long-parroted and thoroughly debunked conservative myths about U.S. economic history and President Obama's economic policies.
Griggs falsely claims Obama "doubled" the FY2009 deficit

Griggs: "[I]t's clear that Bush did not leave President Obama a $1.4 trillion deficit. It looks like President Obama and the Democrats Congress more than doubled it." Griggs compares the deficit in Obama's first year to that of Bush's last in office, claiming that "President Obama and the Democratic Congress more than doubled" Bush's deficit. From I Want Your Money:

    GRIGGS: What's the true story behind the $1.4 trillion deficit Obama claims he inherited in 2009? Well, let's take a closer look at that. During President Bush's last full year in office in 2008, the federal deficit was $600 billion. Obama steps in and adds quite a bit to next year's budget. First, he and the Democratic Congress pass the stimulus bill -- $787 billion, which $242 billion was spent in '09. Subtract that from the $1.4 trillion, and you get a deficit of right around $1.1 trillion. But the Democrats also passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. Oh yeah -- take off $60 billion for the auto industry. Then there was the $8 billion expansion of the SCHIP health insurance program, and another $3 billion for Cash for Clunkers, and I'm sure I did not find all the new spending. But it's clear that Bush did not leave President Obama a $1.4 trillion deficit. It looks like President Obama and the Democratic Congress more than doubled it.

$1.2 trillion of $1.4 trillion deficit was already projected before Bush left office. The CBO projected on January 7, 2009, that, including spending authorized under the Bush administration for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and government takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the deficit that year would total $1.2 trillion. According to the CBO, the actual FY 2009 deficit was $1.4 trillion.

NY Times: Obama policies are "responsible for only a sliver of the deficits." According to a budget analysis done by The New York Times, "Mr. Obama's main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies -- together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama -- account for 20 percent" of the increase between the FY2008 and FY2009 budget deficit estimates. The Times analysis also stated that 70 percent of the increase was due to a combination of economic hardships, including "the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists' assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years" and "new legislation signed by Mr. Bush ... like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit."

CBPP: "By the time CBO issued its new projections on January 7, 2009 -- two weeks before Inauguration Day -- it had already put the 2009 deficit at well over $1 trillion." An analysis of the federal budget deficit by James Horney and Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that "the events and policies that have pushed deficits to these high levels in the near term, however, were largely outside the new Administration's control."
Film pushes falsehood that health care reform will dramatically boost federal deficit

Voegeli falsely claims health care reform will increase the federal deficit. In I Want Your Money, The Claremont Institute's William Voegeli said of President Obama: "So he's complaining about the deficits, but then doubling them, and now with health care tripling, and has plans for unending deficits."

CBO has consistently said that health care reform law will reduce deficit by $143 billion over next ten years, and by more in second decade.

More documentation of "I Want Your Money" lies, and distortions at the link. Where are those conservative values we keep hearing about like truth and honor. Conservatives simply cannot win an economic debate based on the numbers. What America is experiencing right now is the product of right-wing conservative economic polcies. Plcies they carried out under the Bush administration and a Congress controlled by Republicans six of thsoe ight years. Its like they stole their parents credit card and went crazy. Now they're trying to blame the hradship caused by those debts on responsible adults trying to pay them off.


Wisconsin Republican Senate hopeful Ron Johnson Freezes When Asked For His Plan To Help Middle Class

Wisconsin Republican Senate hopeful Ron Johnson had a deer-in-headlights moment in a recent interview with the Green Bay Press Gazette.

Asked to explain his jobs plan, Johnson banged away at the GOP mantra: cutting spending, regulation, etc. That didn't satisfy the editors.

"There's no real jobs plan?" one interviewer asked.

"I would say bring fiscal discipline to the federal government," Johnson replied. "We've got to curb spending."

That didn't satisfy his interviewers.

"So your jobs plan is to control spending. But what about the middle class?" the editor responded. "I mean, I hear you talking a lot about business, businesses. But I mean, what is your plan for the middle class?"

"We have to get the economy moving," Johnson said, frozen.

"Isn't that pretty simple though what you're saying is just, you know, elect me, to go there and cut spending and everything will take care of itself."

Johnson doesn't have a plan he has some bumper sticker slogans in reply to complex questions. hardly the makings of someone who will make a positive contribution to keeping America on course to restore the sanity Ron's conservative friends had no use for the last ten years.

Republican Cheerleaders at Chamber of Commerce Plot to Export American Jobs

Republican Cheerleaders at Chamber of Commerce Plot to Export American Jobs

Among the many lies told by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently, chief Chamber lobbyist Bruce Josten said that his organization’s foreign affiliates, called AmChams, are only “comprised of American companies doing business abroad in those countries.” In fact, the Chinese AmCham is comprised of Chinese firms like Northern Light Venture Capital; the AmCham in Russia is comprised of Russian state-run companies like VTB Bank; and, the AmCham of Abu Dhabi is comprised of UAE state-run oil companies.

The ties between the AmChams and the U.S. Chamber are deep. In addition to sharing staff members, the Chinese AmCham has worked closely with the U.S. Chamber and the Chinese government to sponsor a series of seminars in America to teach American businesses how to outsource jobs to China (called the China Grassroots Program). Below is an invite to an event sponsored by the right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson, inviting local businesses in Florida to come to Jacksonville and learn about outsourcing from Chinese government officials like Li Haiyan, the Counselor for Economic Affairs for the People’s Republic of China, U.S. Chamber lobbyist Joseph Fawkner, and BChinaB, a firm that specializes in helping American firms outsource their manufacturing jobs to China. Click the screenshot below for the invitation:

Similar events like the one above continued into 2009 and beyond.

The Chamber’s CEO, Tom Donohue, frequently defends outsourcing: for example, in 2004, he said “there are legitimate values in outsourcing — not only jobs, but work.” Recently, the Chamber came out against a Senate bill that would have discouraged outsourcing. As Campaign Money Watch report found that more than 1.4 million jobs were outsourced since 1994 in the nine states in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending significant money.

Separately from their relationship with the AmCham affiliates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce receives direct foreign donations to the same 501(c)(6) political account the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 million attack ad campaign against progressives. In an exclusive investigation, ThinkProgress documented over 80 foreign firms donating at least $885,000 to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) account. As ThinkProgress’ Brad Johnson noted, many of these foreign supporters of the Chamber financing its 501(c)(6) are also some of the world’s largest outsourcing companies.

 Why does the Chamber hate Democrats and love Republicans? Because Republicans have lead the charge to export American jobs. Not all outsourcing may be bad but Republicans in concert with the Chamber has taken the attitude it is always best to send jobs to Asia where the labor is cheap rather than pay American workers a living wage. In return for all those lost jobs conservatives point to the cheap products you can buy at discount stores. Which is great if you have a paycheck coming in to buy those "cheap" products.

It might be hove the residents of Georgia to request Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) have a mental check-up, he seems to have lost the ability to distinguish his fantasies from reality -  Rep. Broun Says That The Stimulus And Health Care Laws ‘Are Gonna Kill’ Elderly And Disabled Americans

During a recent podcast reported by the conservative Heartland Institute, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) resurrected this smear, tying in the stimulus bill. Broun claimed that the stimulus bill set up “comparative effectiveness research” that would determine the cost of spending health care dollars on people of different ages. Broun then hypothesized that “Obamacare” would deny care to people who are too old, or Americans who are disabled. He concluded that the combination of the two laws will “kill people by denying care“:

...Given that Broun is a medical doctor by trade, he should know better than to try to scare voters with falsehoods about the stimulus’s health care provisions and the recently passed health care law. The comparative effectiveness research included within the stimulus bill is designed to discover how to best spend health care dollars to provide the most care to people for the best price, not to deny people health care. There are, of course, no “death panels” or any other provisions within the health care law to put the elderly or disabled to death.

The only things resembling death panels that do exist are the rescission and denial practices followed by private health insurers that the bill is slowly outlawing. A congressional investigation recently found that “the nation’s four largest for-profit health insurers denied coverage to more than 651,000 people over a three-year period, citing pre-existing conditions” — one out of every seven Americans who applied for insurance was denied. If anyone supports health care being denied to Americans, it is Broun, who has a long history of fearmongering about efforts to reform the American health care system. 

Our sympathies go out to Broun's family. mental illnesses such as Broun's delusions can be very difficult to deal with.

Kentucky's Rand Paul Goes Bonkers After His Sordid Past Revealed

Kentucky's Rand Paul Goes Bonkers After His Sordid Past Revealed

For his part, Conway was not afraid to climb down into the muck and take Paul on. He accused Paul of "joining a group known for mocking Christianity" while the Republican was a student at Baylor University and called on Paul to explain why he once "tied a woman up and asked her to worship a false idol."

The central issue fueling the vitriol between Paul and Conway was the Democrat's tough new ad focusing on tales of Paul's days at Baylor, which he attended for three years before leaving for medical school at Duke University. Paul claimed the ad questioned his Christian faith, which he said deeply offended him.


Several profiles have referred to Paul's membership in an irreverent student society known as the NoZe Brotherhood that was banned from Baylor for, according to school officials, mocking Christianity, a no-no at the Baptist university. A GQ profile last summer exposed some of Paul's shenanigans with the group, including one occasion where he and a friend allegedly led a female student to a creek, tied her up and requested she worship "Aqua Buddha."

Paul claimed the stories were not worthy of voter attention. Run on the issues of the day," he told Conway. "Don't make up stuff about me from college that you think you've read on the Internet blogs. Grow up."

"it wasn't from the Internet blogs," Conway shot back. "It was on CBS News, it's been in Politico, the Lexington Herald-Leader."

Conway refused to say whether or not Paul is a "good Christian," (as one of the debate's moderators put it) but said that the ad was not about Paul's faith.

"Values matter," Conway said. "Why did he freely join a group known for mocking or making fun of people of faith? And secondly, when is it ever a good idea to tie up a woman and ask her to kneel before a false idol called Aqua Buddha?"

The only reason Paul is outraged is because the truth has been revealed not because his past mocking of other people's religion is not relevant. Paul runs for the Senate - flip flops on various issues - ad now suddenly claims he is an ultra conservative Christian and the record of his behavior doesn't matter. All this Paul's new policy positions seem as though they have a very convenient timing. What's Kentucky voting for if they vote for Paul - no one really knows.

Gee, wonder if Paul is related to Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle who has flipped and flopped on the issues so many times no one knows what she stands for -  Sharron Angle Flip-Flops On… Everything? - Angle obviously holds medicare and Social Security in contempt other wise she would steak out a consistent position.

Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson wants to bring back the same failed Bush policies which caused the recession to the Senate - Businessmen are not solution for Washington
Before the primary election, Ron Johnson stated he had the advantage in the race because he has more money. Translation: "I can buy the Senate seat."

It was largely deregulation in the financial and real estate industry that opened the floodgates for greed to capsize our economy. As a result, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost countrywide, in large cities and small towns. It was businessmen who created the financial collapse and now we have businessmen, such as Johnson and Reid Ribble, riding on the wave of trepidation and discontent claiming they're more qualified to right the ship. The economy is slowly recovering but they claim because of their business expertise they know how to create jobs and balance the budget.

Equating job creation in private business and job creation in politics is comparing apples to oranges. When you own your own company, you are the boss, the decisionmaker and the one who dictates policy. In politics, you are but one voice in a chamber of policy-makers.

Think for a moment. It was cronies like Johnson who Bush hired to rebuild Iraq and we know how that went.

Wisconsin's Ron Johnson Displays Lack of Character Needed for Senate

Wisconsin's Ron Johnson Displays Lack of Character Needed for Senate

I am appalled at the misleading and outright false ads Ron Johnson either endorses or has running on his behalf. Either he is ignorant of the truth or he deliberately is being deceitful.

One of the worst is the one where Sen. Feingold is accused of sending 3,000 jobs to China by voting for the stimulus bill. According to the AP, this never happened because the company that was considering it found out that the stimulus bill requires all stimulus grants be used only to finance projects in the U.S. In fact one of the companies that got a grant to build windmills is Renewegy, which is located in Oshkosh.

Another one is the one trying to scare seniors by claiming Sen. Feingold's vote for health-care reform will take $523 billion out of Medicare. Both Factcheck.org and Politifact.com have totally debunked this claim. This figure is the projected savings that health-care reform will realize in the next 10 years. It will do that by removing the excess subsidies from Medicare Advantage programs that provide things like gym memberships.

In addition this bill now also mandates the Inspector General in Health and Human Services cooperate with the FBI in pursuing enforcement of Medicare fraud which is estimated to cost $60 billion a year. So far this year they already have charged 94 people nationwide with submitting $251 million in fraudulent claims, and they still have more than 2,400 open fraud investigations. If even a portion of this fraud is stopped it will save $523 billion in 10 years.

Why anyone would want to vote for anyone who does not support these programs is beyond me and that is why I am supporting Russ Feingold.

Mary Jo Stoelb

Sheboygan

If Ron's agenda is so pure and clean why has he displayed such a lack of character and integrity in his attack ads. Ron is just the kind of sleazeball we don't need in Washington. Ron like to portray himself as a self-made business man. You're not self-made if you get a leg up from wealthy friends.Ron is a welfare queen of the good ol boy network.That's fine but at least Ron could have the integrity to admit his success has come by way of lots of help from others and the employees who make his wealth possible. Take away those hourly employees and than see how well Johnson does doing everything himself. WI GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson owns over $100,000 in BP stock, supports Great Lakes oil drilling

Wisconsin Cannot Afford Another Conservative Like George Bush - One of Ron Johnson's Free Spending heroes

Like Rand Paul here in Kentucky, Wisconsin and indeed America simply cannot afford the radical, heartless, and uncaring agenda offered up by tea-party politicians who care nothing about anything but stripping the government's power to protect the most helpless among us. Ron Johnson is just another in a line of uncaring corporate shills who would walk our country down the road to destruction.

What's the difference between Johnson and the Wall St fat cats that destroyed over $3 trillion dollars of the nation's wealth? Not much. Johnson opposes regulating Wall St so hey our children and grandchildren will be slaves to sleazy financiers. That's not a free market conservative that is just a George Bush from Wisconsin.

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey (PA) has Mental Break Down

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey (PA) has Mental Break Down

GOP U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey (PA) attended a rally at the Middletown Grange Fairgrounds Wednesday, joining Republicans running for many other local offices to speak about his views on a wide range of issues.

At one point, Toomey explained what he thinks ails the economy. He claims his Democratic Party opponents have done “serious damage” to the U.S. economy, and then asks the audience to “think of what we’ve witnessed in the last 18 months or so.” Toomey then listed off a series of legislative actions, including “serial bailouts of failing companies” and “spending money on a scale we’ve never seen before.” At the end of his list, he concluded, “You add in cap and trade, card check, government-run health care, is it any wonder we haven’t had an economic recovery? Is it any wonder we haven’t had growth? How hard is this to figure out?”:

    TOOMEY: But they’re doing some serious damage. If you think of what we’ve witnessed in just the last 18 months or so, serial bailouts of failing companies, nationalizing whole industries, spending money on a scale we’ve never seen before, deficits and debts that are completely unsustainable, you add in cap and trade, card check, government-run health care, is it any wonder we haven’t had an economic recovery? Is it any wonder we don’t have job growth? How hard is this to figure out?

Watch video at link. Toomey seems to have forgotten to take his meds or is just visiting from another planet.

The problem with Toomey’s list is that it includes bills that haven’t even been legisated into law yet. “Government-run health care” presumably refers to the health law passed this past spring by Congress, but the legislation that Toomey is referring to as “cap and trade” and “card check” haven’t even gotten close to getting the votes they need to be made into law. “Cap and trade” refers to the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which, while narrowly passing the House of Representatives in 2009, is widely considered to be dead in the U.S. Senate. “Card check” refers to a provision in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that would allow workers to form a union if they could get half the workers to sign a card stating their intention to organize. Despite being a top priority of the country’s labor movement, EFCA has been in limbo for years, and the card check provision is widely considered to be unable to garner enough votes to pass, and is likely dead.

If Toomey is resorting to blaming the lack of job growth on legislation that hasn’t even passed yet, economics and basic political facts must indeed by very “hard” for him to “figure out.”

Bail-Outs - one assumes that would be the TARP bail-out started by the Bush administration and overwhelmingly voted for by Republicans. A recent audit of TARP showed President Obama and Democrats will recoup all to almost all of those funds and they saved U.S. car manufacturing and tens of thousands of jobs. Cap and Trade would help America move forward on energy policy and be good for our national security by making us less reliant on foreign oil. I guess Toomey has studied the issue closely and decided he doesn't care about America's energy future. Toomey does not want average working Americans to have the same freedom to organize which American business does. That figures since Republicans have a record of being pro freedom for the rich elite and anti-freedom for working folks. Obamacare, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s most recent score of the health care law found that it will produce “$143 billion in net budgetary savings over the 2010-2019 period.” Toomey could use some health care apparently, especially some mental health counseling and some medication.

Media Buys Sharron Angle a Senate Seat. Isn't That What the Founders Wanted

Sharron Angle brags about her fundraising from "friendly" outlets like Fox News

As journalist Jon Ralston noted, Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle bragged to supporters that her appearances on a "friendly press outlet" like Fox News are profitable. As an example, Angle said that when she made an appeal on "Sean Hannity's television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York."

From a transcript of Angle posted on Ralston's blog (audio here):

    Guest: Sharron, how are you doing as far as the fundraising?

    Sharron Angle: It's going really well. If you're interested in just the Internet part of that -- and of course I've been criticized for saying that I like to be friends with the [press] -- but here's the deal: when I get a friendly press outlet -- not so much the guy that's interviewing me -- it's their audience that I'm trying to reach. So, if I can get on Rush Limbaugh, and I can say, "Harry Reid needs $25 million. I need a million people to send twenty five dollars to SharronAngle.com." The day I was able to say that [even], he made $236,000 dollars. That's why it's so important. Somebody...I'm going on Bill O'Reilly the 16th. They say, "Bill O'Reilly, you better watch out for that guy, he's not necessarily a friendly"...Doesn't matter, his audience is friendly, and if I can get an opportunity to say that at least once on his show -- when I said it on Sean Hannity's television show we made $40,000 before we even got out of the studio in New York. It was just [great]. So that's what I'm really reaching out to is that audience that's had it with Harry, and you can watch that happen when I go on those shows. Go on my website, it starts coming in. We have an automatic...when you put your name in there and it doesn't tell how much you gave, but it tells your name and where you're from. And so you can just watch it; it just rolls like this. In fact, with Rush Limbaugh we put it all down. We couldn't take the ticker going fast enough. And we've pulled in over [3,000,000] dollars just from that kind of a message going out.

Angle has been fairly consistent in touting Fox News as part of her national fundraising push. On September 10, Angle wrote that she would appear on Fox News' Hannity as "part of our push" to raise $1 million online; she previously told Fox News reporter Carl Cameron that she needed the press to be her "friend" and allow her to give out the address of her website; and in July, Angle suggested that she frequently appeared on Fox News -- the home of softball Angle interviews -- because they allow her to make fundraising appeals to viewers.

Wasn't this Thomas Jefferson and George Washington's dream to have the media directly help a right-wing extremists who wants to force rape victims to give birth to the children of their attackers a Senate seat.

GOP House Candidate Wants To Repeal Pre-Existing Condition Health Care Coverage, All Other Reforms

Last month, a whole host of new health care protections for Americans kicked in as a result of the health care reform bill the President signed earlier this year. These protections included mandating that insurance companies end exclusions based on pre-existing conditions for children, ending unfair recissions, and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans until age 26.

Most Republicans, while openly campaigning to repeal this health care law, have said that they support these portions of the law that have already been enacted and will include them in their “replace” health care proposals. For example, the GOP’s Pledge To America promises that the party will “ensure access for patients with pre-existing conditions.”

Yet during a debate with Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA), GOP congressional candidate Austin Scott staked out a position far to the right of the Pledge To America. At one point, the moderator asked Scott if there were “any provisions of the health care bill passed that” he supports, and that he’d “like to keep.” Scott gave a short reply: “No, ma’am, there are not. There just aren’t“:

Scott is simply a member of the right-wing conservative culture of death. he loves the idea of 45,000 Americans dying every year from lack of health insurance. Yep, Scott is the change America needs.

Bill O’Reilly Says “Muslims Killed Us On 9-11” During Discussion Of NY “Mosque”

Bill O’Reilly was a guest on this morning’s “The View” and things got a little lively. During a discussion of Park 51, O’Reilly said that Obama’s support for the mosque demonstrates the “gulf” between Obama and the American people. When Joy Behar said, “this is America" and "I'm an American," America’s patronizing daddy reprimanded her with “listen to me because you’ll learn.” There was more back and forth about “the mosque” before America’s Catholic daddy said that the location of the "mosque" was inappropriate because “Muslims killed us on 9-11.” Whoppi Goldberg said that this was “bullshit” and cited Timothy McVay’s having been a Christian (he received the "last sacraments" from a Catholic priest before his execution) after which she and Behar walked off the set. As they walked off, O'Reilly "joked" that they were leaving because "Muslims killed us." Barbara Walters chided her co-hosts; but she did assert that “You cannot take a whole religion and demean them because of what some did.” (So I guess it’s cool with Bill if we say that Catholics killed innocent British and Irish civilians and Catholics put the Jews on the trains to Auschwitz! And did Bill refer to anti-abortion domestic terrorist, Eric Rudolph, as a Catholic cuz he was!) After the walk off, however, Bill did assert that he wasn't demeaning all Muslims and admitted that he expressed himself "inartfully." He then used the term "radical" Muslims as a result of having been "schooled" by Ms. Walters. I guess that's progress!

Bill also conveniently forgets to mentions that 60 Muslims were also killed by the 9-11 terrorists and that 4 million American Muslims work and pay their taxes just like every other American. If Bill is trying to win some kind of award for being stupid and intolerant he is on his way. Why does Bill O'Liar hate America and the ideals on which this nation was founded.

Hey Wisconsin Great Idea Lets Elect a Child Molesters Best Friend as Senator

Ron Johnson, WI Senate Candidate, Opposed Wisconsin Child Victims Act

Last week, I encouraged readers to get to know their Ron Johnson, the GOP insurgent who's lately been up in the polls against veteran Democratic Senator Russ Feingold in the Wisconsin Senate election. Now, here's a new fun fact, courtesy of  ThinkProgress -- in Johnson's "one prominent act of political participation" prior to his Senate run, he testified in front of the state legislature against the Wisconsin Child Victims Act.

The Wisconson Child Victims Act essentially eliminates the statute of limitations for bringing suit againt "any person" for "injury caused by...an adult's sexual contact with anyone under the age of 18." For the purposes of the statute, "person" was defined as "an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, or government; governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality; public corporation; or any other legal or commercial entity."

Now, me, personally, I have no problem with easing the burden on children victimized by "an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, or government; governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality; public corporation; or any other legal or commercial entity."

Johnson didn't feel the same way. Per Jilani:

    In his testimony before the Wisconsin legislature, he said it was "extremely important to consider the economic havoc...and the other victims" that the new law would "likely create" -- ridiculously comparing child abuse victims to the economic damages faced by employers being sued. Johnson warned that the Child Victims Act would lead to businesses or other organizations that work with children to be "damaged or destroyed" by civil suits and that it would "send a chilling signal" to civic-minded organizations like the Boy Scouts to not work with children in the future. He then opined that if the bill were passed, "I have no doubt trial lawyers would benefit, I'm not so sure that the actual victims would."

WATCH: video at main link


Unless, Johnson's PACUR, LLC was considering making a bold move into the vibrant child sexual abuse sector, his concerns don't make a whole lot of sense. Alison Arngrim of the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT) felt similarly, asking, "Do you have to flunk a course in logic to run for office?" (Actually, it really helps!)

Let's get on the Johnson bandwagon and make it harder for businesses to recover losses by embezzlers or make it harder for victims of arson to sue arsonists. Johnson's moral compass seems to be broken. Is Ron the kind of change Wisconsin Republicans think Washington needs? Heaven helps us Ron is the embodiment of modern conservative thinking.

Meet Wisconsin's Ron Johnson Wealthy Businessman, Anti-Science Freak and Friend to Child Molesters

Meet Wisconsin's Ron Johnson Wealthy Businessman, Anti-Science Freak and Friend to Child Molesters

So if Johnson defeats Feingold, let's look at some of the issue pronouncements of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI):

• He has opposed government intervention in business -- and built his companies partly with the help of government-facilitated loans.

• Just several months before his entry into politics, Johnson testified before a state legislative committee against a bill, intended to crack down on the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals, which would have made it easier for past sex abuse victims to sue organizations that were responsible for their care. (Johnson is not Catholic, but a Lutheran, though he sat on the financial council of the Catholic Church's Green Bay diocese.)

• He has denied that man contributes to global warming, blaming it on sunspots. (In fact, overall solar activity has gone down slightly over the past decade, while global temperatures have gone up.)

• He has said that carbon emissions are good for trees.

• In further service of denying anthropogenic global warming, he claimed that Greenland used to be green. (Not exactly.)

• In July, he said he would sell his BP stock -- when the market was better, so he could use the money to finance his campaign. Being new to politics, he clearly didn't understand the whole concept of selling stock in a company that has run into political controversy.

• And just on Friday, the AP published an investigation of Johnson's business records, showing that the candidate, who has campaigned against government subsidies for businesses, receives government subsidies for nine prison inmates he employs.

If Johnson is the conservative movement's idea of change what is so different between Johnson's bizarre beliefs and behavior and those of other extreme right-wing Republicans. Johnson says he has values and stands up for child molesters. Johnson says is will bring fresh air to Washington, but it is just as corrupt as the Republicans from the Bush era K-Street project - they pedaled special favors for legislation in exchange for campaign contributions. Johnson is anti-science which means he is opposed to rational thinking and is not open to new information on which to make rational decisions.