Manny Pacquiao-- Another Shabby Right Wing Icon

Yesterday, far right fanatic Bryan Fischer was whining on twitter how "ANOTHER rich guy takes his money - and his tax revenue - out of US because taxes are too high." And that was Manny Pacquiao, a Filipino boxer and the congressman representing Sarangani province back home. Since being sworn in on April 16, 2012 he's been representing Sarangani's 500,000 mostly poor farmers from his two beautiful homes in Los Angeles. He's in L.A. making millions doing commercials for NIKE, for detergents, medicines, telecomm companies, cheap beer, clothing and for anyone else who will write him a check. Lately he's been pretty unwelcome around L.A. He decided to spout off about how marriage equality offends his religious feelings.

I don't follow boxing and I would have never heard of Manny Pacquiao except that I have a Filipino friend who told me about how Pacquiao is still friends with two former boyfriends, who he used to have sex with back in the Philippines and still spends time with here in L.A. Oops... how Republican! He plans to run for president of his own country so he's been making plans to move back there, which seems like a sensible thing to do. And it's probably better to be a congressman if you live there and not here. But he made a commotion this week by telling the media he's leaving the U.S. because federal taxes are too burdensome. The sleazy little hypocrite has made tens of millions of dollars... but taxes are too high. Grover Norquist, the guy who wants to drown the government in a bathtub, is on the case: “Pacquiao’s concerns lie with the federal income tax. As Nevada is one of the nine states that do not have an income tax, Las Vegas has grown to become the home for major bouts because fighters do not have to worry about the state taking a bite out of their winnings or purse... Unfortunately, Nevada’s economic benefit is now overshadowed by the federal income tax rate... [F]or boxers who stand to earn over $1 million per fight through winnings, pay-per-view revenue shares, fight bonuses, and other forms of taxable income, they will be taxed at the top marginal income tax rate of 39.6 percent.”

Always so tragic when multimillionaires are asked to pay their share! In all likelihood, he'll be apologizing as fast as golfing millionaire Phil Mickelson did for the same kind of selfish, greedy comments. In Pacquaio's case, though, he should be encouraged to go back to his own country and stay there.

I know for sure that Pacquiao, like so many conservative homophobic hypocrites, has sex with young guys but I'm not claiming that he has-- or conservatives like Steve Southerland (R-FL) and John McCain (R-AZ)-- have sex with corpses. I ran across a discussion of what Erich Fromm referred to as the "necrophilious character" in Max Blumenthal's book, Republican Gommorah and it seems sadly relevant, not just to Pacquiao and Bryan Fischer but to the right-wing's bizarre and dysfunctional sexual obsessions in general.

In his 1973 book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Fromm analyzed the phenomenon of necrophilia, concluding that it extended beyond the traditional concept of erotic attraction to rotting flesh and also manifested itself in "malignant aggression... unalloyed from sex, in acts of the pure passion to destroy." The necophilious character, Fromm wrote, is passionately attracted "to all that is dead, decayed, putrid, sickly... It is the passion to tear apart living structures."

Together with his research partner, Michael Moccoby, Fromm surveyed a diverse group of research subjects for necrophilious, "anti-life" tendencies. Across the board, Fromm detected a profound link between necrophilious character traits and right-wing ideology. "The study asked the respondents a number of questions that permitted correlating their political opinions to their character..." Fromm wrote. "In all of the samples, we found that anti-life tendencies were significantly correlated to political positions that supported increased military power and favored repression against dissenters."

Fromm identified necrophilious characteristics as among the most dangerous of any society. "They are the haters, the racists, those in favor of war, bloodshed and destruction," he wrote. "They are dangerous not only if they are political leaders, but also as the potential cohorts for a dictatorial leader. They become the executioners, terrorists, torturers; without them no terror system could be set up..."

Want to rethink the Republican Party's conservative base? A bit?

Joe Pitts And Grover... Sittin' In A Tree

We'll be learning a lot more about how Joe Pitts males America a worse place this year

In our post from Tuesday discussing the benefits that some congressional candidates reap for staying committed to changing Washington through running for office a second time, we also mentioned another type of commitment... like the one to Grover Norquist that so many Republican House members just can’t seem to shake.

One of those members in particular has been caught red-handed in trying to kiss up to Grover and he did it while in the well of Congress just so he made sure it was on the record.

Anti-Choice zealot Joe Pitts (R-PA) decided to give remarks on the floor regarding his opposition to a provision of the Affordable Care Act called the Medical Loss Ratio. The basics of the MLR are that it requires insurance companies to use a minimum of 80% of the premiums you pay toward actual direct care for patients when they need it. And if they are caught not meeting those minimum standards, they are penalized, or as Grover kowtowers would term it, they are taxed.

This takes us back to a debate during the recent election in which Democrat and endorsed Blue America PAC candidate, Aryanna Strader was allowed to ask Mr. Pitts any question she wanted within the topic of health care. The event was sponsored by the local Rotary Club chapter and was held on October 23. The entire debate, question-by-question on the Lancaster Online website, is embedded in such a way that they don’t provide us an embed code to post here, but if you click on “Question #2: Health Care” at the link you will be able to hear the full exchange between Strader and Pitts.

But pay attention to the 3:30 mark. This is where Aryanna poses her question to Pitts, asking him whether or not he supported Medical Loss Ratio. Of course, in front of a room full of local voters who would love nothing more than to make sure insurance companies are forced to pay for services if they are sick or need an operation, Pitts tells them he is supportive of the MLR.

Then, post-election and 37 days removed from the Rotary Club debate, Pitts must have gotten a call from Grover who called him out. And without resistance, Pitts marched his way down on the floor to give remarks now denouncing the MLR. And to make is point, Pitts posted his remarks straight to his congressional YouTube channel:



There is certainly something to be said for members of Congress who bend over so far to save their personal best interest that they can actually see it.

Who's Worse, Fernando Wood Or Joe Crowley-- 2 Of The Worst NYC Democrats In History? Or Grover Norquist?

I'll never know, of course, but I doubt history will contradict me when I say there hasn't been an authentically "great" president in my lifetime. (I haven't given up hope, though, and I'm counting on Elizabeth Warren.) Since I was born, there have just been a series of mediocrities, some worse than others, like the two incredibly awful Bushes, not to mention the utterly clueless Ronald Reagan, all three happy to serve the breathtakingly selfish financial interests of the plutocracy. In retrospect-- severe retrospect-- I'd have to guess the best president we had since I was born was the first, Dwight Eisenhower-- and he wasn't someone beloved in my parents' household. In light of what's come since, he seems like a real paragon of civic virtue.

Saturday I went to see the new film Lincoln and I heartily recommend everyone go see it. All the villains in the film are Democrats-- and, starting with Tammany boss/New York City ex-mayor and Congressman Fernando Wood, villains is a polite way to describe them. Wood wasn't just a racist, he actually tried getting the City Council to secede from the Union during the Civil War. The good guys were the Republicans, particularly Pennsylvania Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, the father of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery, extended equal protection to all citizens, and granted all male citizens the right to vote. Today his old district is represented by Stevens' polar opposite, a bigoted and reactionary right-wing enemy of working families, Joe Pitts, also a Republican. Also... To make any sense out of Lincoln in terms of current politics, every time the word "Republican" is uttered, the viewer has to think "Democrat" and every time the word "Democrat" is uttered, the viewer has to think "Republican."

That said, there's nothing more that I would love-- as today's Democratic Party sells its soul to corporatism and sells out it's grassroots base in an orgy of shameless and corrupt careerism-- more than to see a transformation of the GOP back to the kind of political party it was when Thaddeus Stevens and Abraham Lincoln defined it. I don't expect to see that happen, but I'm always delighted when I see contemporary Republicans, like William Kristol, come face to face with a chilling reality that should push their party in that direction-- the direction of representing the people while leaving the corporate interests to the Democrats like Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Crowley who pursue them so energetically and ruthlessly, while leaving working families to fend for themselves in the jungle the two parties have created. This week Bill Kristol was going through that kind of political self-examination for his tattered party in public.

Is the Grand Old Party in as much disarray as it seems? Yup. For one thing, Republicans are electorally shellshocked. For the past couple of years, they had been confident Barack Obama would lose in November. Many Republicans held that belief going into Election Day. This was the first time since 1948 that Republicans were confident they were going to win a presidential election-- and then lost it. The Republican psyche will take a while to recover from the shock of November 6.

It’s also gradually sunk in that the GOP has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and that the GOP has been thumped in three of the last four national contests (2006, 2008, and 2012). Since the end of the Cold War, the Republican party has had only two really good election days, in 1994 and in 2010. Those were both off-year victories in reaction to the mistakes of first-term Democratic presidents, and in neither case proved harbingers of presidential victory two years later.

Well, if the electoral scene isn’t pretty, maybe the legislative one is better? It’s true Republicans still control the House. But this turns out to be at best a mixed blessing. Because they’re in control, House Republicans are supposed to negotiate with the president on the budget and taxes. They’re united in scorning President Obama’s opening proposal. But what’s the GOP proposal for averting the fiscal cliff? There doesn’t seem to be one.

He then blames the Republican disaster on Grover Norquist and, if you look closely enough, on the people who consider themselves bound by his ridiculous and entirely anti-American pledge. Kristol is certainly another on a growing list of Republicans who would very much like to drown Grover Norquist in a bathtub. "Will Republicans in Congress," he asks, "be successful at finding a way out of their current mess? Who knows. This year, the most well-funded Republican candidate in history, with the most professional campaign, supported by the most sophisticated super-PACs, proved unable to find a path to victory-- even though such a path was eminently findable. Republicans in Congress are equally capable of winding up on the losing side of the equation. So 2012 could end up a lost year for the GOP... [which] sure seems to be in a grand old mess. But messes can produce moments of opportunity, lemons can be turned into lemonade, and it’s always darkest before the dawn. Except when it turns pitch black."

Sunday Allen West was reminding his followers, that he's just like Abraham Lincoln. And it doesn't get more discouraging than that.

Grover Norquist Has Something New He Wants To Drown In A Bathtub... Bad Republicans

Alan Grayson won his primary yesterday, of course; he had no opponent. But he did a lot of advertising... most of it to remind Democrats and independents how truly awful is the policy agenda Todd Long embraces. In doing so he boosted Long's favorability among right-wingers which Grayson probably was totally happy about. Long is the ideal candidate anyone would want to run against. He was banned from the Millenia Mall, Orlando's biggest, for drunk and disorderly conduct; he was arrested in a school yard 200 miles from his home, passed out on the sidewalk and drunk. We he came to, he claimed he had no idea how he got there. And stuff like that is nothing compared to his crackpot agenda. Although the biggest newspaper in Central Florida, the Sentinel endorsed also-ran (barely) and failed screenwriter Julius Melendez and the Florida Republican Establishment was backing tax-and-spend-conservative Osceola Board of County Commissioner/tap-dancer John Q. Quiñones, each of whom outraised Long (who had $3,511 in cash on hand on July 25th), it was Long who triumphed. Something tells me it was actually Grayson who triumphed... in both primaries.

Todd Long- 12,513 (47%)
John Quiñones- 7,479 (28%)
Julius Melendez- 3.973 (15%)
Mark Oxner- 2,506 (9%)

Immediately after Long was declared the victor, Grayson issued a short press release: “The November election will be a referendum on Todd Long’s plan to give our Social Security money to Wall Street and dismantle Medicare. The only way to defeat that plan is to vote against Todd Long.” Perhaps the coup de grâce for the hapless Quiñones was a radio ad that ran for a day and a half-- courtesy of Grayson, quoting Republican anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist denouncing him. I don't have the actual ad, but Norquist's anti-tax website tells the whole story of Quiñones' political obituary.

Today, the John Quiñones for Congress campaign said that they will not be signing the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in his bid for the GOP nomination in Florida’s 9th Congressional District.  Republican candidates Julius Melendez and Mark Oxner have signed the Pledge.

Without a concrete written promise to taxpayers in the district, Quiñones is leaving the door open to higher taxes. For voters familiar with Quiñones’s record as a state legislator, this may not come as a surprise.

State Senator Quiñones voted in support of transportation bill, SB 1350, that included higher taxes. The bill targeted tourists by imposing a $2-a-day tax on rental car customers. Then Republican Governor Jeb Bush vetoed the legislation, noting that the “taxes will be paid disparately by tourists visiting Florida, consequently creating taxation without representation on a large scale.”

Perhaps even more troubling than his support of tax hikes as a Florida legislator are the looming tax hikes that America faces at the beginning of next year.  On January 1, 2013, America faces the largest tax increases in US history.

The cost of Taxmageddon on Florida taxpayers is estimated at over $34 billion in higher taxes. Although Quiñones would not take office until after January 1, the risk of giving him a seat at the negotiating table should leave Florida taxpayers scared.

“The voters in Florida have a right to know where a candidate stands on the issues before electing them to Congress,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “It’s only logical to assume that if Quiñones won’t sign the Pledge then he has plans to raise taxes.”

“The promises that Quiñones makes about creating jobs, cutting spending, and restoring fiscal conservatism to Washington mean little without the backing of a concrete written promise to oppose higher taxes. Only by signing the Pledge, can Florida taxpayers be certain that Quiñones has learned the error of his ways on higher taxes.”

And Grover was just as useful on an entirely different front this week: bipartisan-- better known as "conservative consensus"-- warmongering. Grover is sounding the alarm about Buck McKeon's deranged anti-sequetration lame duck session compromise. McKeon refuses to give up the pork for his Military Industrial Complex campaign donors, even if it means destroying the civilian economy. He voted for sequestration and now he doesn't want to face up to the consequences... or do something reasonable about them. McKeon is beneath Norquist's dignity, though... so he went after McKeon allies Romney and Ryan. If Norquist can round up enough Members and team up with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the sequestration disaster can be averted.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, his would-be vice president Paul Ryan, and defense hawks in Congress are wrong that savings can't be found in the U.S. defense budget, according to Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform, who said that he will fight using any new revenues to keep military spending high.

"We can afford to have an adequate national defense which keeps us free and safe and keeps everybody afraid to throw a punch at us, as long as we don't make some of the decisions that previous administrations have, which is to over extend ourselves overseas and think we can run foreign governments," Norquist said Monday at an event at the Center for the National Interest, formerly the Nixon Center.

But Ryan's views are at odds with those of Norquist and other budget hawks, who argue that defense budgets can be trimmed. Ryan's budget plan provides for increasing military spending and doesn't suggest any tradeoff or specific defense reforms.

"Other people need to lead the argument on how can conservatives lead a fight to have a serious national defense without wasting money," Norquist said. "I wouldn't ask Ryan to be the reformer of the defense establishment."

Avoiding $54 billion of arbitrary defense cuts next year as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, in what's known as "sequestration," has been a focus of Romney's campaign and one of his main points of contrast with President Obama. Romney's views align him with defense hawks who are leading that effort on the Hill, such as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who support closing tax loopholes and deductions to avoid sequestration.

"You will get serious conversation from the advocates of Pentagon spending when they understand ‘here's the dollar amount, now make decisions," Norquist said. "They want to argue you have to raise taxes-- you can't solve the problem."

Norquist vowed to fight any effort to use the money saved by tax reform to pay for military spending or to avoid the sequester.

"You have guys saying ‘can we steal all your deductions and credits and give it to the appropriators,' and then when we get tax reform there will be no tax reform," Norquist said, referring to defense
hawks. "The idea is that you are going to raise taxes on people to not think through defense priorities."

But Norquist predicted that the defense hawks will lose the battle inside the GOP. The ultimate decision-makers, he said, would be the heads of the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, not the respective Armed Services Committees.

"Here's the good news. There's a very small number of them," Norquist said about the defense hawks. "The handful of [Republicans] that support that are either not coming back or they don't know yet that they are not coming back."

The Pentagon wastes money on bloated weapons systems, bases, and programs that are protected by politicians for parochial reasons, he said. Norquist said the defense hawks were not serious about saving money or reforming the Pentagon.

"If you're not looking like you're trying, nobody wants to help you, starting with me... There's a lack of seriousness," he said. "The guys who are saying ‘we're not going to cut Pentagon spending but we want to raise taxes,' they aren't making a sale... They are saying it's not a tax increase. It is, it is, it is."

Norquist said he believes in a non-interventionist foreign policy that eschews nation-building, much like the one former president George W. Bush campaigned on before he decided to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Bush decided to be the mayor of Baghdad rather than the president of the United States. He decided to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan rather than reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That had tremendous consequences," he said. "Rather than doing Doha [the trade round], we did Kabul."

Romney has promised to keep defense spending at 4 percent of U.S. GDP, but Norquist doesn't believe that defense spending should be pegged to the size of the U.S. economy or any other arbitrary number. He argued that the Republican Party needs to reexamine the actual defense needs
and then work from there to determine how much to spend.

"Richard Nixon said that America's national defense needs are set in Moscow, meaning that we wouldn't have to spend so much if they weren't shooting at us," he said. "The guys who followed didn't notice that the Soviet Union disappeared."

Blind Trust

So much disunity and fractiousness inside the GOP these days! I think people are turned off by it. But in an interview with the National Journal, anti-tax/anti-government fanatic-- and self-loathing, demented closet queen-- Grover Norquist had just the thing to unite all factions of the Republican Party: impeaching President Obama if he doesn't extend the Bush tax cuts for millionaires, something polls consistently show the public opposes by wide margins. But the hell with the public, Norquist thinks he can force delusional Republicans in Congress to get back into the impeachment thing that went over so well last time they tried it.

Norquist has long held a tight grip on the marionette strings of the GOP. Wielding undue influence as the head of the Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist ensures that Republican lawmakers sign his anti-tax pledge and threatens them with electoral defeat should they even think of deviating from it. Norquist has marked a successful few years, killing the deficit super committee agreement, batting down a tax increase on millionaires, and, of course, ensuring the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

Pleased with his headway, Norquist is now mapping out how he can ensure further anti-tax victories by securing Republican majorities. In an interview with the National Journal, he mused that a GOP mandate would obviously enact an extension of the Bush tax cuts, work to maintain a repatriation holiday for corporate profits, and even pass House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan that jeopardizes Medicare. But when asked what Republicans should do if faced with a Democratic majority that won’t keep the tax cuts, Norquist had a simple answer: “impeach” Obama.

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?
NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

[Confidential to Grover N: The Senate doesn't impeach; the House impeaches. If it does, an impeachment trial is then held in the Senate. Sometimes it's handy to know these things. -- Ed.]

Wow! It's like the whole GOP has become unhinged and disconnected from the real world Americans are facing every day. Yesterday you may have missed the Newtster chitchatting on ABC with Jake Tapper, who was sitting in for George Stephanopoulos on This Week. Here's Gingrich's best shot at Republican unity, the kind of unity it will take for these kooks to impeach President Obama.

I think clearly the conservatives and the grassroots are increasingly angry about the way in which the Washington establishment has rallied in many ways with complete dishonesty, as Rush Limbaugh pointed out the other day. Some of the articles, some of the attacks on me have been breathtakingly dishonest. And I think as that deepens, the conservatives are going to come together and decide they do not want a Massachusetts liberal to be the Republican nominee.

...I'm standing next to a guy who is the most blatantly dishonest answers I can remember in any presidential race in-- in my lifetime. And I've seen, I think, every presidential debate-- presidential campaign debate or virtually every one. And, you know, he would say things that were just plain not true.

Look, it's a little bit like yesterday's L.A. Times report. I mean, now it found 23 foreign accounts he never reported until he released his taxes. He would say-- he would say thing after thing after thing that just plain wasn't true.

And I had-- I don't know how you debate a person with civility if they're prepared to say things that are just plain factually false. And that's going to become a key part of this. I think the Republican establishment believes it's OK to say and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning because they are very afraid of losing control of the old order.

We tried a moderate in 1996 for president. He lost. We tried a moderate in 2008 for president. He lost. It's very hard to take Romneycare and Obamacare and have a debate and have the Republican win that debate... [Romney's] supposedly a great manager, yet he can't explain 23 different foreign accounts that weren't reported. He's a great manager. He can't explain being on the board of directors of the company which got the largest Medicare fine in history for fraud?

...[W]hen you get outside the zone where Romney carpet-bombs with Wall Street money, and you look at what's happening in the rest of the country, I'm ahead in all three national polls that were released this week. I'm ahead by a big margin, because when you come to positive ideas, I represent real change in Washington, I represent unleashing the spirit of the American people to get us back as a country, rebuilding the country we love. And when we get to a positive idea campaign, I consistently win.

It's only when he can mass money to focus on carpet-bombing with negative ads that he gains any traction at all. ...He is a manager who will manage the decay. I am a leader who has a vision of a bold, exciting American future where we change Washington decisively. And there's a good reason the Washington establishment is afraid of me. I will, in fact, lead the American people to change Washington. Romney will, in fact, hang out with his establishment friends, managing the decay, and explaining to the rest of us why that's the best hope we have.

God must love Barack Obama.

What's Happened So Far In The Class War Reagan Started in 1981?

Boehner, who signed his pledge, referred to him as a "random person" today

This week, Beltway scold-- and former Wyoming senator-- Alan Simpson (R) was scolding the Republicans on the SuperCommittee.

“Just a quick note about Grover Norquist,” Simpson testified. “If Grover Norquist is now the most powerful man in America, he should run for president. There’s no question about his power. And let me tell you, he has people in thrall. That’s a terrible phrase. Lincoln used it. It means your mind has been captured. You’re in bondage with a soul."

Simpson went on: “So here he is. I asked him. He said, ‘My hero is Ronald Reagan.’ I said, ‘Well, he raised taxes 11 times in his eight years.’ And he said, ‘I know. I didn’t like that at all.’ I said, ‘Well, he did it. Why do you suppose?’ He said, ‘I don’t know. Very disappointing.’ I said, ‘He probably did it to make the country run, another sick idea.’”

Oh, boy... Grover got his weiner whacked. But why should he care? He's already won over and over and over-- and I mean won. Since 1981, when Reagan overtly aligned the government with the interests of the 1% again-- there was that brief New Deal and post-New Deal interregnum-- the rich whose interests Norquist (and the Republican Party and Blue Dogs) champion have scored knock out punch after knock out punch.

[T]he vast majority of the Rich Class really are engaged in a massive cover-up, a widespread conspiracy that includes the Super Rich, Forbes 400 billionaires, Wall Street bank CEOs, all their high-paid Washington lobbyists, all the Congressional puppets they keep in office by spending hundreds of millions on campaign payola and all the conservative presidential candidates praying the same Rich Class dogma.

They’re fighting you, winning big-time, and you’re the loser. It’s just one generation since conservatives put Reagan in office: In those three short decades the income and wealth of the top 1% has tripled while the income of the bottom 99% of all Americans has stagnated or dropped.

Yes, they are at war with you, fighting to gain absolute power over America … and they will never stop their brutal attacks.

...Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

In spite of that unequivocal declaration, Buffett’s Rich Class buddies still want you to believe that it’s the Occupiers, the lazy unemployed, the 99%, someone else, anyone other than their Rich Class that’s fomenting class warfare.

So you need occasional reminders, because the “Rich Class” has been spending mega-bucks for decades to shift responsibility. Fortunately today, folks like the Occupiers aren’t buying the con job. Here’s a few:

Rich Class warriors: puppet-politicians in GOP-controlled Congress

We know the GOP is the Party of the Rich Class. But the Dems are co-conspirators fighting the class war as pawns of the wealthy. No wonder the Occupy Wall Street crowd focuses on the inequality gap between America’s top 1% and the 99% who’ve seen no income growth since the Reaganomics ideology took over American politics. Many are like House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, clones of Ayn Rand’s narcissistic cult of selfish capitalism.
Listen, both parties are singing in harmony: “Yes, there’s class warfare. And yes, it’s our duty to fight for the richest class of capitalists who are making this war. We must help them win, get richer, squeeze more and more out of all Americans.”

Rich Class warriors: Federal Reserve-Wall Street bankers conspiracy

Yes, there are five banks in America that control about 90% of all the deposits … they control over 90% of America’s trading in the $650 trillion global derivatives casino … they control the Federal Reserve through directors and governors … their campaign payola and lobbyists virtually control the presidency, the Senate and Congress … they siphon huge bonuses from depositors, shareholders and pensioners alike:

“So yes, there is a class warfare running our banking system, every day. And yes, the CEOs in our rich class are leading that class war, and winning big. But more in never enough, so we want new ways to skim off profits, because we are invincible, too big and too greedy to fail.”

Rich Class warriors: Pentagon’s Perpetual War-Mongering Machine

The rich class loves war (war profiteering is a big business). Of course they often have to brainwash the 99% with fears like the mushroom-cloud lies Bush-Cheney used to get America into the $3 trillion Iraq War. Americans have a powerful love-hate relationship with war. Why else would we spend almost half our federal budget, several hundred billion dollars, on war every year?

“Yes, there’s class warfare, all right,” the former vice president might say as a one-time defense contractor CEO and oilman who continued profiting in office. He’d obviously admit:
“Yes, we’re in a class war, and it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we proud that we kept winning that war while we was in office.”

Rich Class fighting to turn America back into Reagan’s ol’ Wild West

The list goes on: The Rich Class wants to time-travel America back to a lawless Old Wild West, back to a free-market Reaganomics anarchy where the top 1% trickle down leftovers to the 99% using this kind of self-destructive programs:

• Privatize: Turn Social Security over to Wall Street bankers to run Main Street’s retirements into the dirt (worse than they did in 2008), a $20 trillion blunder that’s guaranteed to trigger total bankruptcy of the America economy.

• Vouchers: Turn our educational and health-care systems into a voucher system so that private companies owned by the Rich Class can siphon off even bigger profits from every little trickle-down bone the wealthy toss to parents, the sick and elderly.

• Regulations: They’ll also turn over environmental, drugs, food, banking and all other regulatory agencies back to be controlled by the very company executives they’re supposed to be regulating, just like Bush and Cheney did for eight years.

• Tax-Free: Extend Bush tax cuts to Rich Class, eliminate estate taxes and give Corporate America another tax–free holiday to return huge foreign profits so they can deposit those profits direct into pockets of the Rich Class.

But, of course, there’s nothing new here. We just forget so easily, because it’s so bad. Which is why we’ll be reminding you often that the Rich Class has been fighting this war against you for 30 years, since Reagan.

And they’re so greedy they cannot stop fighting. So they will likely keep attacking the 99% for another decade, till the 2020 presidential elections, or more likely, till a catastrophic collapse of the economy coming soon.

Yes, folks, America really is under attack daily. We are fighting on the defense in an historic class warfare. Yes, the Rich Class really did start this war. And yes, they really are winning, big-time. And yes, they are addicted to winning at all costs, to get richer and richer just for the sake of getting richer and richer.

They have no conscience about the collateral damage done to the rest of Americans. They’ve lost their moral compass. In short, they will fight this war to the death, yours, theirs, even the death of America. Bet on it: Because more is never enough for America’s morally bankrupt Rich Class.

The Wall Street Journal made a little space on its editorial page yesterday for a non-1%-er, Ralph Nader, no less. He's not talking about guillotines. He's talking about a modest tax of speculation. "Elected representatives," he writes, "have virtually ignored the outrage expressed by protesters on Wall Street and across the country. But the message will keep coming until Congress finally demonstrates that it is listening. A good start would be a tax on financial speculation"-- the kind German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, both conservatives, are pressing on the Euro-zone.

Occupiers throughout the country are pushing elected officials to break the corporate stranglehold on our economy. Both Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) have proposed legislation in the past that would enact a 0.25% tax on the value of stock, bond and derivatives transactions.

But that is far too small. National Nurses United and other progressive groups believe that we would be better served by a rate of 0.5%. This could help curb the wheeling and dealing on Wall Street and raise hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue to help with our country's economic recovery. According to estimates from a 2009 Center for Economic and Policy Research paper, a small tax perhaps ranging from one-half to one-hundredth of a percent, depending upon which financial product is taxed, could reap $350 billion.

This tax offers another significant benefit: It has the potential to curb risky speculative trading that contributes little real economic value. The Capital Institute's John Fullerton has stated that a financial speculation tax could have a significant impact on the high-frequency trading and other "quant" trading strategies that now comprise an astonishing 70% of vastly bloated equity-trading volume. Over the past few decades, trading volume has grown exponentially. In 1995 the total shares of stock traded on the Nasdaq and the NYSE, not including derivatives and other options, was 188 billion. By the peak of the financial crisis, in 2008, this annual number had skyrocketed to three trillion.

Critics argue that this tax would be borne by ordinary investors, retirement funds or mutual funds. But these arguments fall flat when one considers the enormity of speculative trading that occurs in the stock market. Sen. Harkin, Rep. DeFazio and others in the past few years have proposed protecting ordinary investors from the direct effects of the tax by providing exemptions for mutual funds, retirement funds and for the first $100,000 in trades made annually by an individual.

Worth mentioning: DeFazio's Robin Hood tax is hated by the 1%-ers and their hacks-- from Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Fred Upton and John Boehner to Harold Ford, Ben Nelson and Dan Boren-- but you know who really hated Robin Hood? Yes, Ryan's very own personal anti-Jesus, Ayn Rand. And very childhood!

"The thing that Occupy Wall Street has done is give a clear visual image of the policies the three of us have been advocating since the collapse of our economy in 2007," said Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa who joined DeFazio and Harkin at the news conference.

"The simple truth is, this speculation fee we're talking about is simply designed so those who have abused the system are paying to play," he said.

"These super computers are based on timing principles that have no consideration of how these companies are being managed, the shareholders who are being impacted or the employees who work at those companies.

The transaction fee, which the United States levied for decades until it was abolished in 1966, would also raise billions of dollars that could be used to reduce the deficit or for other purposes. DeFazio and Harkin said their current proposal has not yet been "scored" so there are no precise revenue estimates. Independent budget analysts calculated that their 2009 proposal would have raised $150 billion over 10 years.

DeFazio said that the rate he proposes is far lower than existing rates in most developed nations. He mocked arguments that adding the tax would drive investors overseas.

"I'd say 'sure,'" DeFazio said. "If you want to pay a tax that's three-times higher go to Europe."

It's also less than a fee currently being considered by the European Union. For the average worker who, according to federal data, invests $3,400 a year in a 401(k) retirement account, the transaction tax would add a $1 in addition cost each year.

I'm with Nader on this one-- DeFazio isn't asking for even nearly enough.

What Would Happen If Voters Actually Know Not Just What "G.O.P." Stands For But What The Republican Party Stands For?

When I read about how Republican Establishment conservative Frank Wolf (VA) had decided to blame Grover Norquist for Congress' historic-- and disintegrating-- popularity and its inability to get anything done, the first thing that popped into mind was an R.E.M. song from 1987 (which happens to have been inspired by Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, the song we featured on Tuesday).

{{Frank Wolf}} has a lifetime ProgressivePunch score of 7.17, the 54th "most progressive" among Republican congressman. (That's very conservative, but not crossing over into the domestic fascism camp of most of the GOP caucus these days. And he is one of only sic Republicans who never did sign Norquist's ironclad no-taxes/drown the government in a bathtub pledge. Saying he was compelled by his conscience, Wolf got up on the floor of the House Tuesday and let loose on ole Grover. No one does that... and lives to tell. He reminded Members of Congress that Norquist is, bottom line, nothing but a crooked lobbyist who has been "working with 'unsavory characters' (terrorists and money launderers) and pushing a pledge that makes it harder for Congress to achieve meaningful deficit reduction and tax reform."

Wolf said the Taxpayer Protection Pledge created by Norquist and ATR has had the effect of “paralyzing Congress” and making it impossible to even discuss ways to reform the tax code:

WOLF: Everything must be on the table, and I believe how the pledge is interpreted and enforced by Mr. Norquist is a roadblock to realistically reforming our tax code. When Senator Tom Coburn recently fought to eliminate the special interest ethanol tax subsidy, who led the opposition? Mr. Norquist. [...]
Have we really reached the point where one person’s demand for ideological purity is paralyzing Congress to the point that even a discussion of tax reform is viewed as breaking a no-tax pledge?

...Wolf is, unfortunately, correct that Norquist’s pledge has paralyzed the GOP, as Republicans remain shackled to the no-taxes platform and continue to oppose any measure that would reduce the nation’s deficit by raising tax revenues, whether through tax increases or by ending expensive subsidies. That intransigence is what took the nation to the brink of default in August and caused the first downgrade of the nation’s credit rating in American history.

Norquist is at the heart of the Republican obstructionism that has been behind the disintegration of, not just Obama's presidency and American governance in general, but the economy and financial well-being of America in particular.

Hackish New Jersey career politician Leonard Lance is one of the Republicans who did sign Norquist's venal pledge and who sits by fearfully-- and idly-- as New Jersey families in his own district see the middle class American dream disappearing before their eyes. This morning we asked his opponent, Blue-America endorsed Ed Potosnak how Lance could be so disconnected from the interests of the voters in central Jersey.

Rep. Lance consistently takes his cues from others, whether it is the Norquist pledge, repeal of the discriminatory Don't ask Don't Tell policy, or how to cut spending... he is following the wrong crowd. Abdicating leadership to megadonors, big banks, the oil and gas industry and right wing extremists is destroying our chances of a recovery and ruining opportunities for the families and businesses in our communities to grow our economy. When elected, I will lead us out of this recession through sensible policies based on data, science, and reason which stands in stark contrast to my opponent's approach of letting special interests dictate his stances.

Yesterday Karl Frisch addressed a twin phenomena-- governmental paralysis by the rise of the faux Constitutional Conservative. He calls it a virus and a plague and points out just how these right-wing zealots are trying to destroy and undermine the parts of the Constitution they don't like.

Take the 14th Amendment for example. For my conservative friends reading at home, I’ll save you the time of retrieving that illustrated pocket-Constitution you picked up at your first John Birch Society meeting. This Amendment zeros in on citizenship, due process, and equal protection among other things.

Appealing to their xenophobic, nationalist base, many Republicans appear to have abandoned efforts to transform their party into a big-tent large enough to include naturalized immigrants. Instead, they’ve advocated a repeal of the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

Then there’s the 16th Amendment-- this one gives Congress explicit permission to levy taxes on income. Deep-sixing this one is a no brainer for tea party Republicans like Texas Governor Rick Perry. Common among his ilk is the notion that Libertarian magic dust can defend our country, pave our roads, educate our children, provide for our poor, and attend to our sick and elderly.

Perhaps most perplexing of all is attacks made by Republican Senators on the 17th Amendment-- the very Amendment that provides for their direct election by voters. Prior to this Amendment, every day Americans had little say in who would represent them in the Senate.

Leading the charge on this front has been Mike Lee, the Senate’s foremost “constitutional delusional.” Voters elected Lee just last year but as far as I’m concerned, if he doesn’t think “we the people” should elect Senators, he should resign his seat.

What these “constitutional conservatives” are advocating is no less than a full-scale retreat on the 20th century.

The story of our constitutional progress should be an inspiration. As members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus recently pointed out to their colleagues, that progress has “eliminated slavery, expanded the right to vote, protected liberty and equality, and given the federal government important new powers and resources.”

For 223 years, Americans have sought a “more perfect union” improving through Amendment on the best form of government the world has ever seen. The arc of constitutional progress has made us a stronger, freer nation.

Our elected representatives take an oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution-- all of it.  They don’t get to pick and choose and perhaps that is the fundamental difference confronting us when is comes to our most cherished document.

Today's GOP-- At The Very Un-American Intersection of Fascism And Stalinism

You know the old adage almost universally-- if incorrectly-- attributed to Soviet totalitarian Josef Stalin: "It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." Though he never said any such thing, it certainly sums up his view of "democracy." It also sums up the Republican Party's view on democracy.

It was more than a little ironic when Grover Norquist tried comparing President Obama to Stalin yesterday. Norquist, who, like Stalin, was never elected to anything, holds dictatorial power over his authoritarian political party. He may not have the clout of the Koch brothers but he's become the symbol for right-wing intransigence, obstructionism and hatred of American government. And when it comes to discarding any and all rules for the sake of obtaining power, there's no light whatsoever between the Kochs, Norquist, Hitler and Stalin.

In the video above, Rachel Maddow goes into admirable depth in explaining the Republican Party's current Koch-financed, ALEC-dominated jihad against the mortal enemy of right-wing politics: democracy itself. The Republican governors and legislatures in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Maine and Georgia are making the ultimate grab for the golden ring in 2012. If it succeeds, American democracy will be altered in a way that goes against the grain of the country's history, a history that has seen the inexorable expansion of voter participation from the day when only white, Christian male property owners were allowed to participate in government-- or even vote. If you think this isn't exactly what the Republican fascists are aiming for, you haven't been paying attention. Watch Rachel's report up top.

Lungren And Norquist-- Not The Most Popular Corporate Shills In The Sacramento Area

In 2008, the presidential election results in Dan Lungren's northern California district were very close. It was, in fact, Obama's closest margin of victory in the state. Unlike Gore or Kerry, he took CA-3, but just barely, 49-49%! And Dan Lungren, on of the state's most disliked incumbents scraped by with 50% of the vote. The following year Lungren drew a far better-financed opponent Ami Bera, who again held him down to 50%. After redistricting, Lungren will face Bera again-- and in a slightly bluer district. And next year Bera, a medical doctor, should have no problem making sure the district's hard-pressed seniors are aware that Lungren voted to replace Medicare with an inadequate voucher program. The Democratic staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has all the facts and figures. The Republican proposal Lungren voted for would have disastrous impacts on seniors and disabled people in the district who are currently enrolled in Medicare. Here's how; this is what it would do to residents of CA-3:

• Increase prescription drug costs for 7,900 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who enter the Part D donut hole, forcing them to pay an extra $77 million for drugs over the next decade.

• Eliminate new preventive care benefits for 109,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district. The Republican proposal would have even greater impacts on individuals in the district age 54 and
younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare. It would:

• Deny 570,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare’s guaranteed benefits.

• Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 127,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.

• Require the 127,000 individuals in the district between the ages of 44 and 54 to save an additional $29.7 billion for their retirement-- an average of $182,000 to $287,000 per individual-- to pay for the increased cost of health coverage over their lifetimes. Younger residents of the district will have to save even higher amounts to cover their additional medical costs.

• Raise the Medicare eligibility age by at least one year to age 66 or more for 71,000 individuals in the district who are age 44 to 49 and by two years to age 67 for 444,000 individuals in the district who are age 43 or younger.

This district has 127,000 individuals who will enroll in Medicare for the first time between 2022 and 2032. Under the Republican plan Lungren backs and voted for, their cumulative out-of-pocket costs for Medicare coverage during their first 20 years of program eligibility would increase by $41.2 billion compared to their costs under traditional Medicare, an increase of 235%. And Lungren's Medicaid cuts would be catastrophic for district residents as well. Were Lungren's plan ever to become law, Medicaid’s guarantee of coverage would be eliminated, Medicaid would be turned into a block grant program, and the federal contribution to Medicaid would be reduced by nearly $800 billion over the next decade. Other changes voted for by Lungren would allow states to eliminate coverage for seniors, individuals with disabilities, children, pregnant women, and others currently enrolled in Medicaid. These changes would have a profound impact on Medicaid’s ability to provide health coverage to millions of Americans and in the 3rd CD, these provisions could:

• Reduce coverage for 17,900 dual eligible seniors and individuals with disabilities who rely on Medicaid to supplement their Medicare coverage or pay their Medicare cost sharing.

• Jeopardize nursing home care for 1,100 whose expenses are paid by Medicaid.

• Impair the health care of 63,000 children, including 2,300 newborns each year, who receive coverage under Medicaid.

• Cut payments to hospitals for 18,000 emergency room visits paid for by Medicaid each year.

• Cut payments to hospitals for 5,900 inpatient visits paid for by Medicaid each year.

• Reduce jobs and hurt economic growth by eliminating $1.5 billion in Medicaid spending.

But these are hardly the only reasons so many people in the district dislike and mistrust Lungren-- and why so many are ready to replace him. Many are uneasy about the dangerous, unsecured chemical facility in the area, the Dry Creek Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, which Lungren has helped out with numerous loopholes to prevent them from securing the facility, even though it puts his constituents at an unacceptable risk.

Lungren led House Homeland Security Committee Republicans in voting to kill amendments that would have closed security loopholes and required safer chemicals at the Dry Creek wastewater plant near his district.

Though he promised to return to Congress to keep the country safe from terrorism, Lungren’s primary accomplishment is a giveaway to chemical companies more interested in short-term profit than protecting the lives of Americans.

And, not unlike what happened last week to New York freshman congressman Chris Gibson, Lungren's constituents also told him they had had enough of his fealty to Grover Norquist instead of to them. Lee Fang:

On Wednesday, a constituent in a town hall meeting challenged Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) about his loyalty to Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist and noted corporate lobbyist. Politicians who sign Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform pledge, a popular commitment among Republicans, promise never to vote for anything designated as a tax increase by Norquist’s organization.

During the meeting, held in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, a young woman asked Lungren why he took Norquist’s pledge when he should only pledge an “oath of office to the Constitution.” Lungren seemed dazzled, and first misinterpreted the comment as an accusation that he opposes the Constitution. The constituent asked the question again, only to hear Lungren sneer that she hasn’t “been reading the newspapers.” A few in the crowd yelled “answer the question!”

Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) On The Role Of Government

As I've said before, when Democrats and left-leaning independents decided to show their disappointment in Obama's timidity to fight for working families and their anger with DEmocratic acquiescence for going along with right-wing framing that benefitted the ruling elites over ordinary Americans, dozens of conservative Democrats-- including more than half the slimy Blue Dog Caucus-- lost their careers. That wasn't a bad thing. Unfortunately, the tsnami also took down a handful of progressives who had been standing and fighting. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) was one of the good ones we lost. NH-1 is a 50/50 swing district and last year, New Hampshire swung way to the right. A worthless Tea Party sick-up, Frank Guinta, beat her 121,655 (54%) to 95,503 (42%).

Carol has originally beaten incumbent Jeb Bradley in 2006, also a midterm, with a close and unexpected 100,899 (52%) to 94,869 (48%) vote. In 2008, in a rematch with Bradley, Carol won reelection with 176,435 (52%) to 156,338 (46%), Obama winning the district with 53%. If you look at the numbers, what you see is Democrats and left-leaning independents staying how. BIG mistake. Republican turnout from 2008 dropped off by almost 35,000 votes, better than normal for them. Democratic fall off... fell off the cliff-- down almost 61,000 votes for Carol. Voters made their point but it was like cutting off their noses to spite their faces. The New Hampshire legislature is a far right extremist operation now that is horrifying voters (and stay-at-homes) and Guinta has been a lockstep, anti-family shill for Big Business, Cantor and Boehner across the board.

Carol is running for the seat again. You can contribute to her campaign here. This week she did an OpEd on the virulent and hihilistic Republican Party attack on government itself. Please take some time and read what a dedicated public servant-- unlike Rick Perry, Carol hasn';t enriched herself while working for the people-- has to say about the legitimate roll of government in the lives of American citizens.

Our Government, Ourselves

by Carol Shea-Porter

While political discourse has taken a dive in terms of civility and substance, actually something far more sinister and frightening is occurring. There are people who are attacking the basic structure of our government and our faith in it. A few are even talking openly about secession because they truly do not believe in our government and our way of life. (We have always had those people, but they were not politically powerful until now.) But most are being absolutely irresponsible, trying to foment--and gain from-- a deeper anger.

In our past, most politicians for office publicly supported our system of government, and believed we could stand together and solve severe problems. Candidates tried to inspire, or at least tried to be careful to attack the opponent or the platform, not the government.

That has changed.

The attacks are damaging an already fragile trust, and many Americans and the world have responded by becoming increasingly convinced that America’s best days are behind us. Confidence and faith in our ability to solve problems are absolutely essential if we are to move forward, but we have irresponsible politicians (and some media and special interest groups) tearing at that faith and trust. Incredibly, a couple of them are running for president.

Here are some examples of how leaders in the past talked about our country and our problems. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said at his First Inaugural, “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper … The only thing we have to fear is fear itself … which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

It was a buoying remark, a call to hope and patriotism, helping people through the dark days of the Depression.

Remember George W. Bush’s talk to the nation after 9/11? “We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers-- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people …”

On Jan. 9, 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy said, “Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us-- and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state, and local, must be as a city upon a hill-- constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities.”

Are these current politicians and influential public figures “aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities?”

One of New Hampshire’s members of Congress told the tea party that the federal government was taking away all their individual freedoms. And two tea party presidential candidates also have made inflammatory remarks about our government.

The Hill reported that Michele Bachmann “likened America to the sinking Titanic,” and said, “We have gangster government.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said, “When we came into the nation in 1845, we were a republic, we were a stand-alone nation … And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

This is not responsible leadership. These are outrageous comments, meant to denigrate our federal government.

The interesting thing is Bachmann has sought and received earmarks and Stimulus Act money from the “gangster government” (that would be U.S. taxpayers) and Perry brags about all the jobs in Texas that came from United States Oil and United States defense dollars.

There are other reckless leaders. Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, got almost every single Republican in Congress to sign his no-tax pledge even though he was clear about his intention to hurt our ability to administer this great nation. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

How can this great country recover and grow with this kind of attitude? How can we pay our bills and invest in technology, infrastructure, and medical research with this blind vision? How can we handle natural disasters like Katrina or attacks like 9/11 if we drown our government? How can we educate or defend ourselves, if we drown the major sources of government funding?

Harry Truman said, “No government is perfect."

We the people have to keep striving, but we need leaders who encourage progress, not defeat, and confidence, not despair.

"We Are Your Constituents-- Not Grover Norquist"

After Blue Dog Kirsten Gillibrand left the House to run for the open New York Senate seat, she was replaced by am even more conservative Democrat, Scott Murphy, in a special election. Last November Chris Gibson beat Murphy 130,176 (55%) to 107,077 (45%), winning in 9 of the 10 counties in the upstate New York district that had voted for Obama over McCain 51-48%. (In 2008 Gillibrand had won ALL 10 counties.) The only county that voted to retain Murphy was tiny Essex. The drop off across the district was gigantic. Democratic voters just didn't come out to vote in NY-20 in 2010, primarily because Murphy's adamantly conservative voting record was very much in line with the GOP so... why bother? It didn't make Republicans vote for him... they had an even more extreme candidate of their own; and it didn't make Democrats vote for the Republican. It just held down the Democratic and left-leaning independent turn-out.

Gibson has been a lockstep clone of Boehner's and Cantor's, a sure vote for obstructionism on every single thing President Obama has tried to accomplish for the economy. He may not be as dangerous a sociopath as Ann Marie Buerkle in Syracuse, whose ghastly record we looked at Thursday-- but he votes as through he's representing a bunch of backward, ignorant southerner bigots instead of a moderate Northeast district.

Gibson, an eager supporter of the Satan Sandwich and of Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare, has been angering constituents by promoting a dangerous nuclear plant and waste reprocessing facility in the district. But Grover loves him. As you can see in the video of a Gibson town hall meeting this week, his affair with Norquist is infuriating his constituents. And-- probably not counting the deepest red bowels of the Old Confederacy-- this is happening everywhere in America.

Is Grover Norquist What's Wrong With America?

Few people outside of central Florida's 24nd congressional district have ever heard of Congresswoman Sandy Adams, a doctrinaire right-wing fanatic and member of the House Tea Party caucus. She's in Washington to vote against everything... except for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. No list of the worst Members of Congress would be complete without her-- and last week, her constituents let her know they've been watching her dismal performance. Blue America's first endorsement for the 2012 cycle went to Nick Ruiz, a former Green Party candidate who joined the Democratic Party and is now mounting a serious progressive campaign against Adams. He wasn't at Adams' acrimonious town hall meeting in Port Orange Thursday night but he told us that her ideological extremism has been bad for the district.

"Our congressional district, like most of America, is made of hard-working people that need government to work for them. Most citizens are not responding favorably to ideologues like Sandy Adams because the Republican plans Sandy presents don't help most people. However, her plans fit real well for the upper 1% of Americans she seems to know so well. Our district rejects such a narrow prescription for America-- and I am glad to bring that voice to Capitol Hill in 2012."

Adams is like a zombie who endlessly repeats right-wing talking points. Rather than participating in discussions of problem solving with her constituents, she parrots mindless focus-group tested Boehnerisms like "I don't believe we have a tax problem. We have a spending problem" and peppers her pronouncements with charged anti-government, class warfare phrases straight from Fox and Limbaugh like "failed stimulus," "job-killing taxes," and "government takeover of health care." And she's far from alone. Her town hall meeting in Port Orange could have been basically anywhere in the country where a teabagger was elected last year. This week, the Washington Post took a look at how Democrats are striking back against the zombie-ism that has infected the Republicans in Washington. The Post story featured another mindless teabagger, this one from Illinois, Randy Hultgren. He tried vomiting out the same catch phrases Adams had. His constituents weren't amused.

“We have clear information that... tax cuts, especially to the super rich, has not increased any more jobs,” one man told him. “I want to know under what conditions you would be willing to consider increasing taxes, especially on those who can afford it?"

“I just have one question for you tonight,” said another. “Did you sign Grover Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes?”-- referring to the promise that has been signed by most congressional Republicans, including Hultgren.

“Don’t you have the confidence in your own ability in Congress to make up your own mind? You need Grover Norquist to tell you?” the man continued.

It is a scene that has been repeated at town hall meetings across the country this August as Democrats make a concerted effort to use this month’s congressional recess to change a national narrative on taxes.

For years, it has been Republicans who have wanted to talk about the issue, winning elections promising not to let government take more from voters.

But since the showdown over raising the debt ceiling, Democrats have been unusually eager to embrace tax increases, gambling that voters will see the Republican refusal to consider higher taxes for the wealthy as recalcitrant and out-of-touch.

Voters are starting to wake up to this everywhere in the country. A random letter to the editor yesterday in Spokane's Spokesman-Review:

Cathy McMorris Rodgers has proved that she is nothing more than a puppet dancing on strings. Those strings are being pulled by the leadership of the tea party. They include people like David and Charles Koch, oil billionaires who fund many of the radical right wing’s unscrupulous activities that allow them to accumulate more wealth.

They also include Grover Norquist, who through his signed pledges forces politicians into a corner and makes it impossible for them to vote in the best interest of the country as a whole or think on their own. (Norquist was also tied to the Jack Abramoff money laundering  scandal.)

Tim Phillips is also a tea party leader who years ago was paid $380,000 to “mobilize religious leaders and pro-family groups” to push energy deregulation in Congress that soon led to an energy crisis and economic meltdown. Sound familiar? Are these wealthy individuals the people you want your representative answering to? Do they identify with the majority of people in our district?

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, start doing the job you were elected to do. Represent the people of your district and not the wealthy elite.

John C. Eagle

Last week Warren Buffett's NY Times Op-Ed, Stop Coddling The Super-Rich served as a wake-up call to many who accepted the right-wing ideology being spouted by tools like Adams in Florida, Hultgren in Illinois and McMorris Rodgers in Washington. It sets up a debate between those who embrace Grover Norquist's goal of shrinking the government (and drowning it in a bathtub) and those who feel there is a robust and crucial role for government to play in balancing the immense power of wealth against the greater good of society.

Less than half a dozen Republicans in Congress have refused to sign Norquist's anti-government pledge. Norquist is basically a sleazy lobbyist, a crony of Jack Abramoff's who managed to get away without a prison sentence. He takes around a quarter million dollars a year from the Republican Party front group, Americans for Tax Reform, and also works as a free-lance lobbyist, pushing every sort of crooked operation near and dear to right-wing extremists' hearts, from stealing from American Indians to overthrowing foreign governments that put their people's interests before corporate interests. A notorious closet case-- and member of the board of the self-loathing anti-gay gay group, GOProud-- Norquist is one of the primary behind the scene's string pullers who has turned the Republican Party into a dysfunctional, treasonous mess that is threatening the social cohesion of the United States while worthless predators, like Norquist and his followers, enrich themselves.

Republicans Ready To Stop Pretending They're Fiscal Conservatives To Steal Worker Pensions

You may recall that millionaire greedhead Ron Johnson campaigned for Russ Feingold's Wisconsin Senate seat by pushing the "China model." He won and perhaps the China model will too. Our ruling elites have certainly giving it a good running start-- NAFTA, financial deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and other devices aimed at destroying the middle class and concentrating the nation's ealth in fewer and fewer hands. Soon we'll all be slaves Chinese factory workers. And two of the Republican Party's most prominent-- and influential-- "big thinkers," Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist, have come up with yet another way to pauperize working families. They're trying to get fellow Wall Street zombie Paul Ryan, House Budget chair, to get behind legislation giving financially strapped states the right to file for bankruptcy and renege on pension and other benefit promises made to state employees. Gingrich: “I... hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy, so that states like California and New York and Illinois that think they're going to come to Washington for money can be told, you know, you need to sit down with all your government employee unions and look at their health plans and their pension plans and, frankly, if they don't want to change, our recommendation is you go into bankruptcy court and let the bankruptcy judge change it, and I would make the federal bankruptcy law prohibit tax increases as part of the solution, so no bankruptcy judge could impose a tax increase on the people of the states.”

Proponents of the measure-- which include Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington lobby group that fights tax increases-- said the legislation is desperately needed to clear the way for struggling states to slash costs before they go belly up, and should be regarded as a preemptive move that could preclude the need for massive federal bailouts.

“It's in the short-term and long-term interests of government workers and taxpayers to start those reforms now, rather than having to pick up the pieces after a crash landing,” ATR President Grover Nor-quist said in an interview.

“We are working with people inside and outside of Congress on this issue,” said Joe DeSantis, a spokes-man for Mr. Gingrich, whom Mr. DeSantis said is considering a bid to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

...State and union officials vow to fight the bankruptcy initiative, which they fear would undermine state autonomy and be used to reduce promised benefits to government workers.

“I am unaware of any public pension plan that is requesting federal assistance,” said Keith Brainard, NASRA research director.

“Exaggerated reports on the financial condition of public pension plans are being used as a scare tactic to justify federal intervention,” Mr. Brainard added.

Said Mark McCullough, a spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, Washington: “This is another right-wing attack on behalf of their (the GOP's) anti-middle class, big-business donor base.

“It would amount to not just another attack on working families, but an attack on everyone from investors to retirees who would see the economy reel from the ripple effects of state bankruptcy as they pursue the goal of making American workers expect no better pay or benefits than workers in the developing world.”

So far, proponents of the legislation said they have not yet recruited a congressional sponsor for the proposed measure. “We're still shopping for the guy who is going to carry it,” Mr. Norquist said.

Nonetheless, union executives are concerned that the proposal-- which has been promoted on conservative websites recently-- is part of a well-orchestrated and hitherto underground campaign now surfacing as Republicans settle into leadership positions in the new Congress.

“This idea carries major negative financial implications for the states, their creditors and the companies that do business with them,” said Charles Loveless, director of legislation for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Washington. “A state going into bankruptcy would send shock waves through the states and could very well undermine our fragile national economic recovery,” he said.

“It is incredible to me that proponents of this portray themselves as advocates of state rights when what they're really doing is driving states into the ground,” Mr. Loveless added. “It's clearly in an effort to renege on public employee collective bargaining contracts.”

Ryan is sniffing out the political winds to figure out if he can get away with sponsoring the bill, considering the working family orientation of his own House district, a district that voted for Obama in 2008. Were he to sponsor this bill even the DCCC's hands-off policy towards him might not save his seat. But you can bet your 401K that if these clowns do pass some legislation it will reiterate the sanctity of contracts when it comes to multimillion dollar bonuses for Wall Street banksters who drove the economy off a cliff-- and financed the cushy careers of most of our political class. Feeling proactive at all today? Oh... and Wisconsin... this is what they elected to the U.S. Senate in replace of Russ Feingold (so at least we know who will carry the bill in the Senate):



And... on cue, Krugman column today discusses the canard that the reason the right is winning economic debates is because people have been brainwashed to believe, wrongly, that there’s something inherently moral about free-market outcomes. "My guess," writes Krugman, "is that this is only part of the story; there’s more than a bit of Ayn Randism on the right, but there’s also the appeal of simplicity: goldbuggism is intellectually easy, Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it... [There is a] tendency to ascribe moral value to market values, and [a] need for a counter-narrative. I’m going to think about that; but right now, let me describe how I see the US income distribution in terms of justice or the lack thereof."

The first thing one should say is that our system does reward hard work, up to a point. Other things equal, those who put more in will earn more.

But a lot of other things are, in fact, not remotely equal. These days, America is the advanced nation with the least social mobility (pdf), except possibly for Britain. Access to good schools, good health care, and job opportunities depends on lot on choosing the right parents.

So when you hear conservatives talk about how our goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes, your first response should be that if they really believe in equality of opportunity, they must be in favor of radical changes in American society. For our society does not, in fact, produce anything like equal opportunity (in part because it produces such unequal outcomes). Tell me how you’re going to produce a huge improvement in the quality of public schools, how you’re going to provide universal health care (for parents as well as children, because parents in bad health affect childrens’ prospects), and then come back to me about the equal chances at the starting line thing.

Now, inequality of opportunity is only one reason for the inequality in outcomes we actually see. But of what remains, how much reflects individual effort, how much reflects talent, and how much sheer luck? No reasonable person would deny that there’s a lot of luck involved. Wall Street titans are, no doubt, smart guys (although talking to some of them, you have to wonder …), but there are surely equally smart guys who for whatever reason never got a chance to grab the 9-figure brass ring.

So economics is not a morality play; the social and economic order we have doesn’t represent the playing out of some kind of deep moral principles.... [A]nyone who claims that transferring some income from the most fortunate members of society to the least is a vile injustice is closing his eyes to the obvious reality of how the world works.