Michele Bachmann: OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!

First the link and article courtesy of Thinkprogress.org

Bachmann wants Iraqis to pay 'Several Million Dollars per Life' for every American who died in Iraq.

Before any right winger starts crying about it being a Think Progress link, skip the article and watch the clip from Meet the Press.

We invade Iraq over the objection of a significant portion of the country, while many supporters based their yes vote on the bullshit dog and pony show sold to us by the administration.

Anyone remember the silliness?

• Colin Powell shamefully making the flawed case for war before the UN (an action he now publicly regrets)?
• Condoleeza Rice's "mushroom cloud" apocalypse speech?
• Dick Cheney telling us over and over again about Saddam's magically shrinking timetable for nuclear weapons that that started at 5 years and finished up inside a year? 

 Just for the shits and giggles the correct answer to the question "How long until Saddam had nukes?" was 3 days after NEVER.

We invade a country that had not attacked us, posed no threat to our national security, was not training terrorists and had never even heard of al Qaeda until they turned up for our bonfire celebration circle jerk in Baghdad.

The US invasion of Iraq was, is and shall always be an atrocity.  An exercise in brain dead, belligerent unilateralism.  An action that resulted in the tragic deaths of thousands of US soldiers, and tens, if not HUNDREDS of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

But it's alright because hey we're America and freedom.

I didn't serve in Iraq nor did almost anyone I know. But it sticks in my craw because it was BULLSHIT from top to bottom from day one. Go ahead and say "Yeah well the surge WORKED."  So did paying Sunni militia NOT TO ATTACK US.

It bothers me because Iraq is the worst thing my country has done during my lifetime if not in its history. It is indefensible, inexcusable.  And it's architects should be rotting behind bars, not going on fucking book tours.

And Michele Bachmann thinks the victims of our hubris, our gigantic messianic complex, should pay for the lives we lost invading them.

Oh Holy Hell what the Mother Fuck?

I got an idea, let's bill the real culprits.  Bush 43, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith and the rest of the asshole neocon cabal who dreamed this tragic farce up.

Wall Street is Occupied Territory

Mr. President? Helllooo?  Mr. Obama?  Yo Barry!

When you take a break from selling the American Job Act turn on the television.

Find a news channel with some guts.  One that's not afraid to cover Occupy Wall Street and resist the temptation to write them off as noisy kids or lazy hippies.

These kids are part of your base, they came out in droves in 2008 and voted for you. They dared to hope that an idealist with a clear vision could lead us away from the abyss we found ourselves teetering on. 

Don't get me wrong, you've accomplished a lot.  PPACA is a step in the right direction.  You've worked to disengage us from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Your refocusing of the military has achieved tangible results.  Your stimulus package helped keep the economy from skidding right over a cliff.

I don't blame you for the absurdly childish way Republicans are behaving.  Unfortunately this generation of conservatives would rather throw a temper tantrum than accept that they utterly failed as leaders and were soundly rebuked in 2006 and 2008.

But in this humble blogger's opinion, you've done a less than stellar job leading both your party and the country.  Mr. President, image matters, the message matters.  Don't lose heart because Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Eric Cantor said something negative.  We both know you could come out in favor of breathing oxygen and Republicans would oppose it.  You're allowing yourself to be shouted down simply because they yell louder and more often.

Go big!  Go loud!

We don't need a pragmatist looking to compromise right out of the gate.  Swing for the fences even if it means striking out.  But don't go down looking.  Do whatever it takes to get your message out there.  Put a scrolling marquee on Carney's podium reminding us how many bills the right are filibustering, how many positions remain vacant because the right buried the appointment in committee. 

In other words, look at the television.  Look at what the OWS people are doing.  They're putting it on the line, risking jobs, arrest, and police brutality all to make their voice heard.  And they're not running away.

Do the same Mr. President.  Don't let your opponents frame the debate and put you on the defensive.  It's not just about keeping your job.  Our country hangs in the balance.  We are under siege by plutocrats hellbent to crush the middle class.  We need our President to step up and take this political fight to our opponents.  Make those of us who doubt believe in you again.

These people in Occupy Wall Street shouldn't be alone on the front lines.

Deficits Do Matter

"Reagan showed us deficits don't matter."
   - Dick Cheney

What Dick should have said was "Reagan showed us deficits don't matter, unless a democrat is in the White House."

During Dick's turn as Vice President, the republican controlled government cut taxes during war time (2 wars to be exact) and ran huge deficits during relatively good economic times.  Great fucking move guys.  They claim to be the party of 'fiscal responsibility'.  Really? On what planet.  Over the last 30 years, there have been 3 republican  presidents and one democrat.  Three ran deficits, one balanced the budget.  And that one wasn't a republican.

It was Bill 'Bubba' Clinton.  He raised taxes while presiding over the longest period of economic prosperity in modern times.  He left office with a projected surplus.  He did it while giving lie to the notion of supply side economics and the right's cult of "cut taxes no matter what" mantra.

The typical wingnut response is that the budget was only balanced due to a republican controlled Congress.  The easy retort to this is "Okay, then WHAT THE FUCK happened from 2001 - 2006 when the right controlled everything?"  And wait for the silence.  If there is anything to be learned from W's presidency (other than nearly everything he did was wrong) is that supply side economics DON'T WORK.

The hilarious thing is republicans aren't even really practicing supply side anymore. The Laffer curve claims that at any given time there is an optimal tax rate where government revenues are maximized.  Go too high or too low and the government loses money.  The right has perverted this into some Grover Norquist inspired nightmare where taxes are always too high and the optimal tax rate is apparently zero.

This was proven to be laughably false under George W. Bush.  He pushed through two massive and ill advised tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 with little if any effect on the economy.  Job growth petered along and economic growth was 1-2% per year.  Rather than stimulating the economy and filling the treasury's coffers, we began to hemorrhage money at a record pace.  Treasury bonds flew off the shelves and the administration had the cover of Afghanistan and Iraq to distract voters about the massively growing deficit.

Fast forward to 2008, the elections are looming and people are looking to be rid of Texas' favorite son. Then the great recession hits.  The GDP contracts by 6% in one quarter, job losses are nearly half a million per month.  The DOW goes into HOLY SHIT freefall from its lofty perch of nearly 14,000.  When the skid ends, the DOW sits around 7,000.  Lehman Brothers? Gone. Bear Stearns? Gone. Goldman Sachs? Hanging by a thread.  AIG? On life support.  The only thing missing was stock brokers jumping from their office window.  TARP is hastily assembled and pushed through.  It royally sucked that we were rewarding the scumbags who in large part created the shitstorm, but there was nothing else to do.  The investment and commercial and consumer credit markets would have to be rebuilt from scratch otherwise.

Now you ask: Ghost WTF with the history lesson?  We've been hearing this for 3 years now!

Obama got elected in the middle of a monstrous crisis.  His response was to call for economic stimulus in the form of public works project similar to FDR's plan in the Great Depression.  Like FDR, it created jobs.  Like FDR, conservatives hated it.  The stimulus has nearly run its course, jobs were created though not nearly enough.  But no one argues that no jobs were created. No the wingnuts scream and cry about what a spend thrift Obama is, during a massive recession no less.

Despite the fact that people were put back to work the right screams "FAILURE" or simply laughs whenever the stimulus is mentioned. A program designed to put Americans back to work and to try to mitigate the country's suffering and it's mocked and vilified by these so called "patriots."

This is largely the same group who didn't bat an eyelash about flushing nearly a trillion bucks down the toilet INVADING THE WRONG COUNTRY.  Not to mention all the American's and Iraqi civilians killed for no reason.

Running deficits to give more money to those who already have a ton of it or blow a country up looking at us cross eyed is cool. But don't you dare help my neighbor keep his house after he lost his job through no fault of his own.

Preemptive war on the credit card is fine.

Spend money to help your countrymen during an economic crisis? Oh you fucking socialist traitor.

Deficits do matter. Getting the country back on track and the economy moving matters. Helping the top 1% buy another yacht doesn't.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

There isn’t much point in saying it, but I’ll do it anyway: Political commentary in this country is out of control. Predictably it’s almost exclusively from the right (Don’t think I missed or approved of Rep. Cohen’s “Goebbels” rant. Thanks a lot dipshit for making us all look bad.)

What may actually be more reprehensible than what has been said, is the insanely arrogant and combative attitudes from the talking heads on the right when asked to tone down their rhetoric.

The bodies in Tuscon weren’t even cold and there Sarah Palin was, in an unbelievable show of hubris and narcissism, making herself out as the victim, because her PAC was rightly criticized for having gunsights on Giffords’ district.  Yeah, it was "blood libel" Sarah, such a saint, such a martyr. Why not save the graphic descriptors for the people who actually ended up covered in blood?

After Glenn Beck’s despicable attack on George Soros, there were calls from the Jewish community to knock off the Nazi tourettes and stop with the holocaust bullshit. Rather than acting reasonable, Beck ramped up the attacks, much as he did after the Tides Foundation led an advertising boycott after Beck painted a target on their back (which Byron Williams tried to act on).

Next up is Beck’s vicious attacks on Francis Fox Piven for something she wrote 45 years ago.  Without any proof whatsoever Beck claimed this 78 year old woman was at the heart of a leftist conspiracy to collapse the United States. Surprise, surprise after over a years’ worth of savaging, death threats directed at Piven started showing up at Beck’s online pig trough The Blaze.

Piven went to the press about the threats, and about how now she was living in seclusion in fear of her life.  Beck predictably ratcheted up the ugliness along with Fox Nation.  Fans of both sites heaped on violent rhetoric and more threats.  The moderators must be getting tired of scrubbing that garbage off the web.

Most recently we have Captain Oxycontin sitting atop his shit pile, crassly insulting Chinese people. Congressman Leland Yee spoke out for an advertiser boycott of Limbaugh’s show.  In short order, some racist coward asshole faxed Yee’s office a death threat containing the words “Rush Limbaugh will kick your chink ass.” Classy. The fax also had a picture of a pickup truck dragging a noose with a black person’s head in it. Even classier.

A National Tragedy

My thoughts and prayers go with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the honorable judge Joseph Roll, and all the other victims and their families in the wake of the horrific shooting outside of Tuscon, Arizona that took place yesterday.

I won't make any political hay over this tragedy. It's simply too awful. For the record I don't consider murder political speech or any speech whatsoever. It is a crime, period.

I have no idea what drove 22 year old Jared Loughran to kill. Be it mental illness or some paranoid delusion.

I refuse to point fingers. This is bigger than me. This is bigger than democrat vs. republican or liberal vs. conservative.

My hope is that we can come together as a country to condemn this awful crime and remember that in the end, we're ALL Americans, regardless of the letter on our voter cards.

I might not agree with my neighbor's viewpoint, but I'll defend, to the death, his right to say it.

Want to Lower the Deficit? Raise Taxes

That's right. I said it. Not only let the Bush tax cuts expire, but increase marginal rates. Do I think we should also cut spending? Damn right. You can start by closing military bases in any country other than ours. To show I'm not a complete dickhead, I'll exempt Afghanistan and Iraq until we pull our troops out.

I suppose that puts me not only in the tiny minority, but also in the loony bin in some people's book. However, if Americans are serious about deficit reduction, taxes need to go up. And why not? The deficit exists because Americans like the things the federal government spends money on.

Washington D.C. is spending OUR money!!!!!

We've all heard this refrain shouted in one form or another by the Tea Party. We've also heard it from Republicans, Libertarians, and probably from disgruntled independents and even Democrats.  I imagine it's been said since the 16th Amendment passed. It goes over great with pissed off voters. And who better to demonize than the federal government? Especially when the shit talker is running for federal office?

Washington D.C. is spending OUR money!!!!!

It gives rise to a couple bullshit assumptions. First the "our money" one. The 16th Amendment empowered the federal government to levy and collect income taxes. Don't like it? Sponsor an amendment to repeal it.  Otherwise, fucking get over it.  Tax rates or progressive taxation are objects for reasonable debate, but matters for another day. There will always be people who dispute the government's authority to tax. On the practical level, the federal government would collapse deprived of income tax revenue. Like it or not, the government does the real heavy lifting in our society, performing unattractive, unprofitable tasks that are necessary to keep the country functioning.  At any rate, the Amendment is there, therefore the Constitutional authority is there.

Washington D.C. is spending OUR money!!!!!

The main assumption created by this phrase is that Washington D.C. is some alternate dimension netherworld occupied by aliens from Galgamek 9. Alright that's hyperbole. My point is, that the right and Tea Party love using phrases like "out of touch", "career politician", "beltway insider" etc. to paint our democratically elected officials as elitists breaking open the national piggy bank to raid the treasury for the fuck of it. When in truth, most of what legislators do is carry out the will of the voters, or at least get money or projects for their states or districts. Think about it, even if their vote is strictly along party lines, it's a safe bet that many of the people who elected them would support that legislation. Okay, I'm generalizing. Even I don't agree with everything the left supports. But it's still a probable for instance, that a democrat is going to favor cap and trade legislation, while a republican will likely support the ban on partial birth abortions (heck even I like that one).

During the debate over health insurance reform, Sean Hannity constantly referred to the package as "governing against the will of the people." This was in reference to public opinion that was slowly turning against the bill.  No it wasn't against the peoples' will Sean. It was against yours. One of the big planks Obama ran on was reforming the system. He was very clear about that, and it was part of the reason so many people voted for him. The polls Hannity referred to were conducted by credible sources. I don't dispute the results.

But I would point out that it took nearly a year of rancorous debate, conservative efforts in Congress to gut the bill, and Fox News' and AM hate radio's poisoning the airwaves to taint opinion of the package.  Some liberals, unhappy about the elimination of the public option, found themselves shoulder to shoulder with right wing fruit loops screaming about death panels.  In the beginning, there was more support for the effort, but as the debate drug on, opponents continued to sling mud, some liberals checked out angered by compromises required to move it along. The public got tired of hearing about it. And what do you know, opinion soured.

Sorry for the tangent, but it illustrates my point. The country elected Obama on his promise to do something about health care. And surprise surprise, here comes Congress with just such a fix. The same with the stimulus bill. Proposing and supporting these things doesn't make D.C. look out of touch, it shows them following through on their campaign promises.

I won't get into a tit-for-tat about who are good legislators and who aren't. Obviously some are better than others. If your senator or Congressperson is a corrupt shithead, vote them out. But don't vote them in and then act like they became puppets ala some Invasion of the Body Snatchers plot. You fucking put them there.

Washington D.C. is spending OUR money!!!!!

This brings me to my main point: the debt and deficit exist because American people like the things the government spends money on BUT don't want to pay for them.

In my mind, this point is essential. If Americans can understand we are responsible for the debt and deficit, it will be easier for us to take responsibility and pay the goddamn bill.

Here is a chart of US federal government spending for 2009.

As it shows, 62% of the federal budget is dedicated to defense, social security, medicare and medicaid (with another 5% to interest on our debt). That's over 2/3 of the budget.

The biggest and easiest target is defense. 2009 spending on defense was $782 billion, accounting for 23% of the budget. Good luck finding a Tea Partyer who is willing to admit that our defense spending is UNHOLY. We spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together. Even if we cut defense by 50% we're still WAY ahead of China and Russia combined (estimated $159 billion).

The idiocy in the debate over the New START treaty fleshes out my point. We've been working with the Soviets/Russians over the last 5 decades to pare down our respective nuclear arsenals. Ronald Reagan, the GOD of neoconservative thought lauded the possibility of world free from nuclear weapons.

The Soviet Union fell. But the talks on nuclear arms reductions continued. Now here we sit, with Russia slowly adjusting to a capitalist economy. They're not a threat, they want to sell the world crude oil and get in on capitalism.

Similarly China does not represent a credible threat. They're our greatest trade partner. Why in the fuck would they attack us? They need us to buy their stuff! The right cluelessly claims that they will take over our country to pay back their loans. Guess what right wing? Don't bet on it. China owns around 900 billion in US treasury bonds. Not chump change by anyone's calculation, but less than 10% of our total debt, and less than 1/4 of our debt that is owned outside the country. (look at Wall Street for the other $9 trillion)

At any rate, our military occupies a HUGE number on the country's balance sheet. And Republicans will be the last ones to cut the defense budget. So fuck it, the party of so called "fiscal conservatism" has no problem picking up the tab for the most expensive war machine in the history of the planet.

Next big target: Social Security.

FDR rolled SS out in 1935 in the midst of the Great Depression fearful that senior citizens, no longer able to work, would languish in poverty or worse in their remaining years. This was of course met with howls of socialism, gnashing teeth and a fuckload of law suits. At the time, the Four Horseman of the USSC were busy pissing all over New Deal Legislation. After Roosevelt shut them up with his court packing plan, Social Security was in the clear.

The program was (and is) a huge success by giving people enough income to survive on after they retire. Throughout its existence Social Security has enjoyed broad based bipartisan support. It's true conservatives have had their eye on it for awhile, but won't dare move due to the vicious backlash by voters if they mention making cuts. Conservatives are so beholden to their SS receiving voter base that GWB passed the popular (and unfunded) Medicare part D drug program. Seniors loved it and the deficit continued to grow.

But that was then, what about the current political climate? Fucking forget about it. Cut social security and you'll see an army of Rascals slowly rolling toward the Capitol carrying a million pissed off seniors. The Tea Party (whose membership is largely seniors) would go fucking berserk. And honestly, why shouldn't they? You're talking about people who paid into the system their whole working lives. Obviously I don't agree with the Tea Party on a lot of things, but give seniors their due.

Washington D.C. is spending OUR money!!!!!

 That brings us to the last of the three: Medicare and medicaid. Medicare was signed into law in 1965. Like Social Security before it, was greeted with much fanfare along with much gnashing of teeth, cries of socialism etc.. Leading the charge were Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Barry Goldwater and Bob Dole.

Reagan was particularly notable for this bit of conservative tripe "[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free."

Damn, here we are 45 years later and somehow we're not Communist heathens. I guess jellybean boy wasn't right about everything (or anything but don't get me started).

At any rate, Medicare came into being and like Social Security was a huge success enjoying broad based bipartisan support. Also like Social Security, conservatives have had their eyes on getting rid of it. Again, no sane conservative would ever challenge it due to its popularity and success.  Again, the Tea Party would go Reagan-McNeil-in-the-Exorcist if conservatives tried to gut Medicare.

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So here we are at the end. We have a huge budget deficit and a lot of federal spending on programs that Americans like. We could eliminate or gut those programs. We could also properly fund them.

In a few days, we'll seat the 112th Congress, featuring a Republican controlled House. They've championed the "cut taxes and spending" movement, but have been frighteningly silent about where to make cuts. Why? Because they know the truth: we like our yummy socialist goodies so long as they're free.

Raising taxes seem like the only sane answer. We like the programs federal spending funds, we benefit from them.

Now it's time to belly up to the bar and PAY THE FUCKING TAB.

Glenn Beck: The Crying Rodeo Clown

Where do I start? Glenn has the third highest rated syndicated radio talk show in the country along with a one hour show on Fox News. This combines for 20 hours of some of the looniest entertainment this side of a Warner Bros. cartoon.

I've been grappling with this post for a couple days. The main reason is I want to approach Beck from at least a somewhat original position. Pointing out that Beck is nuttier than a fruitcake is all well and good, but it's been done ad inifinitum and with more eloquence than I could ever muster at sites like Media Matters or The Huffinington Post.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, Glenn is a radio and television host. His t.v. show gets the most attention and to be fair, Glenn comes across much better on t.v.. On radio he sounds much like his conservative brethren with the exception that he often makes poor or offensive jokes then laughs his ass off. As a humorist, he's compared himself to Jon Stewart, but doesn't come close. Crafting good jokes just doesn't seem to be in the conservative bailiwick.

He doesn't have a set format. Sometimes he has guests, often it's just him. When he wants to appear serious or intelligent he wears glasses.  He seems to really only have two staples: the chalkboard and crying on screen. The chalkboard has become an icon for him. He uses it to draw flow charts to illustrate whatever conspiracy theory he's concocted this week. The chalkboard also lends credence to the notion that Beck is educating his audience. The crying? Maybe it's done for dramatic effect. Maybe he's mentally unstable. I don't know. A tear every now and then would convey passion better than turning on the waterworks seemingly on cue.

Like Michael Savage, Beck is not content to attack the left's policies. Beck isn't satisfied unless he's painting Obama as some subhuman monster, spat straight from Hell, bent on transforming the citizenry into Godless commies. Also like Savage, Glenn fancies himself a history wonk.

Glenn separates himself from the pack for a couple reasons. One is the conspiratorial nature of much of his shows, using his trusty chalkboard to show us the nefarious connections between people and organizations. Another is Glenn's obsession with philanthropist George Soros. He went so far as to devote a series of three shows to Soros. Among the bullshit Beck hurled was the gem that Soros, himself a Holocaust survivor, was actually a Nazi sympathizer. Oh my fucking God.

Beck considers Obama appointee Cass Sunstein "the most dangerous man in the country." He slandered another Obama official Van Jones so thoroughly, Jones stepped down (if it was me, I would've called a press conference and gave Glenn the finger).

But I'm getting ahead of myself, Beck's cause celebre was calling Obama a racist with a "deep seated hatred for white people".

Glenn is also distinguished for nearly having his own bodycount. It started with Glenn him shining his chalkboard on the Tides Foundation. They're an organization dedicated to socially progressive and philanthropic issues founded in the 1970's. Glenn started hammering them as part of his relentless attack on progressives, pointing out that *shock* *horror* George Soros had donated money to them.

Enter Byron Williams: an unhinged nutcase with a pile of guns. After Beck repeatedly attacked Tides on his show, Williams set out for San Francisco to kill Tides employees. Luckily he was stopped by police before getting to his target. Unfortunately he got out of his vehicle and started firing. Also unfortunately, his body armor prevented police bullets from saving us the cost of his trial and incarceration. 

I don't hold Beck responsible for Williams' actions, but he never would have heard of Tides had Beck not vilified them on his show.

So where does that leave us? We've got a guy who spouts more bullshit than a cattle ranch, connects his harebrained theories on a chalkboard and occasionally plays with puppets on air.