Thursday, September 30, 2010

All of Michele Bachmann's Sick, Perverted Demagoguery in One Place!

If you have the stomach for it, HuffPo keeps a page just for Michele Bachmann, who is perhaps the absolute worst of all the Republicans in the House, and that says something when so VERY many House Republicans are just demented sociopaths. But Bachmann is the absolute Queen of the Right-Wing Gutter, the worst of the worst. If you'd like to help get rid of this vicious pathological liar, who calls people like you--you know, Democrats--un-American and even anti-American, there's a way you can help. Bachmann's opponent is named Tarryl Clark. Her website is right here.

HELP AMERICA FOLKS. HELP TARRYL CLARK GET RID OF THE VERY WORST MEMBER OF CONGRESS, MICHELE BACHMANN.

And feel good about doing it.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Ah, the Republican "Patriots" Strike Again

They block legislation that would have discouraged American companies from outsourcing jobs:

The legislation would have raised taxes on corporations that shift operations overseas, costing U.S. jobs. It also would have awarded companies that bring jobs back from abroad by offering a two-year hiatus from payroll taxes for those positions.

The tax bill under consideration Tuesday included three parts: an end to tax deductions for expenses incurred when companies shutter a U.S. operation and shift the work abroad, a new tax on products once made in the United States but now manufactured by foreign workers and the payroll tax holiday.


That's the Republican Party's slogan: America Last.

Monday, September 27, 2010

The Republican "Pledge to America": A Pack of Lies

FactCheck has the details right here:

The Republican “Pledge to America,” released Sept. 23, contains some dubious factual claims:

It declares that “the only parts of the economy expanding are government and our national debt.” Not true. So far this year government employment has declined slightly, while private sector employment has increased by 763,000 jobs.

It says that “jobless claims continue to soar,” when in fact they are down eight percent from their worst levels.

It repeats a bogus assertion that the Internal Revenue Service may need to expand by 16,500 positions, an inflated estimate based on false assumptions and guesswork.

It claims the stimulus bill is costing $1 trillion, considerably more than the $814 billion, 10-year price tag currently estimated by nonpartisan congressional budget experts.

It says Obama’s tax proposals would raise taxes on “roughly half the small business income in America,” an exaggeration. Much of the income the GOP is counting actually comes from big businesses making over $50 million a year.

And it goes on and on. Read the whole FactCheck analysis to see the full extent of the Republican Party's brazen lying and utter contempt for the American people.

VOTE DEMOCRATIC ON NOVEMBER 2

And save our country from the worst group of right-wing fanatics, frauds, and criminals who ever ran for public office.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Well, It Would Be More Honest

(Click to Enlarge)

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Who is Financing the Radical Right, Part 2

Two right wing billionaires who are helping to bankroll the Radical Right's opposition to the our agenda. Excerpts:

Billionaires David and Charles Koch have been financial leaders in opposing anything that resembles a progressive agenda for years. They have been looming in the background of every major domestic policy dispute this year, and may be the most effective opponents of President Obama's policies. For example, as health care reform protesters descended upon Washington last month, few were aware, as they were greeted with dough nuts and coffee, and handed protest signs and talking points about socialized medicine, that a right-wing billionaire had paid for the meals, buses, or salaries of the helpful guides...

Koch’s hidden presence in the health care debate illustrates the extent to which the right-wing is creating, and then hiding behind, a grassroots fervor of middle-class opponents of health reform.

The AFP, founded in 1984 by David and managed day to day by the astroturf lobbyist Tim Phillips, has spent much of the year mobilizing "tea party" opposition to health reform, clean energy legislation, and financial regulations. According to an article written by a compilation of authors for Think Progress, over the years, millions of dollars in Koch money has flowed to various right-wing think tanks, front groups, and publications. At the dawn of the Obama presidency, Koch groups quickly maneuvered to try to stop his first piece of signature legislation: the stimulus. The Koch-funded group "No Stimulus" launched television and radio ads deriding the recovery package as simply "pork" spending...

Much of the fierce opposition to health reform can be credited to Koch organizations. As the health care debate began, AFP created a front group, known as Patients United, that dedicated itself to attacking Democratic health care reform proposals. The Koch brothers clearly have a financial stake in blocking reform. Koch Industry oil refineries are major carbon dioxide polluters, and George-Pacific, a Koch Industries timber subsidiary, is one of the largest contributors to the loss of carbon-sink capacity.

According to the EPA, Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the U.S. and has leaked three million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters. So there are clear economic interests in why the Koch brothers would want to block regulatory enforcement, clean energy, labor, and other reforms. But part of their opposition stems from a long family tradition of funding conservative movements to shift the country to the far right.

Yes, the conservative slogan is still the same, year after year:

"I've got mine, screw you."

Monday, September 20, 2010

Who is Financing the Radical Right? Part One

Karl Rove's political action group, American Crossroads, which has been paying for lying right-wing attack and smear ads against Democrats, has been getting over 90% of its funding from just THREE billionaires. And guess what? Even more money is being paid out by a right-wing cabal that is NOT required to disclose its contributors.

One key thing to note here is that American Crossroads has a partner group, American Crossroads GPS, that is organized under a section of the tax code that does not require disclosure of donors (though it also imposes some spending restrictions). American Crossroads GPS is raising millions of dollars, the group told Politico, but we'll probably never know from whom.

This is what we're up against, folks. The Ultra Rich, Ultra Right-Wing Radicals think they can buy America. You see that Act Blue link in my blogroll? HIT IT.

And fight back.

Friday, September 17, 2010

My Namesake in Alaska is a Right-Wing Fanatic

And he needs to go down HARD.





Alaska has a GREAT Democratic Senate candidate in Scott McAdams. You can contribute to his campaign here.

HELP ALASKA BEAT BACK THE TIDE OF DEMENTED, TEA-BAGGER DRIVEN PALINISM!

And rip my right-wing lunatic namesake a new one.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

O'Donnell Raises $1 Million in ONE DAY. Democrats, Go to War!

We thought we had the Senate election in Massachusetts to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in the bag. We simply assumed that this heavily Blue state would stick with its long political heritage.

We were wrong. And Scott Brown helped give the Radical Right a stranglehold on our government.

Now we assume that right-wing lunatic/anti-masturbator Christine O'Donnell will go down to defeat in Delaware.

Don't bet the farm on it. You see, someone forgot to tell the right-wingers she's doomed. They just poured $1,000,000 into her psycho campaign in ONE DAY.

Sam Stein at HuffPost has the grim details here. From the article:

The best spin coming from the Republican Party in the wake of Christine O'Donnell's primary victory in Delaware this past Tuesday has been that a GOP already fueled with conservative enthusiasm is now even more energized.

Appearing on MSNBC Thursday afternoon, RNC Communications Director Doug Heye relayed that the committee had received a $10,000 donation on Wednesday "because they were excited about Christine O'Donnell's win."

Reports emerged shortly thereafter that O'Donnell herself raised more than $1 million online on Wednesday, a staggering total that could go a long way in a state like Delaware.

Every activist here knows what the victory of someone as fanatically right-wing as O'Donnell would mean. O'Donnell represents everything--and I mean everything--you and I have been fighting against all these years: Christianism, the use of religion as a weapon (not to be confused with Christian empathy and compassion); creationist idiocy and the anti-science attitude it represents; the kind of right-wing authoritarianism that feels entitled to interfere with everyone's privacy; and most of all, unyielding devotion to a set of ideas which, if taken to their logical extreme, would mean the death of our country.

Let's assume NOTHING. Limbaugh is stirring up his Neanderthal audience on O'Donnell's behalf, and the Republicans mean to put this utterly unqualified, dishonest, and quite possibly mentally unbalanced woman in the Senate. She must be stopped at all costs, if only to help stop the cancer of Palinism that is threatening our beloved nation.

Chris Coons has asked for our help. Let's give it to him and send Christine O'Donnell back to the obscurity she so richly deserves.

Contribute to Chris Coons here.

Meet Your "Fabulous" 2010 Republican Candidates!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

On 9/11

We commemorate the anniversary of the terrible, murderous attacks on our country nine years ago today. It is not a day for partisan shouting, it is not a day to make political points. And this day does not "belong" to any one party or person. It is an American commemoration. It is a day to reflect on the dead and to resolve that the vicious fanaticism that killed them will never be allowed to prevail. And it is a day to resolve something else: that America will never let the terrorists force us to abandon our freedoms, our rule of law, or our highest ideals.


Thursday, September 09, 2010

Stating the Facts AGAIN

[Click to Enlarge]



AMERICA DOES BETTER UNDER THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

Sunday, September 05, 2010

My Response to Right-Wing E-Mail Lies About "High Taxes Under Obama"

[This is my actual response to a viral right-wing tissue of lies being circulated about Obama's "high taxes" and how the economic crisis is due to his policies]

Hey all. I apologize if you don't know me and you are receiving it unwillingly. Just delete it without reading it, OK?

You know, I always debate with myself whether I should respond to right-wing propaganda like this. One of the reasons I get it is that people are trying to get a rise out of me, which is something I've gotten more tired of than you could know. I realize what's going on.

But G-d damn it, I hate being lied to.

And G-d damn it, I hate being talked to as if I were one of Limbaugh's damn fool/sucker audience.

So here's the TRUTH. The kind you won't get from FOX "News", right-wing hate radio, and BS like this post being forwarded.

1. THE RECESSION/DEPRESSION WE ARE IN IS THE BUSH-CHENEY RECESSION. IT HAS BEEN CAUSED BY CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIC POLICY. PERIOD.

This conservative economic gibberish--"supply-side economics", "tax cuts pay for themselves", "de-regulate Wall Street and pigs will sprout wings and fly"--has been repeatedly discredited in the empirical realm of actual, measurable reality. But it never matters. The right-wing propaganda robots keep spouting the same lies, as if lying repeatedly makes something true. Too many cowardly Democrats have gone along with these lies, and too many corporate Democrats have influence on the current administration. But the facts are these:

The measures pushed in 1999 and 2000 by Phil Gramm (R-TX) and his cohorts in Congress to de-regulate banks and insurance companies were disasters of epic proportions. The derivatives racket that followed generated $675,000,000,000,000--yes two-thirds of a QUADRILLION dollars--in Monopoly Money, equal to 12 times the annual GDP of every nation on this planet. The wolves and thieves who run our financial community set up a system wherein they would be protected from economic disaster while the average person was screwed. It's the right-wing version of "free enterprise": corporate profits kept in private hands, corporate losses inflicted on the general population. In other words, private gain is capitalized; private loss is socialized. The TARP bailout
INITIATED BY GEORGE W. BUSH AND ENDORSED BY BOTH McCAIN AND PALIN was made necessary because these banking bastards had us over a barrel. Of course, when you totally gut the regulatory structure and put your cronies and contributors in positions of power as "regulators", what the hell do you expect? Government by Goldman-Sachs has been a tragedy, and people like me are trying to pry these bastards from Obama's government, where too many survive. I want Obama to be like FDR--I want him to be hated by these criminals, not influenced by them.

Oh, and another thing: the Republicans have made repealing the tepid financial sector regulations that have recently been put in place as one of their top goals if they re-gain power.

2. THE MASSIVE, STRUCTURAL DEFICITS WE ARE SUFFERING FROM ARE DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE TO BUSH-CHENEY CONSERVATIVE TAX POLICIES AND BUSH-CHENEY BIG GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVE SPENDING.

A recent analysis based on data from the CBO shows us the TRUTH about the catastrophic conservative policies that have brought this country to death's door. Please take note of the massive effect of the Bush-Cheney conservative tax cuts for the rich on our national deficit projected into 2019. Also note the impact of the wars that Bush and Cheney bogged us down in and refused to pay for, putting them OFF-BUDGET.



The deficit for the Fiscal year ended 30 September 2009, Bush's last fiscal year, was $1.4 trillion. We are mired in this pattern because of the unemployment triggered by the BUSH-CHENEY RECESSION, which has depressed tax receipts severely, and the tax giveaways for the rich.

Oh, and speaking of that, here is the "prosperity" spread by Dear Leader Bush during his administration. Guess those tax cuts for the rich really boosted everyone up!! [Click to enlarge]

Of course, it could be that people are angry because they're being lied to about who's benefiting from all this tax cutting. From the BUSH era CBO: [Click to enlarge]





Oh, and by the way, to shoot down the lame right-wing argument that the rich "pay almost all the taxes": an exhaustive survey was done of this in 2009. When all taxes--federal income, FICA, state, and local--are acounted for, the upper 5% of our population gets 36.5% of all income, and pays 38% of all taxes.

Oh, and boys and girls: let's not forget that Bush and Cheney and Rove and DeLay and McConnell almost DOUBLED the national debt of the United States in just eight years. Yes, almost doubled all debt that had been accumulated since the presidency of George Washington. But gee whillikers, they're so outraged by President Obama's "massive spending". What a crock. What a G-d-damned crock of shit.

3. THE BUSH-CHENEY CONSERVATIVE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH ARE BEING REPEALED. TAX RELIEF FOR THE REST OF THE ECONOMY IS BEING PUSHED BY PRESIDENT OBAMA, INCLUDING MAJOR HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.

This report from the Communist/Socialist/Marxist/Muslim/Terrorist/
Hitler/Stalin/Mao Wall Street Journal is instructive:

Nestled in the list of small-business initiatives that President Barack Obama announced in the State of the Union address was a measure providing incentives to small firms that hire employees and raise wages.

The details of the initiative, which Mr. Obama is expected to highlight when he visits Baltimore today, include a $5,000 tax credit for every net new employee in 2010. This credit would be retroactive to the beginning of the calendar year and could be received on a quarterly basis, if the business so chooses. In addition, employers would receive a tax credit to cover Social Security payroll taxes on wage increases.


In fact, Bloomberg is worried thaty Obama is
DOING TOO MUCH FOR SMALL BUSINESS.

“If we can help the big banks, then we should certainly be able to help small-business lending,” Obama said June 30. He’s been pushing to increase credit for entrepreneurs since October and summoned leaders of the biggest banks to the White House in December. The Small Business Administration estimates the nation’s 30 million small firms defined as those with fewer than 500 employees create 64 percent of new jobs.

The Independent Community Bankers of America is “wildly supportive” of the bill, said chief economist Paul Merski, whose Washington-based lobby represents almost 5,000 lenders. The American Bankers Association favors passage and the National Federation of Independent Business, which lobbies for small companies, says it supports financing for “creditworthy” firms that have trouble getting loans.


The people blocking relief for small business in Congress are
CONSERVATIVES.

The Bush-Cheney conservative tax cuts for the rich will blow a $700,000,000,000 hole in our budget over the next ten years if not repealed. That's why President Obama is doing the adult, responsible thing and letting them expire.

I received a tax cut, reflected in my pension check, in April 2009. Some 95% of the population received a tax cut as well. One-third of the stimulus package was tax cuts. The EFFECTIVE rate of taxation is now as low or lower than it was under Reagan. But the Right continues to lie...and lie...and lie.

Here are the FACTS:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/tax-day-2010-protesters-i_n_538556.html

The U.S. level of taxation is at a FIFTY YEAR LOW. That is not an opinion. That is a FACT.

Finally, the Democrats will keep the middle class portion of the Bush-era tax cuts IN PLACE:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40112.html

From the article:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House will extend tax cuts for middle-income families passed in 2001 and 2003 while letting lower tax rates for top earners lapse at the end of the year, as scheduled.

“My stance is that the Bush-era tax cuts contributed to the deficit, did not create any jobs, that they should be repealed,” she said. “What we should, though, renew are the middle-income tax cuts. Our position has been that we support middle-income tax cuts.”

You know, I get sick and tired of the Right Wing Noise Machine in this country. I'm sick and tired of being lied to and having my intelligence insulted. And I'm God-damned sick and tired of the vast majority of conservatives who refuse to take ANY responsibility for the mess we're in, even though it is overwhelmingly THEIR FAULT. David Stockman has admitted conservative economic policy failed. Alan Greenspan has admitted the Bush tax cuts for the rich failed. Former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett has said Bush's economic policies were a diaster. Other than those people, I don't know of many others on the Right who have shown any integrity, honor, or honesty in these matters. And one last thing to everyone BITCHING AND MOANING about their terrible tax burdens: I'm 58. Our mothers and fathers paid the highest taxes in our nation's history AND loaned the government the 2009 equivalent of $750,000,000,000 through War Bonds. You see, the country was in a war for its existence. The right-wingers shout that we are in a similar war today. There's just one difference between them and our parents:

They don't feel like paying for it. But then again, that would actually require some modicum of sacrifice for the well-being of our nation.

Sincerely,

Joe Miller

BTW, the Teabaggers who are moaning that they live in a "tyranny" can blow it out their asses. Those idiots wouldn't know a real tyranny if they saw one. And stop insulting the survivors of the Holocaust and the Gulag by comparing Barack Obama to Hitler and Stalin. People who do that are a disgrace to humanity
.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

NO. BY GOD, NO.

Yes, everyone is convinced that a Republican victory this year is foreordained.  Yes, everyone knows about the supposed huge enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats this year. And the blame is already being spread for our defeat. We hear--from people who, overwhelmingly, have NEVER held elective office of any kind but still seem to know all the answers-- about "Obama's broken promises" and Gibbs' criticism of the professional left, and Obama's compromises, and Obama failing to get everything the progressives want, and Obama and the Democrats not rolling over the Right as we all hoped they would. And people are sitting on their hands or saying that they don't plan to vote or even saying that it makes no difference who wins.

To which I say: Are you kidding me?

I've lived 58 years. Barack Obama has accomplished as much as any Democratic president I've ever seen, and that includes LBJ. He is winding down the Iraq War--AS PROMISED. He has succeeded in getting a national health care law through Congress, flawed as it may be--AS PROMISED. He has abolished the use of torture against terrorist suspects--AS PROMISED. He has stood up for pay equality for women--AS PROMISED. He has stood up for children's health care--AS PROMISED. He has gone after the terrorists in their hideouts--AS PROMISED. He fought for the stimulus which quite possibly saved us from a worse meltdown--AS PROMISED. He has helped the U.S. auto industry recover--AS PROMISED. That's a damned record of achievement if I ever saw one.

And a lot of us are going to let it be destroyed or halted in its tracks.

A lot us are going to let Obama's administration go down in flames.

A lot us aren't going to act until it's too late.

If the Republicans win control of Congress, they have vowed to try to repeal the health care act, even though Obama's veto will stop them--for now. They have vowed to wipe out even the lukewarm financial regulation law that has been passed. They will push to make the Bush-Cheney-Rove tax breaks for the Upper 5% PERMANENT, to hell with the deficit. They will attempt to implement Paul Ryan's insanely bad economic policies, which will privatize Social Security, abolish Medicare, and CUT THE TAXES OF THE RICH BY AN ADDITIONAL 50% ABOVE AND BEYOND THE TAX BREAKS THE GOP WANTS TO SEE EXTENDED. They will strangle any and all environmental legislation. They will beat the drums for a war with Iran. They will continue to shovel money to the oil industry. In short, their whole nightmare program will be pushed--and ours will lie dead.

Am I getting through to you? Am I reaching you? Are you getting the point? If not, let me be absolutely clear:

If the Republicans win, this idiot wins:




If the Republicans win, this fool wins:

Tea Party Hitler

If the Republicans win, this repulsive  human wins:

Tea Party 5

If the Republicans win, this little loser wins:

911

Oh, and in case anyone hasn't figured it out, if the Republicans win, this psychotic, pathological liar will gain much greater national power:


If the GOP wins, it means that this demented professional liar who has called Barack Obama a Nazi some TWO HUNDRED  TIMES will be even more powerful:



A Republican victory means that the Confederate Party, the party that remembers the greatest act of mass treason in U.S. history with fondness, has triumphed:

GOP Logo

A Republican victory vindicates Palin, who ginned up the "death panels" smear:

Palin

A Republican victory is a victory for Sean "Scumbag" Hannity, his phony "veterans charity", and his vicious lie that Barack Obama sympathizes with the 9/11 attackers.

Hnnity Scum

A Republican victory allows this lying propaganda hack to win:

Breitbart Prick

A Republican victory means that the whole set of lying, neoconservative war-mongering thugs wins--Kristol, Krauthammer, Bolton, All of them:

K

It means that every lying con artist/propaganda hack at Fox "News" wins.

It means that unrepentant racist Rush Limbaugh wins.

It means that all of right-wing hate radio wins.

It means Speaker of the House Boehner.



It means Senate Majority Leader McConnell



AND IT MEANS THE ENTIRE RIGHT-WING PHILOSOPHY PREVAILS--AND OUR COUNTRY PAYS THE PRICE

Photobucket


And please, please, PLEASE don't give me any of this holier-than-thou, more-progressive than-thou, purer-than-thou nonsense. I KNOW that Obama hasn't delivered on everything. I know that he has retained too many Bush policies, and I know there are too many financial big-wigs in his administration. And I sure as hell know that the Democratic Party has its corrupt and irrational members.

BUT MY GOD, I'VE NEVER--NEVER--SEEN A WORSE, MORE DANGEROUS GROUP THAN THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES THIS YEAR.

There's Sharron "I was anointed by God" Angle in Nevada.

There's Joe "Social Security is Unconstitutional" Miller in Alaska.

There's David "Diaper Man" Vitter in Louisiana.

There's Rick "Lying Scumbag Criminal" Scott in Florida.

There's Rick "Secession Ain't Such a Bad Idea" Perry in Texas

There's Carly "I want to do for California what I did to HP" Fiorina

There's Rand "Screw the Coal Miners" Paul in Kentucky

and it goes on, and on, and on.

There is a difference between mediocre and horrible. The Republican Party is horrible this year, run by its most radical, extremist, dangerous elements. You think I'm going to sit around and watch these people devastate my country? You don't know me.

I FIGHT.

I VOTE. AND I RALLY OTHERS TO VOTE.


LET THE REPUBLICANS WIN AND CRIPPLE THIS COUNTRY ?

NO. BY GOD, NO.



HELL NO!