Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Yes, the Republicans Really ARE Trying to Destroy Medicare

Despite what you may have heard from Politifact, the statement, "The Republicans are trying to end Medicare" is the TRUTH, not the so-called "lie of the year". Jason Linkins at HuffPo has the lowdown on all this right here. Excerpt:

But let's recall, Politifact, that your lie of the year is "Republicans voted to end Medicare." And end it, they did vote to do! Now, if the Democrats had said, "Republicans take Medicare out behind the Cannon Office Building and horsewhip it," that's a different story. But you've decided -- incorrectly -- that the most vanilla way of the describing what happened is a deception.


And "privatizing" Medicare ends Medicare, as Medicare is a public entitlement program. (As a thought exercise for the folks at Politifact, why not stop buying gas for your car? You'll notice that at some point, your car will stop going forward without you pushing it. You did not "end your car." You've just made it less useful by no longer "funding" it with petrol.)


Politifact goes on:


They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare -- or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.


Ha! No one in the world ignored that! That's the way you make ending an entitlement politically palatable -- you tell the people who are currently receiving the entitlement or about to receive the entitlement that it won't affect them. That way, the AARP doesn't, you know, SUMMON THE FORCES OF DARKNESS to vote you out of office. It's actually like Politifact just showed up in Washington yesterday!


[Politifact]: They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.


But it wouldn't exist in a privatized system as imagined by Paul Ryan! In the Paul Ryan plan, the premium support is not tied to health care cost. Healthcare costs go up, the premium support fails to keep up, and the result is altogether unrecognizeable from Medicare.


Read the whole thing, as they say in BlogLand. And remember:

Republican politicians are the ENEMIES of ordinary Americans. Period.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

HURRAH! Kim Jong-il is Dead!

The most brutal tyrant on Earth, the leader of the Stalinist hell known as North Korea, has finally died. Kim was a brutal, vicious, unfeeling monster who allowed millions of his own people to starve and built around himself a cult of personality so vulgar and obscene that Caligula would be embarrassed by it. North Korea is quite literally the least-free nation in the world, and quite possibly the worst nation in the world in which to live. It is all the fault of the barbaric government first headed up by Kim's father, the scum-sucking Kim Il-sung, and then by Little Stalin himself. If I believed in hell, Kim Jong-il would be headed there. Good riddance to this piece of human garbage, and may his brutally and cruelly oppressed people someday be liberated and shown the truth about their "Dear Leader". 

I'm only sorry that he didn't die 30 years ago.

Think I'm too over the top in my sentiments? Read on--and link on, my friends.

An account of the death toll from North Korea's famine in the 1990s is here.

Satellite photos of North Korean death camps are here.

An account of conditions in North Korea's Gulags may be found here.

Additional information on North Korea's death camps, including accounts of grotesque, hideous atrocities, is here.

Amnesty International's report on North Korea's barbaric government is here.

An account of the wretched living conditions in North Korea is here.

Reporters Without Borders reports on North Korea's system of utter and complete censorship here.

And a satellite picture to remind us of the contrast between a free society and a slave state:


Monday, December 12, 2011


(Click to Enlarge to Be Both Disgusted and Amused)

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Something You REALLY Need to Read

It's from our friends at DKos,and it's right here. The title alone is worth it:

Newt Gingrich is a Lousy Human Being

(They had me at that.)

But the contents of the article BEG for your attention. It's not just Gingrich's views that are so often utterly, shockingly, confoundingly wrong--it's the fact that Gingrich himself is such a rotten person.
For example, did you know that not only did Gingrich argue with his first wife about a divorce the day after her third surgery for cancer, he stiffed her on child support after the divorce to the degree that his wife couldn't pay bills for electricity, medical care, and other expenses for Gingrich's own children? (I understand she was forced to turn to charity for help.) What a bastard. (I also understand that Gingrich said his first wife wasn't attractive enough "to be the wife of a president"!!!)

Read the whole thing and let me know what you think.

And then if you agree that this sumbitch needs to be politically destroyed, let me know and we'll help save America--together.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Seventy Years Ago Today



I've been to Pearl Harbor twice. You really owe it to yourself to go. You really do, if only to experience the Arizona Memorial.

Eternal rest to them.

Monday, December 05, 2011

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Gingrich: Liar, Hypocrite, Fraud, Grifter

There are many people to blame on the political Right for the appalling  landscape of American politics. Roger Ailes, who has been a race-baiter and professional liar par excellence ever since his days working for Nixon, and who is the evil presence behind Fox "News", the television propaganda arm of the Radical Right, certainly has been key. Utterly vile Republican political consultants, such as the late Lee Atwater and his apt pupil, Karl Rove, have lowered our politics to depths of ugliness and dishonesty so astonishing and depraved I would have hardly thought them possible at one time. Smirking racist and anti-Semite Patrick Buchanan has consistently interjected white supremacist poison into our discourse. And of course, the whole network of Right Wing Hate Radio hacks, led by vicious, corrupt, borderline-criminals such as Rush Limbaugh, vomits out a constant river of lies and smears. But in this whole despicable bunch, one figure stands out: Newt Gingrich, now the favorite to be the Republican candidate for president in 2012. Jonathan Alter has given us a useful reminder of this lying con-artists's personal history here:

In 1988, as a young representative, he helped drive House Speaker Jim Wright from office for allegedly violating House rules to profit from a book; at the same time Gingrich himself was skirting House rules to promote his own book. A decade later, in a separate matter involving a college course he taught, the Republican-controlled House made Gingrich the first speaker ever to be fined for violating House rules.


In 1989, he viciously attacked Democratic corruption at the House bank and post office. It turned out he was among those members overdrafting from the same House bank.


In 1994, he implied that liberals were at fault in the Susan Smith case, in which a mother infamously drowned her children. He later said the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech stemmed from the same “situation ethics” of liberals.


In 1998, he led the fight to impeach President Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky affair while he was already five years into an extramarital affair of his own — with a congressional staffer (soon to be his third wife) who was 23 years his junior.


In 2009, he called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a “racist” not long before he said the secret to understanding President Barack Obama was his embrace of the radical “Kenyan anti-colonial” mentality of his late father.


In 2011, he blasted the president for seeking the help of the United Nations instead of just bombing Libya unilaterally. After military action began, he said without blinking, “I would not have intervened.”

Liar. Right-wing radical. Moral lowlife. Smear-artist. Con man. Lobbyist king. That's Gingrich in a nutshell. And lest people allow themselves to be impressed by "professor" Gingrich's academic credentials, one of the commenters on this story makes an excellent point:

I wish people would stop referring to him as a history professor with the same tone of voice that they use for real academicians. He got his doctorate from Tulane studying Belgian education policy in the Congo. He taught at West Georgia College for crying out loud and couldn't get tenure. How bad do you have to be???


I don't doubt that the reason he was hired in the first place is that the year (1969) before he was hired (1970) the university went on a hiring binge where they got more new professors than had been on the whole faculty ten years prior.


If Freddie Mac paid $1.6 million for a "historian" with these credentials, then that in itself shows that Freddie Mac management is totally and completely inept.

Heh heh. well-put. And by the way, remember this: Gingrich ACTUALLY said that President Obama is a graver threat to America than Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler were. If he actually believes this, he's somewhere between an idiot and a lunatic. If he doesn't, he's a cynical, lying scumbag who is feeding the worst hatreds of the Radical Right's most unhinged members. In any event, he deserves to be politically crushed as thoroughly as any human in America deserves to be. In a way, it'll be fun if Gingrich is nominated by the lunatic Republicans.

We'll strip the bark off of this son-of-a-bitch.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

An Answer to the Charge of Liberal "Rudeness"

From JD Rhoades, commenter on Balloon Juice, who very, very much speaks for me:

After Willie Horton ads, Swiftboating, GOP convention-goers waving purple band-aids to mock a veteran’s war wounds, birtherism, Ann Coulter saying the “only choice was whether to impeach or assassinate” President Clinton, Coulter claiming 9/11 widows were “enjoying their husband’s deaths,” Rush Limbaugh mocking Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease, ads falsely claiming Barack Obama favored “comprehensive sex education for Kindergartners,” Rand Paul supporters trying to stomp the head of a protester, ads claiming Kay Hagen was “godless,” Michelle Bachmann calling for an investigation of ‘un-American views” among the Congress, “If ballots don’t work, maybe bullets will,” “Obama hates white people,” ‘GET OFF MY PHONE YOU LITTLE PINHEAD!” “YOU LIE!”, wingnuts at FreeRepublic calling 11-year old Sasha Obama a “street whore” for wearing a peace sign on her t-shirt, outright lies about “death panels,” “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy,” cheering for executions, booing soldiers in war zones for being gay, comparing poor people to stray animals you shouldn’t feed, “’we’ve got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion,” supposed “Christians” suggesting that people pray for the President using Psalm 109:8 (“May his days be few; may another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow”) as a text, Limbaugh calling the First Lady “uppity,” and on and on and on, all without a single peep from the Right…They can take their whiny-ass bullshit about liberal “rudeness” and peddle it somewhere else. We ain’t buyin’ it here.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Thursday, November 24, 2011



(Click to Enlarge for Additional Mirth and Enlightenment)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!

I recommend serious overeating followed by vegging on the couch, followed by enthusiastic pie eating.

WHO'S WITH ME?!?!?

ROMNEY THE LIAR: The Meme That We We MUST Spread

Because it happens to be true.


In the larger context, how much more deception can Romney try to get away with before he develops a reputation as a candidate with an honesty problem? Last week, an MIT economist who worked with Romney said the former governor is “just lying” about health care policy. The same week, Romney was caught lying about the makeup of the last Congress, and also got caught lying about a quote from the president…


This in addition to Romney LYING by claiming that President Obama has "massively" cut defense when in fact the defense budget has risen under Obama. This is in addition to Romney LYING when he says that Obama has "apologized" for America, when in fact the President has done no such thing. The conclusion is clear:


MITT ROMNEY IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR. EVERY TIME HE LIES, HE SPITS IN THE FACE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.


Spread the meme, folks. Spread it far and wide, because Mitt Romney has brought it on himself:


ROMNEY THE LIAR

Oh,and one more thing: Romney claims his first name is Mitt. It isn't. It's Willard. 

He can't even tell the truth about that.

HAW HAW HAW! [Click to Enlarge for True Hilarity]

Monday, November 21, 2011

Monday, November 14, 2011

No, Folks, Romney DOESN'T Know What He's Talking About in Foreign Affairs

It's just that compared to the rest of the ludicrous Republican circus (Jon Hunstman excepted) he doesn't sound like a complete blithering idiot. But man, he most assuredly is. Steve Benen has the takedown here:

[Last Saturday] The former Massachusetts governor effectively called for a trade war with China, which is hopelessly insane, and is based on Romney’s confused understanding of what’s procedurally possible at the WTO. He also called for U.S. support for “the insurgents” in Iran, apparently unaware of the fact that there are no such insurgents.


Romney went on to say he would never negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is naive and at odds with the assessments of all U.S. military leaders, and added that he’s both for and against withdrawal timetables.


Remember the time Romney told ABC News he would “set a deadline for bringing the troops home” from Iraq — but only if it’s a secret deadline? How about the time Romney, more than four years into the war in Iraq, said it’s “entirely possible” that Saddam Hussein hid weapons of mass destruction in Syria prior to the 2003 invasion? Or the time Romney pretended “Hezbollah and Hamas and al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood” were all the same thing? How about my personal favorite: the time Romney made the bizarre assertion that IAEA weapons inspectors were not allowed entry into Saddam Hussein’s Iraq?


More recently, Romney tried to trash the New START nuclear treaty in an op-ed, prompting Fred Kaplan to respond, “In 35 years of following debates over nuclear arms control, I have never seen anything quite as shabby, misleading and — let’s not mince words — thoroughly ignorant as Mitt Romney’s attack on the New START treaty.”

Yes, friends, Romney is as much of a hopeless buffoon as almost all of the rest of the Republican field. It's just that he can speak in complete sentences and doesn't start shooting sparks from his temples like Bachmann or Perry. But he would be incredibly dangerous and incompetent in foreign affairs. It would be back to the dark days of W.

But with better grammar--and really swell hair.

Marvel at Herman Cain's Incoherent Babbling...

and see if you can sit through all five minutes of it.



As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon."

Friday, November 11, 2011

If You Wonder Why We Have Veterans Day...

Read this. It is,in part, about Iraq, but American veterans of all eras have had similar experiences, and we owe it to them to understand that. We owe them a debt of gratitude that can never be fully repaid.

On Veterans Day, Romney Proposes Privatizing Veterans' Health Care

Damn, is this guy Romney a piece of work or what? Now he proposes a "voucher" system for veterans so that they can experience the joys of the wondrous private health care insurance market. In effect, Romney now proposes to cripple the Veterans Administration, just as he proposes to destroy Medicare, just as he proposes to raise the Social Security retirement age, just as he proposed letting the auto industry collapse, just as he proposes letting the housing market "hit bottom" so speculators can snatch up properties and rent them out. It needs to be said, loudly and clearly:

MITT ROMNEY DESPISES  ORDINARY AMERICANS AND HAS NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT FOR THEM. HIS GOVERNMENT WOULD BE GOVERNMENT OF THE RICH, BY THE RICH, FOR THE RICH--PERIOD. 

Do you ever get the feeling that I viscerally dislike this clown?

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Tuesday, November 08, 2011


(Click to Enlarge for Further Hilarity)

Friday, November 04, 2011

Mitt Romney Pledges to Destroy Medicare

Yes, he'll embrace Paul Ryan's viciously cruel plan to replace Medicare with vouchers that will pay less than half of what the elderly have been receiving via Medicare. Elderly Americans will be expected to buy insurance on the private market (!!), even though they are in many ways the worst risks for insurers. Yes, you'd have 80 year-olds negotiating with a health insurance company, begging them for coverage.

DON'T LET THE REPUBLICANS GET AWAY WITH THE UTTER, OUT-AND-OUT DAMNED LIE THAT THIS MEASURE IS INTENDED TO "SAVE" MEDICARE. IT IS INTENDED TO DESTROY MEDICARE, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT IS DESIGNED TO DO.


We're talking about a "system" that will condemn countless older Americans to an early death. We're talking about the REAL death panels here--the insurance companies that turn down the elderly, because the insurance companies would go bankrupt trying to provide for them. We're talking about destroying one of the most effective government programs in history.


People, WAKE UP. The Republican Right-Wing fanatics and ideological lunatics want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid because they show the entire conservative argument--the contention that government is the problem--is a lie. They want to destroy these programs not because they've failed.


They want to destroy them because they work.

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Yes!! Going to War Against the SCUM and the PEDOPHILES Putting Child Pornography on the Web

It's called Operation Darknet, and their goal is to block/destroy/disrupt as many of the sick, vile child pornography sites on the Web as humanly possible. GO ANONYMOUS! WRECK ALL OF 'EM!!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I Always Love a Good Smackdown of Willard Romney

And you can find one here, courtesy of Charles Pierce. His piece on the farcical Republican multi-car crash/debate is classic. Money quote:

Here are the two things we learned about the actual frontrunners last night. First of all, Mitt Romney is still a smug, entitled prick. His regular-guy shtick has never been convincing, and it never will be, so he abandoned it entirely last night. If he wasn't whining, continuously, about how he wasn't being allowed to speak, he was letting loose with the kind of contemptuous snicker that you aim at the help when they fall down the stairs. (Remember in 2000, when pundits wouldn't shut up about Al Gore's alleged sighing? This was worse.) For some reason — and "utter, flop-sweaty desperation" is the first answer that leaps to mind — Perry decided to go after Romney on an old story from the Boston Globe in which it was reported that the Romneys had illegal immigrants doing yard work on the family manse back in Massachusetts. Romney parried the attacks ably with his usual mixture of condescension and contempt for the lower classes who dare question him. And then he proceeded to drop his hands, and stick his chin out.


First he said that, when he learned that the landscaping company had hired undocumented workers, Romney told Perry that he told the company, "You can't have any illegals working on our property. I'm running for office, for pete's sake, we can't have illegals."

Translation: "We don't hire illegals because it might hurt our campaign! Not because it's illegal or anything. I mean, do you really think rules apply to people like me?

What a tool.

(Hat tip: Balloon Juice)

What She Said


(Click to Enlarge)

Friday, October 07, 2011

Wow! What a Surprise! Romney's Lying Through His Teeth--Again

Is there ANYTHING Willard can tell the truth about? I kind of doubt it. Now, he claims he needs to be be president to reverse the "massive defense cuts" imposed by the Evil Obama. Just one problems with that argument:


IT'S A DAMNED LIE. Here are the FACTS of the matter:


REMEMBER, EVERYONE. ANY TIME ROMNEY OPENS HIS MOUTH AND SAYS SOMETHING, IT IS ALMOST INVARIABLY LYING BULLSHIT.

Period.

Monday, October 03, 2011

Monday, September 12, 2011

Rick Perry, Mr. Crony Capitalism Himself


(Click to Enlarge)

Sunday, September 11, 2011

On the Tenth Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks



I'll have more to say tomorrow, but for today, let this be our sentiment.

P.S. Powerful images related to the 9/11 attacks can be found here.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Why I Am Becoming Radicalized, Part One

Please enlarge this. Absorb what it's saying. And then tell me that this nation's middle class isn't under serious assault, an assault led by powerful corporate interests.



To repeat:


Productivity, up 80%--EIGHTY PERCENT--from 1980 to now.


Total hourly compensation of all kinds up 8% in constant dollars. EIGHT LOUSY PERCENT IN THIRTY YEARS.


Total hourly wages up 7% in constant dollars. SEVEN LOUSY PERCENT IN THIRTY YEARS.


Income gains for Bottom 20% of population, 1980 to 2009: NEGATIVE FOUR PERCENT.


Income gains for Top 20% of population, 1980 to 2009: PLUS FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT.


Share of the National Income That Goes to the Top 1% of Earners: 23.5%, the highest share since 1928.


Percentage of women with children under 18 who work:  


1975--47%
2008--71%


Household debt as a percentage of disposable income: 


1947--26%
2008--132%

And the Republican response to all this?

MORE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH AND MORE "AUSTERITY" FOR THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASSES, INCLUDING THE DESTRUCTION OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE.

People, wake up--these right-wing politicians DESPISE you. They consider you LOOTERS, MOOCHERS, "UNPRODUCTIVE", "INSIGNIFICANT". 

THEY ARE YOUR ENEMIES. 

STOP VOTING FOR THEM. THEY ARE AGAINST YOUR FAMILY AND YOUR FUTURE. THEY MUST BE STOPPED--NOW.

Period.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011


Click to enlarge--and pass it around!!

Saturday, August 27, 2011


Tuesday, August 16, 2011


Click to enlarge--and then pass it around.

Sunday, August 14, 2011


Sunday, July 31, 2011

Obama Caves In, America Loses

The deal that Barack Obama and the Congressional leadership have agreed to is a disaster for our country and a complete victory for the blackmailing, vicious Tea Party fanatics who threatened to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States if they didn't get their way. In the midst of a cruel and prolonged recession, the government is going to do EXACTLY the wrong thing at the wrong time. This is a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of the President, a man in whom I am severely disappointed. Our "leader" is a man who couldn't negotiate his way out of a paper bag and continues to try to placate people who HATE HIM and will NEVER support him in any way. And do you think any of this will stop the Republicans from waging the ugliest, most vile, most hate-drenched campaign in American history in 2012? They're STILL going to screech that Obama is an Anti-American/Marxist/Terrorist/Nazi/Communist/Muslim Traitor. And you know what? There's a damn good chance they'll win, and that we will have a government that makes Bush and Cheney's horrendous administration look benign by comparison. 

Can you imagine--CAN YOU IMAGINE--the tragedy of having someone like Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann in the White House? And yet, this is what this cowardly "Democratic" president is leading us to. If the ultra-Right wins power next year, it will institute policies so radical and destructive that it will mean the effective end of our democratic-republic. Science will be rejected in favor of creationist idiocy and global warming denial. The poor will be beaten into the ground and left to fend for themselves. Medicare will be destroyed and Social Security will be "reformed" out of existence. The tax code will be dictated exclusively by criminal grifters like Grover Norquist and will pour obscene amounts of money into the pockets of the ultra-rich. The gap between rich and poor will reach shocking new proportions as a permanent underclass will be doomed to suffer lives of unending wretchedness. The health care reforms won at such great effort will be wiped out and the chronically ill will continue to suffer needlessly. Immigration? Expect Arizona on a national level. Infrastructure improvement will be ignored, environmental protections will be gutted, worker safety will be ignored, unions will finally be smashed, and the government's regulatory powers permanently crippled. Women will be reduced to second class citizenship as the Fascist Right destroys not only abortion rights but outlaws contraceptives on "moral grounds". (And don't forget that Scalia says that women aren't covered by the equal protection of the law--for real.) Gays will be legally shoved back into the closet and made into targets of official hatred, as the more radical Teabagger states start sending gays to prison again. And the insane "war on drugs" will be brutally accelerated. All this while the Republicans make it harder and harder for the poor and minorities to vote, effectively making fascist rule permanent. At the top, it will be government by Corporatist Kleptocracy. For everyone else, it will be "Christian Nation" theocracy, as Christianist fundamentalism is made into the semi-official State Religion. And I don't even want to think of the nuclear arsenal of the United States being in the hands of people who think the "End Times" are upon us, nor a foreign policy designed by William Kristol and the other Chickenhawk homicidal maniacs.

You think I'm exaggerating? EVERY SINGLE THING I've just cited is an official right-wing policy objective. That's what actually will happen if and when the Fascist Right comes to power, something that may just happen because the economy will continue to slide further and further downward.


We're screwed

I thought I was voting for FDR in 2008.


Instead, I got Neville Chamberlain.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Saturday, July 09, 2011

Bachmann's Minister: Vicious Bigot and Perverted Fanatic



We have to fight these people with all our heart and soul. They want America to be a religious dictatorship--run by them. We MUST stop them.

Monday, July 04, 2011

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

History by Michele



Hey, it's not much different from what she actually believes.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Michele Bachmann: Evil, Dangerous, Perverted Fanatic

I've been trying to spread the word on this woman for a long time. Bachmann is as sick, as demented, and as dishonest a politician as we have in America. She's also a threat to the very survival of this nation. Were she somehow to attain high office, it would signal the effective death of the American Republic and signal to the  broader world that the American age had passed. Think I'm exaggerating? Check this post from Michelle Goldberg at The Daily Beast right here if you doubt me. Excerpts:

(Bachmann shrieked that she was being held against her will when a lesbian named Pamela Arnold merely confronted Bachmann with questions in a public bathroom.) Lots of politicians talk about a sinister homosexual agenda. Bachmann, who has made opposition to gay rights a cornerstone of her career, seems genuinely to believe in one. Her conviction trumps even her once close relationship with her lesbian stepsister. "What an amazing imagination," marvels Arnold. "Her ideology is so powerful that she can construct a reality just on a moment's notice."


*****


Belief is the key to understanding Michele Bachmann, who announced her presidential candidacy during Monday's Republican debate. Her impressive performance, which catapulted her close to the front of the presidential pack, surprised some, who perhaps expected her to be as inarticulate as Sarah Palin, to whom she's often compared. But in Minnesota, even those who don't like her politics say she shouldn't be underestimated. "The fact that she's not a heavy lifter, the fact that she's relatively unconcerned about the substance of legislation, does not mean that she's not crafty, that she's not intelligent and she's not fast," says former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson, a Republican. Her ideological radicalism should not be mistaken for stupidity.


*****


On Monday, Bachmann didn't talk a lot about her religion. She didn't have to—she knows how to signal it in ways that go right over secular heads. In criticizing Obama's Libya policy, for example, she said, "We are the head and not the tail." The phrase comes from Deuteronomy 28:13: "The Lord will make you the head and not the tail." As Rachel Tabachnick has reported, it's often used in theocratic circles to explain why Christians have an obligation to rule.


Indeed, no other candidate in the race is so completely a product of the evangelical right as Bachmann; she could easily become the Christian conservative alternative to the comparatively moderate Mormon Mitt Romney.


*****


A key moment in her political evolution, as for many of her generation, was the film series How Should We Then Live by the theologian Francis Schaeffer, who is widely credited for mobilizing evangelicals against abortion, an issue most had previously ignored. A Presbyterian minister, Schaeffer argued that our entire perception of reality depends on our worldview, and that only those with the right one can understand the true nature of things. Christianity, he argued, is "a whole system of truth, and this system is the only system that will stand up to all the questions that are presented to us as we face the reality of existence." Theories or assertions from outside this system—evolution, for example—can be dismissed as the product of mistaken premises.


*****


At Coburn, Bachmann studied with John Eidsmoe, who she recently described as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me." Bachmann served as his research assistant on the 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argued that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy, and that it should become one again. "The church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God," Eidsmoe wrote. "In that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy."


Eidsmoe, who hung up the phone when asked for an interview, is a contentious figure. Last year, he withdrew from speaking at a Wisconsin Tea Party rally after the Associated Press raised questions about his history of addresses to white-supremacist groups. In 2010, speaking at a rally celebrating Alabama's secession from the Union, he claimed that Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun understood the Constitution better than Abraham Lincoln.


Reading Eidsmoe, though, some of Bachmann's most widely ridiculed statements begin to make sense. Earlier this year, for example, she was mocked for saying that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly" to end slavery. But in books by Eidsmoe and others who approach history from what they call a Christian worldview, this is a truism. Despite his defense of the Confederacy, Eidsmoe also argues that even those founders who owned slaves opposed the institution and wanted it to disappear, and that it was only Christian for them to protect their slaves until it did. "It might be very difficult for a freed slave to make a living in that economy; under such circumstances setting slaves free was both inhumane and irresponsible," he wrote.


*****


After graduating from Coburn in 1986, Bachmann went on to get a degree in tax law from William and Mary School of Law in Virginia, while her husband studied psychology and counseling at Regent University, the school founded by Pat Robertson. His thesis was about the harmful effects of day care on children. "[T]he best interests of the public would be served if one parent did not work outside of the home unless it was absolutely essential," he wrote.


*****


In the statehouse, Bachmann made opposition to same-sex marriage her signature issue. Both she and her husband, by all accounts her most trusted political adviser, believe that homosexuality can be cured. Speaking to a Christian radio station about gay teenagers last year, Marcus, who treats gay people in his counseling practice, said, "Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined, and just because someone feels this or thinks this, doesn't mean that we're supposed to go down that road." [Emphasis added]


In 2004, Bachmann gave a speech warning that same-sex marriage would lead to schoolchildren being indoctrinated into homosexuality. She wanted everyone to know, though, that she doesn't hate gay people. "Any of you who have members of your family in the lifestyle, we have a member of our family that is," she said. "This is not funny. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say that this is gay."


*****


None of this is likely to sour her many devoted fans. Indeed, it's precisely her unwavering ideological commitment that endears her to them. "She's not afraid to say things that other people on the right are probably thinking, but they're just too wimpy to say," says [a supporter]. "She says these things and she promotes these views because she really believes them."

Hate-filled, violently anti-gay. Determined to make America into a right-wing radical "Christian" [sic] theocracy. Ally to white supremacists. Holds an utterly distorted view of American history. Militantly anti-science. Bachmann is more dangerous than Palin, who is an ignorant fool and a grifter, because she's smarter and more articulate. Bachmann and her supporters are a deadly threat to this country. These people VIOLENTLY HATE AMERICA AND EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR. Their coming to ultimate power--something to which they ludicrously believe they are entitled--would be a catastrophe of the first order. And remember folks--THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S BASE LOVES THIS PSYCHOTIC WOMAN. She IS the Republican Party, heart and soul. Never forget that history takes wildly unexpected turns, and it is possible--perhaps not yet probable--that this woman and her minions will take over this country. If that happens, America is through.

And it's about that simple.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Rick Perry: Dangerous, Lying Right-Wing Fanatic

From our friends at Think Progress, right here. To summarize the main points:


(1) PERRY ALLOWED THE EXECUTION OF A LIKELY INNOCENT MAN, THEN IMPEDED AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MATTER


(2) PERRY WANTS TO REPEAL THE 16th AND 17th AMENDMENTS, ENDING DIRECT ELECTION OF U.S. SENATORS AND THE FEDERAL INCOME TAX


(3) PERRY PROPOSED LETTING STATES DROP OUT OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICAID


(4) TEXAS IS THE COUNTRY’S BIGGEST POLLUTER, BUT PERRY SUED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR DISAPPROVING OF THE STATE’S AIR QUALITY STANDARDS


(5) PERRY DESIGNATED AS “EMERGENCY LEGISLATION” A BILL REQUIRING ALL WOMEN SEEKING ABORTIONS TO HAVE SONOGRAMS FIRST


(6) PERRY GUTTED CHILDCARE SERVICES EVEN AS TEXAS CHILDHOOD POVERTY HIT 25 PERCENT


(7) PERRY WAS A STRONG SUPPORTER OF TEXAS’S ANTI-SODOMY LAWS


(8) PERRY IS A STIMULUS HYPOCRITE WHO LOUDLY CRITICIZED FEDERAL RECOVERY MONEY BUT USED IT TO BALANCE HIS STATE’S BUDGET


(9) PERRY SAID THAT TEXAS MIGHT HAVE TO SECEDE FROM THE UNITED STATES


(10) DESPITE HAVING THE WORST UNINSURED RATE IN THE COUNTRY, PERRY CLAIMS THAT TEXAS HAS “THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE COUNTRY”

And this dangerous ultra-right radical is being talked of for the Presidency.

Wow. A radical right-wing Texas governor. How'd that work out last time?

Monday, June 06, 2011

Let Freedom Ring, You Betcha, By Golly


(Enlarge for greater amusement)

Friday, June 03, 2011



Enlarge for Humorous Details

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Moron. Just a Freaking Moron.



I used to say that her understanding of American government and U.S. history was at the level of the average 4th grader. I now realize what a disservice to 4th graders those sentiments were.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Talk About a Hopeless Battle


(Click to enlarge, if you want to be both amused and horrified.)

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Republican War on Workers Explained

And explained very well, right here. The key quote:

Since we’re identifying basic goals here, let me name one for the right: degrading the standard of living for the large majority of the American people. You degrade the ability of everyone to make a decent wage by destroying unions, one of the traditional models for how to improve the standard of living of broad groups of the American people. (Including, incidentally, those of non-unionized workers, whose wages were historically inflated due to the threat of unionization.) You eliminate pensions; you replace them with things like 401ks, which don’t provide enough for retirement. You oppose health care reform; in fact, you work to degrade Medicare with a voucher program that doesn’t keep up with the cost of health care. You eliminate social services and government programs everywhere. You do all of it in the name of the free market.


Read the whole thing, as we say in Blogland.

Auggghhh!! Run for Your Lives!!


(Click to enlarge.)

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Poem: The semantics of flowers on Memorial Day

Historians will tell you my uncle
wouldn’t have called it World War II
or the Great War plus One or Tombstone


over My Head. All of this language
came later. He and his buddies
knew it as get my ass outta here


or fucking trench foot and of course
sex please now. Petunias are an apology
for ignorance, my confidence


that saying high-density bombing
or chunks of brain in my cold coffee
even suggests the athleticism


of his flinch or how casually
he picked the pieces out.
Geraniums symbolize the secrets


life kept from him, the wonder
of variable-speed drill and how
the sky would have changed had he lived


to shout it’s a girl. My hands
enter dirt easily, a premonition.
I sit back on my uncle’s stomach


exactly like I never did, he was
a picture to me, was my father
looking across a field at wheat


laying down to wind. For a while,
Tyrant’s War and War of World Freedom
and Anti-Nazi War skirmished


for linguistic domination. If
my uncle called it anything
but too many holes in too many bodies


no flower can say. I plant marigolds
because they came cheap and who knows
what the earth’s in the mood to eat.

- Bob Hicok, from Insomnia Diary

Hat Tip: My dear friend Paul Claycomb

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Next U.S. Senator from Hawaii



BTW, you can find Mazie's record here.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Man, I Just HAD to Steal This.

GINGRICH 2012: HE WILL ALWAYS LOVE AMERICA. UNLESS IT GETS CANCER.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Are There ANY Lies John Boehner WON'T Tell?

My God, this lying clown repeats just about EVERY single right-wing lie imaginable about the economic meltdown. What a mendacious, viciously dishonest so-called "leader". Media Matters is on the case:

CLAIM: Speaker Boehner Claimed That "Government Mortgage Companies...Triggered The Whole Meltdown" In Our Economy


BOEHNER: And the government mortgage companies that triggered the whole meltdown went untouched.


FACT: Lax Oversight And Potentially Fraudulent Financial Practices Caused The Housing Bubble And Ensuing Meltdown


The Collapse Of The Housing Bubble Triggered A Banking Crisis That Lead To A Massive Recession. From Slate: "The only near consensus is on the question of what triggered the not-quite-a-depression. In 2007, the housing bubble burst, leading to a high rate of defaults on subprime mortgages. Exposure to bad mortgages doomed Bear Stearns in March 2008, then led to a banking crisis that fall. A global recession became inevitable once the government decided not to rescue Lehman Bros. from default in September 2008. Lehman's was the biggest bankruptcy in history, and it led promptly to a powerful economic contraction. Somewhere around here, agreement ends." [Slate, 1/9/10]


Subprime Mortgage Data Do Not Support Claim That Government Actions Triggered Housing Bubble. Barry Ritholtz, who wrote the book Bailout Nation about the housing bubble and ensuing financial crisis, reports:


Federal Reserve Board data show that:


-More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.


-Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.


-Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics. [The Big Picture, 12/16/10]


Complex Accounting Tricks By Wall Street Firms Contributed To The Magnitude Of The Recession. From Slate: "A bit farther down on the list are various contributing factors, which didn't fundamentally cause the crisis but either enabled it or made it worse than it otherwise might have been. These include: global savings imbalances, which put upward pressure on U.S. asset prices and downward pressure on interest rates during the bubble years; conflicts of interest and massive misjudgments on the part of credit rating agencies Moody's and Standard and Poor's about the risks of mortgage-backed securities; the lack of transparency about the risks borne by banks, which used off-balance-sheet entities known as SIVs to hide what they were doing; excessive reliance on mathematical models like the VAR and the dread Gaussian copula function, which led to the underpricing of unpredictable forms of risk; a flawed model of executive compensation and implicit too-big-to-fail guarantees that encouraged traders and executives at financial firms to take on excessive risk; and the non-confidence-inspiring quality of former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's initial responses to the crisis." [Slate, 1/9/10, emphasis added]

There's more, much more. This is the person we need to throw OUT of the Speaker's chair next year. I'm ready to help. How about you?

Sunday, May 08, 2011

Sunday, May 01, 2011

The President Announces Bin Laden's Death

JUSTICE AT LAST! OSAMA BIN-LADEN HAS FINALLY BEEN KILLED! THANK YOU TO THE BRAVE WARRIORS WHO DID THIS, AND THANK YOU PRESIDENT OBAMA!!

Heh Heh Heh!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Oh HELL Yes!


Friday, April 22, 2011

The Voice of the Insane

Some 45% of Republicans don't think President Obama was born in The United States.

Sure, I want to hand the country over to a bunch of Birther idiots who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and who think the Confederacy was a great and noble idea. Really, who could object?

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Study These Charts, and Then Tell Me America Isn't in Trouble

The horrible evidence of the impact of conservative policies on America can be found here. Wealthy business interests have rigged America's economic system to benefit themselves and screw everyone else. A few examples: (You may need to click to enlarge them)










Oh, and by the way, don't let anyone snow you with the phony "rich people pay all the taxes lie". The lower income groups pay sales taxes, state income taxes, real estate taxes, excise taxes, you name it. And the share of taxes as a share of GDP is the lowest it's been in over 50 years.

This is what America is coming to. Just what do you intend to do about it?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Trace the Upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa

Right here,courtesy of Slate. Good animated map with a good chronology of the uprisings. Check it out.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Last Word on David Broder

It's right here. You owe it yourself to read all of it. Excerpt:

In fact, this fetish [of "balance" in political reporting] became so obsessive that, in the end, it became the great, tragic irony of David Broder's professional life. Because at last he simply could not bear to part with his fantasies about what he wished America to be and face the brutal realities of what America was actually becoming, David Broder -- this "Dean of the Washington press corps" -- totally missed out on covering the greatest story of his time; the utter collapse of the American news media and the mutation of the GOP from a political party into a dangerously fascistic cesspit of oligarchs, lunatics and rubes.