akjsmog's posterous

Ayn Rand's Failure

If Ayn Rand and the Free Market Fetishists Were Right, We'd be Living in a Golden Age -- Does This Look Like a Golden Age to You?

 
If the “free-market” theories of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were correct, the United States of the last three decades should have experienced a golden age in which the lavish rewards flowing to the titans of industry would have transformed the society into a vibrant force for beneficial progress.

After all, it has been faith in “free-market economics” as a kind of secular religion that has driven U.S. government policies – from the emergence of Ronald Reagan through the neo-liberalism of Bill Clinton into the brave new world of House Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan.

By slashing income tax rates to historically low levels – and only slightly boosting them under President Clinton before dropping them again under George W. Bush – the U.S. government essentially incentivized greed or what Ayn Rand liked to call “the virtue of selfishness.”

Further, by encouraging global “free trade” and removing regulations like the New Deal’s Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banks, the government also got out of the way of “progress,” even if that “progress” has had crushing results for many middle-class Americans.

True, not all the extreme concepts of author/philosopher Ayn Rand and economist Milton Friedman have been implemented – there are still programs like Social Security and Medicare to get rid of – but their “magic of the market” should be glowing by now.

We should be able to assess whether laissez-faire capitalism is superior to the mixed public-private economy that dominated much of the 20th Century.

The old notion was that a relatively affluent middle class would contribute to the creation of profitable businesses because average people could afford to buy consumer goods, own their own homes and take an annual vacation with the kids. That “middle-class system,” however, required intervention by the government as the representative of the everyman.

Beyond building a strong infrastructure for growth – highways, airports, schools, research programs, a safe banking system, a common defense, etc. – the government imposed a progressive tax structure that helped pay for these priorities and also discouraged the accumulation of massive wealth.

After all, the threat to a healthy democracy from concentrated wealth had been known to American leaders for generations.

A century ago, it was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt who advocated for a progressive income tax and an estate tax. In the 1930s, it was Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, who dealt with the economic and societal carnage that under-regulated financial markets inflicted on the nation during the Great Depression.

With those hard lessons learned, the federal government acted on behalf of the common citizen to limit Wall Street’s freewheeling ways and to impose high tax rates on excessive wealth.

So, during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency of the 1950s, the marginal tax rate on the top tranche of earnings for the richest Americans was about 90 percent. When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top rate was still around 70 percent.

Greed was not simply frowned upon; it was discouraged.

Put differently, government policy was to maintain some degree of egalitarianism within the U.S. political-economic system. And to a remarkable degree, the strategy worked.

The American middle class became the envy of the world, with otherwise average folk earning enough money to support their families comfortably and enjoy some pleasures of life that historically had been reserved only for the rich.

Without doubt, there were serious flaws in the U.S. system, especially due to the legacies of racism and sexism. And it was when the federal government responded to powerful social movements that demanded those injustices be addressed in the 1960s and 1970s, that an opening was created for right-wing politicians to exploit resentments among white men, particularly in the South.

By posing as populists hostile to “government social engineering,” the Right succeeded in duping large numbers of middle-class Americans into seeing their own interests – and their “freedom” – as in line with corporate titans who also decried federal regulations, including those meant to protect average citizens, like requiring seat belts in cars and discouraging cigarette smoking.

Amid the sluggish economy of the 1970s, the door swung open wider for the transformation of American society that had been favored by the likes of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, putting the supermen of industry over the everyman of democracy.

Friedman tested out his “free-market” theories in the socio-economic laboratories of brutal military dictatorships in Latin America, most famously collaborating with Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet who crushed political opponents with torture and assassinations.

Ayn Rand became the darling of the American Right with her books, such as Atlas Shrugged, promoting the elitist notion that brilliant individuals represented the engine of society and that government efforts to lessen social inequality or help the average citizen were unjust and unwise.
 
Yet, while Rand and Friedman gave some intellectual heft to “free-market” theories, Ronald Reagan proved to be the perfect pied piper for guiding millions of working Americans in a happy dance toward their own serfdom.

In his first inaugural address, Reagan declared that “government is the problem” – and many middle-class whites cheered.

However, what Reagan’s policies meant in practice was a sustained assault on the middle class: the busting of unions, the export of millions of decent-paying jobs, and the transfer of enormous wealth to the already rich. The tax rates for the wealthiest were slashed about in half. Greed was incentivized.

Ironically, the Reagan era came just as technology – much of it created by government-funded research – was on the cusp of creating extraordinary wealth that could have been shared with average Americans. Those benefits instead accrued to the top one or two percent.

The rich also benefited from the off-shoring of jobs, exploiting cheap foreign labor and maximizing profits. The only viable way for the super-profits of “free trade” to be shared with the broader U.S. population was through taxes on the rich. However, Reagan and his anti-government true-believers made sure that those taxes were kept at historically low levels.

The Ayn Rand/Milton Friedman theories may have purported to believe that the “free market” would somehow generate benefits for the society as a whole, but their ideas really represented a moralistic frame which held that it was somehow right that the wealth of the society should go to its “most productive” members and that the rest of us were essentially “parasites.”

Apparently, special people like Rand also didn’t need to be encumbered by philosophical consistency. Though a fierce opponent of the welfare state, Rand secretly accepted the benefits of Medicare after she was diagnosed with lung cancer, according to one of her assistants.

She connived to have Evva Pryor, an employee of Rand’s law firm, arrange Social Security and Medicare benefits for Ann O’Connor, Ayn Rand using an altered spelling of her first name and her husband’s last name.

In 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand, Scott McConnell, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute’s media department, quoted Pryor as justifying Rand’s move by saying: “Doctors cost a lot more money than books earn and she could be totally wiped out.” Yet, it didn’t seem to matter much if “average” Americans were wiped out.

Essentially, the Right was promoting the Social Darwinism of the 19th Century, albeit in chic new clothes. The Gilded Age from a century ago was being recreated behind Reagan’s crooked smile, Clinton’s good-ole-boy charm and George W. Bush’s Texas twang.

Whenever the political descendants of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt tried to steer the nation back toward programs that would benefit the middle class and demand greater sacrifice from the super-rich, the wheel was grabbed again by politicians and pundits shouting the epithet, “tax-and-spend.”

Many average Americans were pacified by reminders of how Reagan made them feel good with his rhetoric about “the shining city on the hill.”

The Rand/Friedman elitism also remains alive with today’s arguments from Republicans who protest the idea of raising taxes on businessmen and entrepreneurs because they are the ones who “create the jobs,” even if there is little evidence that they are actually creating American jobs.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, who is leading the fight to replace Medicare with a voucher system that envisions senior citizens buying health insurance from profit-making companies, cites Ayn Rand as his political inspiration.

The consequences of several decades of Reaganism and its related ideas are now apparent. Wealth has been concentrated at the top with billionaires living extravagant lives that not even monarchs could have envisioned, while the middle class shrinks and struggles, with one everyman after another being shoved down into the lower classes and into poverty.

Millions of Americans forego needed medical care because they can’t afford health insurance; millions of young people, burdened by college loans, crowd back in with their parents; millions of trained workers settle for low-paying jobs; millions of families skip vacations and other simple pleasures of life.

Beyond the unfairness, there is the macro-economic problem which comes from massive income disparity. A healthy economy is one where the vast majority people can buy products, which can then be manufactured more cheaply, creating a positive cycle of profits and prosperity.

With Americans unable to afford the new car or the new refrigerator, American corporations see their domestic profit margins squeezed. So they are compensating for the struggling U.S. economy by expanding their businesses abroad in developing markets, but they also keep their profits there.

There are now economic studies that confirm what Americans have been sensing in their own lives, though the mainstream U.S. news media tends to attribute these trends to cultural changes, rather than political choices.

For instance, the Washington Post published a lengthy front-page article on June 19, describing the findings of researchers who gained access to economic data from the Internal Revenue Service which revealed which categories of taxpayers were making the high incomes.

To the surprise of some observers, the big bucks were not flowing primarily to athletes or actors or even stock market speculators. America’s new super-rich were mostly corporate chieftains.

As the Post’s Peter Whoriskey framed the story, U.S. business underwent a cultural transformation from the 1970s when chief executives believed more in sharing the wealth than they do today.

The article cites a U.S. dairy company CEO from the 1970s, Kenneth J. Douglas, who earned the equivalent of about $1 million a year. He lived comfortably but not ostentatiously. Douglas had an office on the second floor of a milk distribution center, and he turned down raises because he felt it would hurt morale at the plant, Whoriskey reported.

However, just a few decades later, Gregg L. Engles, the current CEO of the same company, Dean Foods, averages about 10 times what Douglas made. Engles works in a glittering high-rise office building in Dallas; owns a vacation estate in Vail, Colorado; belongs to four golf clubs; and travels in a $10 million corporate jet. He apparently has little concern about what his workers think.

“The evolution of executive grandeur – from very comfortable to jet-setting – reflects one of the primary reasons that the gap between those with the highest incomes and everyone else is widening,” Whoriskey reported.

“For years, statistics have depicted growing income disparity in the United States, and it has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. In 2008, the last year for which data are available, for example, the top 0.1 percent of earners took in more than 10 percent of the personal income in the United States, including capital gains, and the top 1 percent took in more than 20 percent.

“But economists had little idea who these people were. How many were Wall Street financiers? Sports stars? Entrepreneurs? Economists could only speculate, and debates over what is fair stalled. Now a mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap.”

The Post article continued: “The largest single chunk of the highest-income earners, it turns out, are executives and other managers in firms, according to a landmark analysis of tax returns by economists Jon Bakija, Adam Cole and Bradley T. Heim. These are not just executives from Wall Street, either, but from companies in even relatively mundane fields such as the milk business.

“The top 0.1 percent of earners make about $1.7 million or more, including capital gains. Of those, 41 percent were executives, managers and supervisors at non-financial companies, according to the analysis, with nearly half of them deriving most of their income from their ownership in privately-held firms.

“An additional 18 percent were managers at financial firms or financial professionals at any sort of firm. In all, nearly 60 percent fell into one of those two categories. Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation’s largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled.”

While these new statistics are striking – suggesting a broader problem with high-level greed than might have been believed – the Post ducked any political analysis that would have laid blame on Ronald Reagan and various right-wing economic theories.

In a follow-up editorial on June 26, the Post lamented the nation’s growing income inequality but shied away from proposing higher marginal tax rates on the rich or faulting the past several decades of low tax rates. Instead, the Post suggested perhaps going after deductions on employer-provided health insurance and mortgage interest, tax breaks that also help middle-class families.

It appears that in Official Washington and inside the major U.S. news media the idea of learning from past presidents, including the Roosevelts and Dwight Eisenhower, is a non-starter. Instead there’s an unapologetic embrace of the theories of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, an affection that can pop out at unusual moments.

Addressing a CNBC “Fast Money” panel last year, movie director Oliver Stone was taken aback when one CNBC talking head gushed how Stone’s “Wall Street” character Gordon Gecko had been an inspiration, known for his famous comment, “Greed is good.” A perplexed Stone responded that Gecko, who made money by breaking up companies and eliminating jobs, was meant to be a villain.

However, the smug attitude of the CNBC stock picker represented a typical tribute to Ronald Reagan’s legacy. After all, greed did not simply evolve from some vague shift in societal attitudes, as the Post suggests. Rather, it was stimulated – and rewarded – by Reagan’s tax policies.

Reagan’s continued popularity also makes it easier for today’s “no-tax-increase” crowd to demand only spending cuts as a route to reducing the federal debt, an ocean of red ink largely created by the tax cuts of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Tea Partiers, in demanding even more cuts in government help for average citizens and even more tax cuts for the rich, represent only the most deluded part of middle-class America. A recent poll of Americans rated Reagan the greatest U.S. president ever, further enshrining his anti-government message in the minds of many Americans, even those in the battered middle class.

When a majority of Americans voted for Republicans in Election 2010 – and with early polls pointing toward a likely GOP victory in the presidential race of 2012 – it’s obvious that large swaths of the population have no sense of what’s in store for them as they position their own necks under the boots of corporate masters.

The only answer to this American crisis would seem to be a reenergized and democratized federal government fighting for average citizens and against the greedy elites. But – after several decades of Reaganism, with the “free market” religion the new gospel of the political/media classes – that seems a difficult outcome to achieve. 

http://www.alternet.org/story/151463/if_ayn_rand_and_the_free_market_fetishists_were_right%2C_we%27d_be_living_in_a_golden_age_--_does_this_look_like_a_golden_age_to_you?page=1

And yet another terrorist notch on Obama's belt

Republicans may be yelling "Class Warfare" at Obama, but what Obama has apparently been up to is actual "War Warfare". At this point if I were a Congressman I'd be afraid to go against anything Obama says for fear he may bring the smack down on my ass too. How many has that been now on Obama's watch? The list is quite extensive.
 
Of course last May, there was finishing up Bush's failed attempt at offing Osama bin Laden thanks to that critical information Cheney obtained through the use of waterboarding seven years prior, for which everyone apparently sat around waiting until Obama was president to go get him, which makes perfect logical sense, and is no wonder that is a standard conservative talking point supporting water boarding. Obama totally owes Cheney a 'big thank you' for that one.
 
And now today, Longtime dictator of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, reportedly has been killed. Following the capture of Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte. The operation to assist the people's uprising against Lybia's ruthless dictator actually began under Obama and was thus completed less than a year later, instead of ten.
 
On September 30th, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Anwar al-Awlaki was taken out. Boo-yah.

Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.

In August, ‘Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, the deputy leader of al Qaeda was fragged.

In June, one of the group’s most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.
Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta.

Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.

In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.

Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and ‘Abdallah Sa’id were killed.
In February 2010, in Pakistan,  Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.

In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin  - accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings – was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.

In May, al Qaeda’s number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.
In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed.
Remember when Rudy Giuliani warned that electing Barack Obama would mean that the U.S. played defense, not offense, against the terrorists?
If this is defense, what does offense look like?

Election Fraud

Now that we've completely refuted the myth of Voter Fraud, let's now take a look at the many unconstitutional ways the Republicans are commiting Election Fraud, hoping to disenfranchise up to 5 million voters this next election season, with an unprecidented 19 new anti-voting laws that are being rammed through state legislatures across the country. 5 million is indeed a big number, and if the only play the Republicans have right now is to lie, cheat and steel, then why not go big. 5 million is also more than half the number by which Barak Obama was elected President of the United States by the largest margin of victory for any non-incumbant who has ran for the office. Now if the Republicans and their media lackies can just smear and obstruction everything Obama is trying to do to help the country, only 4.5 million votes to go.

First, let's consider Ohio where Republicans jammed a union stripping bill through the legislature in March. Why attack union rights? By attacking unions the main Republican objective is to undermine the middle class directly and lower everyone's wages and living standards directly. Sure, we all know that. But attacking unions also has the nice partisan side effect of attacking the Democratic Party's largest institutional base of support. That's the "Party First" stuff. The former is the "Country Last" stuff.

Ohio's blog of mass destruction recently posted this e-mail from a local Ohio Tea Party leader. Quote, "Let me be clear, for the Tea Party/Patriot movement, our number one goal is to defund the union leadership and thus their exclusive partners in the Democratic Party and take back control of our government."
 
"If SB-5 is upheld," the e-mail continues, "the Democrats will not have the money to compete in Ohio next year. Barack Obama and Sherrod Brown will lose Ohio and be thrown out of office in 2012. Our number one goal is to defund the union leadership and thus the Democratic Party, defeat Obama, defeat Sherrod Brown." but not by actually debating our ideas and polcies against theirs, because we know we would lose every time if we actually had a fair elections.
 
The intent is not to level the playing field in other words but tilt it permanently, to make it so conservatives causes win and progressive ones lose, not just this year, not just next year, but for years after that -- to use public policy to give Republicans an advantage in elections.
 
Here's the thing, though. Ohio has been fighting back against this. In June, Ohioans delivered enough signatures several times over to force a recall of Ohio`s union stripping bill. The bill is not in effect because the recall effort is under way. It will be on the ballot for recall -- just like Scott Walker in Wisconsin for his union stripping bill, but in this case it's the actual bill being recalled. It will be on the ballot for recall on November 8th of this year.
 
And speaking of permanently playing field tilting, Ohio Republicans also went after early voting this year, joining a majority of other Republican legislatures this year who have voted to make it harder in one way or another to vote. Early voting, of course, was used disproportionately in 2008 by African-Americans who quite disproportionately voted for Barack Obama and other Democrats. So magically, coincidentally, early voting has to go away before we get to the next election in 2012. And so last June, Ohio Republicans did pass a law that shrinks Ohio`s early voting calendar by more than half.
 
Last month, Ohioans again fought back, delivering more than enough signatures to thakfully put that voting crimping law on hold, to put it up for a repeal next year in 2012. Ohio has been fighting back all year against Republican attempts to tilt the playing field.
 
Next, let's consider Maine where Republicans passed a law to end that state's tradition of being able to register on the same day that you vote. That has been the law in Maine for decades, but Republicans undid it this year. Why? Too many people came in last minute and voted Democrat. Maine fought back though, and got enough signatures to force a citizens' repeal of that law on this November's ballot.
 
Now on to Tennessee where you may remember the previously posted story about 96-year-old Dorothy Cooper suddenly finding it hard to vote after the Republicans in Tennessee passed a bill that says you can`t vote unless you show an ID that hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans don`t have. In Tennessee, the story of Dorothy Cooper is not just an infuriating story anymore. Now, it is a rallying cry for the state Democratic Party trying to rally voters against how
much harder Tennessee Republicans have just made it to vote there.
 
And now Tennesseans are launching a new effort like Ohio, Maine and even Arizona, to get this thing on to the ballot for a citizens' recall. People are finally fighting back and aren't going to sit idly by and watch the Republicans steal more elections yet again. These are state by state laws, but, of course, the cumulative effect is national and pretty obviously intentional -- to structurally tilt the playing field so state laws about elections make it harder for likely Democrats to vote, and therefore more likely for Republican candidates to win -- in the next election and every election thereafter.
 
In addition, the Democrats Senate Campaign Committee nationally announced at the national level that the DSCC will be fighting back as well. They're asking for help from the Justice Department in protecting voting rights state by state. They also say they'll be making a renewed push to register voters and to mount get out the vote efforts in the states that have been targeted by Republicans changing the laws. And maybe that could help. Maybe it will. Republicans may have killed ACORN in an attempt to quash new voter registration, but that doesn't mean we can't still continue to get out and register new voters.
 
I think the attention to this issue certainly helps if only because it makes people who these laws are designed to discourage from voting, realize that somebody is trying to keep them from the voting booth which can have a motivating effect on the need to vote on Election Day.
 
But this kind of coordinated, sustained national assault on voting by the Republicans isn`t an esoteric thing. It isn't an idea. It isn't a plan. It is really happening right now. The true patriots are those who are currently fighting for these kinds of rights that are clearly guaranteed to us in the Constitution, and fighting back is about how we decide things in America. This is why almost every new draconian voting bill is currently being held up or being recalled. This is why millions are turning out for the Occupy Wall Street protests and not going away.
 
Now let's consider Colorado where the new Republican secretary of state has ordered the counties not to send ballots to voters who would usually expect to receive them. If you haven't voted since the election in 2010 or re-upped your registration then no ballot for you. In Pueblo County, Colorado, a vast majority of the voters happen to be also U.S. troops overseas who would usually get sent a ballot. But the Republican secretary of state in Colorado said they weren't allowed to be sent ballot mailings this year.
 
On Friday, a judge ruled against the Republican secretary of state in Colorado. In a hearing on a Denver case, he ruled that Denver's ballots could get mailed out to the disproportionately Hispanic voters. As a sign of things to come for all these Republican dirty election fraud laws they are attempting to get into law, none of them hold up to the Constitution when it comes to disenfranchisement and denying people their right to vote.

Obama 'Too Weak to Lead' talking point Dead

Besides finaly getting Osama Bin Laden, after Bush spent two terms dropping the ball after Clinton basically handed him on platter, now it turns out Obama's strategic approach to the Lybian conflict -- allowing France and NATO to take the lead to minimize the chance that America was seen as leading another disaster Iraq-style war of aggression -- seems to have been the right one. Regardless of the leaglity, this officially ends the "Obama is too weak to lead" talking point from the right. Shhhhh, but don't tell the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal!

Today's WSJ editorial page takes a break from excusing the criminality of the executives in charge of its parent company to deliver an official house reaction to the developments in Tripoli that starts off cautious and then just descends right back into the exact same lame arguments it's been using for the last six months:

"Having helped to midwife the rebel advances with air power, intelligence and weapons, NATO will have some influence with the rebels in the days ahead. The shame is how much faster Gadhafi might have been defeated, how many fewer people might have been killed, and how much more influence the U.S. might now have, if America had led more forcefully from the beginning.

Planning for this moment is precisely why we and many others had urged the State Department to engage with the rebels from the earliest days of the revolt, but the U.S. was slow to do so and only formally recognized the opposition Transitional National Council in mid-July. The hesitation gave Gadhafi hope that he could hold out and force a stalemate.

Libyans will determine their own future, but the U.S. has a stake in showing the world that NATO's intervention, however belated and ill-executed, succeeded in its goals of removing a dictator, saving lives, and promoting a new Libyan government that respects its people and doesn't sponsor global terrorism."

I'm not sure how long the editors of the Wall Street Journal think your average revolution lasts, but assuming Gadhafi's hold on power is as weak as it appears today, I would argue -- as a layman, of course -- that NATO's intervention seems neither "belated" nor "ill-executed." (I mean, it seems well-executed, in the sense that it seems to have accomplished its goal?)

But it's the line about America leading "more forcefully from the beginning" that the neocons and GOP hawks will continue to cling to no matter what actually happens in Libya. It's the same argument BFF Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham used in their joint response to this weekend's developments: "Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Gadhafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower."

All-out war! From day one! With the full force of American airpower! One definite way to make a civil war faster and less bloody is for a foreign country to enter it fully, right? (It tends to unite the populace, for one thing!) And conflicts are always less bloody when America drops more American bombs. That's how we won Vietnam! (In case you can't tell, that's called sarcasm!!)

There's no point in countering McCain and the Journal's arguments with reason, of course, because these are not actually fact-based responses to news, they're just rote recitations of Republican dogma: Obama weak! (Except domestically, where he is an autocrat.)

And this is the "respectable" Republican talking point. The line from the real nuts -- I'm guessing something along the lines of "radical Obama allows Muslim Brotherhood to seize control in Libya" -- will begin bubbling up from the sewers to talk radio and Fox News and Michele Bachmann's campaign soon enough.

 

Sigh, another day, more GOP hypocrisy

The hilarious thing about the Republicans is they actually think people take them serious. On Thursday Barak Obama finally went on the offensive and attacked the Republicans for refusing to get rid of tax breaks for oil companies, hedge fund managers, and corporate jet owners saying "[Republicans] are willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner continues to get a tax break." And they are! No, they really are. Because Eric Cantor's office released a statement following Obama's press announcement that said, quote, "this argument is not about this loophole or that loophole, it‘s about raising taxes in a lagging economy when we should be focused on growth and getting people back to work. Also, I‘d point out for your guidance,” the statement said, “that the corporate jet loophole that [Obama] was talking about only amounts to about $2 billion."
 
The loophole ONLY saves us $2 billion!? Only $2 billion!? Well, that's no biggie then. Actually, I'd like to point out for Eric Cantor's guidance, it turns out the corporate jet tax break could be as much as $3 billion according to the Wall Street Journal. Regardless, what‘s $2 billion or $3 billion here or there if you‘re the party of fiscal conservatism anyway? Leave taxpayer subsidies for rich guys‘ corporate jets alone.
 
But, you know, as Eric Cantor‘s office falls back on the argument that $2 billion or $3 billion is no biggie, no reason to bother closing a little corporate tax loophole that teeny, it is funny to look at how many things Republicans have said this year that we must cut because we can no longer afford—things that do not cost taxpayers nearly as much as that measly $2 billion or $3 billion on subsidizing corporate jets.
 
Like, for example, oh I don't know, the $868 million that proposed cutting from WIC, the food program for women, infants and children. How about the $650 million they proposed cutting from the National Public Radio, or the $51 million they proposed cutting from the National Park Service, or the $899 million from energy efficiency and renewable energy? How about $2 billion from job training programs Republicans are cutting? It‘s not like Republicans don‘t want to cut things that don‘t cost much money, but they are actually publicly saying we can‘t afford any of these things. However, $3 billion for taxpayers to subsidize rich guys‘ corporate jets? Yeah, leave that in, because that one, that‘s no biggie.
 
But Republican hypocrisy doesn't just end there. Because there's always a new day. Remember when Republicans were for health reform with an individual mandate to buy insurance until Democrats were for it too, and then Republicans decided they were against it? Remember how Republicans proposed cap-and-trade as their own Republican market-based approach to pollution, and Democrats went along with that, and Republicans decided their own idea was toxic? Remember when seven Republican senators co-sponsored legislation to establish a bipartisan commission to bring down the deficit? They wanted it. It was their idea. That was until President Obama signed onto it and then those very same seven Republican senators voted against their very own bill. Well, these acts of hypocritical cowardice weren't just flukes. It turns out this is normal day-to-day operations on Capital Hill for Republicans, and it's happening again. Turns out, Republicans are bailing out of talks on a deal to keep the U.S. from defaulting on our debt, and they are doing so by rejecting their own proposal.
 
So here's what happened: In March, Republican members of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee issued this report: Spend less, owe less, grow the economy. It‘s a Republican thing. It included a pie chart with the Republican prescription for solving the deficit. They said according to their Republican math, their preferred Republican magic potion for the economy would be 85 percent spending cuts and 15 percent new tax revenue -- 85 to 15, OK?  Don't think too hard about it. It makes sense to Republicans.

Here is what the Democrats offered in return. Their own elixir of 83 percent spending cuts and 17 percent new tax revenue, including from very rich oil companies and corporate tycoons flying around in corporate jets—

83-17.

So, the counter offer was basically a rounding error off from what they said the Republican wanted in the first place. Republicans are two points away from getting exactly what they demanded, from what they themselves set out as their goal. So, if you‘re that close, you can have a deal, right?

Wrong. Republicans have now decided they do not like the Republican idea now that Democrats said OK to it. Now they want a new deal, the one you see here, in this chart. Never mind their old perfect recipe from three whole months ago. Their new recipe is 100 percent spending cuts, nothing in taxes, no new tax revenue, no, not ever, at least not such March.

Democrats should have learned their lesson with PAYGO. In 2005, four Republican senators decided to bring back something called PAYGO, basically a rule that says if the government spends something, it has to compensate for that somewhere else in the budget. It‘s called the PAYGO rule, which is just short for pay as you go.

That‘s what we had during the Clinton administration, and in March 2005, four Republican senators proposed bringing back that rule for Washington. Bring back PAYGO. And even though four Republican senators, including John McCain, had supported legislation to do that in the past, when President Obama said, “OK, come let us reason together, I will do this thing that you want,” those same Republicans decided that they did not want PAYGO anymore.

You know, it is fine if you don‘t care about policy. That‘s fine. There‘s a lot of things worth caring about in the world. Maybe you don‘t think policy is worth caring about.

But if you do not care about policy, don‘t get involved in it. Don‘t have it be your job to vote on policy if you are perfectly comfortable taking positions diametrically opposed to your previous positions without even really understanding the difference on policy. Don‘t have it be your job to vote on policy if your only standard for deciding whether or not a policy is good or bad is who the president is at the time somebody is asking you.

When George W. Bush proposed trying international terrorism suspects in U.S. federal courts, there was no outcry from congressional Republicans at the time. But when Barack Obama proposed doing exactly the same thing, the outcry from the right was quite a bit louder. Mitch McConnell said "This is really dangerous nonsense. We have a way to do it. Interrogate them, detain them, and try them in military commissions off shore."

During the Bush presidency, the current Republican leaders in Congress voted 19 times to increase the debt ceiling by a total of $4 trillion. But now, they have discovered a desire to take a stand on this issue. In 2002, 31 Republicans in the Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling. In 2003, 50 Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling. In 2004, again, 50 Republicans said let‘s raise the debt ceiling. Two years later, in 2006, that number was up to 51 Republicans. In 2007, 26 Republicans. In 2008, there were two votes to raise the debt ceiling supported by 34 Republicans the first time, and 33 Republicans the second time.

This is all during the Bush administration. And as you might expect in the Bush administration, raising the debt ceiling was pretty much a yearly occurrence. Eric Cantor might even say it was no biggie. And let's not forget, just for context here, when President Bush came into office there was no deficit. The nation was running a budget surplus of $127 billion. By the time George W. Bush left office, we had a projected budget deficit of $1.2 trillion. But over that time, every time the debt ceiling came up for a vote, Senate Republicans voted to raise that debt ceiling.  No biggie.

Since President Obama has been in office, no Republican has voted to raise the debt ceiling. Suddenly it's a big deal. What‘s the difference between raising the debt ceiling under Bush and raising the debt ceiling under Obama? What‘s the difference between these two totally different patterns of Republican behavior? What‘s the difference? What could it possibly be? Man, Republicans make it hard to not have to call them hypocritical racist assholes.

Now, as Washington staggers and jags towards the real deadline by which we might default on our debt and incidentally cause a global financial catastrophe, Republicans are now storming out of talks to prevent that catastrophe, storming out on principle, refusing to even continue to discuss the prospect of avoiding catastrophe because something so offensive to their deeply held principles was suggested by Democrats. Corporate jet tax breaks.

Democrats proposed a couple months ago that for the biggest oil companies in the world, the most profitable companies the world has ever known, should no longer get subsidies from the American taxpayer, Republicans were kind of okay with that. But now, the idea is so morally offensive to them that not only are Republicans saying no to it, they are not even willing to say no, they are getting up and storming out of the room and refusing to participate in discussions at all because of their horror that a policy like that might even be discussed in that room. They can‘t even sit there and say, no. They have to get out and storm out of the room and denounce the existence of the room.

Both Cantor and Boehner have walked out of the debt ceiling talks and then got back into the talks, only to walk out on them again, and then turn around and say "Obama needs to be in the talks." Oh please. Do your frickin jobs and stop whining like little bitches.

I understand they do not really care about policy. I understand that all they care about is trying to make President Obama and the Democrats look bad. That's fine I guess. That is their right. But then their jobs should probably be public relations specialists and not lawmakers. They should be mud pie makers. They should be graffiti artists who draws little mean looking mustaches on Obama re-election posters. However, they should not be in charge of policy if they obviously do not care about policy and the only way Republicans can predict what stand they have on any particular policy is how somebody else is going to vote on it.

In order to try to get this debt ceiling vote, Democrats have now proposed to Republicans a tax cut. Surely, Republicans can get on with that, right? A payroll tax holiday. A business tax cut. Nope. Republicans have apparently decided that they are against that now too. The Republicans are against a business tax cut. John Boehner saying that a business tax cut right now won‘t, quote, “overcome the uncertainty that‘s out there.”

What is John Boehner‘s contribution to overcoming the uncertainty that‘s out there? Dragging the nation to the point of defaulting on all of our debts, saying it‘s going to come down to the wire and nobody knows how it‘s going to turn out and maybe we‘ll be crazy enough to let the whole global attorney blow up enough to make a point? So says the guy concerned about any risk of uncertainty in the business climate.

The kind way to understand this is as disgusting hypocrisy. The kind way to understand this is shameless, craven, unprincipled partisan hackery. That‘s the nice way to see this.

The less nice way to see this is that Republicans in Congress actually don't have a clue what they are doing and are making it up as they go along, with but one goal, to see Obama fail, and if that means guaranteeing disastrous economic outcomes, huge risk to the entire American economy and maybe even the global one, then "so be it."

Given the choice between thinking of Republicans as that evil or thinking of them as just disgusting, I would rather think of them as just disgusting. There really is only two choices.

 

The Republicans are asking Weiner to resign!???? Really?

Everyone knows hypocrisy runs deep and wide in the Republican party, yet not only are the Republicans calling for Anthony Weiner's resignation, but they also want anyone who Weiner helped raise campaign funds for, to give that money back. Seriously. I know. I'll give you a little bit of time to stop laughing........
 
Okay, where to begin. Let's start with that last part. The part about anyone who Anthony Weiner helped raise campaign funds for, needs to give it back. Well, let's completely ignore John Ensign while we make this decree shall we. You know, the guy who was in charge on the entire GOP Senatorial re-election committee who basically oversaw all the campaign fund raising for all of the Republican senator elections in 2010? Also the guy who extorted sexual favors from the wife of a former staff member for years and who himself only resigned a week before an ethics panel was about to announce 27 ethics violations against him, including sexual harassment, bribery, extortion, and obstructing justice, which also involved two other Repulican Senators in the cover up, and would have resulted in his expulsion from the Senate. Okay Senate Republicans, go ahead and give ALL your campaign funds from the last election back. Every last dime. C'mon, hand it over, thank you.
 
Now, as to the resignation itself. Sure, Weiner should resign right after Mark Sanford and David Vitter resign. As a sitting governor Mark Sanford just took off to Argentina without telling a single person where he went, to hook up with his mistress. It ruined his marriage but at least he got to serve out the remaining two years of his term. So, I guess Mark Sanford can't resign at this point, but it looks like then that Weiner should have at least two years left in office. David Vitter on the other hand, still remains in office to this day, even after four years ago when his phone number was found on a client list of a DC Madame and confessed to sleeping with whores. After the scandal broke, David Vitter received a standing ovation from his fellow Republican colleagues at a Republican Leadership Conference the following week. "Yay Vitter! Way to sleep with those whores behind your wife's back! Good job! Hurray hypocrisy!"
 
After Mark Sanford went missing for those three days two years ago, then claimed he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and then eventually admitted his trist to Argentina to see his mistress, when contacted for a comment, then House Minority Whip Republican Eric Cantor said that it was "up to the people of South Carolina and that will play out. But, listen, Governor Sanford apologized yesterday. We ought to be, you know, really dedicating our thoughts and prayers to his family right now going through a difficult time." However, when contacted after Anthony Weiner sent out his lewd photos over Twitter, now House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor was the first Republican voice to call on Weiner to resign, less than a day after Weiner's own apology. So, whatever.
 
Unfortunately this country has had the displeasure of not one, but two politicians who have cheated on their sick and dying wives from cancer. What John Edwards did: having sexual encounters with his mistress while campaigning for president under strong family values, while his wife was suffering from cancer, and then fathering a child by the mistress, was deplorable. But then there's all of Newt Gingrich's affairs. When Newt learned that his first wife had multiple scerosis, he divorced her to marry the woman he was having an affair with at the time while he was Speaker of the House. Then when Newt's second wife was suffering from cancer, Newt served her with divorce papers while she lay there in her hospital bed, so he could marry wife number three whom he had already been having an affair with for awhile. And all this while demanding Bill Clinton should resign during the Monica Lewinski scandal. Today, John Edwards's social, political and family life is completely ruined, but Newt Gingrich is currently one of the top contenders for the Republican nominee for president. Go figure.
 
The thing about it is, while Anthony Weiner was playing grabass on Twitter and then lied about it for one entire day, some of the most reprehensible infidelity has been committed by Republicans and lied about for years, while they get to remain in office, or even go and run for president. Anthony Weiner never engaged in any sexual activity with anyone, met up with anyone, slept with any whore, flew to Argentina to meet his mistress, or even broke a single law in this case. But, rather than giving him a standing ovation by his fellow Democrats the next day, Nancy Pelosi called for an full ethics investigation to see if Weiner had used a government computer to send his photos out. Oh no!!!
 
And it's not like Anthony Weiner is in office today because of his constant preaching on moral values, the sanctity of marriage, or from legislating on how one should behave in the bedroom. Those are the mastications of the Republican way of life, along with the double standard that includes their exemption if they should violate those values. There's no hypocrisy from Weiner living his own private life whether we approve or not. If his constituents don't approve they can certainly vote the six term congressman out of office. All that exists is Weiner's ridiculously stupid idiotic actions. WTF are you taking pictures of your dick for, moron!? If anything, Weiner's lost his merit from liberals and progressives as one of the most intelligent champions of the left in the House.
 
But no, as always, the hypocrisy comes from Republicans completely, for actually having the audacity to demand Anthony Weiner resign. Seriously douchebags, fuck off. 
 
 
--

How Obama Succeeded Where Bush Failed

It was impossible to hear Obama declare that "justice has been done" without thinking about how long it went undone.

1. As the months and years went by after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and Bush’s initial bluster about capturing the al Qaeda leader “dead or alive” became a source of embarrassment -- Bush began to insist that bin Laden himself wasn’t so very important. In May 2002, nearly exactly 9 years ago, Bush said "I truly am not that concerned about him. I don't know where he is." Right after taking office President Obama directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the highest priority of our war on terror against al Qaeda.

2. Bush's distraction and diversion from his incompetence of not being able to find Osama bin Laden, by invading Iraq and the torture of Muslims in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere had served as Al Qaeda’s most potent recruiting tools, wasted over a $trillion dollars of our resources, cost nearly 5000 American soldiers lives, and left this country overwhelmingly despondent about both of the wars launched by Bush. Despite all that, Obama was at long last able to deliver our greatest and most signicant victory - The death of Osama bin Laden, ironically eight years to the day after Bush famously and prematurely declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq after landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.

3. The Bush record on bin Laden, of course, starts with him failing to prevent the attacks in the first place. As has been exhaustively documented by now, during the summer of 2001, his White House waved off repeated warnings of an imminent attack from former Clinton counterterrorism director Richard A. Clarke and then-CIA director George Tenet. Former President Bill Clinton came close to taking out bin Laden in 1998 before leaving office, but failed, yet left behind comprehensive anti-terror strategy compiled by Clarke, who got demoted while Osama was ignored for the next 8 months because Bush couldn't be bothered with "Swatting flies." President Obama's record on bin Laden starts at day one after taking office and ends Sunday with Osama's death.

4. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban government quickly fell and al Qaeda retreated into the hills. But in December 2001, when bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora, Bush didn’t pull the trigger. None of Bush's handpicked generals offered their resignations following this blatant act of cowardice however. Nine years later, after the hard work of our intelligence agencies, Obama was able to get solid credible evidence as to Osama's location and bin Laden was within reach once again in Pakistan. Despite the risk of life of the soldiers, the fear of subterfuge, the risk of collateral damage, the diplomatic damage to a potential allied nation, and risks involved to toward his own presidency, unafraid Obama pulled that trigger and got the job done.

5. In 2006, on the stump for his fellow Republicans, Bush was citing bin Laden extensively. Cheney went so far as to claim a vote for a Democrat meant we would be attacked by Al Qaeda. Bush cast bin Laden as the oracular leader of a global movement, and warned of the possibility of an Islamic caliphate "stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia." Meanwhile, that same month, Bush told to a group of conservative columnists that focusing on bin Laden didn’t fit with his military plans. Putting "100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work." Yet, in his attempts to persuade the voting public of the dangers it faced, Bush gave bin Laden exactly the attention he seemed to crave. Obama hardly gave Osama any attention at all, but quietly the CIA and other intelligence agencies were diligently working behind the scenes to find bin Laden following Obama taking the oath of office. Frustrated and complacent bin Laden let his guard down and a courier was tracked to his location. Now is the time to extensively cite bin Laden, when the mission has actually been acomplished. For anyone to claim that Obama follwed the vigilance of Bush in brining bin Laden to justice, the facts just do not support this in anyway, and that person is either a liar, a hypocrite, or more likely, both (Eric Cantor, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, etc).

6. Following the attacks of 9/11 this country experienced unprecedented national and international unity until that clout was withered away when Bush decided to take us to war in Iraq, subverted historical prohibitions against torture and domestic surveillance, and used fear of terror to achieve partisan goals. By killing Osama, the president was able to harken back to those lost days of unity tha tprevailed initially following 9/11. "On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together," the president reminded the nation on Sunday night. "We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.”

It's the Revenues Stupid!

And I can prove it.
 
There is the total debt for this country which is $12.1 trillion and there's this year's budget from Obama which came to $3.8 billion, with a deficit of $1.4 billion. That means unless we "cut" $1.4 billion out of the budget or find $1.4 trillion more in revenue that $1.4 trillion gets added to the debt. But there's a problem, the budget is made up of 5 main categories: defense, social security, medicaid/medicare, health care reform, and the rest gets clumped into the "national discretionary spending." Those are the five biggest pieces of the pie.
 
Of course the first things the Republicans will lash out against, displaying their ignorance in full view, is Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid which makes a huge portion of the budget at 38%. However, thankfully these programs don't actually add to the debt because they are paid back by working people and are for now, solvent for the next 50 years or abouts. Of course if we start cutting them, then that solvency drops dramatically, never mind that also by cutting these programs people die. When you quietly explain this to Republicans they seem to understand that this could really hurt their election chances, not that they have anything against Americans dying however.
 
So, they move on to the next best thing: Obama's Health Care Reform, which is about 19% right now. Never mind that this money spent now is to get a system in place for 2014 that will require everyone to have some sort of PRIVATE health insurance, that once in place will actually reduce the debt in 10 years and also become solvent. Yeah, completely disregard that fact, and keep repeating over and over again how this is clearly government take over of health care with government death panels, which is what logically happens when the government makes you buy PRIVATE health insurance. None the less, it should be repealed immediately. The House GOP tried to do this as a big F you to Obama, they failed, nobody cared.
 
So far 58% of the budget is untouchable, so now let's take a look at the giant gorilla in the room that nobody has the balls to even talk about: 31% for defense. As we all know there is absolutely no waste in defense spending. zero zilch. We really do need to continue building those fighter planes to fight Russia in 1970 because of all the countless dog fights we get in with the Taliban these days. If it were me, this would seem like the most pragmatic, practical, logical place to begin. There's $1.2 trillion to work with right here. Boehner and the House GOP promised to cut $100 billion when they got into office during the election. This country already spends more than every other country combined on defense. Do you think we could get by on only spending $1.1 trillion on defense this year? Boehner would have achieved his $100 billion budget cut goal and would have looked less like the retard he does today. But no, of course not, the House GOP decided to aim their sights at the last category, National Discretionary spending.
 
In all their wisdom they thought the best way to solve the $1.4 budget deficit was to pull out all the big guns and declare war on women, war on science, war on information and war on poor people. Unfortunately, the National Discretionary Spending makes up only 11% of the budget, which means the House Republicans are trying to solve a $1.4 trillion dollar shortfall out of only $418 billion. And even with that, all they could come up with is $61 billion in cuts, $39 billion short of their campaign promise. Yes, a $61 billion dollar cut to federal spending that the CBO estimates will cost over 800,000 federal jobs. For the party that swept into office running on creating jobs and saving the economy, this has got to be the biggest bait & switch scheme in our nation's history. This is the chunk of the pie that the House GOP brainchilds decided to begin their budget cuts and all they could come up with was 1.2 cents on the dollar. That means only $1.339 trillion will be added to our $12.1 trillion dollar debt this year, 800k people out of work and on the street, and countless programs people in this country rely on are gone. "So be it" Boehner says.
 
Can anyone with an IQ higher than Boehner's blood alcohol content actually still say this is a spending problem? Aside from shaving a little off defense spending clearly this is a revenue problem and it's time for those who have most benefited from the "American Dream" to give back. The stock market is at all time highs and corporations are making profits like they have never seen before, and yet this country wallows in debt and continues to suffer. How much would we need to raise taxes on those who make $250k or more to earn back that $1.4 trillion shortfall? A half a percentage point? Seriously Republican douchebags, it's the Revenues Stupid!!

Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice

Jared Lee Loughner opened-fired at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' office as Giffords conducted a meeting with constituents on Saturday January 8th. During the shooting, six people were killed, including a district court judge. In addition to those killed, there were 12 injured. Giffords was shot in the head and critically injured, still currently in the ICU.

How did this happen? Jared Loughner was deemed not fit to enlist in the army, nor to continue his studies at a community college, however the state of Arizona deemed Jared Lougner fit enough to purchase an assault weapon, along with ammunition for it that would have not have been legal had the assault weapons ban not expired during the Bush administration. An Arizonan can legally conceal and carry a weapon without a permit. A gun owner in Arizona can bring a gun to the state capital, to restaurants, to taverns. Arizona also banned its cities from passing gun laws stricter than the state laws. All of that helped Loughner purchase a Glok 19 semi-automatic pistol a little over a month before the shootings, after "passing" a background check. Federal investigators said that Loughner was carrying 90 rounds of ammunition on Saturday, loaded in high capacity magazines, clips that can hold 30 rounds of ammo each. Federal laws do prohibit selling weapons to the mentally ill, but there is no way to determine if somebody who is applying for a gun is in fact mentally ill unless they tell you they are, or unless they have been flagged by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which Arizona is behind at entering its records into that database. But even if Arizona was on top of their lists, Loughner would not of been on this list because he was not identified as having a mental illness. He was merely a young adult and living with his parents.

Why did this happen? According to Loughner’s YouTube page, his favorite writings included Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. He also posted a video advocating the burning of the American flag. Caitie Parker, a user on Twitter, wrote that she went to high school, college, and was in a band with Loughner. She said, “As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with 2012 prophecy.” Conservatives used these examples to lead to conclusion that his political tendencies were towards the radical left.

However, based on what he wrote and what he read, Jared Loughner was an individual who was anti-government, obsessed with a currency that wasn't backed by the gold standard, had serious misgivings about the Constitution beyond the original preamble and Bill of Rights, and talked about overthrowing a corrupt tyrannical state, which are concepts typically reserved for the radical right. Loughner railed against government mind control, government manipulation and much of his ramblings also showed the influence of conspiracist David Wynd Miller. Fox News also reported that Loughner had ties to the right wing pro-white racist organization American Renaissance, which has since been debunked.

In addition to the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, Loughner also listed many fictional novels, including works by George Orwell and a book by Libertarian icon Ayn Rand. Jared Loughner was a registered Independent who voted in 2006 and 2008, but not in 2010. Ideologically Jared Lougner's political tendencies were obviously all over the map, but one theme that can be extracted from Loughner's writings and readings is a strong sense of the individual versus a corrupt, totalitarian state, where it is the government who is the enemy.

Certainly there have been anti-government movements on both right and left, but in this country over the past 30 years or so, the Republican Party and other conservative groups have taken ownership of the anti-government movement, more than the Left has ever known. Some of the anti-government rhetoric we hear from the right has been reasonably legitimate with wanting to reduce federal taxes or reducing the size of government, but many times the right wing anti-government advocates have verged over to vitriolic and demonizing attacks on the actual individuals who make up the government, who at the end of the day, are just human beings. At the same time, there is an evident thread of this right wing anti-government sentiment through what Jared Loughner had to say and what he read.

Both sides aren't innocent of attacks against the other by any means. In 2008 Barak Obama said "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun" during a speech leading up to 2008 presidential election. The borrowed phrase from The Untouchables was used to encourage liberals and Democrats to not be pushed around by thuggish Republicans and conservatives who were already using vitriolic, hyperbolic  and racist attacks during the lead up to the election. Obama's metaphor was to show he had the courage to fight against these attacks and not be intimidated.

But compared to some of the attacks from the right, Obama's quote from the 2008 election seems less overt. In 2005, live on is radio show Glenn Beck said he was "thinking about killing Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it," before concluding: "No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?" Where is the metaphor in that? Then last year on Beck's television show he acted out a scene with a staffer wearing a Pelosi mask, where he poisons Speaker Nancy Pelosi's in effigy. Unlike Obama's quote this is neither a metaphor nor is it encouraging people stand up and fight for their side, but does implicit violence.
 
The right wing attacks over the past years have dangerously increased and become more undisguised. So much so that a report was issued by Homeland Security in April of 2009 warning of Rightwing Extremism. The report said such fears about the economy, immigration, expanding social programs were driving a resurgence in "recruitment and radicalization activity" by white supremacist groups, anti-government extremists and militia movements. At the time DHS had no specific information about pending violence and said threats had so far been "largely rhetorical." But it did warn that home foreclosures, unemployment and other consequences of the economic recession"could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists." The report also warned that "Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by single individuals and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years."

The DHS report however didn't seem to slow the attacks from the right, but rather the right chose to step things up after Obama had been elected president. Michelle Bachmann said she wanted her constituents "armed and dangerous." Sharron Angle said that "second amendment remedies" would be pursued if Republicans didn't win elections- a sentiment shared by conservative radio host Joyce Kaufmann who said, "if ballots don't work, bullets will." So whether Jared Loughner brought a semi-automatic pistol with 90 rounds to a constituent event where he proceeded to shoot a Democrat Representative in the head, kill 6 others, and injure 7 more, was because he explicitly heard Glen Beck tell him to or not, the unequivocal tone of the vitriolic attacks from the right along with the anti-government rhetoric certainly became the fuel that fed his delusional and corrupted mind to take those actions.

One of the biggest metaphors that has been discussed in this tragedy however, was not one from Obama, but was an election map created by Sarah Palin's Political Action Committee that was placed on Sarah Palin's facebook page eight months before the 2010 midterms, and was still on display following the Arizona shootings. The SarahPAC election map placed cross-hairs over 20 districts of those candidates that the Political Action Committee had determined were competitive swing districts to be targeted for defeat in the 2010 midterm elections, with the phrase "It's Time to Take a Stand." As it happens, one of the targets on the map was that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district, AZ-8. The same woman who Jared Loughner shot a bullet through her brain.

Shortly after the Arizona shootings, a spokesperson defended against critics of the election map, saying that it was all a misunderstanding, and that the image was never meant to evoke guns or violence. SarahPAC staffer Rebecca Mansour stated "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy "repulsive." Yet, conservative Palin supporter Elizabeth Hasselback decried the map when it was first posted, calling in vein for Palin to repudiate it. Never the less, the day after the election Palin boasted about defeating 18 of the 20 members on her "bullseye" list. And for months before that Palin tweeted and gave speeches in which she exclaimed to her supporters, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Even likely Republican presidential contender Tim Pawlenty criticized Palin's map saying "It wouldn't have been my style to put the crosshairs on there, but there's no reason to believe it had anything to do with this mentally unstable person's rage."

But then there was probably the worst timed political statement ever, as well as the most damaging political statement ever. After fellow conservatives were complimenting Sarah Palin for having enough class to not have commented on the Tucson shootings until after a memorial service for the victims was held, she released an 8 minute long video on her facebook page on the very morning of the memorial service. During the video Sarah Palin spoke at length about the victims of the Tucson shootings, but then she also spoke at great length about how she was also a victim, saying that the "monstrous act of criminality" committed this past weekend in Arizona stands on its own and that "we as Americans are better than mindless finger-pointing in the wake of this tragedy," and that "each individual is responsible for their own actions." She also said she felt concern and sadness for the "irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event."

However, a different assumption was made by the US Secret Service in November of 2008 following the presidential election saying, "The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that the crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied." But according to Palin now, there seems to be this absolute incoherent narrative that suggestions from the left - that the right's violent rhetoric might actually have real world consequences - is out of line, because those remarks might have real world consequences. Worse, she implies that those critics of right wing violent rhetoric are actually enemies of the first amendment when she states, "no one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out," and no one should be stopped by those who are "intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to mussel dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults."

Then Palin went on to mock the very idea that political rhetoric was ever "less heated" than the rhetoric we hear today, noting that there was a time when politicians actually settled disputes through duels. But no where in her video does she address how we all, at times, may go too far and that we must constantly work to see the humanity in others and be more careful and deliberate in our public discourse. If she would have said that she would have shown leadership. It would have made her critics look small, and it would've made her look big. Those who doubted whether she could rise to an occasion that called for more than sharp partisanship would've been silenced. Instead Palin's only substantive response for the entire 8 minute long video was "Politics have never been all that pretty, but at least I haven't shot anyone." On a day when the attention of all Americans is on the victims of the Tucson shootings, Sarah Palin is trying to confuse us into believing there is also a victim in Alaska. What Palin fails to understand is that when people raise questions about what speech does, what effect it has or doesn't have, that is not an attack on other peoples' first amendment rights, that is the actual exercise of using your first amendment rights.

But the most damaging part of the video was when she used the inflammatory term "blood libel" to falsely claim journalists and pundits blamed her for the shootings in Arizona. Whether or not Palin knows that that the term "blood libel" was originally referenced to the persecution of Jews in the middle ages is not clear. What is clear is that several prominent Jewish groups are very upset at her use of the term. According to the Anti-Defamation League, during the middle ages Jews were widely persecuted as barely human 'Christ-killers' and 'Devils.' Forced to live in all-Jewish ghettos, they were accused of poisoning rivers and wells during times of disease. Some were tortured and executed for supposedly abducting and killing Christian children to drink their blood or to use it in baking matzoh - a charge known as the "blood libel." Apparently to Sarah Palin this is analogous to what is happening to her. Sara Palin, unknowingly or not, is comparing herself to persecuted Jews of the middle ages, as a Jewish congresswoman lies in critical condition in an Arizona hospital after being shot in the head.

It is true that the term "blood libel" has been used by other reporters and commentators from both sides of the aisle to compare the actual persecution of others, but not to describe themselves. The ADL released a statement that said "we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history." Even Jonah Goldberg of the National Review said that because of it's anti-semitism connotations "the use of this particular term in this context is not ideal." The President of the Jewish Funds for Justice said "unless someone has been accusing Ms. Palin of Killing Christian babies and making matzoh from their blood, her use of the term is totally out-of-line." Basically, if Palin had scoured a thesaurus, she could not have come up with a more inflammatory phrase.

Never the less, it was only hours later during the memorial service for the victims of the Tucson shootings that same evening, did a real leader stand up and grasp ahold of all the opportunities missed by Palin, to unite a community and a nation in the aftermath of a gross act of violence, along with a remarkable elevation of discourse, courtesy of the President of the United States. Summoning the soul of a nation, President Obama implored Americans to honor those slain and injured in the Arizona shootings by becoming better people, telling a polarized citizenry that it is time to talk with each other "in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds."

Obama bluntly conceded that there is no way to know what triggered the shooting rampage that left six people dead, 14 others wounded and the nation shaken. He tried instead to leave indelible memories of the people who were gunned down, and to rally the country to use the moment as a reflection on the nation's behavior and compassion saying, "Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us." In crafting his comments, Obama clearly sought a turning point in the raw debate that has defined national politics. He faced the expectations to do more than console, but to encourage a new day of civility, all without getting overly political in a memorial service. That is what a real leader does. Not taking pot shots at the media or praising themselves for personally never having hurt anyone.

Obama's allocution further appealed for civility to be played out against our nation's backdrop of bitter political divisions, at times the invocation became somber and peaceful, at other times it took on the tone of an exuberant pep rally as he heralded the men who wrestled the gunman to the ground, the woman who grabbed the shooter's ammunition, the doctors and nurses who treated the injured, the intern who rushed to Giffords' aid. The crowd erupted in multiple standing ovations as each was singled out for praise. When Obama spoke at length of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, born on Sept 11, 2001 and featured in a book about 50 babies born that day, who was gunned down during the attack, while there to "meet her representative," he said, "I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it." Obama electrified the crowd when he revealed that Rep. Giffords had opened her eyes for the first time following the attack, shortly before the start of the memorial service. This was the speech that country needed to hear. President Barak Obama became more than our Commander In Chief that day. He was our Mourner In Chief, he was our Consoler In Chief, and he was our Inspirer In Chief. But most of all our President of the United States lead us that day.

As good as Obama's speech was concluded, the pettiness, point scoring, and vitriolic attacks from the Right began once again. Glen Beck said he thought Obama's speech was the best speech he had ever given, except that a "true leader would have done this on day 1. But it is truly better late than never." Michelle Malkin asked, "You do have to question the timing of it." Actually, you don't. You don't "have" to do anything. When you question something ,that is your "choice," and she was apparently choosing to question why the memorial service was on this night, of all things. Brian Kilmeade thought "it was strange that they didn't put the people that tackled the shooter and knocked away the ammunition" in the front two rows, as if that would have made the memorial service "better" somehow. Brian Kilmeade also said "the native American who opened up the show, which I found very strange." Dude, it's not a "show!" It's a memorial service. You may have noticed that they never broke for commercial. But the biggest complaint from the right was that of the audience. Brit Hume noted that "the audience, mostly students, were reacting with a lot of cheers and yells in what was suppose to be a very solemn memorial." Apparently the memorial would have been perfect if the audience wouldn't have messed it all up.

The president is saying that it is OK, even essential, for the country to suddenly be debating gun control, mental health services and the motivations of the killer. It is alright to have a healthy discourse over divisive issues and that we should move to the middle of the political spectrum in our policy debates. What the punditry needs to understand, however, is that support for reasonable restrictions on guns IS the middle of the political spectrum. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, gun control is not an issue that necessarily must divide those who own guns and those who do not. There is, in fact, a strong national consensus supporting specific additional gun restrictions that still allow law abiding and responsible adults to make the ultimate choice about owning a gun. This consensus has not been translated into public policy because too many of our elected officials are intimidated by the NRA -- a noisy, threatening lobby that does not even represent its own members on the question of reasonable regulation of guns.

Those who own guns and those who do not, to a surprising degree, have the same vision for America. Now that a much-admired Member of Congress lies seriously wounded, and the nation mourns yet another mass shooting and the fatal wounding of yet another child, is it too much to ask for a modicum of courage from Congress, and the President, to make that vision a reality?

I Loves My Gun


Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents. The assassination attempt left Giffords in critical condition -- the bullet went straight through her brain -- but the hospital said her outlook was "optimistic" and that she was responding to commands from doctors.
 
Giffords spokesman C.J. Karamargin said three Giffords staffers were shot in the attack. Gabe Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords' director of community outreach, died. The other two staffers are expected to survive.
 
A 9-year-old girl who was there to "meet her Representative" was among those who were killed, as well as US District Judge John Roll, who was named Arizona's chief federal judge in 2006.
 
 
 
Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is planning to introduce legislation that would make it illegal to bring a gun within 1,000 feet of a government official, according to a person familiar with the congressman's intentions.
 
It is already illegal in the U.S. to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of a school. King's legislation to make it illegal to knowingly carry a gun within 1,000 feet of the president, vice president, members of Congress or judges of the Federal Judiciary, would offer government officials the same protection.
 
Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation's most outspoken gun-control advocates, is backing King's measure and is expected to put the weight of his pro-gun-control organization behind it.
 
 
 
The high-capacity magazine of the semiautomatic pistol used in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen other people on Saturday would have been illegal to manufacture and difficult to purchase under the Clinton-era assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.
 
According to police and media reports, the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, legally purchased a semiautomatic Glock 19 with a high-capacity magazine in November at a gun store in Tucson. Under the assault weapons ban, it was illegal to manufacture or sell new high-capacity magazines, defined as those that hold more than 10 rounds. The magazines used by Loughner had 31 rounds each, according to police.
 
Between 1994 and 2004 when the assault weapons ban was in effect, gun manufacturers such as Glock could not market handguns with high-capacity magazines. If the ban were still in effect, it's less likely that Loughner could have obtained a gun with a high-capacity magazine. Stores could legally only sell used high-capacity magazines at that time, and new magazines could not be manufactured.
 
 
 
The magazine of Loughner’s semiautomatic pistol held more than 30 rounds when, law enforcement officials say, he opened fire on a crowd outside a Tucson supermarket. It was only when he stopped to reload that bystanders were able to subdue him.
 
“The reason he was able to be tackled was he had to pause to reload,’’ said Dennis Henigan, vice president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that works to change gun laws and the gun industry. “The problem is, he didn’t have to pause to reload until he’d already expended 30 rounds.’’
 
It is unclear whether Saturday’s attack will do anything to shift attitudes about guns in this state. But at the federal level, gun control advocates have quickly zeroed in on the “high-capacity’’ ammunition magazine used by the suspect, Jared L. Loughner.
 
Representative Carolyn McCarthy, Democrat of New York, is preparing legislation to prohibit high-capacity magazines and could introduce a measure this week, said Shams Tarek, a spokesman.
Tarek said McCarthy’s office had been in talks with the staff of Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, about working together on the issue. “We’re trying to come up with something that’s reasonable, that has a chance to go somewhere,’’ Tarek said.
 
 
 
A majority of states require a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but in 2010 Arizona eliminated that requirement. Only two other states, Alaska and Vermont, also allow concealed weapons without a permit. There is no federal law.