Give Us A Break!

So as this ugly year winds down, what of the political scene? Herman Cain has dropped out of the race hounded by allegations of infidelity and sexual harrassment.
Looks like the Repub race is going to come down to Romney versus Gingrich. Except that many purist conservatives and Tea Partiers don't like either one of them because they are both "insiders." Many Repubs are now taking a second look at John Huntsman who's running as the Republican with a brain. While it's true that Huntsman is not as crazy as the other Repubs, his economic program is pure trickle down dogma; let the rich get richer, devil take the hindmost.

I think I'll take a break from this ugly show.

Big Bad Mitt Romney

It turns out that Mitt Romney, the presumptive Repub nominee, has a checkered past specifically an arrest record. Back in 1981, Romney tried to launch a motorboat at a Massachussetts state park. Said boat, apparently lacked a registration number, and when a park ranger tried to give Romney a citation he bacame belligerent. The upshot was that Romney was arrested and handcuffed in bathing suit (too bad there was no Youtube back in '81). The charges were dropped but there's another little skeleton in Romney's closet dating back to the 1960's. Romney and his future wife Ann Davies apparently used blocks of ice to go sliding down the slopes of a golf course.

These might seem like trivial incidents but there are growing rumors that Romney, in spite of his cool cucumber public persona, actually has a very bad temper. But giving right-wing media bias we haven't heard much about it. Only a Repub, GWB, could've become President after spending his early life getting drunk and stumbling from one failed venture to another.

New Stupidity Epidemic

The County Commission for Pinellas Florida has recently voted to end water flourination. The reason is that the local Tea Partiers have, in addition to all their other stupid notions, are now launching a war against flourination. Back in the 1950's ultra-right crackpots were fond of claiming that flourination was some kind of "communist" conspiracy to turn "our brains to jelly." The real "jelly brains" are the old paleo-conservatives and their Tea Party successors, who exhibit a stubborn and aggressive ignorance. An ignoramus with a cause is a dangerous thing.

Dare We Hope?

Last Tuesday's elections brought some good news for Progressives. Voters in Ohio repealed at GOPer plan to break public sector unions. In Mississippi voters rejected a proposal to declare that "life begins at conception." Mississippi is supposed to be the "reddest" state of all. I guess this shows that the American people are not all right-wing Tea Party yahoos. But can we build on this momentum for the next years elections?

The Goper Follies

It's funny how in just a couple of months Rick Perry has gone from the Great White Hope of the right to the bottom of the standings. I guess he overdid the anti-intellectuailism bit: it's one thing to show contempt for learning and education and quite another to come across like a dumb-ass. Herman Cain is being dogged by multiple accusations of sexual harrassment; he should complain about a "high tech lynching" (it worked for Clarence Thomas.) Michelle Bachmann has antagonized even her former supporters.

It seems that the GOP establishment has lined up behind Mitt Romney. Not that I'd want to see him in the White House; he wants to cut taxes and go on a military spending spree, and he claims he's going to "balance the budget." This is how we got into the mess we're in today. In any case the Fundamentalists and the Tea Partiers are going to learn that it's the big corporate interests that are really in charge.

Rubio the Phoney

Marco Rubio, the new Senator from Florida, has emerged as one of the New Darlings of the right wing. Many Gopers even refer to him as "Our Obama," the thinking being "Let's find a youngish guy with an ethnic immigrant background and promote the hell out of him." Some are even making him a potential Veep candidate. I don't find Rubio that impressive. With his plastered down hair, shifty eyes, and shrill tone he looks like one of the guys you see promoting dubious get rich quick schemes on infomercials.

It turns out that Rubio has been lying about his family history. Rubio has been making a big deal about his parents being political refugees from the Castro Regime. But in turns out that his parents actually came to the US in 1956, i.e. before Castro came to power. Unbelievable that someone could think they could get away with a lie like that.

Selling Hate

Herman Cain's proposal to stop illegal immigration by building an electrified fence along the US southern border shows what has gone wrong with the GOP. I don't believe that Cain is a stupid person, if only because you must have some degree of intelligence to build a successful business. So it must be a ploy to pander to the bigots who have taken over the GOP especially the so-called Tea Partiers.

It seems that xenophobia and stupidity have become fused into a toxic mixture. These people have become so wrapped up in hatred that they don't even think about what they're saying. Do they even think about what building an electric border fence would cost? Furthermore, they don't understand that since America lives off imports, that you can't have the movement of goods without the movement of people. The only thing that would make the Tea Partiers really happy would be for them to crawl into a hole and die.

Legal Fiction

In a recent article in the Huffington Post "Corporate Citizenship: How Public Dissent in Paris Sparked Creation of the Corporate Person" Ryan Grim and Mike Sacks
how the Supreme Court decision Santa Clara Count v. Southern Pacific Railroad led to the pernicious legal doctrine that private corporations are "persons" and thus entitled to constitutional protections. This decision handed down in 1886, has had a destructive effect in allowing corporate interests to run over the public interest. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was used by big corporations to strike down child labor laws and other worker protections. The myth of "corporate personhood" is still alive and wreaking havoc. It was recently used by the Roberts Court in the Citizens United decision to say that corporate interests have the right to unlimited spending in elections. Makes you wonder whom the legal system works for.

Looking for Mr. Far Right

It seems that Rick Perry supposed walk to the GOP nomination isn't a done thing after all. Many Tea Partiers have gotten the impression that he doesn't hate illegal aliens with as much passion as they do. Establishment Repubs on the other hand, are more put off by Perry's cluelessness on foreign policy. Is Mitt Romney still in the game? Romney could win but he's neither a Reagan or a Bush; he doesn't generate much in the way of enthusiasm or offer anything new in terms of ideas.

Realms of Nonsense Absolute

The recent flap over Michele Bachmann's claim that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation shows the mendacity of Bachmann and much of the GOP as well. Bachmann first made the claim then she backed off of it, saying she wasn't "attesting" to it's being true or not. Now we have to believe that someone who has gone through law school and gotten a degree can't be stupid. So then that means that Bachmann doesn't care about the truth about a statement, she'll just throw something out there to make it appear that she has won the argument. That can only be a case of wilfull deceptiveness.

It's not simply Bachmann. Notice Rick Perry saying that he doesn't "believe" in evolution or global warming. Does Rick Perry believe in Gravity? Does he believe the Earth is flat?

Here is the problem. This country's economic survival is dependent upon science and technology. But how can we have scientific and technological development with leadership that is not only ignorant of but hostile to science?

Army of Psychopaths

More horrors from the latest GOP candidate debate, this one sponsored by the so-called Tea Party. Wolf Blitzer, the moderator, asked Ron Paul to clarify his position that the government has no responsibility toward people without health insurance. When Blitzer asked Paul if people without insurance should be allowed to die, some members of the audience apparently cheered at the statement.

It's clear by now that most Tea Partiers hate everybody but to cheer somebody else's death rises to what might be called depraved indifference. I'm reminded of the clinical definition of a psychopath: lack of empathy, shallow emotions, poor behavior control, remorselessness, and grandiosity. These qualities seem to be common amongst many Tea Partiers as well. Remeber the line from the Pogo comic strip, "The Enemy is Us?" I hate to think that the enemy is us, but many of our neighbors maybe be psychopaths, since psychos have the ability to pass themselves off as "normal" people. Until they pick up a gun and go on a shooting spree at a school or a shopping mall.

The Buzzards Are Circling

Very late in the game the President is unveiling a new job creation plan which will supposedly combine tax cuts with new spending. Whether it gets through the Repub controlled House is anybody's guess. The President's big mistake was focusing on High Tech and "Green" jobs, which did not provide the broad based stimulus the economy needed. In politics, being right in principle isn't always enough. With unemployment at 9% the President's prospects are growing dim. Polls show he would lose to Romney, and possibly to Bachmann or Perry.

The problem goes deeper than Barack Obama himself. Much of the problem goes to what happened to the Democrats and the Liberals after the 1980's (keeping in mind that Democrat and Liberal are no longer synonymous.) Liberalism has lost any ideological or policy coherence has become nothing more than set of "benevolent" attitudes: liberals see the good in everyone, liberals want to please everyone, and liberals always prefer compromise over confrontation. Democrats, especially those in D.C. have no goal other than to "keep the ball rolling" and represent nothing more than compromise for the sake of compromise. That's why they lose even when they should win, and even when they do win, they don't make anything with it.

Bill O'Reilly: Arrogance & Sleaze

Remember Bill "The Mouth" O'Reilly? It turns out that he's gotten mixed up in a scandal straight out of Danielle Steele. It turns out that he his wife, Maureen, was having an affair with a Nassau County Police Detective. It then turns out that O'Reilly tried to pull some strings with the Nassau county PD to retaliate against the Detective. It's all preliminary but just think about the implications? It seems that O'Reilly's status as an "opinion maker" makes him think he's either above the law, or that he can use it to his advantage.

Rick Perry: Stupid & Dangerous

It's funny how people continue to assume that "stupid" is somehow synonymous with harmless. The Presidency of GWB should remind us that stupid people can in fact do a great deal of harm when they set their minds to it. Texas governor Rick Perry has thrown his ten gallon hat into the ring. Perry in a recent speech in Bedford New Hampshire, declared that he doesn't "believe" in global warming and claimed that scientists are liars.

This raises some interesting questions. Does Perry believe in the theory of gravity?
Does he believe in the laws of mathematics? Perry by the way barely graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in "animal science."

Perry's appeal is based on the "Texas miracle;" about how Texas is supposedly creating jobs. In fact, Texas is stealing jobs from other states. While the big cities--Austin, Dallas, Houston-- may be booming in the Rio Grande valley you have people living in third world conditions. But don't expect the corporate media to point this out. If Chris Matthew and David Gregory develop man crushes on Perry, it's going to be downhill all the way.

The Plot Thickens and Sickens

New revelations keep appearing in the Murdoch scandals. Indications are that the Murdochs might have known about the phone hacking that was going on, in spite of their denials. Murdoch might have thought that all he had to do was throw underlings Coulson and Brooks to the dogs, but the scandal refuses to go away.

The thing about Murdoch is that he came to prominence proffering a phony populism. He made a big show of taking on the "establishment;" politicians, celebrities, the royal family. In reality, though, he was trying to gain influence with that very same establishment. The fakery went both ways of course. Conservatives who are constantly yammering about "values" and "principles" hitched their wagons to Rupert Murdoch, who has neither values nor principles.

Those Crazy Eyes

The big controversy over Michele Bachmann's picture on the cover of Newseek has brought cries of "media bias" and even "sexism". Which just goes to show what crybabies these rightists are. That Bachmann is horse faced and gimlet eyed is a question of heredity. In any case Newseek stopped being a "liberal" publication ages ago. If red is the color of the right then Newseek is carnation pink.

What's really scary about Bachmann are her positions. Bachmann is a "dominionist" who wants to impose her fundamentalist religion on everybody else. Her homophobia, anti-abortion, anti-education postitions are just part of a much scarier agenda.

Well, it's a scary situation. Obama is pretty much finished: the budget cutting deal will probably push the economy into a new recession. Which means that Obama and the Dems will be blown out in 2012. To such a degree that the GOP can nominate anybody and win.

Will it be Mitt Romney? We're supposed to think he's the "least objectionable" Repub although lately he's begun to sound like another corporation loving war monger. But then if an aggressive idiot like Rick Perry becomes President the question will be: do we move to Canada or Sweden?

Is This Really the End?

The stalemate over the national debt ceiling continues. What happens if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling by August 2? Will the dollar collapse? What about the world economy? There is a growing sense among economists that steep spending cuts, which Congressional Repubs want, would send the economy into recession.

Recently it has been suggested that the 14th amendment to the Constitution allows the President to raise the national debt limit on his own. Will Obama take it? I would if I were in his place.

For some reason I'm reminded of a stupid old movie called Endless Love.
It's about a guy who tried to reconcile with his ex-girlfriend by burning down her house. The thing about the Repubs, especially the Teabaggers, is that they say they want to cut the national debt, but their course of action might very well wreck the world economy. The Teabaggers are obssessed maniacs who have no idea what they are doing.

The End of Murdoch?

The phone hacking scandal in the UK which forced the Murdochs to shut down the tabloid The News of the World is a blow to the Murdochs, though much of the rest of their media empire appears safe for now. Their appears to be much public revulsion in the UK into how some Murdock staffers engaged in phone hacking; celebrities, politicians, members of the royal family, and even crime victims. These activities certainly are hard to justify.

The deeper problem is that of media monopolies, like that which Rupert Murdoch has created in the UK and US, and how he has used it to push a right-wing agenda. Even worse would be a situation like that in Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi bought up all the country's tv networks, and then took over the country. In order to preven this kind of thing from happening, we need to allow greater public access to media, and prevent big concentrations of ownership.

Straight Talk on Casey Anthony

At first the Casey Anthony matter seem to be nothing more than one of those sordid "incidents" that gain the attention of the media for a while and then are quickly forgotten. However, Anthony's recent acquittal for allegedly killing her two year old daughter seems to have sparked a great deal of public outrage. Apparently, many people were convinced that Anthony was guilty.

The central problem with the prosecution's case is that they could not prove how Caylee Anthony really died. And if you can't prove how soembody died, how can you be sure that in fact they were murdered? In the end, all the prosecution had was a story, a screenplay really, backed up by nothing more than dubious speculation. In the end, you can't assign guilt on anything other than the facts. The media however, seems to think that the mere possibility of guilt constitutes proof, and have brainwashed much of the public into thinking so.

As to what constitutes justice is a difficult matter. However, we should not condemn a person unless we can be really certain that they committed a crime. If on the other hand all you want is to find a scapegoat, then you lose the right to speak about "justice."

Who Are These People?

Over the past 20 years or so the political discourse has come to be dominated by "pundits." Now the term pundit which is of Hindi origin, is supposed to be an expert. The thing is though that many of the so-called pundits put forth by the media hardly fit the bill. We have washed up disc jockeys-- Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck -- or empty headed nitwits like Christine O'Donnell. Then there are media hacks like Mark Halperin.

MSNBC recently suspended Halperin after he called the President a "dick." What interesting choice of language! What a display of wit and wisdom! These are the people who have come to dominate the political discourse, the ones who get to decide not only what is discussed but also what people think. These people shouldn't be called pundits but more like sock puppets.

There They Go Again

The recent furor over the performance of Reggie Brown at the Repub Leaderhip Conference is only interesting for what it shows about the Repub mindset. Brown's inept and unfunny attempts to impesonate President Obama, was apparently a big hit with the delegates but not with the organizers, who cut Brown's performance short.

First of all I want to say that I'm not a fan of "political correctness" but I'm not a fan of what has come to be known as "political incorrectness" i.e. that there is something brave about being gratuitously offensive (Howard Stern, Don Imus etc.)
The point though is that the GOP is still trying to pull a "Willie Horton;" pandering to racial bias while trying to claim that they are not themselves racist.
How long are we going to let them get away with it?

The Reign of the Hairball

Grover Norquist, head of "Americans for Tax Reform" and other rightist groups, may be the most responsible for the "tax phobia" that has become a dogma of the GOP. Recently, though, he decided that a Senate proposal to repeal ethanol subsidies was the equivalent to a tax increase. This brought a rebuke from top Repubs like Tom Coburn and John Kyl. It may be premature to say that Norquist is finished but it will become harder for him to always get what he wants.

Let's Talk About Who Gets Wealthy

Tim Pawlenty, the latest GOP fair haired boy, recently gave a speech outlining his economic program. Like all Repubs, his theory of economics consists of 2 words: tax cuts. The Repubs continue to believe that low taxes and low wages are a panacea for prosperity. If that were true, the economic collapse of 2007-2008 would not have happened. But arguing with Repubs is like arguing with members of the Flat Earth Society.

Palwenty defends his stance saying "This isn't about whether some people are going to get wealthier or not." Au contraire, it very much matter who wins and who loses. Palwenty, and the other Repubs, want to impose an economic plan who only benefits a small group of speculators who don't produce anything or even sell anything, but merely engage in elaborate gambling schemes. Palwenty is simply selling the same old "trickle down" nonsense.

Who's Fooling Whom?

I don't like the way that tabloid celebrity sleaze is trying to nudge its way into the public discourse. But the revelation that Arnold Schwarzenegger impregnated his former housekeeper is too egregious to ignore. It's sounds peculiar that Schwarzenegger was able to do such a thing and cover it up for more than a decade. All the while John Edwards indiscretion was splashed over the media ( and Edwards is now facing criminal charges on top of that.) It must be that media bias would allow a right wing politician to cover up his philandering. In fact allegations of Schwarzenegger's sexual aggressiveness having circulating for years. Then why didn't anybody bother to look int them? So much for the media having a "liberal" bias.

Is the Tide Turning?

The recent victory of Democrat Kathy Hochul over Republican Jane Corwin in the New York State special election turned on the question of Medicare. Hochul's victory constitutes a public rebuke to GOP attempts to privatize Medicare. It seems that few voters are buying into the GOP scheme to replace Medicare with vouchers. Come to think of it, it sounds odd how the GOP keep coming up with voucher schemes for everything from eduction to medical care. The GOP has no solutions only gimmicks.

The Man With No Lips

Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Repub, has become known for partisan obstructionism and crass politicking. His latest stunt is to insist that the deficit can be reduced without tax increases. You would think by now that anyone with any sense should realize that you can't cut the defecit without raising taxes. So who is stupider, Congressional Repubs or the idiots who believed that the world was going to end precisely today?

Congressional Repubs are nothing more than empty suits whose political careers have been financed by corporate interests. The Repubs have nothing worthwhile to say on their own; everything they say and do has been determined by their corporate masters. I think that's why the GOP is having such a hard time finding a plausible Presidential candidate for next year: they have become the party of corporate mannequins.

The Great White Dopes

The liquidation of Bin Laden has at least allowed President Obama to establish his credibility on national defense. While it is premature to say that 2012 is in the bag, at least the Obama administration has shown the willingness to defend America's interests. It will be hard for the Repubs to claim that they "own" the national defense issue.

Meanwhile, the potential Repub candidates for next year held their first debate. Doing better than expected was Herman Cain. On the one hand Cain seems to have made an impression on those present, though it might have been because the other candidates are so boring. But still, the punditry insists there's no way Cain will be the nominee. The subtext seems to be "We appreciate your interest in running, but we're really looking for The Great White Hope."

Exactly one hundred years ago, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world was Jack Johnson, the first African American to do so. But in the racism that was prevalent at the time, many white people were offended that a black man should hold the title.
This set off a search for a "Great White Hope" who would defeat Johnson and presumably reaffirm white supremacy. The "Great White" never materialized and the authorities had to destroy Johnson with bogus "immorality" charges.

Things have changed over the last hundred years, but they haven't changed enough. Racism today is more of a way of deflecting blame. Instead of blaming the culprits who created the current mess--the politicians, the Wall Street speculators and the media overlords-- the idiots who flock to the Tea Party banner instead blame the Blacks, the Mexicans, the Moslems, and anybody who doesn't fit into their narrow little world.

None so blind as those who will not see.

What the #$&*!

With gas prices soaring to over $4 a gallon in some places, it turns out that the big oil companies are receiving billions of dollars in subsidies. About 4 billion, at the same time that they are making unprecedented profits. The response in Washington has been "ahem, ahem." The Obama administration is "talking about it," as is Boner Boehner. Whether they actually do something about it remains to be seen.

If the Obama administration wanted to bring gas prices down it should release oil from the petroleum reserve. So far it hasn't. High oil prices, combined with a weak real estate market, could easily send the economy into a new recession. My message is "Keep it up, dumb dumb. You'll be a one term president yet."

Where Do We Go From Here

The Obama administration has concluded that the best way to get re-elected in 2012 is to run as "pro-business" Clintonites. They are encouraged because no credible threat seems to emerge from the GOP. They are wrong on both counts. If the economy slows down once again Obama will not be Clinton but Jimmy Carter. The chance of a new recession are worse than most people expect; the recent budget deal, which cuts $38.5 billion dollars from the Federal budget, combined with sky high fuel prices and a weak real estate market, could send the economy back into recession.

The deeper problem is that progressives have spent much of the past 3 decades dreaming of a great charismatc leader to lead some great progressive revival. What we've seen with Clinton and Obama is that personal charisma can't substitute for the hard work of grass roots organizing. The recent protests in Wisconsin show that there is widespread resistance to the Repub pro-corporate program. What we need is to organize a nationwide progressive movement.

The Comedy Must End

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Repub and Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, has emerged as the GOP point man on the budget battle. Ryan, with his plastered down hair, greenish complexion, and gray eyes, look like a vampire. Not a "sexy" vampire from Twilight but a creaky old vampire from a 1950's B-movie. Appearances aside, Ryan is using the budget battle to push his own agenda: eliminating corporate and inheritance taxes, while ending Medicaid & Medicare.

Once again, we have the Repub double game; making all kinds of noise about eliminating the deficit and the national debt, while insisting on tax cuts for corporate interests. More evidence, not that we needed it, that the Repubs are just exploiting the deficit issue to push a pro corporate agenda.

Thinking Straight on Libya

In an article on Politico dated 3/29/2011 Joe Scarborough accuses Liberals of hypocrisy for criticizing GWB's invasion of Iraq while supporting the Obama adminstration's intervention in Libya. The point is that the situation in Libya is not like that of Iraq. In Libya there is an active uprising against a regime, but in Iraq the Bush administration invaded a country that posed no threat to the U.S. If Scarborough can't see the difference then he must be stupid.

The larger question though is whether we can really promoted democracy around the world. The best way to promote democracy would be by serving as a good example; but we haven't been doing so well in that regard. That is not the same as engaging in a reckless campaign of "revolution mongering" or worse still, invading other countries in the thought we can solve their problems.

The Main Problem

I think that one of the biggest problems with this country is that people just don't want to grow up. I think it started with the Baby Boomers. The generation that was going to "change the world" during the sixties and seventies spent their lives searching for eternal youthfulness but all they achieved was perpetual immaturity.
By the time the eighties rolled around the boomers had given up and sold out, and spent the following decades pursuing one get rich quick scheme after another. I think that's why they embraced that stupid movie "Forrest Gump;" it was the perfect depiction of a generation that in the end had no goals left other than to make a pile of money and marry their high school crush.

Unfortunately, however, the Generation Xers who followed aren't any better in this regard. Exhibit A would be Christine O'Donnell, who at 41 possesses the tone and body language of a clueless 18 year old. Then there's that idiotic show on ABC "Cougar Town" about a 40 something dingbat who thinks life is like the stupid movies from the 80's. And let's not forget the poster boy for immaturity, Charlie Sheen, still acting like a 19 year old frat boy.

I think that future historians will wonder how in half a century the USA declined so badly. The problem, incredible as it may is that in this country people refused to act their age.

The Downfall of Dr. Paul

Ron Paul gained a lot of attention several years ago several years ago for his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and the "Patriot Act." He acquired a reputation as a "libertarian" even he opposes abortion, and has become the latest incarnation of the "cool Republican"( for people who believe such things.)

Recently, Paul addressed a home-schoolers rally in Iowa in which he lashed out at public education. He called the public schools a "propaganda machine" which "indoctrinates" children to believe in "Un-American" ideas such as sex education and environmentalism. It seems that right-wing nuts have been throwing this rhetoric around since the 1970's.

Paul also wants to abolish the Federal Reserve and do away with paper money. Given his positions overall, it's fair to say that Paul isn't a Libertarian but a Paleo-Conservative: a less obnoxious version of Pat Buchanan. We should be carefull about embracing a candidate just because we support a few of his position. As they say, all that glitters isn't gold.

The Full Extent of the Horror

There is lingering controversy over the US military's use of depleted uranium. The "liberation" of the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004 has resulted in an abnormal number of birth defects in that city. Some of them are extremely gruesome: children born with severe deformities such a multiple limbs, two heads or even three. There are also reports similar birth defects from other Iraqi cities.

The official Pentagon story is that depleted uranium is harmless. The Pentagon has not adequately explained the relationship between depleted uranium and the Gulf War syndrome from the war of 1990-91. It seems reminiscent of the massive cover-up the Pentagon conducted about the effects of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Then the Pentagon insisted that the defoliant Agent Orange was safe for humans even as evidence mounted of the devastating harm that AO had upon the Vietnamese population as well as on US veterans. But if the Pentagon doesn't care about its own troops it probably won't care about the "natives."

More research probably has to be done about the relationship between depleted uranium and birth defects and other health problems. But this should be at last be the end that any good came out of the Iraq War.

The Crusade of the Blockheads

Peter King, the blockheaded Repub from New York State, is leading a Congressional investigation into the "radicalization" of American muslims. But everyone knows this is just a political witch hunt that panders to anti-muslim bigotry. This is in line with the xenophobia of the "Tea Partiers" with which the Repubs identify.

It is important to remember that an overtly Islamophobic America will have no credibility in the Middle East, or the rest of the Muslim world. But the Tea Party is alliance of fanatics and opportunists united in ignorance.

George Will Goes Primitive

George Will, the right-wing "pundit" turned shill, formerly used the term "primitivism" to refer to the backwoods, ultra-right wing yokels from button-down East coast conservatives such as himself. Will's downfall came after 2001 when he became a Bushie sycophant of the worst order.

Will's descent into imbecile status is shown by his recent editorials "Why Liberals Love Trains," in which he argues that the Obama administrations promotion of railroads is really a conspiracy to impose "collectivism" on Americans. Following this sort of "logic" New York City, should tear up the commuter rail lines that connect it to Long Island and New Jersey. Why should the center of global capitalism have to rely on a "collectivist" form of travel?

This article demonstrates the problem that East Coast conservatives face in trying to pander to the ignorance and stupidity of the so-called Tea Party. We all know that hanging out with losers turns you into a loser. Will shows that hanging out with idiots turns you into an idiot.

A Lesson From the Real World

The recent bankruptcy of the Borders Books chain is a clear example of how corporate interests are destroying the US economy. The convoluted history of how Borders books ended up acquired by Kmart, which had already acquired Waldenbooks, and how Borders/Waldenbooks were "spun-off" on their own, resulted in the new management closing down many of Waldenbooks stores. Now Borders itself is in trouble with questions being raised about it's survival.

The problem here isn't the stupidity of the Borders management. Remember how Barnes & Noble destroyed the B. Dalton book stores. In both cases allowing corporate interests to do as they will, resulted in failed stores, unemployed workers, and less choice for consumers.

We Didn't Vote for Barak Bush

The appointment of Gene Sperling as the head of the National Economic Council is said to be part of the Obama administration's attempt to strik a more "business-friendly" pose. Sperling describes himself as a "pro-business progressive" who believes that "a rising tide raises all ships."

This "rising tide" nonesense should be dropped in the same hole as the stupidities of the 1980's like deely bobbers and movies that star Molly Ringwald. The policies advocated by Sperling, letting the rich do as they will, have brought us the mess were in: unemployment, underwated mortgages, declining services, and pollution, just to name a few. The only true progressive policies include holding the rich corporate interests accountable and force them to pay their fair share. There can be no such thing as a "pro-business progressive" than there can be a vegetarian piranha.

Tucson Az Shooting

Deomcratic Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson Arizona but is expected to recover. Federal Judge John Roll was killed in the attack. At least one other person was killed. Several were wounded details not yet clear. The shooter was Jared Lee Loughner an anti-government fanatic.

More details later.