Timmy Pawlenty: From 110 Pound Weakling To MACHO MACHO MAN!

Judging by this guy's "makeover" the Republican presidential field is gonna be SOME KINDA FUN FUN FUN FREAK SHOW!

CHORUS: Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell

MACHO MACHO, MAN UP!

TIMMY PAWLENTY, YA GOTTA MAN UP!

MAN UP, TIMMY, MAN UP!

TIMMY'S GOTTA BE A MACHO MAN!

THE TIMMY PAWLENTY DANCERS:

TEA PARTY Remedial Education: Why Repealing Healthcare Is A Terrible Idea

This thing is actually beginning to work ... WELL! The REAL "job killer" is REPEAL. These Republicans are truly ORWELLIAN. As the Catholic priest who married Michael Moore said in "Capitalism, A Love Story": "I'm in AWE of propaganda"— and its capacity to convince people to vote against their own best interests. (The Catholic Church does have its redeeming qualities; one is its truly Christ-like advocacy for the poor and social justice.)

Chris Matthews Goes To Las Vegas And LITERALLY Sits Atop America’s Most Destitute

 You can’t make this stuff up. Today, Chris Matthews hosted Hardball from the Las Vegas Convention Center, spouting the usual Mathewsian nonsense about the “old Left” and bellowing to the climate controlled winds for “solutions” to the “digital divide.” Meanwhile, literally beneath his comfortable ass, America’s Les Misérables, hundreds of forgotten and forsaken men, women, and children eke out a terminal life-support existence in the dark, dank, humid and disease-ridden underground flood channels of Las Vegas.

ABOVE GROUND

 

Matthews carries on with his show in the Las Vegas Convention Center blissfullly unaware of what is occurring beneath his feet …

UNDERGROUND

… As desperately poor, destitute people struggle for survival on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute basis, below the glittering neon of the Vegas strip, relying on the kindness of strangers and individuals who try to help as best they can, where government is absent and MIA.

These are individual stories repeated thousands upon thousands of times throughout this land. Every time there is a foreclosure and a family is evicted from their home with little to no notice, where do they go? The lucky ones go back home to live with their parents. Others find rental apartments with what little funds are left them. Still others, “the New Homeless” (to coin a phrase Matthews should be using — if he’s going to pigeonhole people he should do it for the important stuff, too) end up living in their cars, vans, the streets, or crawl into the gutters of a great city like Las Vegas.

The rich irony of Chris Matthews taking another shot at the Left (he is, in essence, a Reagan Democrat whose smidgeon of conscience produces the schizoid political persona), the shallow Maria Batiromo of the collagen lips saying that “we need manufacturing” in this country, only because it’s the flavor du jour, since in earlier incarnations she was promoting the policies which created this economic devastation. David Corn, the voice of reason and reality from the Left, saying it (the death of manufacturing in America caused by Reagan and accelerated under Bush, who presided over the shutdown of a staggering 140,000 manufacturing companies in the U.S.), “it is all gone now.” And Chris, the so-called history buff, shrugging IT off, asking in his manic style: “so what do we do now?”

That is the question, isn’t it?

My suggestion would have been to shoot at least one segment on the tunnel people of Las Vegas, contrast that to the digital upscale conference in the Las Vegas Convention Center, and show Chris’s audience a stark metaphoric visual of the TWO AMERICAS, one literally sitting on top of the other. At least, that’s what I think Michael Moore would have done.

Because this is the reality of America today.

A Different Perspective On Bill Daley's Appointment

Analyzing the appointment of Bill Daley as President Obama's Chief of Staff on Chris Matthews's Hardball, Chuck Todd said Daley would be the "outside guy" and some forgettable name the "inside guy" in these next couple of years leading up to the reelection campaign of 2012. Yes and no. Mostly no.

Yes, Bill Daley may well be the contact guy to the mayors and governors outside D.C. (Chuck's premise), because those local contacts are key to mounting a successful campaign for reelection. No doubt, Daley will serve as a CEO executive type (Chris's premise by way of those corporate worshippers at POLITICO) with clear lines of communication and chain of command in the White House, and he will bring Chicago's can-do reputation into the White House (Howard Fineman's thesis) to ensure the President's reelection. That this is an eminently political appointment (small 'p') looking toward 2012, obviously goes without saying.

They're all right, but there is one overlooked caveat that links all of this together. It seems the pundits forget that this Republican Congress is out for the President's hide. Very little of substance in the legislative arena will be accomplished as Democrats (HOPEFULLY) play vigorous defense against Republican moves to repeal (SYMBOLIC, a waste of taxpayer's time and money) healthcare, financial reform, student loan reform, EPA and food safety regulations; but most significantly, to DEFUND all of these, effectively GUTTING THEM, unless and until the Democrats win back the House in 2012.

The next two years promise to be a HELLISH partisan fight. There are clear and present dangers in this new Congress to the President's reelection, namely Darrell Issa and Mitch McConnell. Darrell Issa is on a witch hunt. That much is already clear. And he may well draw blood with some of his probes into the executive branch. Mitch McConnell has openly pledged to make Obama a one-term president. He means it. There are a bunch of others, held in reserve, who are ready to jump into the breach in a typically coordinated and vicious Republican assault on the White House.

The President may have been naive with his early expectations of Republican cooperation, but he's not stupid and he's learned some tough lessons. All his talk of "compromise" and "cooperation" are for public (primarily, "independent") consumption. When Obama asked Rham Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff, his main sales pitch to a wavering Rhambo was a personal appeal that he needed Rham to have his "back." That's telling. The President is like the quarterback reading his opponents' blitz. He needs a really strong offensive line to avoid being sacked, and possibly give him enough time in the pocket to make some plays. Bill Daley is President Obama's offensive line. And he's as good as they come. That's why he was enthusiastically endorsed by two good progressives, Howard Dean and Robert Reich.

Daley's role in the 2000 Florida recount, when he was Al Gore's campaign manager and directed the Gore challenge and recount effort, has only been mentioned in passing by the pundits, primarily because the final outcome went against Gore; therefore it was seen as a Daley defeat. But what the pundits fail to realize is that in the local Florida recount game, Daley's team was actually winning, with some significant favorable rulings from the Florida Supreme Court. The Bush appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was their last resort, and that was one thing Bill Daley could not control.

At a minimum, it must be stated that Bill Daley kept Al Gore in contention during the 2000 recount and held his own against the Bush forces. This is precisely the role he will undertake in the next couple of years. Bill Daley is a tough Chicago pol. With the threat of Issa and this Republican Congress looming, he will hardly be concentrating his energies on the "outside" while a klatch of no-names gets rolled by an avalanche of Republican subpoenas.

Bill Daley is President Obama's consiglieri. His mission is to ensure the President's reelection, yes. But to do this, he must stop Issa and the Republican Congress and Senate dead in their tracks. Their cards are on the table: They have vowed to destroy or bloody this President politically.

In this fight, however, I wouldn't bet against Bill Daley.

Room 112: The Insanity Congress, Day Two (Constitution, Reader's Digest Version)

On the second day of this Republican train wreck Congress, a redacted version of the Constitution was read aloud, once interrupted by a crazed birther in the gallery when Congressman Pallone (D-NJ) read the section about the president's citizenship requirement. (Evidently, these morons are not aware that Hawaii  is  the 50th state.) The Teabagger was removed. They never read the part about Indians and slaves considered three-fifths of a person. Or prohibition.

The fact that the 13th Amendment was superseded by the 14th, or prohibition was repealed indicates  this is a living document that changes with changing times, and is not set in stone tablets as some Tea Party activists would like, or imagine it to be. Some have even called for a return to indirect election of senators or voting restricted to white male property owners simply because it was some sort of original intent. That's absurd, for to accept original intent is to necessarily accept three-fifths of a person.

The existence of certain despicable provisions "rectified" by future amendments is a cogent reminder that the Constitution is not a sacred document produced by originalist deified Founders, but one created by fallible humans who were very much of their time. This is the beauty of the document: Its capacity to right wrongs with the passage of time and the flow of history.

But even as the Republicans wrapped themselves around the sacred, albeit redacted, document, it didn't take long for this Congress to violate it. Two Republicans skipped the swearing-in ceremony to attend inauguration parties (fundraisers?), then came back, voted, one chaired a committee hearing, ALL IN VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. They claimed lamely that they had watched the ceremony on TV and raised their right arms. Um ... it doesn't work that way.

By the way, did the Tebaggers learn anything, e.g., that Congress has the power to raise and impose taxes? Horrors! Then, showing immense respect for the document, Boehner gave a press conference while the reading was underway. He said, incredibly, that the NONPARTISAN Congressional Budget Office assessment that repealing the healthcare reform act will add $230 BILLION to the deficit (it will save  $100 billion over 10 years, and more than a TRILLION in the out years) was their "OPINION."

The CBO's function is to SCORE legislation introduced by both sides on cost as to whether and how much it will increase or decrease the deficit. Both Republicans and Democrats accept its findings as totally honest and objective. Until now. In order to waste our time with this symbolic repeal vote to appease the ignorant Teabaggers, the House Republicans must exempt it from their OWN rule of making corresponding cuts to any legislation that increases the deficit. Oops.

Then there's the small matter of citing the constitutional basis, or section, on which any proposed legislation is based. Of the three bills introduced by Republicans this was not done. Oops. Of course, the promise of "openness" was the first to be violated by the bagman for the corporations. No debate or amendments allowed on the healthcare repeal bill (a totally political document titled a "Job Killer"). Where are the Teabaggers in all of this?

As Howard Dean said, "the Tea Party is a fraud."  And this Congress will fast become a playground for corporate influence-peddling on a scale NEVER before seen. One can already see it developing two days and some hours into this Congress of Horrors. Beginning with the new Speaker.

"I WILL FIGHT THESE BASTARDS EVERY NIGHT!" WAY TO GO, BIG EDDIE!!

Now That Cenk's Hazing Ritual Is Done ...

... Will you give him his MSNBC show, suits?

Androidgynous wingnut Demon Coultergeist fired a broadside at Blade Runner Cenk Uygur, MSNBC's replicant wingnut hunter tasked with "retiring" wingnut replicants wherever they may rear their bizarro zombified corpses. Serving under the tutelage of Big Eddie, the wingnut psycho stalker, Cenk has notched quite a few wins already, unleashing the wrath of the Demon Coultergeist.

All the more reason he should have his own base of operations at MSNBC to get after wingnuts, on the Cenk show!

Blade Runner Cenk, Wingnut Replicant Hunter

Karen Finney To Replace Gibby As White House Press Secretary — Oh, Yeah

Say it’s so, White House … SAY IT’S SO. Mark those PRESSERS on your calendar!

If Karen gets the job I won’t be the only one expressing renewed interest in the erstwhile presser yawners conducted by Gibby, now under new HOT management! Karen Finney is a DEMOCRATIC BABE; she’s smart, articulate, attractive and Hmmm … VERY SEXY.

Okay, I admit it, sometimes I’m shallow. But help me out here; I’m trying to find ways to warm back up to the Obama White House, and Karen Finney’s an EXCELLENT START! Plus, she’s a total sweetheart … she really is.

Robert Gibbs is leaving his job as White House Press Secretary to join David Axelrod as the President’s 2012 reelection team gets organized in Chi-Town. I always liked Gibby. He did his job with quiet competence, if not élan. His flock grumbled about him at times, but generally appreciated how he ran intereference for them on foreign trips. The messaging could have been better, but frankly, a lot of it was above Gibby’s pay grade. Gibby’s onetime “gaffe” was the kerfuffle raised over his “professional left” remark. It was much ado about nothing, and in a sense it cleared the air in the strained relations between progressives — the Democratic vanguard — and the White House.

There will always be creative tension in the relationship. That’s fine. Better to have our cards out on the table than pretend everything’s hunky-dory. Gibby took some unfair hits over Rhambo’s contemptuous attitude toward progressives; it’s understandable that he should vent every so often. I’ll always remember him as a fair, competent, good guy who served the President well given the natural constraints of his job.

Keith PROBES The Conservative Mind: CAUTION! May Cause Tucker’s Brain To Explode

Following groundbreaking research commissioned by British actor Colin Firth, Keith Olbermann called upon the expertise of wingnut FEAR AND LOATHING scholar John Dean for his insight and perspective into the FRIGHTFULLY PRIMITIVE WINGNUT BRAIN. As a Nixon-Buchanan Watergate PARANOIA SURVIVOR, Dean provides a fascinating glimpse into the strange ALIEN world of the conservative mind:

(NOTE: Scientists have not yet succeeded in isolating Sarah Palin’s brain.)

Keith’s CONSERVATIVE MIND MELD was said to have resulted in violent convulsions over at the Daily Screamer as Ruthie broke out in hives and unconfirmed reports that Tucker Swanson’s brain reached critical mass could not be independently verified.

Thousands of Dead Birds And Fish In Arkansas, Sweden, Brazil, Japan

I’d love to strike fear in the hearts of the Teabaggers by positing that this is God’s punishment on them for voting the corporate Republicans in. I mean, every time there’s a natural disaster (Katrina, Haiti, the latest blizzard) whacko evangelicals have said it’s God’s punishment on Democrats or gays or liberals, or people of color, or the poor, etc.

So it’s only logical that when a Biblical Sign of the End Times happens in Arkansas, a red state that just voted in a slew of Teabagging Republicans, we must conclude God was not pleased with Arkansans. Or that he’s REALLY pissed at the Teabaggers for voting in the Republican Congress. It makes more sense than Pat Robertson’s homophobic rants about God’s punishment against gays.

But I don't really believe it. On the other hand, YOU NEVER KNOW. Even Chris Hayes is hedging his bets ... and Chris Hedges is making hay somewhere:

PS .—. Look for the Teabaggers (with their racist signs, and their guns, and their three-corner hats, and their diabetes, and their Medicare and Social Security) to be taking the DOWN ESCALATOR when the RAPTURE comes. I guess that's why they call it the RAPTURE: You get to see deserving villains take that Heat Wave journey down into the fires of Hades ... rapturous schadenfreude!

Room 112: The Insanity Congress, Day One (WE, THE CORPORATIONS)

Ayn Rand Disciple Gets to Set Budget Priorities Without Hearings

Budget Chairman Paul Ryan to set budgetary spending limits without debate. There's a nice bit of transparent 'gimme back my country' gubmint — Of, for, and by THE CORPORATIONS. Can you say 'CZAR' Teabaggers? I guess it's OK if it's on your side ... filthy hypocrites. Well, the average Teabagger is clueless; that's the sad part. It's the Tea Party corporate leadership and elected (bought and paid for) nutcases that are shills for the corporations.

It's scary how utterly clueless and misinformed the Fox viewers Tebaggers/wingnuts are.

'TEA PARTY' Candidates Hire Lobbyists as Chiefs of Staff

New Teabagger Representatives are now Hiring LOBBYISTS as Chiefs of Staff — Now there's the BEST Congress money (and the U.S. Chamber of Congre...uh, Commerce) can buy! Did you know this, Teabaggers? (You won't learn it from Beck or Fox News.) Watcha gonna do, call LOBBYIST BUSTERS?

The Issa Man Cometh

Witch doctor Darrell Issa, new Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee to start witch hunt against Obama Administration. (That's why Bill Daley is being tapped as Obama's COS; a tough Chicago pol who can go toe-to-toe with the lunatics and Issas on the Right who would destroy this President. No more Mr. Nice Guy, we hope. As long as he stays out of policy discussions and concentrates on shellacking Darrell Issa.)

For The History Challenged Tebaggers Lurking Around, That's Senator Joe McCarthy.

Issa wrote 140 businesses specifically asking them which rules and regulations they would like to abolish. Oh, you know, regulations on food safety standards, higher benzene concentrations in water, toxic waste pollution, lifting of restrictions on greenhouse gases expelled into the atmosphere, relaxing oil drilling regs back to pre-BP days, that sort of thing. This guy's going on a wide net fishing expedition at taxpayer's expense.

Voodoo Economics 2.0 Codified as New House Rule

According to our disingenuous wingnut rag, The Daily Caller:

“Republicans do not believe that tax cuts are a form of spending, arguing that it is simply allowing taxpayers keep more of their own money. They further believe that over the mid- to long-term, tax cuts create more economic growth, leading to higher tax revenues.

Nonetheless, in the short term at the very least, tax cuts do decrease government revenues, widening the gap between what is coming into the Treasury’s coffers and that which is planned to go out in spending.”

In short, they’re back to the same trickle-down Reaganomics racket, which has been proven to be a complete FRAUD, a JOBS KILLER, and a DEFICIT EXPLODER.

Incoming Freshman Republican Tea Party Class

Let’s REPEAL Healthcare, YAY!

You go, Teabaggers, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO REPEAL, HUH?

C’mon, TELL US:

Insurance companies cannot deny healthcare coverage to children with preexisting conditions.

REPEAL?

When YOU (policyholder) get sick YOUR insurance cannot be cancelled; it’s called RESCISSION, and because of your stupid pejorative for the health reform law, “Obamacare,” rescission is NOW ILLEGAL!

REPEAL?

Your kids are now covered in your policy until age 26.

REPEAL?

Insurance companies must now spend 80 CENTS OF EVERY PREMIUM DOLLAR ON ACTUAL HEALTH DELIVERY SERVICES, INSTEAD OF MILLIONAIRE CEO SALARIES AND BONUSES.

REPEAL?

FOR LARGE GROUP POLICIES, IN CASE YOU SOLD YOUR HEART AND SOUL TO THE CORPORATION, IT’S EVEN HIGHER: 85 CENTS. THEY WANT YOU TO RABBLE ROUSE FOR REPEAL.

REPEAL? (Ignorant Corporate Tools …)

Prescription drugs are now CHEAPER FOR SENIORS with Medicare discounts as well as FREE SCREENING for cancer and other diseases.

REPEAL?

When these House imbeciles, these 19th Century Luddites who don’t care that more than 40,000 Americans die annually for lack of healthcare, want to do is throw the 50 million uninsured Americans under the bus. Because the fact is, unless they’re DYING they won’t be able to get lifesaving healthcare, and by the time they do in an emergency room, it’ll be too late and we will ALL be stuck with the bill.

REPEAL? Is that what you want, with your lies about a mild, centrist, necessary reform first proposed by Republicans, that doesn’t go nearly far enough but IS MUCH BETTER THAN THE NOTHING ALTERNATIVE.

REPEAL? Bring it on, you selfish ignorant bastards.

Jesus (THE SOCIALIST LIBERAL) Christ: do I HATE these people.

As That Rock Philosopher From Down Under, Raul Seixas, Used To Say:

"I'm the fly who landed in your soup,

I'm the fly who dropped in to abuse you ..."

TEABAGGERS, You're Soooo Fucking EXTREME, Your Extremities Are Having An Identity Crisis!

According to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll [DRUM ROLL, PLEASE]:

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit!

REPEAT: SIX-ONE, 61 PERCENT OF THE REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE — NOT THE FAKE, PHONY, FRAUDULENT TEABAGGER "AMERICAN PEOPLE" THAT REPUBLICANS KEEP REFERRING TO IN THEIR TALKING POINTS — WANT THE RICH TAXED TO BRING DOWN THE DEFICIT!

The next most popular way — chosen by 20 percent — was to cut defense spending.  

REPEAT: ANOTHER 20 PERCENT ARE A BUNCH OF DEFENSE CUTTING PEACENICK HIPPIES WHO WANT TO TAKE THE CUTTING KNIFE TO THE DEFENSE BUDGET!

TRANSLATION: FULLY 81 PERCENT OF THE REAL AMERICAN PEOPLE TOTALLY EMBRACE THE "PROGRESSIVE AGENDA" DERISIVELY MOCKED BY THE DEAN OF THE IDIOT PUNDITOCRACY, CHRIS W. MATTHEWS.

The Yellow Teabagger Flag of Selfishness, Cowardice, and Hypocrisy.

WHAT'S LEFT: 19 PERCENT OF REACTIONARY, IGNORANT, SELFISH, INSANE, BIGOTED OLD TEABAGGING FARTS AND WINGNUTS, THE DICKENSIAN DREGS OF OUR SOCIETY, WHO MANAGED TO WREST CONTROL OF ONE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT WITH TONS OF CORPORATE AND FOREIGN CASH,  LAUNDERED THROUGH THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.

Four percent would cut the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly, and 3 percent would cut the Social Security retirement program.

REPEAT: NINETY-SIX PERCENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, A VIRTUALLY UNANIMOUS VERDICT CONSIDERING THE 3 TO 4 PERCENT MARGIN OF ERROR, WANT ABSOLUTAMENTE NO CUTS IN MEDICARE!!!

AND NINETY-SEVEN PERCENT WANT NO CUTS IN SOCIAL SECURITY!!!!

MEMO to Dean Matthews: Live by the polls, DIE by the polls.

"You like polls, Chris, then take a look at them. On healthcare, financial reform, protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, getting out of Afghanistan. That's the progressive agenda — America's agenda. Not what the corporate political shills at POLITICO have to say."

QUESTION FOR THE IDIOT PUNDITOCRACY: What kind of "DEMOCRACY" do you celebrate, sir, where elections are determined by lies and unlimited corporate "investments" and the people's voice, THE TRUE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA, is muted despite POLL AFTER POLL AFTER POLL indicating overwhelming public support for the liberal position — when, o when will we get leaders with  enough courage to be openly and proudly liberal?

A false "democracy" in which the people's voice is muted in favor of the corporate "citizen" is, I would submit, not one to be celebrated.

What The Young Turk DUDE Said ...

Cenk (pronounced Jake) struts his progressive chops (give him his show, suits!):

Mickey Mouse Climate Zombies Defy Science Because … They’re “Paid To”

This has to be the most honest accidental slogan to emerge from Rightwingville: Wingnuts, at least the half-assed educated types, must take certain positions because they’re “paid to.” When it comes to science FACTS, no educated non-scientist can seriously deny the reality that climate change is caused by the massive release into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases produced by human activity. It would be tantamount to claiming humans walked with dinosaurs, because evangelicals say the Bible contradicts carbon dating.

So we get this from our favorite wingnut rag:

The answer is NO, not according to an overwhelming consensus of scientists. Not being one, but capable of critical thinking, I tend to place my faith in what scientists say about scientific phenomena, after absorbing the best available evidence and arguments. Honestly, I don’t understand these Luddite science deniers with their heads up their ass who yell and scream ‘hoax!’ every time there’s an extreme weather event like this east coast blizzard. First of all, extreme weather (heat waves, droughts, floods, blizzards), as opposed to “rainshowers” or a “dusting” of snow, are almost certainly a consequence of the systemic changes caused by the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. To the extent these extreme weather events are unique by historical records, they provide supporting evidence for climate change. Second, weather and climate are two separate and distinct things. A single extreme weather event does not prove or disprove anything, one way or the other.

“Global warming” specifically refers to the progressive heating of the world’s average temperature each year. AND THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN ESTABLISHED: 2010 WAS THE WARMEST YEAR ON RECORD. Here’s NOAA, which the Teabaggers and wingnuts will no doubt say is in on the New World Order global conspiracy. Let Rachel's super-sub producer explain it all in the context of wingnut politics and ideology:

Curiously, most Republicans who now deny the science, once upon a time  held public views consistent with it. It was only with the emergence of the Teabaggers and their ignorant anti-science superstitions, that the politicians suddenly did an about-face. Not surprisingly, for the ignorant Astroturf Luddite Teabaggers who receive most of their money and marching orders from the oil and gas industry, climate change denial is an absolute article of faith.

Ironically, given the Teabaggers' political phobias, right wing anti-science is an ideological perversion that resembles communist attitudes to science. Like the wingnut fanatics who claim homosexuality is a disease and a choice, Soviet Russia abused psychiatry to persecute political prisoners with bogus insanity diagnoses, which also held homosexuality to be a mental illness. As much as the wingnuts try to make  mountains out of molehills based on a few leaked emails, the fact of the matter is, climate change is real, as an observable manifestation of more than a century of accumulated human activity pumping greenhouse gases into our planet's atmosphere. 

Wingnuts must compromise their college educations to submit and commit to Rightwingville anti-science. It helps if they don’t possess much of a conscience. As long as they’re “paid to” they will even make a case that the world is flat or that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark. Some wingnuts are ideological true believers; still, there must be others who are sufficiently educated to know in their heart of right wing hearts that the Teabagger position is ideological anti-science bullshit.

 Speaking of bullshit, New Jersey’s Blubbernor Christie returned from his excellent adventure in Disney World blowing enough hot air to melt his snowed-under driveway. Christie's response was typical of a Republican's attitude to government. Republicans are installed in office by rich special interests to undermine government, slash services to the poor and middle class, privatize everything (especially where kickbacks are the reward), and pass legislation that is not in the public, but the corporate interest. Still, for both the governor and Lt. Governor to go on vacation at the same time, leaving the state leaderless during an extreme blizzard state of emergency, hits a new low in laissez-faire government.

The wingnut rag did its best to defend the Blubbernor. They said he "put family first." Well, you know, Disney World isn't going anywhere; it's still there today, after the damage to the state was done. My favorite passage from the rag, this Freudian slip ... too much 'Christine' on their minds:

Tunnel People of Las Vegas Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The SHAME of Poverty in America

When I saw this story I was shocked. It’s a story that hasn’t been reported much in U.S. media:

“These are normal people of all ages who’ve lost their way, generally after a traumatic event. Many are war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress. It’s not known how many children are living there, as they’re kept out of sight, but I’ve seen evidence of them — toys and teddy bears.”

Perhaps it’s because the media elites simply do not like to stray outside their two percent tax bracket comfort zone. They prefer to speak of trivialities (Beltway politics) and abstract numbers (the economy) instead of the real flesh-and-bone people behind the misery indexes they breezily report.

Lately, one of the enduring media clichés is, if you want to know what’s really going on in America, read the British press — or watch Al Jazeera. Democracy Now with Amy Goodman works. Or Keith and Rachel. Ed and Cenk. That’s about it.

Big Eddie deserves honorable mention as unyielding spokesperson for the 99ers and the ravaged middle class. Rachel, for pulling back the curtain of corporate lies and propaganda for all to see, for reporting from the military and environmental fronts and for her dogged, successfull pursuit of justice for gays in the military ending in repeal of DADT. Cenk is a consistent administration critic online with the Young Turks and on MSNBC.

It’s no accident this Spartan crew came into their own in secondary alternate media: Progressive talk radio and the internet. Keith, who made it all possible for them to find a voice at MSNBC, much to the chagrin of lesser news deity Tom Brokaw, honed his craft in the freewheeling sports reporting arena.

What are the odds President Obama will be visiting the dispossessed Tunnel People of Las Vegas? Bobby Kennedy would have dragged Nevada’s Harry Reid down into that gutter and challenged the entire Republican leadership to come see for themselves what their policies have done to our middle class. Today, reactions are tempered by decades of wingnut propaganda. I was disgusted, but not shocked or surprised by this one:

“There are certain degrading things that you have to deal with when you live in New York. Like the time I took the tour at Alcatraz only to realized that their inmates had more space than I did in Manhattan at the time. Meanwhile, I had committed no crimes and paid $400 for the privilege to live on 105th Street. Plus, they had sinks in their rooms! And now, The Daily Mail has made us feel the same way once again, with a story about 1,000 people who live in makeshift homes in Las Vegas, carved out of a labyrinth of tunnels underneath the Las Vegas strip.

The article is pretty fascinating, but the first thing that came to mind when we saw the pics? Ooh… Spacious!”

Such callous disregard for other people’s misfortune isn’t simply mocking someone’s slip on a banana peel. It’s schadenfreude redefined to reflect the Lord of The Flies world promoted by Limbaugh, Beck and the Fox network. It values insensitivity, derides compassion as a weak emotion. It deflects a sense of  community, of social responsibility for the needy among us by making a sick joke about living space. Usually, schadenfreude is tempered by the notion that the victims being mocked deserve it. Clearly, right wing acculturation has convinced such thoughtless people that the poor and homeless deserve the plight they’re in. It’s a wingnut media/Republican talking point; a popular perversion of just deserts due the homeless, unemployed, uninsured, poor, and hungry people of America.

Such ignorant attitudes, depressing though they may be, aren’t particularly shocking; but these facts about poverty in the world’s most affluent country are:

• 1.6 million people were homeless in 2009 and spent at least part of the year in a shelter; nearly 325,000 of them were children.

• 15 million people were unemployed as of October, 6 million of whom had been looking for work for more than half a year.

• 44 million people were poor in 2009, 19 million of whom had incomes below half of the poverty line (half of the poverty line corresponds to an income of $5,478 for an individual and $10,977 for a family of four).

• 50 million people lacked access to adequate food at some point in 2009 because they didn’t have enough money for groceries.  Nearly 18 million people lived in households where one or more people had to skip meals or take other steps to reduce their food intake because of lack of resources.

• The official poverty rate in 2009 was 14.3 percent — up from 13.2 percent in 2008. This was the second statistically significant annual increase in the poverty rate since 2004.

• In 2009, 43.6 million people were in poverty, up from 39.8 million in 2008 — the third consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty.

• Between 2008 and 2009, the poverty rate increased for non-Hispanic Whites (from 8.6 percent to 9.4 percent), for Blacks (from 24.7 percent to 25.8 percent), and for Hispanics (from 23.2 percent to 25.3 percent). For Asians, the 2009 poverty rate (12.5 percent) was not statistically different from the 2008 poverty rate.

• The poverty rate in 2009 (14.3 percent) was the highest poverty rate since 1994 but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available.

• The number of people in poverty in 2009 (43.6 million) is the largest number in the 51 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

• Between 2008 and 2009, the poverty rate increased for children under the age of 18 (from 19.0 percent to 20.7 percent) and people aged 18 to 64 (from 11.7 percent to 12.9 percent), but decreased for people aged 65 and older (from 9.7 percent to 8.9 percent). [Even the Teabaggers will understand this is due largely to Social Security and Medicare.]

• 51 million people lacked health coverage in 2009.

The Lost Decade Ends, The Struggle Continues

A few songs to stiffen the spine and cleanse the soul seem appropriate to celebrate the passing of this lost decade. It began tragically with the 9/11 attacks, the seizure of the people's government by a small clique of  oil barons, plutocrats, corporate predators, and insatiable war profiteers. And it ends with cruel and heartless Republicans trying to deny the heroes of that terrible day the healthcare to treat them, many now terminally ill, from having inhaled the clouds of toxic dust that covered Manhattan.

What kind of country have we become?

And the clueless wingnuts ask, have the terrorists "won"? The terrorists "won" the moment Geroge W. Bush and Dick Cheney were installed as co-presidents by a radical activist right wing Supreme Court, Cheney reveling in his Dark Lord persona as senior partner in the shadows of power manipulating all. Bush-Cheney served their wealthy corporate cronies well, slashing environmental controls to enable BP's assassination of our coastal wetlands and fisheries, and Halliburton's plunder of the U.S. Treasury for profit and corruption in Iraq-Af-Pak as our troops died to defend the corporations' power (not right) to line their pockets with our money, with skyrocketing deficits to starve the "beast" of government and feed the rich and powerfully connected.

Bush and Cheney are war criminals by any reasonable definition of international law, which the United States once pledged to uphold. But President Obama looked the other way. His acquiescence in this venal coverup and in refusing to stand up to the Republican Party, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the corporations so much so that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is dictating policy to them, makes the President an accomplice in this venality and a partner in crime. After he surrendered the tax cuts to the rich and corrupt corporate interests, we are told by stealth DLCer Bob Shrum masquerading as a liberal that we should "trust" President Obama.

I do not and will not. President Obama has lost this liberal. I have gone to the mat for the President once too often only to find that the White House was busily sawing off the limb we were on, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Maybe Stephen Colbert is right. Maybe President Obama just isn't that into liberals and progressives. Every significant action he has taken has been matched, even surpassed by retreat. President Obama is like Union General Meade after the battle of Gettysburg when Lee's army limped off in slow retreat to the banks of the Potomac. Had Meade pressed his advantage he could have destroyed the Army of Northern Virginia and ended the war in one bold stroke.

President Lincoln, whom Obama admires and has studied (not very well, evidently), was infuriated, writing Meade that he had missed a "goldern opportunity" to end the war. Interestingly, while President Obama's closest adviser is 20-year family friend Valerie Jarrett, a political neophyte who has behaved like one in every way, one senses that Jarrett smothers the President with the kind of protectiveness that is not in the best interests of the nation or the people. She's like the President's shadow. Everywhere he goes she's not far behind. And she's a jumble of facile clichés and meaningless talking points. Last week on Meet The Press Jarrett unctuously asserted that the President "goes to bed at night and wakes up every morning thinking about what's best for the American people." Does this sound familiar? It should, because Jarrett was rehashing word-for-word a Bill Clinton cliché repeated ad nauseum during his particular travails.

One should expect the President's closest aide to be a little more creative, perhaps? But then she announced the President would go on a "listening tour" early in 2011 to listen to the concerns of the American people. This is exactly what the House Republicans did before the midterms. It was nonsense and political atmospherics with not a whit of substance. Their website was a joke. They invited "the American people" to write in with their "concerns" and by far the most popular item was legalizing marijuana. The website was scrubbed. So this is Valerie Jarrett's brilliant game plan? Can the White House spell dis-as-ter?

And another thing. I'd like to know what are the historical examples of lifelong presidential friends  contributing in significant ways to public policy. Either they're ciphers, playing a minimal moral supportive role, in which case no harm no foul, or they're of equal political and intellectual stature. Well, Obama-Jarrett is not Jefferson-Madison. Carter-Lance maybe, and Bert Lance, whose qualities in government only Jimmy Carter could discern, resigned under a cloud of scandal. But they prayed together every morning. Jarrett is supposedly Obama's link to the business community — that turned out well — and known to be partial to Georgetown cocktail parties.

The President needs less highball dilletantes and more close advisers who won't be intimidated to get in his face and tell him some hard truths. It's interesting that the Lincoln model was Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals": Every one of Lincoln's opponents for the presidency — strong wills and egos all — ended up in his cabinet. His biggest rival, Secretary of State William H. Seward, the frontrunner for the nomination and presumptive president, did not think much of Lincoln and tried to sabotage him early on. But in the end, Seward was Lincoln's closest friend. If Hillary ever grows into that role, it will be only with Jarrett's blessing.

The President's team is out of balance. Foreign policy, arguably the least important component, is the strongest with Hillary and Bob Gates running their departments and U.S. foreign and defense policy smoothly in helping the President carry out his objectives. But the most critical component, domestic policy, is a mess. Valerie Jarrett is an incompetent. The invisible cabinet secretaries, with few exceptions (Transportation's Ray LaHood) are weak and have been given little opportunity in the spotlight, which has been hogged by Jarrett and Vice President Biden, whose function seems to be plugging holes in leaky, confused messaging. Biden stands out because he speaks his mind. His harmless gaffes tend to humanize and set him apart from ivory tower operators like the disastrous Larry Summers, perhaps the most fatefully negative appointment Obama made.

So where does this leave liberals and progressives? Where we've been all along: Inside-the-Beltway wilderness but closest to the hearts and minds and souls of the American people. After 30 years of Reaganomics indoctrination, people like Chris Matthews continue to live in the devil's box of Washington power politics and influence, with segments in which he tries to learn from fellow pundits what the "progressive agenda" is. Please. The progressive agenda is America's agenda. You like polls, Chris, then take a look at them. On healthcare, financial reform, protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, getting out of Afghanistan. That's the progressive agenda — America's agenda. Not what the corporate political shills at POLITICO have to say.

The time for liberals and progressives to fight is now. For Social Security, Medicare, the tattered social safety net, the remnants of the New Deal, financial regulatory reform and the healthcare law. We might not get much support from the President or the power elites that run this country. But this isn't virgin territory for progressives. We've been here before. Many, many times before.

If the people of Latin America can overcome the terror, the murders, the torture of American-sponsored fascism and military dictatorship, and elect true socialists like Lula of Brazil, who raised 19 million people out of poverty (not 2 million, Mr. President) and leaves office with an 80 percent approval rating and a thriving capitalist nation that is more just and free and forward-looking, then so can we.

The People United Will Never Be Defeated. 

Inti Illimani is a great Chilean band. Miraculously, they escaped the terror of Pinochet's bloody overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. This song, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated," is a fitting tribute to President Allende's last radio broadcast as the bombs rained down on the presidential palace:

"May you continue to know that much sooner than later the great avenues throught which free men will pass to build a better society will open. These are my last words. I am sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain. I am sure that it will at least be a moral lesson which will punish felony, cowardice and treason."

This too shall pass.

No-Brainer (Pun Intended) # 2: Study Suggests Wingnuts (AKA, Conservatives) Have More PRIMITIVE Brains

There is a certain pathetic irony to this since our favorite wingnut rag, the Daily Caller, wasted a lot of bandwidth on a bogus “investigation” trying to “prove” KO suffers from a mental illness. Of course, they do reflect their freakish man-child boss, butterfly-tied Tucker Carlson whose potentially serious identity crisis is he’s a wannabe Keith.

Hmm … Tucker, you might want to check with your staff writer/cum psychoanalyst for a diagnosis of your condition — he’s already done the prelim groundwork. Most likely, Tucker’s identity crisis may require the intervention of  kinder, gentler, caring conservatives after he called for the execution of Michael Vick.

Then another staffer named Jeff Poor got into a faux lather over Keith’s accurate tweet, “Fox News is 100%  bullshit” … Poor said indignantly that Keith “threw out some profanity to describe a rival network,” which “profanity” was repeated three times, including in the headline of the Poor spitball blurb.

Infantile, ya think? I think the Poor guy’s trying to suck up to his arrested development boss. Which segues nicely into the story about conservatives being hardwired (President Obama identified it as the “reptilian brain” on The View) and hamstrung with inferior brains compared to the more developed liberal brain. According to a study accidentally commissioned by the actor Colin Firth, who wondered whether there were physiological differences in the brains of liberals and conservatives (OF COURSE there are) ... the results are in:

"[R]ecent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives’ brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other “primitive” emotions. At the same time, conservatives’ brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate — the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

Rees, who heads up UCL’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, was originally asked half-jokingly to study the differences between liberal and conservative brains for an episode of BBC 4's Today show that was hosted by actor Colin Firth. But, after studying 90 UCL students and two British parliamentarians, the neurologist was shocked to discover a clear correlation between the size of certain brain parts and political views."

Consider the Teabagger lunatics taking over the House of  Representatives next week. Then watch the crazy shit they do, think about this study (there are many others that reach the same basic conclusions) and realize, to your everlasting horror, that the lunatics are running the asylum, whereas before they were just stubbornly refusing to take their meds.

Uh-oh is right.

Healthcare No-Brainer: Most Americans Want a MORE LIBERAL Healthcare Law

Contrary to the corporate politico Idiot Punditocracy spin, most Americans do not “clearly want and expect repeal” as Teabagger Matt Kibbe claimed in a Fox PROP-ed; Americans are actually royally pissed that President Obama caved to special interests and did not deliver a TRUE DEMOCRATIC HEALTHCARE BILL. (My editorial aside because, outside of the Beltway, it’s self-evident.)

Kibbe relied on the findings of a CNN/Opinion Research poll released earlier this week that found Americans opposed the new law 50 to 43 percent (with 7 percent undecided). On closer inspection though, as U.S. News & World Report’s Robert Schlesinger reports, the details of the poll results show that most Americans either support the law or oppose it because it is “not liberal enough”:

Do you oppose that legislation because you think its approach toward health care is too liberal, or because you think it is not liberal enough?”

Favor 43%
Oppose, too liberal 37%
Oppose, not liberal enough 13%
No opinion 7%

Well, D’OH. Never fear: Presidential confidante and den mother Valerie Jarrett has arranged for an Obama “listening tour” early next year to get another chance (and an earful) to RELIVE his idiotic remark that tax cuts for the rich is “[t]his notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again.”

Go for it, Mr. President. Who knows, you might learn something.