Give the poor man a chance, help stop these hard, hard times

Screaming liberal Sensible conservative Bruce Bartlett decimates the lunacy that is Paul Ryan (R-Cheezwhiz)'s modest budget proposal:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan has been the talk of Washington this week. Most of the discussion has revolved around his proposal to privatize Medicare and slash many federal programs to the bone. Less attention has been paid to the tax side of Ryan’s plan, which is every much as radical as the spending side.

One would think that a comprehensive budget proposal designed primarily for the purpose of reducing budget deficits and the national debt would put at least some of the burden on the revenue side of the equation. First, it would reduce the need to cut spending so heavily and improve the chances of passage; unless Ryan is only interested in scoring points with the Tea Party crowd, he will need the support of at least some Senate Democrats and President Obama if he wants any aspects of his plan enacted.

Second, Ryan’s plan puts an exceptionally heavy emphasis on cutting programs like Medicaid and food stamps that primarily aid the poor, while the well-to-do are essentially held harmless because they don’t benefit much from federal spending. The one government spending program that arguably benefits the wealthy disproportionately is national defense because, as UCLA economist Earl Thompson has argued, it protects their capital. And that’s the one major program Ryan lets off the hook almost completely.

For Ryan, it is an article of faith that federal revenues must never rise above 19 percent of the gross domestic product no matter how dire the nation’s debt problem. No explanation for this necessity is offered in his plan, other than observing that the historical range of federal revenues as a share of GDP has been between 18 percent and 19 percent of GDP during most of the postwar era. Ryan simply asserts, without evidence, that this range is the one most compatible with prosperity.

Conservatives dogmatically believe that taxation is the single most important factor in economic growth, and the lower taxes are the better. But if that were the case, then the late 1990s should have been a period of exceptionally slow growth: Federal taxes averaged 19.9 percent of GDP from 1997 to 2000. In fact, that period was among the most prosperous in American history, with real GDP growing an average of 4.5 percent per year. By contrast, during the last four years, federal revenues have been exceptionally low, averaging just 16.5 percent of GDP. But growth averaged less than 1 percent per year.

. . .

Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would be shredded to pay for them. Even as an opening bid to begin budget negotiations with the Democrats, the Ryan plan cannot be taken seriously. It is less of a wish list than a fairy tale utterly disconnected from the real world, backed up by make-believe numbers and unreasonable assumptions. Ryan’s plan isn’t even an act of courage; it’s just pandering to the Tea Party. A real act of courage would have been for him to admit, as all serious budget analysts know, that revenues will have to rise well above 19 percent of GDP to stabilize the debt.

Go read. There's more.

Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est?

Excerpted via Coalition to Stop Gun Violence:

July 27, 2008—Jim Adkisson shoots and kills two people at a progressive church in Knoxville, Tennessee, wounding two. Adkisson calls it “a symbolic killing” because he really “wanted to kill…every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book,” but was unable to gain access to them.

December 9, 2008—FBI teams investigating the murder of white supremacist James Cumming, 29, a resident of Belfast, Maine, find supplies for a crude radiological dispersal dervice and other explosives in his home. Cumming's wife, who shot him to death after being abused by him repeatedly, explains, "His intentions were to construct a dirty bomb and take it to Washington to kill President Obama. He was planning to hide it in the undercarriage of our moter home."

April 4, 2009—Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski shoots and kills three police officers responding to a 911 call to his home in Pittsburgh. His friend Edward Perkovic tells reporters that Poplawski feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on its way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Perkovic also commented that Poplawski carried out the shooting because “if anyone tried to take his firearms, he was gonna’ stand by what his forefathers told him to do.”

April 25, 2009—Joshua Cartwright, 28, a member of the Florida National Guard, shoots and kills two Okaloosa County sheriff's deputies attempting to arrest him on a domestic abuse charge. Cartwright is killed in an enusing gun battle with police. Cartwright's wife reports that he was "severely disturbed" that Barack Obama had been elected president. Okaloosa County Sheriff Edward Spooner states that Cartrwight was "interested in militia groups and weapons training."

May 31, 2009—Scott P. Roeder shoots and kills Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. The FBI lists Roeder as a member of the Montana Freemen, a radical anti-government group. In April 1996, he had been pulled over in Topeka, Kansas, for driving with a homemade license plate. Police found a military-style rifle, ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder, and two 9-volt batteries in his car.

February 18, 2010—Joseph Stack of Austin, Texas, flies a single-engine plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, killing one and wounding 13. In a suicide note, Stack lays out his grievances with the federal tax agency, stating, "The law 'requires' a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that's not 'duress' than what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is ... Violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."

March 4, 2010—John Patrick Bedell, a California resident, travels to Arlington, Virginia, and opens fire on police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon. Bedell is armed with two semiautomatic firearms and "many [ammunition] magazines." Bedell injures two officers before he is killed by return fire. Reports reveals Bedell to be a Truther who believed that the U.S. government had been taken over by a criminal organization in a 1963 coup.

May 20, 2010—Jerry Kane, Jr., 45, and his son Joseph Kane, 16, fatally shoot two Arkansas police officers with AK-47 assault rifles during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 40 in West Memphis. The Kanes are killed during an exchange of gunfire with police in a Walmart parking lot 90 minutes later. Jerry Kane, an Ohio resident and anti-government activist, had a long history with police and had recently spent three days in jail for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt. Kane considered himself a "sovereign citizen" and ran a business that centered on debt-avoidance scams.

July 18, 2010—California Highway Patrol officers arrest Byron Williams, 45, after a shootout on I-580 in which more than 60 rounds are fired. Officers had pulled Williams over in his pick-up for speeding and weaving in and out of traffic when he opened fire on them with a handgun and a long gun. Williams, a convicted felon, is shot several times, but survives because he is wearing body armor. Williams, a convicted felon, reveals that he was on his way to San Francisco to "start a revolution" by killing employees of the ACLU and Tides Foundation.

July 30, 2010—Camp Hill prison guard Raymond Peake, 64, is charged with robbery and the murder of Todd Getgen. Peake allegedly shot Getgen to death at a local shooting range and stole Getgen's custom, silenced AR-15 rifle. Investigators follow Peake to a storage unit when they find three firearms: Getgen's AR-15 rifle, a scoped Remington rifle that had been reported stolen from the range in May, and a second AR-15 rifle. Thomas Tuso is also arrested and charged with conspiracy, receiving stolen property and other crimes. Peake tells police that he and Tuso had been stealing guns "for the purpose of overthrowing the federal government."

August 17, 2010—Patrick Gray Sharp, 29, opens fire on the Department of Public Safety in McKinney, Texas, and unsuccessfully attempts to ignite gasoline and ammonium nitrate in a trailer hitched to his truck. Sharp is armed with an assault rifle, a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, and a 12-gauge shotgun. He is killed after an exchange of gunfire with police arriving on the scene. Miraculously, no one else is hurt. Sharp's roommate, Eric McClellan describes him as "a great guy" and states, "We're Texans. We have a right to bear arms."

January 8, 2011—Jared Lee Loughner, 22, shoots U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others at a "Congress in Your Corner" event at a Safeway supermarket in Tuscon, Arizona. He kills six, including federal judge John Roll, and wounds 14, including Giffords, who is shot in the head. Loughner has an extensive history of mental illness and substance abuse, yet is able to purchase two handguns and a high-capacity ammunition magazine legally at Sportsman's Warehouse on November 30, 2010. In a YouTube video posted in December 2010, Loughner states, "You don’t have to accept the federalist laws ... Nonetheless, read the United States of America’s Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

These are just the incidents where someone died. I guess they could all be just lone wackos, but their speech and writing have an awful lot in common with that broadcast by Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Ruch Limbaugh and Michael Savage to name a few.

It's also very similar to that by Republican candidates and office holders.

March 21-22, 2009—Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants residents of her state to be “armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people—we the people—are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”

July 15, 2009—Katherine Crabill, a Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the state’s 99th District makes headlines by calling on Americans to resist the course President Obama has set for the country. Appearing at a “Tea Party” rally, Crabill quotes a 1775 speech by Patrick Henry and then states, “We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box. But that's the beauty of our Second Amendment right.

September 28, 2009—Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), the Chairman of the Second Amendment Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives, calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “domestic enemy of the Constitution” at a health care reform town hall meeting.

May 30, 2010—Sharron Angle, a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in Nevada, tells the Reno Gazette-Journal that a recent increase in gun sales nationwide "tells me that the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways.

October 21, 2010—Pastor Stephen Broden, the Republican candidate for U.S. Representative in Texas' 30th Congressional District, tells WFAA-TV in Dallas that the violent overthrow of the government is an "option" that remains "on the table."

November 9, 2010—U.S. Representative-Elect Allen West of Florida's 22nd Congressional District hires conservative radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman as his Chief of Staff. On July 3, Kaufman told a crowd of Tea Party supporters, “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will."

November 29, 2010—U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, circulates a PowerPoint presentation to his colleagues in which he compares the Obama administration to the Nazi regime in Germany and likens himself to Gen. George Patton, bragging, "Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it."

June 12,2010-Jesse Kelly, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords opponent wrote "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly"

I'll ignore Sarah Palin, as everyone should, but this is not an isolated incidence, it is a trend.

Do I think such speech should be illegal? No.

But if a high school student had put cross hairs on their opponents and continually wrote about revolution and 2nd Amendment solutions, they'd be arrested. If an American Muslim had done it they'd be in GITMO, if they weren't targeted for death first. If the New Black Panther Party had showed up at political rallies carrying assault rifles, they'd be in prison and have congressional committees saying they should be in GITMO.

So let's please be consistent when we apply the Constitution and the PATRIOT Acts?

You've taken my life, so take my soul, That's what you said and I believed it all

Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

It continues quite convincingly.

I just voted by absentee ballot, I've done it every year when and since I lived in CA.

I like having the time to look at the candidates and propositions, (they don't always mean what they say or say what they mean), do the research, and decide with the facts in front of me rather than trying to remember everything I'd read under the pressure of being in the booth knowing people are waiting in line for me to make up my mind.

But regardless of what your preferred method is, get out and vote!

You Send Me

I'd like to offer a post from my other site because he says it better than I can. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Bill Arnett:

WARNING: I will be using racial epithets in writing this post, words that can be hurtful depending on context, but I am doing this to make a point I would find it difficult make otherwise. The reasons for use of these epithets is two-fold: first, to show the cowardice of the two above-mentioned political parties and, second, to show how the demonization of President Obama by any means possible borders on the insane, borrows the epithets of yesteryear, and makes only the most superficial changes in form or application to try to remain free of accusations that they are still naught but bigots, racists, and homophobes who find it easier to slander, insult, brand as evil, and use slightly modified epithets to make the same old Jim Crow thinly veiled threats, denigrate our fellow citizens, make their false projections as to where a candidate stands on issues, and to run yet another "Be afraid, be very afraid…" election, a GOP specialty.

The Con Game: It has been crystal clear that the only way the GOP/Teabaggers can win elections is not based upon legislation they wish to implement to benefit the least of us, restore fiscal sanity, rein in Big Banking, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Corporations, and, in general, do something good for the party.

They are exactly the same scams as the GOP used for self-aggrandizement, the rape and plunder America, conducting illegal wars and bigger and better genocides. They're "clean", WASPs, and they aren't concerned with the fact that the GOP as led by bush/cheney made America the laughingstock of the world, got America rated as the top terrorist threat to the world, bankrupted the country with policies that called for stealing the resources of Iraq when they could have purchased them on the open market, tried to bring back the Nixon axiom that if a president does it, it's not illegal, and they sat and did nothing as our rights were so narrowed as to render many of those rights moot.

The 'code words' regarding racial issues continue to be used in demonizing an opponent that can outthink them any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Lie about any democrats intentions, deny the lie when caught and proven wrong, then go back to telling the same lies to be picked up and magnified by the media until the lie becomes 'common wisdom.'

Think of the things you hear virtually everyday and compare them to the epithets of old which these new code words have replaced.

Image: A dead monkey, shot several times by police, and a comment to the effect that someone else will have to be found to pitch health care because the dead monkey, in every bigot's mind signifies, "The Nigger is dead! The Nigger is dead! Oh, and this is so, so funny because we can display all the naked racial bigotry we want 'cause when them goddamn liberals accuses us of hating niggers we can tell 'em that it's only (snort, snort) a monkey, not our nigger president."

Open calls from GOP and teabaggers to do anything possible to make Obama fail and be a one-term nigger president thrown out onto the trash heap of history, up to and including actually shooting the nigger, and preparing for it by carrying guns to Obama rallies just in case they get a clear shot. Radical churches have openly prayed for Obama to be killed while the GOP and teabaggers openly state they wish to commit treason by assassinating Obama and operating to block every effort he makes to better the country, not because he's wrong necessarily, but because he's not a WASP and is therefore an uppity nigger. (Remember how the MSM went nuts when Obama appeared with the OHIO STATE FLAG behind him, a white flag with an 'O' with a rainbow running through the 'O' and openly breathlessly reported that obviously only a socialist despot would design his very own flag and flout it on national TV. Many faces were awfully red when it was revealed that Obama had nothing to do with the design or display of the Ohio State flag. I believe this marked a turning point for these two pernicious parties as they learned quickly that the nigger and related epithets were not going to be politically palatable with voters.

This is a real dilemma for these two parties. They can only conduct a whisper campaign about how this nigger is 1) not a citizen, 2) a practicing radical Muslim, and 3) a socialist on par with the worst despots in history. These became the new substitutes for 'those in the know' to use instead of the politically incompatible word nigger.

Images: Hitler in white-face or Obama in white face with a Hitler-type mustache. Intent: Tie the nigger to one of the most evil despots of last century and hope the use of the white-face will quell accusations of racism. Wink, wink.

Declare that Obama is not only not a citizen, but a radical Muslim educated in some of the most vile Muslim schools in existence. Oh, boy! This is almost as good as being able to openly call the president a nigger terrorist wanna-be, as the associations they sought to make were that Obama was not American at all, owed his allegiance to the Muslim world, and that every act of his was to undermine our democracy and take over as dictator.

Image: Lacking any genuine proof of any of the vile accusations they have made the rightwing then chooses to use the "Obama as The Joker" posters at rallies, getting the signs shown on TV as often as possible. It's so fucking ridiculous to people with a modicum of commonsense to portray Obama, again in white face, a la Al Jolson in blackface, as being as evil as an entirely fictional character, but it demonstrates again the desperation of the GOP/teabaggers to imply, "No nigger can run a country founded by white christian men and just to prove it we'll put the nigger in white-face to suffer derision and disgust at the thought of Obama being a cartoon bad guy."

Tactic: Smear Obama's wife and children as much as possible. "Oh, horrors! That bitch Michelle wore a sleeveless dress to a state function! Shows you niggers know nothing of maintaining even false pretensions when it comes to State affairs! Not only that, but they allowed, and Michelle physically helped, the kids plant a garden, a fucking garden, on some of the most hallowed ground in America! Only a nigger would so degrade the Whitehouse, but is it still the 'Whitehouse' when niggers move in?" (Actually asked by GOP/teabagger affiliated groups.)

My hunch, my beliefs, about the results to soon be forthcoming from the elections: Teabaggers have assumed an ever greater load of pure bigotry to do some heavy lifting for the GOP. Now the election time grows near and the teabaggers have, they believe, smeared, slimed, and set the stage for a massive turnover favoring them and the GOP.

I see it differently. Saner heads, and yes, there are some, within the GOP recognizes the threat presented by the teabaggers. The two parties will split the vote as sane conservatives realize that even THEY don't want the teabaggers in charge, as the vicious, insidious policies they would pursue (reversing health care, destroying social security, eliminating Medicare, etc.) would not only be detrimental for America but could be the straw that broke the proverbial camels back insofar as Americans finally and forever abandoning a party too mean, ugly, and self-serving to ever effectively lead a nation.

One, but not all, of the reasons I believe this is a recent poll that showed 11% of respondents to the poll thought the teabaggers could solve America's problems while 77% believe that there is no way teabaggers will ever be able to run and solve the problems of government. This means that over half of the existing teabagger party members themselves believe that their party is not going to help America solve any problems.

How the teabaggers and GOP can believe that, combined, they represent salvation for America in the face of statistics like that simply marks them for the fools and simpletons they are. If the teabaggers win two or three seats, drawing votes away from serious GOP candidates, they will never gain a majority in either house. I actually expect that the more people think about the consequences of returning America to the Dark Ages by electing any combination of GOP/teabaggers the more inclined they will be to vote democratic party candidates.

Serious GOP elders running the party already see the handwriting on the wall and have started backing away from the teabaggers, not appearing with teabaggers, not donating money to teabaggers or providing other support, and, now, recognizing that the split vote between the GOP and the teabaggers could likely result in democrats GAINING seats, not losing them.

Well, we'll find out next week, so if you will excuse me please it's time for me to send in my absentee ballot.

I know Bill made several assertions without links, and if you ask in comments we will provide the references. Try me.

Can't be 'round this kind of show no more

Frank Rich nails it today in the NYTimes:

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer to “You lie!” piercing the president’s address to Congress last fall like an ominous shot.

If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from.

Here's what hasn't been talked about much: the utter hypocrisy of the goals, and the conflation with the early American revolutionaries.

The original Boston Tea Party was a protest against taxation from Britain, which the Whig Party of the time felt was against the British Constitution. While some Tea Partiers of today also feel that the Health Care legislation is unconstitutional, there are vast differences between then & now.

In 1773 the colonies were largely under the rule of Britain, and were controlled militarily certainly by Britain. But today that's hardly the case. The US is a sovereign country, with both Federal & State laws, and no foreign control (well, supposedly).

So what are the Teapartiers mad about? What exactly do they want? They yearn for the country that never was, where people can get unemployment benefits yet rail against government handouts, especially if it's someone else's hand out. A country where folks know their place, especially if their place is below yours. A country which gives all an equal chance to excel above those who aren't equal. And a place that patriots can call home, and where they can call those who disagree traitors.

Yes, America in the 1950's was a great place, as long as you were white, and had access to a pension when your working years were over.

But we had no foreign military on our streets, no distant King taxing our products, and internal threats other than from Joe McCarthy's fevered fantasies. And neither do we today, other than from Glenn Beck's & Sarah Palin's and Michelle Bachman's fevered fantasies.

So Teapartiers, please get a grip, study some history, and shut the fuck up.

Bastards.

The Letter

From TPM I present a very small portion of:

An open letter to conservatives

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You've lost me and you've lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation: Come back to us.

Now the advice. You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

It goes on and is quite lengthy, but has links to all the destructive behaviors exhibited by the wrong wingers who hold major offices in our country. Slightly rearranged, it would make an excellent peer reviewed paper of our current political situation.

Ladies & gentlemen (sheesh, he was 16 when he recoded this!?) please welcome Alex Chilton