I have no idea what Fox News thinks the are accomplishing anymore.

Fox News, back when it was new and relatively unknown, was really passing itself off as just another 24 hour cable news station.  In that guise, they could sort of be the "stealth Republican mouthpiece", because casual watchers might not really understand that they were getting a big spin on their news.

Now, however, it is all very, very clear about what Fox News is.   They will spin any sort of news they can to make President Obama and the Democrats look bad, even to the point of fabricating stories or taking individual sentences out of context.  They will puff up all sorts of stories that support their cause, like the Tea Party rallies, but totally downplay anything they deem to be "on the other side", such as the Occupy movement.  They will support Mitt Romney in the face of the unsupportable, e.g., his outrageous attack on President Obama DURING the attacks on the Libyan embassy and the consulate in Egypt and his ridiculous statements last week captured on a hidden camera video regarding the 47% lazy bums who will never vote for Romney and never take responsibility for themselves.

So, we all now know what Fox is doing and why.  But who are they talking to?  Their base really doesn't need any more fuel to keep their anger burning brightly.  They are already angry.  I seriously doubt that many undecided voters would be going to Fox to get their news to help them make up their minds.  If someone is going to Fox, I believe that their minds are already made up.  So, is it just money?  Is it just totally ideology driven, such that they don't really care that much about undecided voters or making money off advertising?  Is Roger Ailes so driven by hatred of Democrats, progressives and liberals, not to mention gays and lesbians, blacks, Latinos, etc., that that becomes his primary motivation?  Pure, unadulterated spite?

I know this is an overgeneralization.  There are probably a number of "reasons" why Fox News does what it does.  Maybe not really good reasons, but at least they might be rational ones when examined from their point of view.  But when they start having to rely on taking Obama quotes out of context that are 14 years old, what do they really think they are accomplishing?

I am not a psychologist.  I can only try to explain what I think are nonsensical human actions by my own point of view and hopefully, logic based thought process.  But I think that many people in today's society, and that does include some on the left as well, become so locked in to their own positions that they don't even care that they make sense anymore.  No logic is necessary, rationalization of their position is all that matters.  If they can come up with something, ANYTHING, that they can say to make their position seem to be the right one, then that is all that is required.

And when that happens to a society, it becomes vapor locked.  That is why we have Republican senators and congressmen who will never, ever vote for a bill sponsored by a Democrat.  It doesn't make any difference if they helped write it or if the bill represents a position that the Republican mainstream held during the Bush administration.  It doesn't matter.  All they know is that Obama and Democrats are evil and they can never agree with them.  On anything.  Ever.

So, where does that leave us as a country?  I have no idea, but wherever it is, it isn't good.

Yet another right wing politician that feels “God has called on him.”

This one happens to be Craig James, ex-college football jock, taker of illegal payments to student athletes, and meddling dad who appeared to get a coach fired from Texas Tech by using his clout as ESPN analyst.

I could say all sorts of things about why someone like James thinks he would be a good Senator, but I will leave that to another time.

This is the line that caught my eye, however, right at this end of this article.

The Republican primary is scheduled for April 3, but it could be delayed depending on the outcome of legal challenges to congressional voting districts. A later primary would give James more time to raise money and promote his campaign.

James dismisses a suggestion he's considered a long shot and believes he was called by God to run for office.

"That doesn't mean God says, 'You're going to win, Craig,'" he said. "But I would far rather have done this than let God down and not do what he had called me to do."

I am just astounded about how many right wing politicians that claim God is in his or her corner. Michele Bachmann, Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, all have claimed at one time or another, that God had called upon him or her to run for office, which was really interesting, since it was the same Office of the Presidency that they were running for. God apparently can’t make up His mind.

But I find it astounding, if God exists and He created the entire universe, with its billions upon billions of stars and in which Earth does not even rate being called an infinitesimal speck, that He would care one single bit about whether or not one politician would or would not run for office of one of about 180 countries that inhabit the Earth.

Perhaps it just that these people overestimate their own importance. The monumental ego involved in even supposing that he could "let God down" is astounding. I got news for you, James. If there is a God, one that could create the entire universe and everything that resides within it, He does not give One Big Goddam about you, period. You are about as insignificant as an amoeba is to you. And I will tell you another thing. If you read sports blogs like SB Nation, no one liked you an a sports analyst or a color commentator. You sucked there, why do you think you would make a good politician? Oh, yeah. You can "criticize Obamacare."

These pricks really piss me off, with their sanctimonious hypocritical bullshit.

Lest anyone forget in the midst of this discussion about the debt ceiling debacle, the FAA remains partially shut down.

Here’s the HuffPo version to get your started.

The Senate, with the federal debt crisis resolved, is expected to leave by the end of the week for its August recess. The House has already left. Unless the Senate accepts the House bill, lost revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes could exceed $1.2 billion before lawmakers return to work a month later, senators said.

The FAA's long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term funding plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20 short-term extensions.

The latest extension expired at midnight on July 22 after Senate Democrats rejected a temporary extension bill passed by the House that contained the subsidy cuts. Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic extension that didn't include cuts.

The lost ticket tax revenue is costing the government an estimated $200 million a week. The FAA has furloughed nearly 4,000 employees and issued stop-work orders on more than 200 construction projects.

Air traffic controllers have remained on the job. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has vowed that safety won't be compromised and travelers won't be inconvenienced.
...

Three times in the last 10 days, senators' efforts to pass a bill to end the shutdown without making air service subsidy cuts have been blocked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Each time, Hatch has focused his remarks on the labor provision.

"I've been asked by our leadership to make these objections," Hatch explained Monday night. "What is important here – and it's not some itty-bitty little thing – is that you have labor regulators out of control."

To end the shutdown, he said, the Senate must agree to the House's labor provision. Then, the shutdown "would be solved in a nanosecond," he said.

The labor provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions. Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies.

The White House warned in March that President Barack Obama would veto an FAA bill containing the labor provision.

So, I will recap a couple of important points here.

• The FAA has been operating without a full authorization budget since 2007. They have been operating on a series of extensions that are good for some period of time, a year or less. This is because the Republicans won’t sign a full reauthorization bill until they get everything they want. (Sound familiar?)

• Now, the Republicans won’t even sign a short-term extension of the FAA’s budget without including several provisions that the Democrats really, really don’t like. (Sound familiar?)

• The one provision included by the Republicans that most people are talking about has to do with government support of rural airports designated as important but don’t earn enough money on their own. However, the big kicker is the one discussed above regarding changes to election laws. The Republicans want to make it much, much more difficult for railroad and aviation employees to unionize. The Democrats really can’t accept that, but the FAA is being held hostage until the Dems capitulate. (Sound familiar?)

• Without an operation budget, the FAA cannot collect fees from airlines and airports to the tune of about $200 million a week. All the people in the FAA who get their salary paid from this pot of money have been furloughed. All the contractors and subcontractors throughout the country who depend on getting paid by the FAA for work done on airports and other safety related projects are also out of work.

• After their hard work on getting almost total surrender from the Democrats during the debt ceiling debate, the Republicans in the House have decided to adjourn for the summer until sometime in August without giving the FAA an operating budget. Which means this mess we have now is going to continue for at least two more months.

I find this absolutely unconscionable. During a time of very high unemployment and also during a time when the Republican Party has declared that the federal debt was THE absolute most important thing that must be addressed, they are holding the FAA hostage until their demands are met. They are creating very real safety concerns, all because they do not like unions. The money that would fund the rural airports would have been able to be paid out of the missing revenue in a week!

There is one thing that I don’t think has really been emphasized in the media yet about this issue. There are about 4000 FAA employees on furlough right now. There are a small number of employees within that 4000 that are critical to the safety of the flying public. They travel extensively, going around to airports around the country and inspecting the facilities and supporting infrastructure, such as the transmitters for the Instrument Landing Systems. These are critical functions. These people have been asked by the FAA Administrator to continue working, without pay, and to put all their travel expenses on the credit cards, which are in their own names. The FAA employees get the bill, the FAA doesn’t. These people are dedicated enough to continue with their jobs, even though our totally screwed up government has decided that the FAA can be used as just one more hostage in their new way of “governing.”

The Republicans don’t care about unemployment. They apparently don’t care they are creating the potential for a very real safety issue. This isn’t democracy. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t democracy.

I also know that when there is another commercial aviation accident or serious incident in this country, there will continue to be calls for the FAA to be more involved, that we aren’t providing enough oversight of the industry, and that we are too “cozy” with the industry we are regulating. There may be some validity in some of those arguments, but I think the despicable actions by the Republicans and by John Mica in particular have undercut any criticisms that they and the people who support them could point our way. They are saying that the safety of the commercial aviation system in this country is NOT a priority. Making it more difficult for some industry workers to unionize is much more important than aviation safety.

I don’t know what those people who are continuing to work without pay and who are putting their travel expenses (which are significant) on credit cards with their personal names on them will do if this continues.

Update: Here's more from Washington Monthly and Crooks and Liars.

Just to remind everyone which party caused this "debt crisis" in the first place.

And that is why it is ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE to cut Social Security and Medicare, but not important enough to actually raise any taxes or cut defense spending.

Republicans: Rioting the night after their team lost the NBA finals.

That my latest analogy to explain this madness. Republicans are still terribly, terribly pissed off because their team lost the NBA finals, aka Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential elections. They still cannot accept this reality, so they are really, really upset, and just to show everyone how upset they are, they are storming their own city (the U.S.A.) and proceeding to set cars on fire and throw anything they can find through plate glass windows. It won't stop the reality that their team lost, but it feels SO... DARN... GOOD!! It doesn't matter that those same people have to live in this country in the future. They are just out to show how awful it is that Obama is the president.

I hope that these white, elderly Tea Party types are really happy when they discover that their Social Security checks, the ones that they are either currently depending on or will in the very near future, are going to be for less than they were if they hadn't thrown their hissy fit.

(To be fully fair about this, that photo is from Vancouver, in Canada you know, after their team lost the NHL finals. But I thought that basketball is a bit more relevant of an analogy than is hockey, and a picture of a riot is a picture of a riot, regardless of the place or circumstances.)

Incredibly, both David Brooks and Richard Cohen come to the conclusion that the Republican Party has lost its mind.

I am paraphrasing, of course. If you want to see the gist of what they both said, here is a summary from Washington Monthly.

First, Cohen:

Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult. […]

The hallmark of a cult is to replace reason with feverish belief…. This intellectual rigidity has produced a GOP presidential field that’s a virtual political Jonestown. The Grand Old Party, so named when it really did evoke America, has so narrowed its base that it has become a political cult. It is a redoubt of certainty over reason and in itself significantly responsible for the government deficit that matters most: leadership.

Then Brooks:

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.

A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.
This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are far from the only or even the most important factor.

I usually don’t read either of these columnists. Brooks sometimes makes some great points and comes across as a thinking, rational conservative. And then he spoils the moment by saying something completely insane. Cohen, well, I have no understanding about why he is thought of as a “center-left” journalist. I can’t think of much that he has written that I agreed with. I think he represents about the worst of the “beltway thinking.” But to have these two people put out columns on the same week that essentially say the same thing, that the Republican Party has lost it’s mind (yes, paraphrasing, but “Jonestown” and “cult” are pretty damning), that’s saying something.

Maybe the tide is finally turning. Maybe our press is finally going to find the backbone to stand up to the Republican Party and report on what is really going on in American politics these days.

Maybe.

Until then, I remain with a deep sense of despondency over the state of American politics. It’s like riding in a car going 90 mph with a madman at the wheel who really doesn’t care if he crashes the car or not, because he doesn’t believe in traveling by cars and if he does crash, well, that sort of “proves” his point, doesn’t it?

Update: Harsh words for Brooks from Driftglass, via Balloon Juice.

Ummm.... OK, if you say so.

I am assuming this has something to do with the presidential aspirations of Tim Pawlenty...

Yep, this is exactly what it looks like when I take my family on vacation.

I saw a quote from somewhere this morning that had Piper Palin saying to someone in the media who was part of the Moose Entourage, "Thanks for ruining our vacation." Je-sus.

You know, I really feel sorry for the Palin kids. They are growing up with such an extremely warped view of society and their own self-importance.

Update: Damn, this woman is a moron. This is her take on Paul Revere.

"...he who warned, uh, the...the British that they weren’t gonna be takin' away our arms...uh, by ringin' those bells and um...makin' sure as he's ridin' his horse through town...to send those warning shots and bells...that, uh, we were gonna be secure and...and we were gonna be free...and we were gonna be armed."

Click on this link for a YouTube of this mess, if you don't believe me.

This is such an embarrassment to this country that someone like Sarah Palin could even be considered to be worthy of running for the Presidency of the United States.

Priceless political cartoon.

The text in this cartoon comes, word for word, out of a press release from Newt Gingrinch's camp.

Click on the cartoon to get a bigger version and then you might have to use the magnifying glass to blow it up big enough to read. It is worth the effort.

From John White Studio. Go check out his entire site.

Eric Cantor wants spending cuts to offset emergency aid to areas devastated by tornadoes.

That Eric Cantor, he sure knows how to get potential voters on his side of an issue.

From Washington Monthly:

The scenes out of Joplin, Missouri, are just horrific. The death toll from the deadliest single U.S. twister in generations stands at least 116 people, and rescue workers continue a frantic search for survivors. President Obama will be in the area over the weekend, and obviously the area qualifies for federal disaster relief.

It’s hard to believe, but House Republicans aren’t sure if they’re prepared to spend the money to assist the victims and community.

The No. 2 House Republican said that if Congress doles out additional money to assist in the aftermath of natural disasters across the country, the spending may need to be offset.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”

Finding ways to offset disaster relief funds could be a significant challenge for House Republicans and would put their promise to cut spending to a true test.

I don’t expect much from House Republicans, but this has managed to actually surprise me. When disaster strikes and there are deadly consequences, federal officials are expected to put aside politics and ideology, and commit whatever’s necessary to help.

I agree with Steve Benen here. How much more full of themselves can Republicans get? And this isn’t even “normally votes Democratic” areas like New Orleans after Katrina. These states that are getting bashed by tornadoes and floods are mostly reliably red or leaning red states, such as Missouri, Alabama, Tennessee, Montana, etc. What the hell is Cantor thinking? Is he so absolutely convinced that the only subject that the American people believe is important is cutting the deficit? He would actually withhold emergency funds to help American citizens in dire straights though no fault of their own? Are people without homes and places to work in Alabama and Missouri now “leeches?”

Un-flippin-believable.

Republicans in Wisconsin have decided to attempt to grab the state government in a way that means, if successful, they will never have to let it go.

(The following information comes from the May 20, 2001 edition of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. I can't give you a link, as her website launches right into the video without providing a link to the story. If you are interested, click the link below about the voter fraud bill moving ahead.)

I think anyone who cares about what is going on in American politics right now is probably aware of what is happening in Wisconsin. The governor there, once elected, declared war on public unions. The legislature there pulled some fast ones and pushed the laws through, even though the Democrats tried everything, including leaving the state, in order to stop the Republicans. All of this was supposed to be because of the grave “financial crisis” the state found itself in. Of course, the crisis was not so grave that the governor couldn’t afford millions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the upper 2%. This is all very much in line with what Republicans are doing all over the country, of course.

The latest effort by the Republicans in Wisconsin is to pass laws, which they have done, that make voting a LOT more difficult that it had been. Photo I.D. will now be required at polling stations, even though that had never been a requirement in the past. You might think that might not be that bad. But apparently, it must be a very specific kind of photo I.D. Students are allowed to vote, but the I.D. offered by every single public college and university in the state does not meet these new standards. Retirees will probably not have these I.D.’s If someone is going to vote by mailing in their ballots, they will have to include a photo copy of their I.D. (which makes no sense to me, given that the person will not actually be present for anyone to check their face against the picture on the I.D.). There are a lot of other restrictions, of course. The estimate that Rachel gave was that this affects around 20% of the voting population of the state. It will cost the state millions of dollars to implement and millions of dollars each time there is an election, at a time where the state supposedly is in the grasp of that “financial crisis” we heard tell about. And all of this is to combat a problem, “voter fraud” that absolutely no one can prove is really a problem.

Take a guess as to which political party that the elderly, students, new voters, and those of ethnic heritage usually vote for? That’s right. Correct. Democrats. THAT is what is behind this. It is not about “voter fraud.” It is not about anything other than an absolute power grab. They know that their attempts to crush unions is not popular with the voters and that there is now a special recall election scheduled for, I believe, something like six Republicans who voted for that bill. Republicans know that the public is not happy with their agenda, especially since they didn’t mention ANY of this in their campaigns. That was all about jobs and bashing Democrats for how bad the economy is. So where did this come from? Many in Wisconsin, right now, are having severe cases of buyer’s remorse. They didn’t vote for this kind of crap, they didn’t see it coming. I don’t blame them for being upset. I do blame them for not looking into the matter of the Republican agenda, both stated and unstated, before casting their votes.

Look at what other headlines there are about Republicans and Wisconsin right now.

Wisconsin governor threatens to call National Guard on state workers (Somewhat old now, but still gives you an idea of how Gov. Walker operates.)

Bill would extend bargaining restrictions to police, firefighters

Walker gives himself more power to fill high state jobs

Assembly votes to give Walker veto over administrative rules

Wis. Secretary of State duties stripped (Who was the last Democrat in the state holding a high office, of course.)

Amid rancor, voter-ID bill moves to Senate

So, do Republicans start changing how they vote and back off on this attack on institutions that have been around for decades to be more in line with what Wisconsinites really would like? No, of course not! That is not how the current Republican Party does things! They have their agenda and they are going to stick to it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else wants. They want to destroy all the social programs and everything else that government currently does that they don’t like. And they will do this in any manner they can. It doesn’t matter if their actions are unethical, immoral and sometimes possibly illegal. The end justifies the means, in all cases. It doesn’t matter to them. They are so enamored of themselves at this point that they truly think they are superior to everyone else and they will crush all opposition. Rigging elections is just one of the tools in their toolbag. Yeah, so what if a lot of people are unhappy with how they govern? If those same people who aren’t happy also can’t vote, then that’s all to the good, right?

When I heard this story, I was just so disgusted. I have said this many times before on this blog. I really do not understand how these people live with themselves. What they are doing isn’t democracy. It isn’t freedom. Their actions are remarkably similar to other groups of people attempting to hijack government. I won’t mention any names, as then I would open myself up to criticisms about Godwin’s Law and other such “How dare you make that comparison!” self-righteous indignation.

This is what I was referring to in my last blog entry about being very fearful if these types of Republicans ever get total control over the government. They will never willingly let it go. Democracy, at that point, will be no more. Do you think that is hyperbole? I don’t. Just look at what is going on in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Florida. That is the future of the entire country if Republicans ever take control again. They already have the Supreme Court stacked, such that any appeals there will not be supported. We see how Republicans operate in both Congress and the White House. Put all of those different legs of government, the ones that are supposed to be the “checks and balances” against abuse of power by the others, under control of Republicans and you will get Wisconsin multiplied by about 10,000.

I know that many voters are not happy with Democrats and with President Obama. I am not terribly happy either about a number of things. I really thought President Obama would be able to change how things worked in Washington. Sure, Democrats have passed Healthcare Reform. It isn’t what progressives wanted and we all thought Dems kept caving to Republican demands that weren’t even made in good faith. But, even with its flaws, that piece of legislation is still quite an achievement. Democrats have been trying to do something along those lines since Truman. But there is a lot of stuff I am unhappy with. We did not close Gitmo. We refused to investigate the abuses of the Bush presidency. The rich and powerful are still quite in control. Dems aren’t standing up for unions, which are really the only organized support that the Democratic Party has these days.

I can see why people might not want to vote for Democrats. They seem spineless and are willing to let Republicans run over them without anything more than a weak, “Hey, that wasn’t nice!” But I will tell you something. If people are thinking that they will either not vote or vote for Republicans as some sort of symbolic gesture, don’t. Please don’t. Do not hand control of both the House and Senate to the Republicans. Do not give the White House to one of those idiots (with possibly the exception of John Huntsman) who make up the list of contenders. Don’t even vote Republicans for your local and state offices. Republicans do things differently once they are in office than what they said they were going to do on the campaign trail. I don’t care how nice they seem. Republicans lie. They will do anything to get their way. Go do some research into Wisconsin and you will see what the country will look like if that happens.

These people are monsters.

Update: Here's more detail from Parsley's Pics.

Aw, shucks. Donald Trump isn't running for president after all.

I mean, who could have seen THAT coming?

About 90% of me is very happy, as happy as I can muster for something involving politics in the United States these days. This guy is a fatuous gas bag with absolutely no sense of what a clown he has become. I hope his ratings for his "reality show" go in the tank as well. Good riddance. He was such as distraction, the media would amplify every single idiocy the guy uttered. We have better things to talk about. I used to be totally indifferent to the man but now, I detest looking at him. He owes President Obama, and the rest of the country, a big apology.

That remaining 10% of me is kind of sorry to see him leave. I would have loved to see him destroyed in an actual debate. Even some of the current Republicans running for office would have destroyed him. I always love seeing over-inflated egos punctured.

Perhaps the one thing that amazes me the most about Republicans is how they have decided that public schools and teachers are the enemy.

To me, this is a really unnerving thing. The one constant throughout someone’s life is that they had to go to school. For people of my age who grew up in non-urban settings, that meant public schools. They were there, you went to them. You may not have liked going to school, but that’s what you did. The teachers were, for the most part, pretty friendly and competent at their job. Even when I moved to a very small town in rural Alabama when I was in high school, there was the school. They did their best with the very few resources they had. Sure, you could bitch a bit about how things could be done better or the crummy buildings, but they weren’t “the enemy.” That would have made as much sense as declaring air or water the enemy, schooling for children was that ubiquituous.

O.K., fast forward to somewhere in the last decade or so. Public schools, in the minds of many on the conservative right, are about as popular as a coven of witches. They are there to “brainwash” your kids with all their talk of tolerance, multi-culturalism and other liberalist ideas (including evolution, of course). Teachers and teacher’s unions are a bunch of greedy, whiney slackers who are overpaid and just flat out terrible at their jobs. And, on top of all that, get three months off a year! Yes, I am sure we can all agree that teachers having to deal with all sorts of students on a daily basis, many of whom come from poor backgrounds, broken home, and may not even have enough to eat everyday, are just lounging in the lap of luxury on their $50K salary.

Worst of all, apparently, is the fact that schools are run…. by the government!! Horrors!

From Washington Monthly.

March, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum expressed his disdain for public education. “Just call them what they are,” Santorum said. “Public schools? That’s a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools.”

Campaigning in South Carolina over the weekend, Santorum went even further. (via Steve M.)

Rick Santorum, a possible candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, even raised the specter of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy in a speech here Friday night while explaining why his grandfather emigrated to the U.S. His uncle, he said, “used to get up in a brown shirt and march and be told how to be a good little fascist.”

“I don’t know, maybe they called it early pre-K or something like that, that the government sponsored to get your children in there so they can indoctrinate them,” Santorum said.

There is a fair amount of this talk going around. At a home-schooling rally in Iowa in March, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, and Herman Cain — all Republicans who’ve expressed an interest in the presidential race — raised the specter of ending public education in the United States altogether.

This also includes far-right media. CNSNews’ Terry Jeffrey argued a few weeks ago, “It is time to drive public schools out of business.” Townhall columnist Chuck Norris has begun calling public schools “indoctrination camps.”

But I’d note for context that Santorum is a former two-term senator — and he just won a straw poll in South Carolina, which arguably puts him in the tier above folks like Paul and Cain. And in public, he’s comparing public schools to fascism.

Keep in mind, polls show that the American mainstream considers the public education system one of the nation’s most cherished institutions. When asked what areas of the public sector most deserve budget cuts, schools invariably come in last.

And yet, here we are.

"Indoctrination camps?" "Fascism?" And Santorum and Bachmann are not some penny-ante nutjobs. They are some of the "leading names" in the Republican Party and are likely to run for President. So, here's the situation, then. Some of the “most serious” of minds in the Republican Party are not happy with the publc schools. But rather than try to fix them, to put more resources into them so they have a fighting chance of becoming what everyone would like them to be, Republicans have decided that they want to destroy them. “It’s time to drive public schools out of business.” That’s pretty chilling stuff, by any measure.

One of my best friends from back in the 1980’s has become a ultra-conservative. His views apparently match everything I have heard off of Fox News and the Wall Street Jouranal. The unemployed are a bunch of lazy slackers. Unions should be demolished. He is supportive of everything that supports big business. It’s like he has become an entirely different person than the one I knew back then. I don’t like getting together with him anymore, because I know (even if we aren’t talking about it) that everything I hold dear is something is absolutely detests. It’s kind of hard to maintain a friendship with that kind of thing staring you in the face.

Last year, we were having drinks after work and he started off on a number of things that were apparently bothering him. Public schools was one of them. And he was really angry. I thought he was getting ready to punch me on several occasions. He hates paying taxes on public schools, even though his three kids went through their public school and came out of it very well, I think. Then, while he was on a roll, he came out and said what I really think he firmly believes, and that is the government has absolutely no business providing public education. He was for vouchers and private schools. So, once I could find the courage in the face of this anger and hostility, I asked him, “So, you are saying that you want every single kid in the country to go to private school?” He did an abrupt about-face but acted like he hadn’t, saying, oh, no, I just want to be able to opt out of paying taxes for something I disagree with.

That’s a nice thought, I guess. I would have really loved to be able to opt out of paying taxes that went toward two unnecessary wars, tax cuts for the upper 2% who don’t need any more than they already have, tax breaks for huge corporations who move their operations overseas and leave massive unemployment in many communities when they decide that they can get Chinese or Mexicans to work for 10% of what they pay American workers. But I don’t have that option.

But I find it amazing that Republicans don’t seem to understand what I think is a very basic fact. A highly educated population is good for the health of the country and ensures a future in an ever-increasingly competitive world. Do they really want to go back to the 1880’s, where most of the kids of this country just went to work when they were 10 years old and were functionally illiterate? Is that what they really want?

This is not a rhetorical question on my part. I see all the things that conservatives are attempting to tear down these days. The Republican governor in Maine wants to lower the working age for children, at the same time he wants to lower the minimum wage. Some states want to see the minimum wage abolished altogether. We’ve already discussed how many conservatives would like to kill public schools. And we all know how they feel about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and all other aspects of our current society that form a “social safety net” for those who are really in need. Do they really want to see a huge percentage of this country destitute? I just absolutely do not understand their larger vision for our society. All they seem to want to do is transfer even more wealth and power to the upper echolon of American society. But to what purpose? I have never heard anyone on the right even try to articulate their larger vision, past “smaller government” and “taxes are evil.” What do they really expect our society to look like in 50 years if those policies were really enacted?

As I have stated before in this blog, about the only answer I can come up with is that no one (aside from those really rich and powerful people behind these ideas) is even thinking about those larger questions. They have bought into the notion, body and soul, that Democrats and liberals are evil and must be destroyed. And that is not some sort of over-the-top hyperbole. That is really what they believe, and that is the only thing that really matters. That's it. The bigger picture, the one that will occur 50 years in the future, well, I guess that will take care of itself.

If that’s really the case, I am very fearful for this country if these people ever get total control of our government. Because they WILL find a way to never let go of the reins of power again.

Donald Trump's new campaign slogan.

Although it probably isn't one he would voluntarily choose himself....

Image absconded from Balloon Juice.

Donald Trump is a worthless, racist prick with an ego the size of Rhode Island.

Besides the devastating tornados in the south, the other huge story that happened in the last two days is, of course, President Obama releasing his “long form” birth certificate. You know, the one that Donald Trump and all the other “birthers” have been demanding. The one that isn’t the official birth certificate used by the state of Hawaii… The official one is the one that President Obama released last year sometime. It is actually illegal to make copies of this long form BC and the White House had to get a special dispensation from the state of Hawaii to release this long form BC that didn’t prove anything more than what the other one did.

Of course, Donald Trump pretended that everything about the subject that he had been spewing the last few weeks didn’t happen, such as his “investigators” finding out this incredible information that would shock everyone. No, once the President of the United States had demeaned himself by having to acknowledge this kind of crap, what does Trump do? Does he apologize? Does he show any sort of contrition? No, of COURSE not. He says he is “very proud of himself.” And then, he has the absolute gall to start questioning President Obama’s college credentials in a way that makes it very plain indeed that he feels Obama is still hiding something and shouldn’t ever have been allowed to run for president.

Here is part of a post at Crooks and Liars that captures a lot of my very hot feelings about this.

And obviously I reside in La La Land because yesterday, Birth Certificate Day, punched me in the mouth. I was stricken, paralyzed with rage.

To see laid bare the brazen racial hatred coursing through the blood of so many millions of people who also call themselves American, well it actually made me cry. I’d thought, in 2011, that we were better than that. We aren’t. We are still desperately sick. And it made me ashamed before all of those that we continue to torment.

…

But the nakedness of the hate disclosed by Trump and the birthers was stupefying. It floored me. I could not comprehend that at least half of GOP voters and who knows how many more were cheering him on, nodding their odious assent. I wanted to divorce myself from them, from this country that could harbor such repulsiveness on such a wide scale. And most of all, even if it’s meaningless and solely to make myself stop weeping for a second, I wanted to apologize to my fellow Americans whose pain I know I can never know.

I’m so sorry.

Because if this is how we treat a man as smart and gifted and dignified and accomplished as President Obama, imagine how we treat everyone else?

Abso-fucking-lutely. How dare that asshole say the things he does? I don't care how rich he is, he has no right to get on national TV and say those kinds of things about the elected President of the United States. Goddamn these people anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?

This country is very sick at the moment, and what makes it worse, most of us refuse to acknowledge that sickness. We prefer to blame everyone else. It’s the fault of everyone who isn’t white and conservative. It’s the gays. It’s the black people. It’s Hispanics. It’s Muslims. It’s liberals. It’s schoolteachers and union members! Everything that is wrong with this country is THEIR FAULT! How DARE a black man even THINK he should be president?!?

These fuckheads make me sick, as well as our entire society that enables such behavior.

So, about that voucher plan for Medicare, Senator Ryan....

Do I really understand that what the Republican plan to "balance the budget", which it does not in any sense of the word, replace the current Medicare system with a system where the government just hands out vouchers to the elderly so they can go buy their own insurance? That's the plan, is it?

I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind.

First off, I understand that the vouchers will only increase over time as a function of the inflation rate and NOT the rate of increase in the actual cost of healthcare. Would you care to address that?

No? I didn't think so. So, that would mean all the increases in the actual cost of healthcare, not including inflation, would be the responsibility of the recipients of these vouchers? Is that right? The ones who are on a fixed income and probably are having a difficult time making ends meet already? That's your big plan?

Then, how about this? What insurance companies out there, right now, do you think are going to take on a very large number of new people on their insurance rolls, and all of them are elderly and many of them probably already with chronic health problems? Hum? Did you even THINK of that, Senator Ryan? What happens to those vouchers if the elderly can't find any insurance companies to cover them? Do they need to give those vouchers back to the government? Can they use them to buy food and pay their electric bills instead? Did you consider that?

And what about all those additional healthcare costs that aren't covered by your insurance companies? We do all know about those, correct? Copayments for every single visit, which can run into some bucks if you see the doctor more than one or two times a month, which many people would need to. How about all those costs when you have some significant medical procedures done or end up staying in the hospital for a week? Do you expect those insurance companies to provide 100% coverage, on every single healthcare related item, so that the patients aren't responsible for a whole lot more new bills on top of their already large insurance payments?

Have you even HEARD of actuarial tables before, Senator Ryan? Do you understand how insurance companies make their money?

So, before you go out on national TV and make a fool of yourself by waving some printed up pamphlet, saying it is the cure for all the countries financial woes, you might try to learn a bit about the subject you are decimating.

As I continually say, I just do not understand how Republicans have any credibility left, on anything. Why does anyone believe what they say?

Perhaps, just perhaps, Republicans have gone so over the top that the non-insane 35% of Americans are finally catching on what is going on.

I am not usually one to look for silver linings in big, dark clouds that you know are about to dump prodigious amounts of unpleasantness on your head. Silver linings are, in my mind, just the human spirit trying to stay optimistic. That usually isn’t me.

However, in our current situation, that might just be true. There may really be a silver lining in the Republican Party, as a whole, being so full of themselves and being so terrified of not conforming to the wishes of the Tea Party types, that they really are turning off everyone else.

- Republican governors seem to think they have been elected kings of their fiefdom. They are gutting people’s right to organize, they are turning down billions of dollars in essentially free money for high speed rail projects that would bring lots of work and dollars, while strengthing the state’s infrastructure. They are showing they have absolutely no loyalty to those who got them elected, other than Big Business. Teachers are now the enemy. Public education is evil. Anyone making under $50,000 a year is living high on the hog.

- The House of Representatives has become a place for wing nut ideologues to let down their hair. After screaming, “Where are the jobs!?!” for months, they have decided to pursue their rightwing ideology at all costs and jobs has become a non-issue. They have introduced legislation whose intent is to make abortions so difficult to come by they would be practically impossible. They have made it plain that they hate public schools, but will do anything they possible can to get rid of all government oversight of particularly hazardous industries, both for the environment and our population, as well as our financial institutions.

- The Republican Party keeps running imbeciles. Many times, these people do get elected, such as Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Jim DeMint, Louie Gohmert, etc. Many times, they give elections to the Democrats in what would have otherwise been a reliable Republican win, such as Sharon Angle. Every time they open their mouths, something very embarrassing comes out. Newt Gingrich has proven that he will say anything at anytime, as long as he gets to disagree with President Obama. Haley Barbour still has a very large problem with race relations, as well as a history problem. Sarah Palin, still the current Face of the Republican Party, is becoming increasingly disliked in the rest of the country and has essentially a zero chance of ever being elected to another public office, much less President of the United States. Most people wouldn’t even trust these people to teach their children, much less hand them a very powerful political position.

- Fox News, and in particular, Glenn Beck, have become so hysterical (in several different definitions of the word) that anyone outside that crazy 35% has a difficult time taking them seriously. They do not seem to have a coherent position about anything, other than Democrats are the most evil, vile things that the world has ever encountered. They aren’t even making an attempt anymore. And with a number of leaked memos from the inner sanctum of Fox News, it is very apparent that the reporters, anchors and on screen personalities are operating on orders from above.

As I said, I may just be reaching for something that isn’t there. But the huge demonstrations in Wisconsin in reaction to the huge overreach of the governor and the Republican senators were something to behold. Every single thing that the Republican Party attempts to do these days seems to alienate some other segment of the voting population, such as police and firefighting unions, teachers, Hispanics, and people without jobs and with not much hope.

One can hope, I guess. The prospects of an enlightened voting population making the correct votes (not always Democrats, mind you) in order to solve the very daunting problems facing our country seems pretty bleak right now. But perhaps, just perhaps, the Republicans have gone so crazy that no one past that 35% will believe them anymore. Maybe they have shredded their respectability so much that hardly anyone will believe anything they say from this point on.

I'm sorry, but Newt Gingrich's wife is really kind of creepy.

Does this photo remind anyone else besides me of The Stepford Wives? (The original one...) Can you imagine this person as the First Lady? Which is a much lesser horror, I admit, than the one involving her husband as the President of the United States. But still...

This confirms my beliefs that many Republicans believe they can and should do anything to destroy “the enemy.”

The enemy I am referring to, of course, is anyone who might be a Democrat, a liberal, a union member, a teacher… Anyone who doesn’t act and think exactly like them. That is who Republicans identify as their enemy, and they fully believe that the end justifies the means.

To support this not-that-farfetched hypothesis, I offer this little gem. This story is appearing in many places on the internet. Here is the Crooks and Liars version. It seems that some legal eagle in Wisconsin wrote to the governor to suggest that he actually fake some sort of physical attack on himself and make it look like the perp was some union supporter. Here’s what the letter said, in part.

“If you could employ an associate who pretends to be sympathetic to the unions’ cause to physically attack you (or even use a firearm against you), you could discredit the unions,” the email said.
“Currently, the media is painting the union protest as a democratic uprising and failing to mention the role of the DNC and umbrella union organizations in the protest. Employing a false flag operation would assist in undercutting any support that the media may be creating in favor of the unions. God bless, Carlos F. Lam.

Here the thing is in whole.


My, my. That certainly sounds above board and nothing at all to be embarrassed or ashamed about, right? All is fair in love and war?

Now, I am not going to suggest that every single Republican and conservative thinks like this. I fully believe that there are very ethical and moral people in this country who happen to have a very different vision than I do about how this country should be run. The problem here, however, is that there seems to be a very large number of Republicans out there that do NOT think like this. On the contrary, they appear to believe that anything that can be done to “win,” should be done. I think the 2000 election taught us that. That approach continues on to this day. Just think of the James O’Keefe selective video editing to take down targets conservatives don’t like, such as ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, Planned Parenthood, NPR… The only limitation they put upon themselves is this. Do not get caught. And even if you do get caught, you should never apologize, never back down. No matter how much dirt is on your hands when you get caught, remember this, it’s always the liberals fault!

I really would like to know how these kinds of people justify their actions to themselves. How do they sleep at night? How much different is this than, say, the old Soviet Union or some 3rd World Banana Republic? How can they possibly state, with a straight face, that they "love this country" and "love freedom and Democracy" and pull this kind of crap?

My vision of how the United States, as run by the current Republican Party, would look in 30 years.

I this is something that has been playing around my mind in the past few days. I am not putting a lot of thought or research into this. This is just how I perceive the U.S. would be run if Republicans had their way, as evidenced by what they are currently saying and doing (that is an important point in my scenario).

There would not be an opposition political party. It would not be allowed. Our government system would resemble the old Soviet Union style of government, but only in form, not in content. Party loyalty would be paramount and no dissent would be allowed, even for trivial matters. All political votes would be expected to be won with 100% margin. The same goes for political elections. They would still be held, but they would be a total sham, with usually only a single candidate on the ballot. Voter suppression tactics would not really be needed anymore, because there would be a total lack of choice about the candidates.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights would still be in force, but by name only. Certain items contained in these documents that would cause an upset in the current system are either summarily ignored or else changed.

The political media would be a replica of today’s Fox News Channel. Every story, every news item, would be in support of the current administration and what a great job they are doing, or else to demean and denigrate anyone brave enough to come out and actually say anything about the system. But there would be much more coverage about the economy and business issues. This would also be a huge propaganda operation, but in support of the huge corporations of the country instead of the politicians. That distinction, however, would be getting harder to make every single day. The rich and powerful that run these corporations would also be, in essence, the puppet masters behind the curtains that told the politicians how to conduct their business. That would be a huge difference from how the old Soviet Union was run. That was power politics for the sake of being in power. The new system in place here would be in total support of the “free hand of the market.” Anything that corporations wanted to do, or didn’t want to do, would find willing supporters in our political system.

There very real stratification of our society would continue where it would reach a point that the upper class of the country would have total control over everything. The middle class would essentially be non-existent. The lower class of the country would be huge. It would be largely uneducated, as the public school system would be dismantled and anyone wanting an education could find it at private schools, but for a price. The rest of the population would resemble the rural America in the 1800’s. Education for the lower class would be at a minimum, and the jobs that would be available would be menial or backbreaking, dangerous work, because that would be all that is available. All the good jobs would be used as gifts for cronies, and the sons and daughters of cronies.

If you have the money, everything is available. If you don’t, then you are truly SOL. There would be little to no social services available. Even what are today considered to be “essential services” would be available at a price, such as health care, fire departments, and law enforcement for crimes against your person or property. This part of our society would resemble the corrupt states where money and bribes would be everything. If you want something, you would have to pay through the nose. For those with the wealth, that would mean little because it would be a drop in their bucket.

We would still continue to have a very strong military that would consume most of the available resources of the country. That would be a major way for the poor and uneducated to escape their particular hell, to join the military. The country would continue to throw our weight around the world, invading smaller countries whenever they did not bow to our sometimes very capricious will. The rest of the world would start to align against us, both economically and militarily. That would not stop us, however, because God is on our side. The United States can never be defeated.

This brings me to the subject of religion. Christianity of the most fundamentalist and militarist type would become the order of the day, and it would be fully supported by the government. If you didn’t subscribe to this particular brand of religion, you could never advance in society or your profession. Other religions, such as Judaism, would be tolerated, but only just. You would not be allowed to practice openly any religion on the “banned” list, and there would be many of those. Harassment, intimidation and physical violence by vigilantes and officers of the law against the others would be openly tolerated if not actively promoted.

The ruling class would be totally oblivious to the rapid decline of the country, of course. When it was noticed, it would be the fault of someone else; such as “old Europe”, Jewish Bankers, the lower class, or whoever the current convenient scapegoat might be that day. There would be very little manufacturing done in this country. All investment in the future will have stopped, as all profits that corporations made will be channeled into the already fat bank accounts and stock portfolios of the already obscenely rich. They will not notice that there are no customers anymore that have the resources to buy whatever products are produced. Most of the wealth of this country would be made by shuffling paper around and very complicated “financial instruments” would be used to build a house of cards upon which the very fragile remains of the economy rests.

I will not continue to what I think would be a very grim and hard landing. Such a system would not be sustainable. I could see several possible endings to such a society. It would not be pretty. Total collapse of a society never is, and one as large as ours would make it that much worse.

That is what I see when I hear how the Republicans say when they are describing their view of the country. I do not believe I am being over-imaginative here. This is what they are saying. I am fabricating totally wild hypotheses, either.

Would anyone like to discuss this?