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.

Republican Senator believes that limiting high capacity rounds “restricts freedom.”

I want to know what, exactly, a regular non-military, non-law enforcement person really needs assault weapons and high capacity magazines.  What, exactly, are they going to do with those?  What possible purpose, besides the ones we have been witnessing, can there be for owning such firepower?

Well, a number of Republican senators certainly believe that, even if there may not be identifiable use, any attempt to restrict access would be a “restriction of our freedoms.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) drew a fairly strict line in the sand on Sunday with respect to the coming debate over gun control, suggesting that there is a constitutional right to buy high-capacity clips and magazines. 

"Does something that would limit magazines that could carry 100 rounds, would that infringe on the constitutional right?" host Chris Wallace asked Johnson on "Fox News Sunday." 

"I believe so," Johnson replied. "People will talk about unusually lethal weapons, that could be potentially a discussion you could have. But the fact of the matter is there are 30-round magazines that are just common. You simply can't keep these weapons out of the hands of sick, demented individuals who want to do harm. And when you try to do it, you restrict our freedoms."

Yep, that certainly makes sense.  I definitely remember the Constitution, or maybe it was the Bill of Rights, or maybe it was the Gettysburg Address, that specifically said that a citizen of the U.S. must have access to firepower that can kill dozens and maybe hundreds of people in less than a minute.  Even though I believe that flintlocks were the order of the day back around 1775 and 1776.

For a political party that just LOVES to view the Constitution in what they believe was the original intent of the Founding Fathers, they certainly can stretch a point when it comes to guns.

This is the mentality I am looking at when I said in an earlier post on this subject that this country will never change.  Mass killings of innocent bystanders by lunatics with easy access to any weapon their hearts desire and a chip on their shoulder will not stop, because this country’s priorities have “absolute freedom with anything to do with high power weaponry” is much higher on our list than is keeping civilians safe.

Yeah, I know, if anyone were reading this blog and I got comments, someone would no doubt say that even with the type of restrictions I am talking about, we wouldn’t have stopped this particular person from killing people, if that is what he wanted to do.  And you know what?  You may be right.  But you also may be wrong.  Maybe low capacity clips might have slowed this guy down.  Maybe….  If he didn’t have an assault rifle, he might, must maybe, might have thought twice about his plan.  The thing is, we can’t know for certain until we try.  And we aren’t going to try.  Because this nation’s priorities are totally out of whack.

Now, of course, if this attack had been perpetrated by a fanatical Iranian, our course as a nation would have been very easy to determine.  We go bomb Iran and start another middle east war that will be much more difficult to win and/or extract ourselves from than Iraq.  The TSA would no doubt make it that much more difficult to get on a commercial airplane.  The Dept. of “Homeland Security” would issue more color-coded alerts.  The government would probably push for mass use of surveillance drones to spy on activities of anyone that looks suspicious.  But since this was a nutjob loner white guy, well…  There’s just nothing that can be done about that.

I just can’t fathom Senator Ron Johnson from the state of Wisconsin going on Fox News and saying something like this, three days after the horrific day in Denver.  He makes me a bit sick to my stomach.  But, to others, he is no doubt hailed as a “True American.”


UPDATE:  Sorry this is difficult to read.  I have absolutely no idea why Blogger decided to put this posts text in grey against a black background.  I didn't do that and can't figure out how to change it.

What does and does not upset Conservatives in America today.

Here’s what Conservatives find outrageous these days.

So at an Obama fundraiser headlined by the First Lady, Robert DeNiro tossed out a moderately funny joke:

“Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” De Niro asked to cheers from the crowd. “Too soon, right?”

Yes, it was a joke, you see, because in 2008, a lot of people asked if America was ready for a black president. We’ve had 43 white presidents, and 42 white first ladies, you see, and we don’t tend to think of them as belonging to any race. It’s a reminder of selective race-consciousness. I’m typing this v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y because some people don’t seem to get it.

Among the non-getters is Newt Gingrich, who has gone nuclear over the joke, and even tried to compare it to Rush Limbaugh’s sliming of Sandra Fluke:

“I do want to say one thing, both on behalf of my wife and on behalf of Karen Santorum and on behalf of Ann Romney — I think that Robert DeNiro’s wrong,” Gingrich said. “I think the country is ready for a new first lady, and he doesn’t have to describe it in racial terms.”

Gingrich went on to demand that President Obama apologize for the comments.

“What DeNiro said last night was inexcusable, and the president should apologize for him,” Gingrich said. “It was at an Obama fundraiser, it is exactly wrong, it divides the country. If people on the left want to talk about talk show hosts, then everybody in the country should hold the president accountable when someone at his event says something that is as utterly and terribly unacceptable as what Robert DeNiro said.”

Inexcusable.... Yep, that certainly is Inexcusable. But Gingrich wants an apology anyway, from the President, who had nothing to do with the joke in the first place.

And here is something that apparently doesn’t bother Conservatives at all.

Just moments before Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, he was on his cellphone talking with a 16-year-old girl. For the first time, the girl is speaking out about the last, horrifying moments of Martin's life.

"He said this man was watching him, so he put his hoodie on. He said he lost the man," the girl told ABC News. "I asked Trayvon to run, and he said he was going to walk fast. I told him to run but he said he was not going to run."

According to accounts gleaned from 911 audio recordings made the night of the killing and the teenage girl's statements, Martin eventually did run. But Zimmerman wasn't far behind, and soon the two would be face to face. Zimmerman, the self-appointed captain of the neighborhood watch, was armed with a 9mm pistol. Trayvon had little more than a bag of candy in his pocket.

"Trayvon said, 'What are you following me for?' and the man said, 'What are you doing here?' Next thing I hear is somebody pushing, and somebody pushed Trayvon because the headset just fell. I called him again and he didn't answer the phone."

The line went dead, according to the girl's account.

"He knew he was being followed and tried to get away from the guy, and the guy still caught up with him," Tracey Martin, Trayvon's father, told ABC. "And that's the most disturbing part: He thought he had got away from the guy, and the guy back-tracked for him."

It’s apparently fine for a white guy with a gun and a history of calling the police every time he saw a “scary black person”, essentially stalk, initiate a confrontation, and then shoot a black 17 year old kid who was armed with nothing more than a box of skittles, and then claim “self-defense” and the laws of the state of Florida are perfectly fine with this. But lord, have some liberal make a joke that has some racial component, and everyone has a grand mal seizure. But killing an unarmed kid who was walking home from the local 7-11? That’s apparently fine and dandy.

I am so sick of these fucking assholes. And I feel so sorry for the family of Trayvon Martin….

I just don’t know how these racist cretins can live with themselves.

UPDATE: Read this, from BlackSnob, for an up close and personal perspective on this outright murder of a black kid. And much as this angers me, I could never really understand it from a black person's perspective. This will give you one. Highly recommended read.

Rush Limbaugh is a truly despicable human being.

May I offer my apologies to all females in the world.

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.

The Rapture is now on for Oct. 21st. How many times does one have to fail completely and utterly before they understand they are wrong?

Apparently never, I guess. Remember Harold Camping, the lunatic fundamentalist who convinced a lot of True Believers that Judgment Day was going to occur last May 21st? A large number of truly deluded and easily lead people got rid of all their possessions in order to be ready to ascend to Heaven when the Rapture occurred.

Of course, Camping got it wrong, in that said event never happened.

Well, now he is back and is now completely confident that the Rapture will occur on Oct. 21st. That whole May 21st thing? That was just the last-ditch date for everyone to get their respective houses in order. Oct. 21st is when the Hammer is going to fall. Jesus is really upset with everyone who isn’t a True Believer, and is going to met out the appropriate punishment for our wicked ways.

That is apparently how Camping sees it. Given what a complete and utter lunatic he looked like on May 22nd, I can’t imagine this guy even showing himself in public anymore, much less making yet another prediction that will be shown to be exactly what it is, total horseshit, on Oct. 23rd.

What is it with the human psyche that allows this kind of behavior? How can this guy believe any of this? And how could anyone listen to him and say, “Yeah, he may have been wrong last time, but boy, he is really spot-on this time! Wait until those non-believers see all those earthquakes and Jesus bringing fire and brimstone down on the world!”

I am totally convinced that perhaps a quarter of the human population of this planet is completely insane. They have lost the ability to deal with actual reality, and have retreated into a complete fantasyland just in order to survive. And then, when facts show reality to be something other than what they fantasize, they somehow find a way to rationalize it all away, just so they can maintain their fantasy that they are the only ones that understand and everyone else is in for their comeuppance.

Cross-posted at Pithy Cabbages.

Photo from the Seattle PI blog.

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.

I swear, I may never vote in another political election in my life.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Giving in to defeatism. Letting the bad guys wins. Go down swinging, and all that other rot. Not that I don't believe that there is a large amount of truth in each of those statements, or that I would encourage anyone I talk with to do the same. It's just me, on a personal level. I pretty much have lost faith in a democratic government where one half apparently is insane and their overall driving force is to destroy the other half. I can live with differences of opinion on how government should operate and differing points of view on policy issues. But I can't deal with a government that is being driven more and more to the right by a MINORITY of people who don't seem to have a clue about what governing actually means. And unlimited money coming in from undisclosed corporations, many probably foreign, just has so poisoned this form of government that very little will happen that will truly be for the good of the everyday citizen. It's all about how the rich and powerful get more rich and powerful. It's a rigged game, so why bother? That is the emotional state I am in right now.

Like many other Americans, I had just great hopes when Barack Obama was elected president. That was incredible feeling. I truly believed him when he was saying "Yes, we can." But that has turned out to be yet one more hollow campaign slogan, and President Obama has turned out to be a major disappointment. Whether this is because he truly believes in all the actions he is taking or whether he is just turning into a center-right politician because he so strongly desires to be seen as the "adult in the room," I don't know. He just never seems to catch on that negotiating with lunatics who really WANT to kill the hostage and get everything they want as well, which includes making Obama look bad on every single occasion, no matter how large or how insignificant it might be, DOES NOT WORK. All we ever seem to get is "political creep," where the country seems to start in one place and then is slowly dragged and coerced to the right, and we don't even seem to realize it's happening. Eight months ago, who would have thought we would have been looking at major changes to our social safety net to try to satisfy lunatics who think that the country defaulting on its financial obligations is a good thing? Yet, we all seem to have accepted that premise now, because the only thing that seems to matter at this point is to raise the debt ceiling, so worse things don't happen. And this is just what the extreme right wing of the Republican Party planned all the time. And we went for it.

Whatever Obama's driving motivations, we are now going to end up with a disastrous bill that will make major changes to Social Security and Medicare, neither of which add to the deficit, as well as make huge cuts in spending during a huge recession when we are getting close to 10% unemployment, and the Democrats are getting almost zero in return. There will be nothing in this final agreement, whatever it ends up looking like, that one could point to and say, "Look, that is a very progressive piece of legislation." No, it will all be big steaming piles of attempts at appeasing the radical right that really, really doesn't want to negotiate, even if negotiation were to give them 100% of what they want. The fact that they negotiated in the first place would be a major defeat for them, which is insane. That cannot continue if this country is to survive.

I don't know where this is all going to end and where the country will be when the Tea Party, a full 30% of the voting population of this country, gets its way. But I do know I probably won't recognize this country. At an emotional level, all I feel I can do at this point is to position myself as best I can, which luckily isn't that bad. I have a pretty good government job that will be there when I need it, unless the Tea Party decides that the FAA should be killed entirely, along with the EPA and all other government agencies that provide oversight and regulation of industry. I am not going to be rich in retirement, but it's beginning to appear that I'll do OK.

But actively trying to fight against this insanity that's gripped this country? And that's what it is, insanity.... I don't feel I can cope. My state votes exclusively by mail, so it's pretty easy for me to actually vote, so I might just throw it out there anyway. But really, enthusiasm about re-electing President Obama? Nope, my heart's not in it.

Here is the image that comes to mind for me when I think of the Tea Party.

I hope that everyone remembers what happened to Colin Clive at the end of the film.

What do you want to bet....?

If the U.S. government defaults on its payments and, as a result, Social Security checks do not get mailed out, the Republicans will try to blame Obama?

OK, that's not much of a wager. That is pretty much a given.

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.)

Republicans have lost their entire grip on reality.

Crazy doesn't even begin to explain this. One huge reason that I haven't been blogging in the last month is that I can't even begin to talk about how crazy this all is.... It's all been said before, so there really isn't any reason for me to try to reword what has already been written by more literate writers than I.

Parts of the FAA will be shut down tonight because Republicans want to make it more difficult for railroad and airline workers to unionize. Although I am safe for the moment, if the impasse goes on for too long (and I have absolutely no idea how long is "too long"), I will probably be out of a job as well. The government will probably end up going into default on payments on money that has already been spent because Republicans want.... I don't even know what they want anymore. For every single instance of someone on the right saying "This is what we are fighting for," you can find several instances of them doing exactly the opposite of what they are saying they support.

I am just in awe about how insane one of our two main political parties has gotten. Let's all hope the consequences of defaulting by the U.S. government are as bad as many are saying they will be, and these warnings are coming from BOTH the left and right. But the current Republicans absolutely don't care. They want to blow stuff up.

I see absolutely no path for this country ever to recover from this mess that started (in my mind) with George Bush getting the 2000 election handed to him by the Supreme Court. All we need is for a horse to somehow get appointed as a senator. The craziness will be complete at that point.

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.

Obama-bots deployed to force white, heroic Americans to become socialists and have abortions.

"Come! I shall now murder your unborn baby, even though you are not pregnant."

Obama-bots, or O-bots as they are affectionately called, are indestructable. The product of the nefarious mind of George Soros and the Kenyan-Muslim Jihad and Chowder Society, these automatons were created solely to destroy the God-Fearing United States of America. In its place, a trans-national Muslim caliphate will be created. White people will be forced to bow down to all to scary brown and black people and be forced to sit in the back of the bus. All Christians and Capitalists will be brainwashed, by such entities as the Peace Corp., public schools, and Hollywood blockbusters, so that they won’t wish each other “Merry Christmas” and will demand that the Nanny-State-Government will coddle them when they fall down and get a boo-boo on their knees.

Publicity photo from “Target! Earth”

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.

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.

Republicans are apparently genetically incapable of not being assholes.

So, back in the days when George Bush was president, what were the rallying cries of Republicans back then, which apparently rebutted every single thing that Democrats ever said or did?

“Support Our Troops!”

“Remember 9/11!”

Ah, the good old days. Well… Those days have certainly passed, once a Democratic congress (now just Senate) and a Democratic president were elected. Republicans are under some sort of blood pact that says they must oppose every single thing that Democrats do, not matter if it is in direct opposition to the stances they took when the Republicans were in power. Every single thing. They are absolutely incapable of letting President Obama or Democrats in general being seen as having “won” something or other.

Case in point, 9/11 first responders. First, Republicans blocked providing healthcare coverage for those brave people who were the first into the scene, risking the same death that took so many of their fellow citizens. No, we can’t provide healthcare for them! That would be socialism! (Remember that little episode? It was called the Zadroga bill. The only reason it ended up passing was that Jon Stewart, on the Daily Show, went after Republicans for being such hypocrites. )

Now, some dumb cluck Republican representative stuck on some provision that requires these brave people, the ones that Republicans were so good as using as props when bashing Democrats, to undergo a security check to make sure they aren’t terrorists before they can get their benefits.

From TPM.

Medical providers will soon inform 9/11 first responders about a provision in the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation law that requires them to be run through the FBI's terrorism watch list before they can receive health care benefits.

According to a letter obtained by Michael McAuliff of the Huffington Post, Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is instructing health care providers to tell their patients about the provision before they can begin to receive benefits in July.

The provision was tacked on by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) during the contentious fight over the bill in December, which was blocked by Republicans at the time. Stearns' amendment adds a paragraph stipulating the "disqualification of individuals on the terrorist watch list," and requiring each potential beneficiary to be run through the list.

McAuliff reports participants "will soon be told that their names, places of birth, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data will be provided to the FBI to ensure they are not terrorists."

This is an example of why I hold absolutely no hope of American society ever recovering from the Bush years. Republicans, along with their corporate leash-holders and their attack dog media, cannot bring themselves to do the right thing if it means being on the same side of the fence, or even somewhere near the same fence, as Democrats. Democrats, by definition, are evil and want to destroy this country, so they must be opposed at every turn. No surrender, no retreat, no hint of contrition, even when it comes to something like this. What person in their right mind is going to think that these first responders are terrorists? What sort of warped logic is that?

I was about to call this guy a toad, but that would be insulting to not just toads, but all amphibians. What a small, small person. "Vindictive" doesn't even begin to put a label on this guy. "Spiteful" and "malicious", perhaps. I have to wonder how these Republicans live with themselves. But for some reason, I have to suspect this idiot actually feels GOOD about doing this. "He! He! I really stuck it to those Democrats with that one!"

As I think I said in a previous post, the only silver lining I can see out of all of this is that Republicans may be in the process of alienating every single person in the country that isn't white, over 50 and either belongs to a country club or is very ignorant of current events and believes every single thing that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh tells them. The next election is going to be very interesting, indeed.

Update: More Republican asshole-ishness, from Michigan Messenger, via Crooks and Liars.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how Republicans have any support from individual Americans anymore.

Every single thing that the Republican Party does these days is either to A) give massive amounts of power and money to individuals and corporations who already have money and power and B) propose to take away programs and benefits from the middle and lower class. Every single f*cking thing.

Increasing the tax rates on millionaires and billionaires is now apparently some sort of “Third Rail” in American politics (translation: Like the high voltage rail in a subway railroad track, touch it and you die). We cannot even begin to talk about closing tax loopholes for huge corporations, such that companies like GE and Boeing not only don’t have to pay income taxes, they actually get billions of dollars in rebates! And what kind of discussions are we having? Raising the retirement age. Doing away with the federally mandated minimum wage. Getting rid of Social Security, or else privatizing it so that these huge corporations can get their hands on all that money. Gutting public education and all sorts of public services for low income Americans. Getting rid of all unions, not just for public employees. You wait, it will happen.

How can the Republicans possibly keep selling themselves to the American public on being on their side and watching out for the concerns of everyday Americans? This is absolutely insane. During the healthcare debates of last year, what was one of the big anti-healthcare reform rallying cries we continually heard? “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” “Democrats are going to take away your Medicare!” And what does Paul Ryan’s proposed “budget” do? It does away with Medicare as we know it! It turns it into a voucher system that will go directly into the pockets of huge insurance corporations and medical providers!

How can this possibly happen? The Republicans in office must know they are full of crap. They cannot possibly believe they are doing all of this for “The American People.” They just cannot be either that stupid or unaware. Therefore, they must know they are lying through their teeth 90% of the time. I’m sorry, I don’t call people liars very often, but I just cannot see any other conclusion. And I certainly don’t see how the Republican supporters still believe that the Democrats are evil and are the ones that are, in their minds, trying to destroy the country. And how is the big media outlets not calling BS on all of this? Are Republicans so caught up in the prevailing Groupthink that they cannot see what is plainly in front of their collective noses? Is tribalism so rampant that they cannot imagine that “their side” is not the shining example of Truth and Righteousness that they have been told?

This is so crazy. I just don’t think anyone could have ever imagined something like this occurring.

Guess I will probably out of work next week.

Thanks to the Republicans. But, of course, they are already trying to blame the Democrats for any government shutdown that might occur. That's sort of like a bank robber going into a bank, taking a bunch of hostages that he threatens to kill if he doesn't get a million dollars and a helicopter, and then blames the police for making him shoot his hostages.

That is exactly what is going on with the Republicans.

If I was John Q. Public, I might tend to blame the side whose members are actually cheering about the possibility of a shutdown. And that ain't the Democrats.

Ah, well. I have lots of yard work that needs doing. I'll be too tired to spend any money, anyway.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 12:50 p.m. Pacific): I really didn't think we would get to this point. This is pretty incredible.

Here are a few things I have learned by poking around the internets in the last few minutes.

I would actually be one of the lucky government workers. I am certain to be designated a "non-essential" employee, which means they can let me go without screwing anything up in the immediate term. The unlucky ones, it turns out (such as, oh, Air Traffic Controllers), will be deemed to be "essential employees." That means they have to show up for work, even if the government gets shut down, but here is the kicker. They don't get paid until everything is back up and running again! Hey, worst of both worlds, yeah?

Another thing is that President Obama and the Democrats have agreed, in principle but not in specifics, to the 33 billion dollars in cuts that was initially put on the table by the Republicans. Yeah, they WANTED 66 billion in cuts, but my understanding is that 33 billion would have gone a long way toward their goals. Guess what? That isn't good enough anymore. Neither is getting a bill that would get the necessary majority in the House. John Boehner is now demanding that he get a bill that could be passed with a majority of JUST REPUBLICANS. No need for bi-partisan support when you can pass a bill with your simple majority, right? That's what the Republicans want now, or else they shoot the hostages.

I just cannot believe how absolutely insane this country has gotten in the last few years.

UPDATE II: No, "non-essential" government employees are still rather essential. They just aren't essential in highly critical, day to day work, such as, oh, Air Traffic Controllers and the like. The country can get along without us, for a little while anyway, for some time. But just wait until the military families stop getting paychecks or Republicans don't get their income tax return checks when they think they should, and you will start to hear about how "non-essential" we are.