Category Archives: Government

“Fraudulent,” “Fantasy,” “Con Game,” “Mathematically Impossible.”

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These are the words used to describe the Romney-Ryan budget plan by economists, The Washington Post, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and Bloomberg News.

Mitt says his plan will cut taxes for all Americans, increase defense spending and still cut the deficit.  And, get this; he claims that his plan will be “revenue neutral.” He says that the costs will be offset by the elimination of tax deductions.  Yet he steadfastly refuses to provide details.  The only cuts he’s mentioned are funding for Public Broadcasting and Planned Parenthood.

In fact, after more than a year of campaigning for the office of President of the United States, Mitt has not provided any numbers for his plan…until tonight.

During the second debate with President Obama, Mitt announced the number five…in reference to his 5-point plan for the economy.  But don’t expect Mitt to provide any details for that plan, especially with regard to his budget figures.

He either can’t, or won’t.

Romney can’t explain his budget plan.  Liein’ Ryan can’t explain it.  And one of the campaign’s top surrogates can’t explain it.  When Sen. Marco Rubio was asked by Lawrence O’Donnell to name the tax deductions that would be eliminated, he admitted he couldn’t name a single one.

Instead of offering details about his plan, all Mitt says is “trust me.”  Now, tell me, Mitt, why would we do that?  You say one thing today. Then a day or two later, you say something else.  You’ve had at least four answers to every question.  Indeed, you’ve had more positions than the Kama Sutra.

When it comes to your economic plan, Mitt, I’ll trust the opinions of President Obama, President Clinton, most independent media, and non-partisan economists.

Undermining Democracy.

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For more than 40 years, the Republican Party has been working to undermine our elections.  It first became apparent with the Watergate break-in, which was an obvious attempt to steal an election and subvert our constitution.

But the Republican strategy actually began a few years earlier, when Republican Vice-President Spiro Agnew used his position to create partisan distrust of our news media.  The attack on the media gained steam as ensuing Republican administrations appointed directors to the Federal Communications Commission with instructions to repeal the Fairness Doctrine.

They succeeded in 1987, giving birth to hyper-partisan TV networks such as Fox News Channel and right wing radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh.

In addition, Republicans began a partisan attack on our judicial system.  Once based on merit, the Supreme Court was changed by Reagan, George H. W Bush and George W. Bush when they nominated ideologues such as Thomas and Scalia to make decisions based on conservative “values.”  They were rewarded with Supreme Court rulings that equate money with free speech and corporations with individuals.

Of course, these decisions assured the Republican Party of an overwhelming campaign advantage funded by their multi-national corporate masters.

In the House of Representatives, former Speaker Newt Gingrich began a cleansing of moderate Republicans in order to assure party-line votes on virtually every issue.  And, in the Senate, Republicans began wielding the filibuster in record numbers to force Democratics to gain a super majority on even the most mundane of bills, such as nominations for Treasury, State, EPA, Education, Justice, ATF, and federal judgeships.

In order to win elections, Republicans created divisive issues villifying minorities, immigrants and gays, then loaded the airwaves with negative ads in hopes of disgusting voters, thereby suppressing votes by all but their most right wing base.

When they lost by a landslide in 2008, Republicans tried to convince voters that the elections were stolen without providing a shred of actual evidence.  They then set about creating laws and reducing polling hours to suppress votes in mostly Democratic areas by demanding photo IDs that are sometimes expensive and hard to obtain.

Republicans have tried to bust unions in hopes of ending union campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.  They have tried to defund Planned Parenthood, not just because they disagree with abortion, but because it represents a reliable Democratic voting bloc.  They have also tried to defund public broadcasting in hopes of destroying the last truly independent news network.

Republicans have even defunded education at every level.  After all, an uneducated and uninformed electorate is more easily deceived by Fox News and other Republican-controlled media.

Despite all of this, surveys show that if every eligible voter went to the polls, President Obama and Democrats would win handily.  Let’s make sure enough of these people vote to spoil the Republican strategy.

Ayn Rand And Liein’ Ryan.

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In the 1950s and 60s, Ayn Rand authored a series of books which focused on the virtues of individualism versus collectivism. Having grown up in Russia and the Soviet Union, she believed that government, religion, social organizations, even charities are evil.

For those of us who were raised in democracies during the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, it was difficult to imagine the appeal of such a narrow-minded, selfish philosophy.  Yet congressman and vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, has repeatedly credited Rand as his inspiration for public service.

Of course, he says he doesn’t accept all of Rand’s beliefs.  After all, Rand was a pro-choice aethist while Ryan says he’s a pro-life Catholic.

Moreover, Rand, in the last years of her life, decided that collectivism wasn’t all bad, especially when she could cash Social Security checks and let Medicare pay for her healthcare.  Yet these are the very programs that Ryan wants to get rid of.

But maybe Ryan isn’t so different from Rand, after all.  Although Ryan hates the federal government, he happily cashes government checks for his congressional salary.  He gladly accepts his government-paid healthcare.  He works out in a government-owned gym.  And I’m betting that, if Ryan and his Teapublican buddies don’t kill Social Security and Medicare first, they’ll happily accept those benefits to go along with their government pensions.

It would seem that, in Ryan’s mind, government programs are only bad when the money goes to someone else.

I’m reminded of the true story of W.C. Fields.  Although he was an avowed aethist, a friend found him reading the Bible on his death bed.  When the friend asked why, Fields responded, “Looking for loopholes.”

To learn about more of Ryan’s lies, read The Teapublican Book of Lies available at Amazon.com and other on-line bookstores.

Hey, Darrell Issa, Investigate This!

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Since Teapublicans took control of the House, Congressman Darrell Issa has used the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to conduct investigations (witch hunts would be a more accurate description) intended to embarrass the Obama administration.

First, Issa went after Solyndra, but that investigation uncovered no wrongdoing and actually led back to the Bush administration (oops).  Next, he went after Fast and Furious, the ATF and the Department of Justice.  While he found problems with the Phoenix office of the ATF, he uncovered no wrongdoing by the DOJ or Secretary Eric Holder. 

Now Issa is threatening to investigate the Bureau of Labor Statistics September jobs report.  (After all, with the Teapublican stonewalling of the President’s jobs bills, how could the economy possibly have created so many jobs?)

But Issa and the rest of the Teapublican torch and pitchfork crowd are missing a real scandal.  In the midst of their investigation of State Department security policies following the murder of our ambassador to Libya, Teapublican Congressman Jason Chaffetz admitted that he and the GOP-controlled House had cut funding for embassy security prior to the attack.

Now that’s something worthy of a serious investigation.

How Should Democrats Respond?

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If President Obama (cringe) loses this election and Democrats (gasp) lose the majority in the Senate, how should Democrats respond?  Should they use the filibuster as much as Teapublicans?  Should they follow the Teapublicans’ example and automatically oppose everything President (choke) Romney supports.

It would be fitting.  But Democrats are less wed to ideology than Teapublicans.  And they seem to care more about the nation’s future.  After all, how did Al Gore respond when the election was stolen from him in 2000?  He didn’t make media appearances criticizing President Bush.  Instead, he asked Democrats to let it go and pull together for the sake of the nation.  And how did Democrats respond when they discovered Bush took us to war in Iraq on false pretenses?  Most took the high road.

Senator Conrad’s admission on Fox News that he advised President Obama to not publicly support the Simpson-Bowles Committee’s debt-reduction plan for fear that Teapublicans would automatically oppose it should be eye-opening for anyone so insulated as to not have noticed the blind anti-Obama fervor of Teapublicans.  They have stonewalled virtually every initiative from the Obama administration from the start.  They have even denounced and voted against their own ideas as soon as President Obama appeared to endorse them.  Then they falsely accused the administration of not including them in negotiations.

It would be justifiable for Democrats to turn the tables on a Teapublican administration.  But what would that accomplish?  More partisanship.  More acrimony.  And more hatred.

But it could be even more harmful to our nation to allow a Teapublican administration and Congress to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, to attack Iran, to expand class warfare on the middle class and the poor, to trash our environment, to privatize schools, and to reward the Teapublican’s corporate masters.

Should that circumstance arise, Democrats will be faced with some very difficult decisions.

But we can avoid the problem.  Polls tell us that the majority of Americans support Democratic ideas.  Let’s make sure that all Democrats and liberal-leaning independents vote!

Why Teapublicans See Cheating Everywhere.

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In 2000, voter suppression in Florida gave the White House to George W. Bush.  Even though investigations proved the election was stolen, Democrats accepted the results for the good of the country.

But after Barack Obama’s landslide victory in 2008, Republicans claimed that ACORN had stolen the election for Democrats.  Lengthy investigations found absolutely no evidence of voter fraud.  Nevertheless, Republicans refused to accept President Obama’s legitimacy.  They questioned his citizenship.  They blocked and obstructed every presidential decision and appointment setting a record for the number of filibusters and holds on appointments.

For the past four years, Republican legislatures and governors have passed new voter ID laws in order to prevent many Democrats from voting.  They have instituted voter purges in heavily populated Democratic voting districts. 

Now they claim the polls have been rigged to show President Obama with a lead over Mitt Romney.  And they claim that the Obama administration has rigged the job numbers to show that the economy is better than it really is.  Of course, if the polls are rigged, then they’re being rigged by both liberal and conservative media.  And the administration has absolutely no influence over the reporting of jobs data.  Indeed, the data actually lags behind independent payroll data from ADP.

Why are Teapublicans so determined to find fraud by Democrats when there is none?  I’d suggest it’s the result of a guilty conscience.  Since Teapublicans so readily steal, cheat and lie, they assume everyone does.

Truth is, Teapublican ideas are not popular with most working Americans.  To compensate, Teapublicans pour money into commercials filled with patently false charges against their opponents.  They steal opposing candidate’s signs.  They vandalize cars sporting opponent’s bumper stickers.  And they cry foul whenever something goes against them.

If Teapublicans really want to find cheaters and bullies, all they have to do is look in a mirror.

The Etch-A-Sketch Debate.

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We should have seen it coming.  For months, Mitt Romney ran further and further to the right.  Then during last night’s debate with President Obama, Romney did an about face.  Living up to the Etch-A-Sketch strategy that Mitt’s campaign manager promised following the Teapublican primaries, he abandoned most of the right wing rhetoric and ideas he promoted in the primaries and promised to be a moderate healer, instead.

Defying arithmetic, he promised to increase spending for the military, cut taxes for everybody, cut healthcare costs while repealing Obamacare, increase spending for education and student loans, increase spending for Medicare and Medicaid, maintain Social Security and create 12 million jobs.

Whew!

And, of course, while doing all that, he promises to cut the deficit and the national debt – all without revealing a single detail or plan other than to say he would cut funding for PBS and Big Bird.

Disregarding the fact that there is no possible way to pay for his promises, has he forgotten that he’s living in the 21st century?  We have an endless number of video recordings which show him saying that he will privatize Social Security, voucherize Medicare, slash Medicaid spending, eliminate the Department of Education, cut taxes for the wealthy, cut taxes for businesses, eliminate tax deductions for the middle class, cut Pell grants for students and turn back the clock on healthcare.

About the only thing consistent with his statements in previous speeches and debates was the promise to increase defense spending even more than the Department of Defense has asked for.

Of course, political pundits have already concluded that Romney won the first debate.  If so, it was only because President Obama couldn’t tell who he was debating.  It wasn’t Mitt.  It was some guy who looks like Mitt but who was espousing a completely different platform from the plutocrat who won the Teapublican nomination.  That Mitt was decidedly anti-middle class, anti-woman, anti-health reform, anti-green energy, anti-small business, anti-entitlement, anti-education, anti-government, anti-environment, and pro-war.

It’s not easy debating someone who’s willing to lie about absolutely anything and everything to get elected.

Teapublican Obstinance Jeopardizing Economy Again.

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Last Fall, Teapublican demands that Democrats make drastic cuts to the so-called “entitlement” programs led our still fragile economy to the very brink, resulting in the first ever downgrade of our credit rating.  While Democrats were willing to make cuts, Teapublicans steadfastly refused to consider revenue increases such as letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those who make more than $250,000 per year in adjusted gross income.

Now Teapublicans are at it again.

They refused to discuss the budget and debt ceiling until after the election, hoping that they would gain control of the White House or Senate so they could force through their own agenda.

In the meantime, the uncertainty is causing manufacturers and other large corporations to hold back on investments in production and hiring.  As a result, our economy is growing at a much smaller rate than it might otherwise.  And, if Teapublicans again push deficit discussion to the brink, they just might cause our economy to go over the cliff again.

Don’t believe me?  Read It’s Even Worse Than It Looks by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein.  It details the history of the dysfunction of our political system and places much of the blame on Newt Gingrich and the new breed of ideologues in the Teapublican caucus.  And before you think the authors are “wild-eyed” liberals, Mann is a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and Ornstein is a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Obama’s America In 2016.

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The shockumentary “2016” provides one man’s view of what America will be like in 2016 should President Obama be re-elected.  The future it portrays would be dim, indeed, IF this example of Teapublican propaganda were true.

But “2016” is based on a false premise…that President Obama is un-American.  That he’s a socialist out to destroy the very nation he has sworn to protect.

In truth, given his history of accomplishment against long odds, no one represents the American Dream better than Barack Obama.  And despite Teapublican rhetoric (and the film’s premise), Obama’s policies are decidedly not un-American.  In fact, the reverse is true.  It is the continuation of Teapublican policies that threatens to undermine our democracy.

For 40 years, the GOP (Guardians Of Privilege) have weighted tax cuts to aide the wealthy and large, multi-national corporations.  They have engaged in union-busting and cut funds for the poor.  They have used those in the military to pursue their goals of international domination and they’ve abandoned them as soon as they were injured or retired.  In order to win election, they have vilified teachers, firefighters, our postal service, government employees and immigrants.  In order to maximize the profits of multi-nationals, the GOP has proposed to eliminate the agencies responsible for clean air, clean water and product safety.  GOP policies have even rewarded those who ship jobs overseas and who take advantage of offshore tax havens.

President Obama threatens to change all that.  He dares to propose tax fairness, higher standards for fuel efficiency, sustainable forms of energy, investment in infrastructure, improved education and incentives to bring jobs home to the US.

So every time you see an ad for “2016,” imagine how much better off we’ll be with President Obama in the White House than with Mitt the Twit and his 47 percent-hating plutocrats.

The Corporatization Of America.

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Teapublicans are fond of calling President Obama a socialist, a communist or worse.  Of course, there is absolutely no evidence to substantiate their claims.

Most likely, the reason for their accusations is to distract voters from recognizing what’s really happening to their country.  Over the past 40 years, Teapublican policies have given virtually all of the political power to large, multi-national corporations as well as the very wealthy and the very powerful. They’ve accomplished this through the systematic use of propaganda.

Following more than a decade of acccusations that mainstream media was liberally-biased, they were able to repeal the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.  Within 20 years of the repeal, 91 percent of talk radio was conservative blather, giving them a large megaphone with which to peddle their ideas.

In the 1980s, Republican-appointed bureaucrats (along with a few Democrats) approved an unprecedented number of mergers and acquisitions in defiance of monopoly laws.  It was done under the guise of globalization; to better prepare American corporations to compete with European and Japanese businesses.  As part of this globalization, multi-national corporations were permitted (actually incentified) to ship manufacturing jobs overseas in order to cut labor costs and crush labor unions.

The Free Trade Act, intended to make it easier to export our products, instead made it even easier to export our jobs.  It also allowed our subsidized agri-businesses to dump cheap corn into Mexico and Central America, displacing tens of thousands of small farmers.

When Americans began to recognize the full impact of jobs being sent overseas, Teapublicans created straw dogs.  Prior to elections, they proposed so-called “values” legislation banning abortions, banning gay marriage, and denouncing so-called attacks on Christianity in order to distract voters.  They blamed our economic problems on immigrants, unions, “entitlements,” government employees, teachers and first responders to keep voters from focusing on the real issues.

Conservative Supreme Court justices ruled that money equals free speech, and that corporations should enjoy the same rights as individuals.  Of course, these rulings allow multi-nationals to spend as much as they want to elect officials who will be most favorable to their issues.

To keep President Obama from meddling with their grand corporate plan, Teapublican legislatures passed a variety of strict voter ID laws to disenfranchise many of those most likely to vote for Obama.  Now they’re crying “Class Warfare” and “Redistribution of Wealth!”

Will they continue to get away with this corporate takeover?  Or will the majority of Americans finally recognize what’s happening and take our country back?