Why Is Anyone Listening To The #@$%*#& Tea Party?

What is so hard about this? Congress is struggling to fashion a compromise agreement on a bill to raise the debt ceiling. The Republicans are insisting on attaching unrelated provisions to the bill to satisfy the tantrums of Tea Party-affiliated members who are demanding deficit reduction that imposes severe spending cuts but permits no revenue raising through tax reform and the elimination of loopholes.

But who is being represented by the advocates of spending cuts, which include cuts to critical programs like Medicaid? Who is being represented by the opponents of increased revenues achieved by asking corporations and the rich to share in the sacrifice required to bring our nation back to economic health?

The truth is that no one but a few extremist right-wingers are represented by the positions to which the GOP has lashed itself. Here’s the proof:

Debt Solutions

It is almost unheard of to get 72% of Americans to agree on any politically contentious issue. Yet here we have 72% of the country agreeing that the rich are not presently paying their fair share, and that Medicaid should not be cut. And isn’t just a bunch of socialist lefties. This includes majorities of both Independents and Republicans. Let the significance of that sink in. It is not just a fair number of Republicans, it is a MAJORITY of Republicans.

So for whom is House Speaker Boehner fighting? For whom is Senate Minority Leader McConnell fighting? It obviously is not their GOP constituents. In fact, they are betraying their constituents and putting the whole nation at risk in order to pacify a cabal of small-minded, short-sighted, ill-informed, intransigent malcontents known as the Tea Party.

Of course, there is really no such thing as the Tea Party. There are no Tea Party candidates; no Tea Party policies; no registered Tea Party voters. It is nothing more than a radical faction of the GOP that has canonized the Founding Fathers and debased the Constitution with simplistic misinterpretations and ritual recital.

With poll results like those above, it is unfathomable that Republicans in congress give such a wide berth to their tea-besotted cousins. And the same goes for the media. When news networks placate TeaPublicans by employing them to provide commentary and analysis for that point of view, they are, in effect, giving ultra-conservative Republicans an additional voice that they do not provide to progressive Democrats.

It is clear that the Tea Baggers are wildly out of touch with the mainstream of America and they should not be afforded the special treatment they receive. They are merely an annoyingly squeaky wheel with no popular support. They degrade the debate with their stubborn attachment to dubious dogma. Even the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page declared that “Republicans are not looking like adults to whom voters can entrust the government.” Actually, they aren’t even looking like children:

Regardless of how the debt ceiling debate shakes out, the media, as well as our congressional representatives, need to recognize that the Tea Party is unworthy of the outsized consideration they receive. They haven’t earned it and they don’t deserve. And catering to their hysterics is counterproductive and worse, destructive. With the abundance of evidence that they are a poorly attended party that is located far beyond the boundaries of common sense, the question remains…..

Why Is Anyone Listening To The #@$%*#& Tea Party?

GOP Senators Loved Raising The Debt Ceiling Until…

Republicans in congress have been holding the American people hostage for weeks now. Despite the fact that nearly every credible analyst – economists, politicians, academics, etc. – agree that a default by the United States would bring about an economic calamity, the GOP is still threatening to submit the nation to that fate if Democrats do not capitulate to the Tea Party platform of austerity for average Americans and opulent prosperity for the richest one percent.

Make no mistake, the Republicans know exactly what their threat entails. They know that default would be catastrophic. We know because they’ve said so. And we know because we have their voting record to prove it. Between the years 2002 and 2008 Republicans voted repeatedly to raise the debt ceiling while George W. Bush was in the White House. So what changed?

GOP Debt Votes

Oh yeah — that.

The Republican’s are playing “Chicken” with our economy. They don’t care about the deficit. They don’t care about taxes. They certainly don’t care about the elderly or the poor or you or me. They only care about their wealthy benefactors, the billionaires and corporations who bankroll their campaigns. And, of course, their obsession with defeating President Obama next year. They know that a bad economy makes things more difficult for incumbents to get reelected, so they are endeavoring to produce such an outcome to achieve their political goals – at the expense of everyone else and multiple future generations.

Thanks GOP. And thanks Corporate Media for failing to report this in context.

Whose Side Are You On, Reagan Or Labor?

FYI: The headline of this article is a trick question.

In the long-running debate over government spending, Republicans have repeatedly brought up unrelated issues connected to worker’s rights and collective bargaining. GOP governors across the nation are attempting to use the economic crisis to break unions and rollback the gains that working Americans have achieved over decades of organizing with massive popular support.

However, these regressive politicians who are doing the bidding of their wealthy, corporate benefactors, have a stark disagreement with one of their professed heroes:

Let me repeat that:

“Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”

That’s right. None other than the sainted Ronald Reagan recognized how valuable unions are to America. This comment is more than a passive bit of pandering to working class constituents. It is an unambiguous affirmation that unions are not just a tangential group of negotiators for farmers or factory workers, but a vital institution that is a necessary component of freedom.

This should not come as too much of a surprise when considering that Reagan was the first, and only, union president (Screen Actors Guild) who ever ascended to the presidency of the United States.

Nevertheless, GOP governors have been bad-mouthing unions and their members for months (years, really). They refer to them as thugs and conjure up Mafioso imagery. They have embarked on a coordinated campaign to smear and discredit the very organizations that are standing up for our nations citizens and families, most of whom are working people, not wealthy hedge fund managers. It’s dishonest and dangerous and intended to harm average Americans.

Speaking of dangerous, the GOP governors who are mounting these attacks are represented by the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA). That’s the organization that Rupert Murdoch gave a million dollars to last year. Well, I would stay away from their web site. Norton Internet Security, a leading Internet software company that monitors web safety, reports that the RGA.org is “Unsafe” with six live computer threats.

Republican Governor's Association

The irony is delicious. The Republican governors web site is unsafe, a threat even, just as are the policies of their members.

[Update} This morning the RGA’s site status by Norton changed to “Untested.” That’s still not particularly comforting. However, it is also not nearly as accurate. The GOP’s policies have been tested and they do not work. We’ve had Bush’s tax cuts for the rich (I mean “job creators”) in place for ten years. Where are the jobs?

Who Is Really Responsible For The National Debt?

The debate over whether to increase the debt ceiling has included relentless assertions as to who is responsible for the nation’s debt having skyrocketed to its present state. The media has utterly failed in presenting the issue objectively. So here it is (pdf) from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office:

National Debt Chart

The Republicans have increased the national debt far more than Democrats in the last five administrations, including that of the sainted Ronald Reagan. If the Tea Party were to honestly observe the reality of the nation’s economic history they would all be voting Democratic. Unfortunately, the Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the the Republican Party and Americans for Prosperity and is unlikely to alter their support for the GOP. However, that shouldn’t stop the press from accurately reporting the truth about the debt.

An Alien Discovers Paul Ryan’s Republican Budget

Last week the Republicans walked out of the congressional deliberations regarding the debt ceiling. They continue to hold the nation’s economic survival hostage to their obsession for ever more benefits for the wealthy and cuts for the needy – the Republican Model of Shared Sacrifice. As usual, the press fails to put into context the core differences between the Democrats and Republicans. However, those differences are pretty easy to figure out and they have been itemized by economists at the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.

“House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan would get nearly two-thirds of its $4.5 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve people of limited means.

If an alien exploring the Earth were to draw conclusions about what the most pressing problems are for its inhabitants based on the Ryan budget, it would probably look something like this:


What it boils down to is that Republicans think that the current deficit problems should be resolved by cutting services to seniors, poor children, the disabled, and other low-income Americans. These freeloaders should bear the the burden of restoring our economy’s health, while the wealthy get more tax relief so that they can buy bigger boats and save for their luxury retirement.

Why anyone would think that working Americans and their families should suffer in order to repair problems caused by corporations and Wall Street bankers is unfathomable. But that’s what the GOP is proposing and they’re willing to send the nation into a disastrous default if they don’t get their way.

Republicans Can’t Take A Joke – Unless It’s Racist

Much of the political press is buzzing today over the appearance of an Obama impersonator at the Republican Leadership Conference yesterday.

Reggie Brown took the stage and immediately endeared himself to the audience by taking a shot at Al Gore. This was followed by a long string of “self”-deprecating jokes aimed at President Obama, many of which straddled a racially precarious line.

The audience was unfazed by most of it, laughing heartily at jokes that portrayed the President as Fred Sanford or noted that he only celebrated half of Black History Month. The act was well received by the predominantly white audience with only scattered groans arising when Anthony Weiner’s groin was displayed on the big screen.

Eventually, however, Brown’s act was cut short by an official of the RLC and he was escorted off stage. For the most part the press has uniformly misinterpreted this as being the result of his “racially-tinged” material. But as I noted above, the audience was enjoying the race-based jokes. The boos began when Brown turned to the Republican field of presidential candidates. The first sign of trouble was a joke about Newt Gingrich’s faltering campaign. It escalated with references to Mitt Romney and the Mormon practice of polygamy. And the hook actually came in the middle of a bit on Michele Bachmann. See for yourself:

Clearly the act was aborted when the sensitivities of the crowd were challenged by material aimed at their standard bearers. It was not the racial material, which they welcomed with guffaws. Even Charlie Davis, the CEO of the RLC who made the decision to pull the plug, admitted that the beginning of the routine -the racially suspect part – was funny:

“I just thought he had gone too far,” Davis said. “He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”

What did he expect? If a comedian is going to impersonate Obama wouldn’t the President crack jokes about his opponents? The character demands that he do so. Personally, I wasn’t offended by any of the material, although I think that it may have been more appropriate for a more racially diverse audience. There was something about these jokes being delivered to such a uniformly white crowd that was uncomfortable. But Brown was not the one responsible for the act’s failure. It was the dumbass Republican operatives who thought that hiring Brown would go over well with this crowd.

Republicans are notoriously deficient of the humor gene. They’ve tried on numerous occasions to develop an answer to The Daily Show with zero success. Their comedic heroes are pathetic wannabes like Dennis Miller, Greg Gutfield, or even Glenn Beck. Part of the problem is that they simply can’t laugh at themselves. The most embarrassing thing about this event was not a misfiring Obama impersonator. It is that they yanked the comic for lighthearted pokes at the GOP, but sat through and appreciated borderline racist material.

CORRECTION: The most embarrassing thing about this event were the speeches by the actual Republican candidates and their supporters.

[Update] Reggie Brown tells CNN that he was cut off because he went over his allotted time. At least that’s what the RLC told him. But of course, they lied. The RLC president had already made this statement acknowledging that Brown was yanked for the content of his act:

“I just thought he had gone too far. He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”

Brown should seek a clarification. They are slandering him and lying about it. But I guess that’s force of habit for Republicans. They do that to Democrats every day.

How Roger Ailes And Fox News Have Sabotaged the GOP

Originally published on Alternet

An article just published by New York Magazine is getting attention for its revelations about what Fox CEO Roger Ailes really thinks about his on-air personalities. The article titled “The Elephant in the Green Room,” began with this colorful introduction:

“The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election.”

This is not a new concept. In fact, I wrote about it in depth two years ago in “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party.” Amongst the insider disclosures in the NYMag article are that Ailes thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot who hasn’t helped the conservative movement. Ailes also reportedly worried that Glenn Beck had become bigger than Fox News and was uncontrollable. Both of those assessments are obviously true, but what is unsaid is even more interesting.

Roger Ailes is directly responsible for elevating Palin and Beck to their current celebrity status. He cannot absolve himself of having inflicted those pests on America without admitting how dreadfully wrong he was in the first place by promoting them. Furthermore, he cannot pretend that they are aberrations. The Fox schedule is rife with the very same pestilence (see Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck). It is their trademark and extends far beyond any individual personalities.

The case was made long ago that Fox News is a blight on the media map. It is bad for journalism. It is bad for Democracy. It is bad for America. A so-called “news” network that repeatedly misinforms, even deliberately disinforms, its audience is failing any test of public service embodied by an ethical press.

However, there is a case to be made that Fox News is demonstrably harmful to the Republican Party. In fact, it may be the worst thing to happen to Republicans in decades. That may seem counter-intuitive when discussing Fox News, the acknowledged public relations division of the GOP. Fox has populated its air with right-wing mouthpieces and brazenly partisan advocates for a conservative Republican agenda. They read GOP press releases on the air verbatim as if they were the product of original research. They provide a forum where Republican politicians and pundits can peddle their views unchallenged. So how is this harmful to Republicans?

If all we were witnessing was the emergence of a mainstream conservative network that aspired to advance Republican themes and policies, there would not be much of note here. Most of the conventional media was already center-right before there was a Fox News. But Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). So while most Americans have never heard of actual Republican party bosses like House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, posers like Joe the Plumber and Andrew Breitbart have become household names.

Fox News has descended into depths heretofore reserved for fringe characters. They are openly promoting the wackos who believe that President Obama is ineligible to hold office because he isn’t a U.S. citizen. They feature commentaries by secessionists and even those calling for an overthrow of the government and the Constitution. This development was inadvertently addressed by one of Fox’s own:

“If crazy ideologues have infiltrated the news business, we need to know about it.” ~ Bill O’Reilly, 7/16/09

Well said. The Fox News audience is being dumbed down by a parade of paranoid know-nothings. This strategy appears to be successful for Fox in that it has attracted a loyal viewership that is eager to have their twisted preconceptions affirmed. The conflict-infused fare in which Fox specializes has been a ratings juggernaut – just like any good fiction. However, this perceived popularity is having an inordinate impact on the GOP platform. By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders.

That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party. Most Americans do not believe that we are on a march toward socialism, led by a Muslim alien, and bankrolled by a Jewish Nazi sympathizer. The truth is that most Americans think that the loopy yarns spun by Fox News are fables told by madmen – and believed by even madder men and women who wallow in their doomsday utopia.

Consequently, the Party of Fox News has materially damaged their political allies in the GOP. Many of the recent candidates endorsed by Fox were embarrassing losers. There was Christine O’Donnell (DE), Joe Miller (AK), Ken Buck (CO), Linda McMahon (CT), Carly Fiorina (CA), Sharron Angle (NV), and Carl Paladino (NY). In every one of those cases the Tea Party candidate ousted the more establishment Republican, and then went on to defeat. And that was during a Republican wave election cycle.

This is a textbook example of how the extreme rises to the top. It is also fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Republican Party. The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds. It seems like such a waste after all of the effort and expense that Fox put into building a pseudo-journalistic enterprise with the goal of confounding viewers with false news-like theatrics.

The recent GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina illustrated this divide between the interests of Fox News and those of the Republican Party. The only candidates they could muster were second and third tier players with little chance of getting the nomination: Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain. These candidates generally pull in single digits in most polling. And of these, Cain, the pizza maven, was widely regarded as the winner by pundits and Fox focus groups.

The rest of the field has been dominated by sideshows like Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump, or abstainers like Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, Haley Barbour, and Mitch Daniels. This deficiency of serious contenders was lamented by Ailes in the NYMag article:

“Ailes’s ­candidates-in-­waiting were coming up small. And, for all his programming genius, he was more interested in a real narrative than a television narrative – he wanted to elect a president. All he had to do was watch Fox’s May 5 debate in South Carolina to see what a mess the field was – a mess partly created by the loudmouths he’d given airtime to and a tea party he’d nurtured.”

Ailes has no one to blame but himself. His mission for Fox News has always been to be the voice of the opposition. Yet, despite the torrid embrace between Republicans and Fox News, it is apparent that Fox is the source of a sort of friendly fire that is decimating the GOP by exalting its most outlandish and unpopular players. The Psycho-Chicken Littles are coming home to roost.

Even if we give Ailes the benefit of a doubt, and accept that he may have had an awakening and repentance, the disparaging characterizations of Beck and Palin are going to have to be addressed. Will Palin post an angry Tweet refudiating Ailes and defending her smartness? Will Beck place Ailes’ picture on his blackboard in between Karl Marx and Frances Fox Piven? Will Ailes issue a press release disclaiming the NYMag article? If so, he will, in effect, be re-embracing the unsavory characters from whom he seems so anxious to distance himself. So far, the only response has come in the form of a statement to the New York Times from Fox News executive vice president of programming, Bill Shine:

“I know for a fact that Roger Ailes admires and respects Sarah Palin and thinks she is smart. He also believes many members of the left-wing media are extremely terrified and threatened by her. Despite a massive effort to destroy Sarah Palin, she is still on her feet and making a difference in the political world. As for the ‘Republican close to Ailes’ for which the incorrect Palin quote is attributed, when Roger figures out who that is, I guarantee you he or she will no longer be ‘close to Ailes.'”

Is there any significance to the fact that Ailes did not respond himself? He is not exactly a shrinking violet. He has made it clear in the past that he would not tolerate anyone “shooting in the tent.” Yet now he is conspicuously silent and the statement from Fox defended only Sarah Palin. Fox didn’t refute the article’s characterization of Ailes’ view of the presidential field. There was also no denial that Ailes actively recruited Christie (and perhaps others) to run for president, not exactly the role of the head of a “fair and balanced” news network. Plus, it left out Beck entirely. There is more than a hint of plausibility that Ailes has deliberately withdrawn from criticizing the article. [Note: Neither Palin nor Beck has made a single public comment about this article either, despite their propensity for striking back at critics.]

So where does this leave Fox viewers? If Palin is an idiot and Beck is a lunatic, what shall we call the folks who have idolized them for so long? By finally telling the truth about his star pundits, Ailes has insulted his gullible audience. They obediently followed Caribou Barbie and the Weeping Profit for two years only to find out that they are frauds who don’t even have the respect of their co-workers or their boss. Who will lead them now? Charlie Sheen? Victoria Jackson? I believe Harold Camping may be available. Perhaps they could just let the people decide with new episodes of Tea Party Idol or So You Think You Can Rant.

Why Do Tea Baggers Idolize Ayn Rand?

I have never really understood how the Evanga-publicans, Tea Baggers, and Foxpods could have taken Ayn Rand to their hearts. She is a despicable proponent the most extreme brand of selfishness and Narcissism. (Hmm…maybe it’s not so hard to understand after all). And she is an avowed, nearly militant, atheist. How does that jibe with the Christo-centric rightist movement in America?

The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t. Rand’s philosophy would be abhorrent to conscious religious conservatives. The problem is that so many of them are closer to catatonic than consciousness. Thankfully, most Americans are more aware and have dismissed Rand and her breed of mean-spirited egoism. The recent film version of her “Atlas Shrugged” was a monumental failure, creatively and financially.

But that doesn’t mean that her fans are non-existent or immaterial. So it was nice to see this video from the American Values Network and the accompanying documentation of Rand’s dementia:

From the American Values Network web site:

Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged has been among Amazon’s top 20 best sellers for much of the past year. This year she’s outsold Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, and The Shack combined! Rep. Paul Ryan–the Republican choice to address the nation following the State of the Union and author of the Republican budget–credits Ayn Rand as the reason he got in to politics, and he requires all his staff and interns to read her books.

So who is Ayn Rand, and why this spike in interest in her teachings? Ayn Rand has resurfaced in recent years as the philosopher championed by the Tea Party and many prominent Republican leaders. But, as conservative evangelical icon Chuck Colson recently pointed out, Ayn Rand’s strong atheism, absolute rejection of Christ’s teachings, and goal of replacing religion with her belief system stands in total opposition to all that which America’s faith community holds most dear.

And a few quotes from Rand:

“I don’t approve of religion.”

“[Faith] is a sign of a psychological weakness. . . I regard it as evil to place your emotions, your desire, above the evidence of what your mind knows. That’s what you’re doing with the idea of God.”

“What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.”

“It must be either reason or faith. I am against God for the reason that I don’t want to destroy reason.”

Feel free to pass this on to anyone you know who has been suckered in by this freak.

Fox News GOP Debate Rejected By AP (And Candidates)

Fox NewsTonight is the night that virtually nobody has been waiting for. Fox News is sponsoring a Republican PR event disguised as a presidential primary debate. The participants are a collection of washouts who are taken seriously by no one and have no plausible chance of election.

Confirmed for this waste of primetime are Gary Johnson, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Tim Pawlenty. The list of those not participating is far more notable: Mitt Romney, Mitch Daniels, John Bolton, Michelle Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, and Donald Trump. Fox News couldn’t even get their own employees, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee, to show up.

Also not showing up will be the Associated Press. In an advisory published yesterday, the AP said…

“This is to inform you that The Associated Press is not planning to cover Thursday night’s Republican presidential candidate debate in South Carolina because of restrictions placed on media access. The debate sponsors, Fox News Channel and the South Carolina Republican Party, will only allow photos to be taken in the moments ahead of the debate and not during the event itself.

These are restrictions that violate basic demands of newsgathering and differ from other debates where more access was granted.”

The reason that the Fox-sponsored affair is violating the basic demands of newsgathering is that they are not a news enterprise. They are a Republican mouthpiece for right-wing propaganda. In that respect this debate is perfectly suited for the network. You can expect some of the most extreme rhetoric to be thrown around by the party’s most extreme elements.

Fox is going all out trying to salvage the event by hyping it incessantly for the past week. Every host of every program has been promoting the debate and interviewing the participants and moderators to pump up viewership. Some are making the ludicrous argument that the top-tier candidates will regret not having attended. They compare it to Rudy Giuliani’s decision to opt out of many of the early primaries in 2008. [Note to Fox: this is a debate, not a primary.] I think it will the participants who end up regretful.

I wish Fox well in promoting this event. The more people that see this circus, the better informed they will be about what a bunch of losers the GOP is harboring. And it is also likely to reflect on the unserious nature of Fox News itself. They have really gone out of their way to produce a comical sideshow that could have just been an episode Hannity, the program it is preempting.

Priorities USA: More Of This, Please

Prioroties USA just released this video exposing the dangers of the extreme (aka mainstream) Republican/Tea Party:

Transcript: The extreme right is aptly named. They are extremely powerful, extremely well-funded, extremely frightening, extremely paranoid, extremely hateful, extremely irresponsible, extremely ill-informed. And just plain extreme. Which makes them all extremely dangerous. It’s time to stand up and fight back. Join us at PrioritiesUSAAction.org. Taking on the politics of fear and smear.

This video addresses the cream of the rightist assault on America. It covers everything from the Koch brothers, to Glenn Beck to Karl Rove and more. The folks behind Priorities USA are familiar Democratic operatives like Bill Burton, former deputy White House spokesman. The group appears to be a lefty version of Rove’s CrossroadsUSA.

It’s about time. While these sort of groups are exploiting the onerous Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court that permits unlimited, anonymous donations by corporations, as long as that decision is the law of the land, the GOP should not be alone in benefiting from it. In fact, Democrats should exploit the hell out of it in the hopes that Republicans will eventually see the harm and join Democrats in drafting a legislative repeal.

So, as the video says, “It’s time to stand up and fight back.”