You Can’t Make This UP!

Not all of the Republican clowns are running for President. Karl Rove, AKA Turd Blossom, has collected millions of dollars from Wall Street to help Scott Brown defeat Elizabeth Warren in the Senate Race in Massachusetts. Rove is using some of that money to run advertisements accusing Ms. Warren of being a tool of Wall Street. Yes, the accused is that Elizabeth Warren, the feisty advocate for the middle class, the Elizabeth Warren who was so instrumental in establishing the Consumer Protection Bureau, the same Elizabeth Warren who is stridently calling for the reform of Wall Street. Someone should tell Turd Blossom that it is one thing to try to sell the stubborn, independent, Yankees of Massachusetts a bag of bullshit and quite another thing to throw great, steaming heaps of bullshit at those voters. The good people of Massachusetts have a history of reacting very strongly to someone who is insulting their intelligence in such a blatant manner. If I were Scott Brown I would disavow those advertisements and back as far away from them as possible.

Meanwhile, in the Presidential primary ring, the clown show continued. Mitt Romney showed just how out of touch he is during the last debate by challenging Rick Perry to a ten thousand dollar bet. The average family of this nation has an annual income of about sixty thousand dollars. This bet says it all. It explains why Mr. Romney would think that the thousand dollars the average family would save next year by the passage of the payroll tax cut is a mere drop in the bucket. During this same debate Newt Gingrich demonstrated what a shameless demagogue he is by calling the Palestinians a made up people. One would think that a supposed historian would know just how incendiary such a statement is! Such statements might earn Gingrich the dumb ass votes, but it is highly detrimental to our diplomatic efforts at a time when diplomatic success is so vital to our national interests.

Can The Democrats Be This Lucky?

Newt Gingrich? Really, Newt Gingrich is the leading Republican candidate! Yes that Newt Gingrich, the disgraced former speaker of the house who was forced out of congress in a bipartisan effort because of his violation of the rules of ethics. This is the Newt Gingrich who cost the Republicans an election because he was irresponsible enough to shut down the government at a time when the people of this country had this strange notion that a government should actually govern. This is the hypocrite who called for the impeachment of Bill Clinton over a sexual affair when Gingrich was also having such an affair. This is the shameless demagogue who panders to the baseless fear of the uneducated by advocating a constitutional amendment to prevent sharia law from replacing the constitutional amendments and other laws that already prevent sharia law in this country. This is the same Newt Gingrich who was paid millions of dollars by Freddie Mack, a pharmaceutical company and a health care organization and disingenuously insists he is not a lobbyist. I can understand why the Republicans are not eager to embrace the empty suit that is Mitt Romney, but Newt Gingrich has changed his positions on the issues almost as often as Mr. Romney has. The bottom line is that neither man stands for anything but his own self-promotion!

But wait! It gets even better! The Republican clown show has taken a bizarre twist in what has become a political bizarre where even amateurs, such as Herman Cain and Donald Trump, have come to sell their personalities and their wares. As Mr. Cain fades into the shadowy world of the also ran, the Trumpster is making a return appearance. There is a proposed debate in which this consummate huckster and self-promoter known as Donald Trump will serve as the moderator. Can you imagine electing the new apprentice to be the next President of the United States? Hang on to your seats, folks! You ain’t seen nothing yet!

Carousel Of Clowns

“Oh, the horses go up and down. The merry goes round and round…”

The music plays as Republican clowns riding papier-mâché horses made from special interest checks slide up and down the polls. Herman Cain is showing a rather remarkable dexterity. It is not easy to give voice to your ignorance while tripping over your own dick. The joke is not funny to the women he has landed on. Rick Perry is the better clown. Mr. Perry’s pratfalls on his cerebral frost are actually funny. The joke with Newt Gingrich is that the hawking of his snake oil is being disrupted by the ride. Unfortunately for him his calls of “look at me” are actually causing people to look at him rather than the snake oil he is trying to sell. Denying that he ever worked as a lobbyist simply reminds us of the violations of ethics that cost him his seat in the House of Representatives. Loosely attached to one of the horses is an empty suit with the brand name of Mitt Romney. That horse does not rise and fall as much as the other horses, but the empty suit still draws our attention by waving in any direction the political wind is blowing. Most of the pundits are predicting that the empty suit be at the top when the Republican carrousel stops.

The real joke is that there are actually people who are taking those clowns seriously. All of those clowns have one thing in common; they all advocate the same failed economic policies that ran us into the ditch and caused such a great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation! Clowns are often called fools and those fools are so intellectually bankrupt that they do not even heed the words of Henry Ford, who is often called our greatest industrialist. It was Henry Ford who told us that everyone prospers when the people who make the products can afford to buy the products! It will not matter which clown is on top when the Republican carrousel stops. If you vote for any of them, the joke is on you!

The Protests Are Real

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators who say they represent ninety-nine percent of the population are mainly young, middle class, and white. Many of them are deeply in debt because of the student loans they took out in order to get the education they needed to start their chosen careers. Now they cannot find jobs that will pay them much more than the minimum wage. They feel betrayed and rightly so. The great disparity in wealth between the top one percent and the rest of us is not lost on those young people. The only thing the people the Republicans called “job producers” seem to be producing is a great increase in their personal wealth. No ideological group or political party had to tell the demonstrators to object to the greed that is enriching the rich at the expense of the rest of us. The facts are self evident, and the demonstrators are reacting to those facts. They are not being transported to the locations of the demonstrations in buses provided by the Koch brothers; nor are they carrying signs with slogans provided to them by some political stink tank. The demonstrations are a genuine expression of the pain the majority of the people of this nation are feeling. Racial and ethnic minorities are suffering the most from the outrageous inequities in wealth. I fully expect those minorities to join the demonstrations soon. What we are seeing here is the beginning of a social and political movement.

The Washington Times has printed a list of demands from the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. Actually it is two lists. There was the original post and then an update that added to those demands. The additional demands are reasonable, and I agree with most of them. I was amused by a comment from one reader that called the first demands a fine example of communistic proposals. I agree that some of the demands are not practical, but this does not mean that we can or should dismiss the entire list. For instance, I do not think we can do away with free trade, but we do have to modify the all or nothing globalization or we will be left with nothing. Caterpillar and Whirlpool are just the latest examples of companies who have exported factories and jobs. I also agree that we need a single payer health care system. I do not think we can get a stimulus package that is as large as the one the demonstrators are proposing, but I do not think the American Jobs Act will be final solution either. I might add here that even the demands that appear to be too radical might be desirable if modified or scaled back a bit. The main thing is that all of the demands are addressing real problems that need to be addressed.

What we must bear in mind is that all real grass roots movements will over-reach at times. The opponents of those movements will always use what could be called the radical demands of the demonstrators to try to discredit the entire movement. There is a real danger in doing this because it escalates the attacks coming from both sides. The greater the opposition to needed reforms and the longer it takes to implement those reforms the greater the suffering will be. This has a strong tendency to radicalize the movement. The sooner we bring about meaningful reforms the better. There is absolutely no doubt that we cannot keep going the way we are going now! The key here is to prioritize and get the reforms started. If there is not an escalating improvement in our current situation there will be an escalating reaction to the injustices we perceive. That is not a threat it is merely an observation based on historical facts.

Please see my previous posts “In the Streets” and “Political ADD.”

Political ADD

For decades now a very large percentage of our citizens have been suffering from a mental disorder. The disorder I am referring to is PADD, Political Attention Deficit Disorder. Sadly, the people who are afflicted with PADD are the very ones who can least afford to deal with the consequences of this disorder. For twenty years now at least eighty per cent of our citizens have seen their incomes remain flat while the price of energy, food and housing rose. During that same time the top ten percent have seen their incomes grow and the top one percent have seen their incomes soar to unprecedented heights. This degeneration of the wealth of the middle class did not happen all at once. It took place over a period of time. The people noticed it as they struggled to make ends meet, but they did not think beyond their personal finances. This is understandable. Unless there is a national crises to draw their attention people will ignore the larger picture and concentrate on what they can do to provide for their families.

The crash of 2007 was such a crises, and the reaction to it was predictable. Even a majority of the people suffering from PADD voted for change by electing President Obama and the other Democrats running for office. Unfortunately, this vote for change was not an informed decision; rather it was an instinctive, emotional reaction. During the mid-term elections of 2010 the voters reacted emotionally again. The economy had improved by then, but unemployment was still at an unacceptable level. Furthermore, far too many people were still losing their homes, and the wages of the people who were fortunate enough to be employed were not increasing. So the voters blindly punished all incumbents, a very large percentage of which were Democrats. This incredibly stupid act on the part of the voters actually rewarded the Republican Party for its failed economic policies and its unconscionable obstruction of all reasonable attempts to relieve the suffering and get us out of the recession. So what accounts for such stupidity?

It has been said that they who do not know history are condemned to repeating it. What the people of this nation have forgotten is the very struggle that created the middle class in the first place. At the start of the twentieth century it was becoming obvious that unregulated capitalism was degenerating into the sort Social Darwinism that makes a few people unbelievably wealthy while everyone else is left with very little or nothing. Furthermore, Frederick Jackson Turner’s safety valve, the frontier, no longer existed. President Theodore Roosevelt reacted to the emerging oligopoly that was concentrating our resources, our means of production, and our wealth into fewer and fewer hands by breaking up the trusts in order to bring about the sort of competition that stimulates innovation and opportunity. As beneficial as the trust busting was it did not go far enough. The people soon realized that the greed of the few was insatiable. It was that greed that brought about the labor movement and the unions. By the time of the great depression the people of this nation had accepted the fact that they needed unions to collectively bargain with their employers. The depression also made them realize how much they needed a proactive government that would pass and enforce the regulations needed to keep the unscrupulous few from putting our entire economy at risk by taking unfair advantage of the many. The oligopoly and the Republican Party fought the reforms of President Theodore Roosevelt, even though he was a Republican. They also fought the labor unions, and they fought Franklin Roosevelt during the depression. They accused the labor unions and both Roosevelts of class warfare and of creating a big, oppressive government. If those charges sound familiar it is because the new oligopoly and the Republican Party are falsely using those same accusations against the Democrats today.

The difference between then and now is that the generation that suffered through the depression and the generation that fought in World War II were paying attention to what was really happening. They realized how hypocritical and false those accusations were. They knew which political party and which politicians where representing the people and which ones were selling out to the special interests. They had labor unions and other groups that helped to keep them informed and active. What changed this was an adjustment made by the Republican Party. With the election of Dwight Eisenhower the Republicans finally acknowledged that the political center had moved. Most people identified themselves as moderates, but even moderates were embracing the changes brought about by Franklin Roosevelt and by the labor unions that fought for fair wages and safer work places. What Eisenhower taught the Republican Party was that it had no choice. If it was to remain a viable political party it had to accept the regulation of Wall Street and the banks, it had to accept the anti-trust laws that prevented monopolies, and it had to accept Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and the other safety nets. With both parties now trying to occupy the middle ground a nap was sounding pretty good to the voters. Neither party seemed inclined to do anything too damn radical, and the voters felt free to concentrate on their daily lives without worrying too much about what their government might be doing.

The Republicans, however, had accepted the changes of the New Deal grudgingly. In the early nineteen sixties they decided to test the political waters by nominating Barry Goldwater as their Presidential candidate. This hard turn to the right was a wake up call, and the voters handed the Republicans a stinging rebuke. The Republicans reacted to this by returning to the center. Vietnam and the civil rights movement then provided a jolt no one could sleep through. The combination was devastating in many ways. It was an era in which much needed changes took place, but the war and the effort it took to accomplish those needed changes left the people of this nation totally exhausted. As Harding said before the great depression, the people wanted “a return to normalcy.” The general attitude was “enough with the social movements and the politics. Let me get on with my life.” The people then stopped paying attention. They accepted as a fact the notion that each generation would be better off than the preceding generation. They saw no need to pay that much attention to the larger picture. They believed that if they worked hard and made the right decisions everything else would take care of itself. This is how we got Political Attention Deficit Disorder, another Harding in the form of George W. Bush, and another economic crises.

Because of PADD we became too lethargic to see how the need to raise enough money to cover the increasing costs of political campaigns was perverting our political system. Now that our politicians are so dependent on the support of the special interests, the strategy of those interests has become quite simple: “Keep the public in the dark and the political wheels well greased.” The Republicans are more than happy to serve their wealthy masters by keeping us in the dark. They do this by eagerly quoting Ronald Reagan: “Government is not the solution it is the problem,” they say. The Republicans want us to believe that it is the power of the government to govern rather than the power of money that corrupts our politicians. The reasoning, if you can call it that, is that a government that does not govern, tax, or regulate cannot be corrupt because it has nothing to sell. If you do not breath you will not get lung cancer either. The result of accepting this nihilistic crap is already apparent. Not since the gilded age following the Civil War has there been a time when so many politicians have done so much for so few at the expense of so many.

The generations before us knew better. They knew that the solution must be political because it is only by exerting our collective strength in the form of our government that we can curb the greed of the few and maintain a system that provides opportunities for all. The first step in doing this is to deal with the corrupting influence of money. In talking about political corruption and graft the old political boss, Plunkett of Tamanny Hall, once said, “it is the pigs that do not know when to back away from the trough who get caught.” Invariably those pigs will use the excuse that everyone does it, thereby demonstrating the need to prevent anyone from doing it. The first step in preventing anyone from doing it is to make an example of the pigs that are greedy enough to draw attention to it by getting caught. In this case the pigs are the Republicans and the blue dog Democrats. It is the Republicans and the blue dogs that oppose the regulations needed to keep Wall Street and the banks from crashing our economy again. It is the Republicans and the blue dogs that oppose making the corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of the taxes. It is the Republicans and the blue dogs that are blocking all reasonable efforts to create jobs, and it is the Republicans and the blue dogs that are fighting our efforts decrease the influence money has on our politicians by opposing our efforts to reform the way we finance political campaigns. The first step then is to vote the Republicans and the blue dogs out of office.

In order to do this we must jar the hell out of the people suffering from Political Attention Deficit Disorder. This will require a movement they cannot ignore. The first phase of any movement is the expression of dissatisfaction. But the anger must be well directed and the goal must be positive reform. In that regard the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are useful. As unfocused as the demonstrators are they are drawing attention to what is happening to us. We must let them know they are not alone. We are all feeling the pain that makes them demonstrate. The next phase is to take some positive political action. Holding accountable the worst politicians who are so shameless in the way they serve Wall Street and the other special interests to the detriment of the rest of us will be the first sign that the movement is taking the action it needs to take in order to gain the necessary political power to fight those interests. This should be done as an in your face demonstration of political power that cannot be ignored. The Demonstrators should get behind the American Jobs Act as well. This will show the low information voters and the Democratic Party that the movement has positive goals and is not simply looking for scapegoats. This is the way to gain credibility and momentum. The power to help pass legislation and the willingness to punish opponents will make a major political party pay attention to us. Just look at what the tea party has done to the Republican Party. The difference between the tea party and us, however, is that the tea party has a negative agenda whereas we must have a positive agenda. I will submit to you that returning the control of our government back to the people and rebuilding an equitable economy is a positive agenda.

I believe that the goals of the Occupy Wall Street Demonstrators are our goals. Those goals will not be easy to accomplish. Rebuilding our economy and restoring an equitable distribution of the wealth will require sweeping reforms that will not take place until we greatly decrease the influence money has on our political system. As I said in my previous post, we need a constitutional amendment to change the way campaigns are financed. Passing such an amendment will take time, a tremendous effort, and a strong belief that we, the people, have the power to make it happen. We have to start building the political momentum now. To the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators I say keep demonstrating, but do not lose sight of the larger goals. Realize that the political power we must gain to accomplish those goals will require us to achieve a pattern of success. Taking this country back will depend on our ability to win more than one battle. Few wars are won or lost in a single battle, and this is a class war in the same sense that the labor movement was a class war! Among the things labor unions won for us are the eight hour work day, safer work places, and reasonable wages. In order for labor unions to accomplish those goals they had to break the hold the business tycoons had on our politicians. It was a very difficult, sometimes violent, struggle, but the middle class the labor movement created gave us the most prosperous market economy in the world. That is what we must now fight to restore!

In The Streets

For several years I have been asking: Where are the demonstrators? Where are the outraged feminists who should be fighting the Republican Party’s attacks on abortion, birth control, and health care? Where are the workers who should be fighting the Republican Party’s attacks on labor unions, the minimum wage, and unemployment insurance? Where are the senior citizens who should be defending Social Security and Medicare from the Republican Party’s attacks on those earned benefits programs? Where are the disenfranchised voters who should be demonstrating against the restrictive voter registration laws the Republicans passed in states that were foolish enough to elect Republicans? Where is the outcry of consumers who are being dispossessed by the shell game of toxic loans? Where are the knowledgeable consumers who should be fighting back against the commodity traders who are over selling futures on gasoline and food thereby creating artificial shortages that are driving up the cost of those commodities? Where are the expressions of outrage from people who know that doing away with regulations is what permitted the reckless behavior that caused the crash in 2007 and allowed some companies to become too big to fail?

At last a significant number of people are taking fight for social and economic justice into the streets. People in states where the Republicans are passing laws against collective bargaining are demonstrating and fighting back. There are also people on Wall Street demonstrating against the reckless and unfair practices taking place there, and those demonstrations are spreading to other cities as well. The movement has finally begun. The people are saying enough. Such demonstrations are what it is going to take to get this country moving in the right direction again. In order to save the middle class informed people are going to have to raise such a ruckus that it will pull the low information voters out of the fog of Republican flatulence to reveal the greed and arrogance of the powerful few who are destroying the opportunities and the equitable distribution of wealth that has made this country so great. The anger of the demonstrators is not pretty but neither is the rule of money that has made our government, and particularly the Republican Party, so unresponsive to the suffering of the people and the best interests of this country. Is this class warfare? You bet your ass it is! The middle class of this country is tired of being ground into the dirt by the special interests and the political minions of those interests.

Even no drama Obama has finally come to the realization that he cannot deal with a Republican Party whose benefactors will not be satisfied until they have it all and no one else has anything. President Obama is finally embracing the label of warrior for the middle class. He is finally taking his battle for jobs and equitable taxes to the people. That he should have to bypass the Republican controlled House of Representative and the Republicans who will filibuster any reasonable jobs bill in the Senate just shows the nature of the class war being waged against the middle class by the wealthiest people in this country and by the Republican Party. This is a war the middle class must win if America is going to remain the land of opportunity. The pundits who are arguing about whether President Obama should try to capture the middle ground or run to the left in the next election are missing the point. In their opposition to making the rich pay their fair share of taxes the Republicans are pointing out that half of the adults in this nation pay no income tax. What the Republicans are not saying is that this means half of the adults in this nation have seen their incomes slip so low that they cannot afford to pay income tax. The high unemployment is not just hurting the unemployed. The decreasing employment opportunities are hurting everyone. The vast majority of our citizens are being squeezed by high prices and stagnant wages.

Our economic and political system is broken. We no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We now have a government of the money, by the money, and for the money. Both parties are culpable but they are not equally culpable. The Republicans are now opposing measures they supported in the past when they were responsible enough to acknowledge that those measures work. By saying that the stimulus bill did not create any jobs and that the American Jobs Act will not work the Republicans are dipping so deeply into the Bandini fertilizer bag that they are wearing it as a hood. President Obama’s first goal in taking this issue directly to the people is to put enough pressure on the Republicans to get them to the pass the jobs bill. It is increasingly obvious, however, that this will not work. The Republicans have been defying the will of the people since the very day that Mr. Obama was elected President. The Republicans won the mid-term elections in spite of doing this, and they are arrogant enough to think they will win the elections in 2012 as well. The billions of dollars the special interests have provided for campaign advertising have given the Republicans a false sense of security. They honestly believe they can use that money to buy enough perfume to mask the odor of the crap they trying to sell us.

The demonstrations now taking place are unsettling to the Republicans because they can see where this movement might go. They know they have to try to put an end to the demonstrations before the demonstrators find a political focal point. What the demonstrators are expressing now is simply their anger over the disparity in wealth that has grown to such an intolerable level that it is causing a great deal of pain to the majority of our citizens. This expression of pain and anger is a small start, but it is not insignificant. By expressing their anger and their pain the demonstrators are pointing out the need for reform. The next step is to take the political action needed to bring about meaningful reform. If the Democrats are smart they will embrace the demonstrations and draw a clear line between what they are willing to do for the middle class and what the Republicans are willing to do for the wealthy. If the Democrats are smart they will point out that we must start from where we are at, and that the first step must be to relieve some of the suffering by creating jobs and stimulating the economy; they will point out that in order to do this they will need the voters to crush the Republican Party and give the Democrats a large enough majority in Congress to ram the jobs bill through. The Democrats also need to express their willingness to sacrifice something they have not been willing to give up thus far; they need to express their intention to get rid of the filibuster rules the Republican Senators have been using to prevent the passage of any legislation designed to get this nation headed in the right direction again.

An overwhelming Democratic victory and the passage of the American Jobs Act, however, are only the first steps we must take. We must greatly decrease the role money plays in our political system. Reforming our campaign financing laws will not be easy. Unless we remove from our Supreme Court the unethical corporate lackeys that form the majority of the justices there or we are fortunate enough to have a few of them suffer fatal heart attacks, it will require a constitutional amendment. Passing such a constitutional amendment will require a ground swell so great that our politicians will be powerless to oppose it. It is time for the people of this nation to wise up and rise up. It is time for them to oppose the insatiable greed of the few and take control of a political system that is supposed give us a government that works for us! There is no question about whether we are in a class war; the only question is whether we will become the impoverished and whimpering victims of the attacks on us or whether we will defend ourselves. Doing this does not mean destroying capitalism. What it does mean is the restoration of a regulated system that prevented capitalism from turning into social Darwinism and gave us the most stable and prosperous economy the world has ever known.

It is doubtful that we will ever be as economically dominate is we were following World War II, but that does not mean we should not remain a major economic power. Nor does it mean that we should give up on the American dream! We are at a critical time in our history. If instead of defending ourselves we surrender and give up on the American dream, we will have no one but ourselves to blame.

Surviving Gopageddon

We are well into the era of Gopageddon. Money rules and anyone who is not filthy rich has no voice. The corporate toadies on the U.S. Supreme Court made sure of that with their decision in Citizens United. The GOP, the Grand Old Party is a sham; it is the party bought and paid for by the grand old plutocrats. “Government is not the answer,” they tell us. They want us to believe that it is useless to vote because government is evil. They are helping us decide not to vote by severely restricting voter registration in an effort to disenfranchise people who are most inclined to vote for Democrats. The Republicans are also proving their point about the government not being the answer by making sure the government is dysfunctional. They are starving the government of revenue by refusing to make the rich and the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. They are fighting to cut all programs that benefit the middle class, programs such as Medicare, Social Security and Unemployment Insurance. And the Republicans are blocking all efforts to get America back to work. They are opposing the jobs bill, which will repair crumpling bridges and roads and will create jobs. The Republicans even tried to deprive FEMA of the funds it needs to help repair the damage caused by hurricane Irene.

The Republicans actually want our government to fail and our economy to tank. They want the low information voters, who are not bright enough to pay attention to what is happening, to blame the majority party for everything. The Republicans are the anti-government party. They want uninformed voters to blindly lash out at the government or to stay home on election day. Wake up America! The middle class is under attack. More people have slipped into poverty than at any time since the great depression, and the Republicans are blocking all efforts to reverse that trend. Your enemy is the Republican Party. The only way you can survive Gopageddon is to end it! The middle class is in a war against the insatiable greed of the powerful few and the nihilism of the Republican Party. You cannot afford to lose that war. What is at stake here are all of the things that have made this country so great, including our democracy. You must not give in to a feeling of futility or blindly lash out at the scapegoats the Republicans want you to blame. President Obama is finally taking the fight to the streets by appealing to the voters for help. Let your representatives in congress and your senators know that you want to get this economy moving again. Let them know that they will pay a high political price for opposing the jobs bill. Let the Republicans in your state know that the right to vote is essential in a democracy and that they will pay a high political price for trying to disenfranchise people by making in so difficult to register to vote.

This is your country. Take it back. Get involved. Register to vote no matter how hard the Republicans make it to register, and sign petitions that oppose unreasonable restrictions on voter registration. Donate whatever time and money you can spare to Democrats running for the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Support democrats running for state offices as well. End this vicious attack on our government and our democracy! The Republicans have the money. We have the majority of the people. The only way we can win is to counter the money with our numbers and our willingness to fight the good fight. Your vote matters and your influence increase when you get active!

Policies and Talking Points

The Republicans are too predictable. Special interests write much of the legislation for them and right wing organizations write the arguments the Republicans use to promote the passage of that legislation or to block legislation the special interests oppose. Thus we have the Republican parrots mindlessly repeating talking points loaded with their favorite buzz words; words such as “Class Warfare,” “Producers,” “freeloaders,” and “entitlement programs.” The talking point du jour is that fifty percent of the adults in this country pay no income tax. In other words, fifty percent of the adults in this country are freeloaders! The Republicans say that not making those freeloaders pay income taxes while insisting that the “producers” pay more is class warfare.

Here are the facts:

We have a progressive income tax for a good reason. Under that tax structure people who are defined as being at the poverty level do not pay income taxes, but they do pay the payroll taxes that support things such as Social Security and Medicare. One of the definitions of poverty is a family of four with an annual income of no more than 20,000 dollars per year. Anyone that has tried to balance a household budget will tell you that with an income that small even a few dollars is the difference between skipping a meal or eating. The real problem, therefore, is not that fifty percent of adults in this country pay no income tax; the real problem it is that the earnings of fifty percent of the adults in this country have now sunk so low that they cannot afford to pay income taxes. The fact is that more people have sunk to the poverty level than at any time since the great depression. The Republicans, however, want to blame everything on “entitlement programs” such as Social Security and Medicare. “Those programs are too expensive,” they say. Simply do away with Medicare and Social Security and those freeloaders can afford to pay income taxes. What this argument ignores is that those “entitlement programs” are actually earned benefits programs. They are programs people have paid into and depend on in their old age, and the earned benefits from those programs make the difference between starving and eating for millions of people. But in the Ayan Rand world of the Republicans freedom means the freedom to starve. People who cannot afford to provide for their uncertain future or who do not have the knowledge to make wise investments and avoid the Bernie Madoffs of this world do not matter to the Republican Party: Make the freeloaders pay and let them eat cake.

The Republicans actually have the gall to tell us that doing away with Medicare and Social Security and/or taxing people who cannot afford to pay income taxes is not class warfare. According to Republicans it is only class warfare when you advocate raising the taxes paid by the producers. They define producers as large corporations and our country’s wealthiest individuals. By taking advantage of the tax loopholes the taxes paid by major corporations have dropped drastically and the wealthiest individuals in our nation are paying lower taxes than they have paid in over 20 years. Furthermore between 1980 and 2005, 80% of the total increase in income went to the top 1%, and our major corporations are now reporting their highest earnings ever. Yet here we have an unemployment rate of over 9%. So what the hell do the producers produce? Where are the jobs? On June 28, 2011 Ezra Klein posted on the Washington Post’s blog a chart that shows both the rate of taxation and the increase of jobs created. What this chart reveals is that the growth rate of employment was actually greater during the times that taxation was the greatest. This really destroys the argument that high taxes cause high unemployment. It shows beyond a doubt that enriching the rich does not work. To this the Republicans scream about “Regulations!” They tell us it is regulations that are killing jobs. Studies reveal that this is not true either. Doing away with regulations during the last twenty years did not increase employment. What doing away with regulations or not enforcing regulations brought about was the irresponsible behavior that resulted in the crash of 2007.

The disparity in wealth between the super rich and everyone else indicates that this is not a normal recession that has a negative impact on all of our citizens. When fifty percent of the adults in this nation have fallen into poverty something is seriously wrong with our economy. We are now caught in the Republican created catch 22. The Republicans claim we cannot afford to invest in bridges and roads even though this will create jobs and improve our transportation system. They claim our current deficit will not permit it. They claim we cannot deal with the deficit by taxing the job producers regardless of the fact that those “jobs producers” are not creating any jobs. The Republicans are ignoring the fact that our economy is demand driven, that demand stimulates the production that creates the jobs, and that it is the buying power of the middle class that creates the demand. Requiring the rich and the corporations, who can easily afford to pay higher taxes, to pay their fair share is not class warfare. Doing away with earned benefits programs or raising the taxes of those who can least afford to pay is class warfare. What we really need are jobs, and the Republicans are stifling the Democratic Party’s reasonable efforts to create jobs!

Getting this country moving in the right direction again is not going to be easy. It ultimately requires us to revive our manufacturing and return to a time when the wealth of this nation was distributed in a more equitable manner, thanks in large part to labor unions and a thriving industrial base. Setting things right again will require a decrease in the role money plays in our political system, an imaginative approach that does not create a trade war, and patience. What President Obama and the Democratic Party are offering with the jobs bill are baby steps, but they are at least steps in the right direction. What the Republican Party and its candidates are offering is a bigger ditch than the one we are now in. They want us to keep digging in the wrong direction when we have already come close to digging our way to hell as it is. To put it simply, prosperity is not a prize you will find in the bag of elephant brand fertilizer!

A Dismal Field

I have to admit that I did not watch the debate of Republican presidential candidates. This is unusual for me. I grew up in a household where we watched both political conventions and any debates that were televised. We also paid close attention to what the competing candidates said during the campaigns. That, however, was back in the days when most Republicans were honest conservatives who had this strange notion that getting elected meant that they had a responsibility to help govern this great nation even when their party was in the minority. Those days are long gone. The Republican Party of today puts their party first and their country second. Republican politicians of today totally embrace the idea that winning elections is all that matters, and they are more than willing to harm the economy of this nation in order to accomplish that goal. I know that is a harsh statement, but let us look at the evidence:

From the very first day that President Obama was elected the Republicans have set out to create congressional gridlock in order to prevent the Democrats from passing any legislation regardless of how badly the country needs that legislation. The Republican leader in the senate, Mitch McConnell, has actually stated that the first priority of the Republican Party is to make President Obama a one-term president. Mr. McConnell actually brags about the Republicans using the filibuster to keep the senate from accomplishing anything. “It now takes sixty votes to pass anything,” McConnell says. Because of the filibuster and the threat of the filibuster the senate could not even consider the bills the Democrats managed to pass through the House of Representatives to create jobs, and President Obama could not get his appointments to vital government agencies or cabinet posts confirmed. Since 2008 the Republicans have even opposed measures they have traditionally supported; measures such as the government investing in bridges and roads, tax incentives to help start up businesses, and incentives for small businesses to hire more people. The Republicans are even opposing tax cuts for the middle class. The reason why the Republicans favored those measures in the past is because those measures worked. The work done on our roads and bridges during the great depression and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s massive road building program in the nineteen-fifties greatly improved the safety and efficiency of transportation, and it gave thousands of people meaningful jobs. Yet here we have the Republican Party disingenuously calling such projects failed policy!

The Republicans have become even more irresponsible since gaining control of the House of Representatives. They recently demonstrated that they do not care about our transportation system by refusing to pass a budget for the Federal Aviation Administration unless the unions in that industry are busted. They have also demonstrated that they do not care about our economy by refusing to approve the federal budget unless the government greatly reduced its spending during a recession. They even went so far as to threaten the economy of this nation and the world by holding the debt-ceiling hostage to their outrageous demands, which included extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. The Republicans have and still are greatly exaggerating the dangers of the deficit, and they are lying about what it will take to reduce the deficit. The most important thing we must do to reduce the deficit is to increase the number of people who are employed and are thereby paying taxes.

If you ask the Republicans to name a single job producing bill they have passed or even proposed since taking control of the House they will tell you they have prevented the Democrats from raising taxes on the job producers, meaning corporations that are reporting record profits and are not hiring anyone and wealthy individuals who are paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes than their secretaries are paying. The Republicans will also insist that they have helped to save jobs by preventing the Democrats from enforcing “job killing” regulations, meaning the regulations that are designed to prevent the irresponsible behavior that caused the crash of 2007 and the regulations that protect our air, our food, and our water. If enriching the rich and deregulating everything creates jobs why did we actually lose jobs during the administration of George W. Bush? Where are those jobs?

All that the Republican Party and its presidential candidates are willing to offer us is the same old trickle theory of economics that has failed time and again. The policies the Republicans advocate are the same policies they followed before the crash in 1929, and they are the same policies George Bush followed before the crash of 2007. The Republicans think we are foolish enough to believe that all we have to do is give huge tax breaks to the rich and let the giant corporations, the Wall Street speculators, the banks and the insurance companies do anything they want regardless of how harmful or exploitive their actions might be. The Republicans want us to believe that if we deregulate everything and continue to enrich the rich the job fairy will sprinkle us with magical prosperity dust and bless us all!

As you may have gathered I am not buying that Republican fairy tale. The reason why I did not watch the debates is because none of the Republican candidates have the intellect and/or the courage to offer anything but the same old crap that got us into this mess in the first place. Just take a look at who is running for their nomination.

Rich Perry: I won’t say, “this dog don’t hunt.” What I will say is that all he brings back are skunks. He calls Social Security a fraudulent ponzi scheme. He is in favor of the Ryan plan that would turn Medicare into a private voucher program. He even said that the progressive income tax is unconstitutional. These and other extreme right wing opinions are stated in his book “Fed Up.” That book was published a year ago, and any attempt to back away from those positions now will not be truthful.

Mitt Romney: He wants to run on his experience as a businessman, but his business was that of a professional job killer. He bought up companies, laid-off many of its employees, and then sold those companies or the assets of those companies for a huge profit. He also claims he is not a professional politician. If by that he means he is not very good at getting elected I will agree with him. If he means that he has not spent years trying to get elected to public office he is not telling the truth. He failed in his effort to win Edward Kennedy’s senate seat, and he did not run for another term as governor of Massachusetts because it was obvious that he could not win the election. He also failed at his first attempt to win the nomination as the Republican candidate for President.

Perry and Romney are the front-runners but the speculation about other politicians entering the race makes it clear that many Republicans are not real happy with any of the people who have declared their candidacy.

Sarah Palin: There is always a lot of speculation about her running, and there are Republicans who are foolish enough to vote for her. The problem is that she has been spraying like a dog for four years now, and she still has not been able to claim enough territory to be a viable national candidate.

Chris Christy: The Republicans have been touting him for all they are worth, but the New Jersey bully is even losing his luster in New Jersey. His austerity program has really hurt the middle class and is not very popular. This is particularly true of his efforts to bust the public employee unions. Apparently the voters like cops, firemen, and teachers.

Jon Huntsman: He might be the one candidate who could appeal to a broader audience. He is an old fashioned conservative who tries to be reasonable. He is highly critical of the Republicans in congress for holding the debt-ceiling hostage. He even thinks that scientific facts are more important than the blind faith that makes religious fanatics reject those facts. It is no wonder that he cannot gain any traction in the Republican Party. His economic policies are seriously flawed, but he is at least someone I respect.

Other Candidates: They are not worth mentioning unless there is a drastic change in the polls. I only mentioned Huntsman because his low standing in the polls during a year when all the Republican candidates are dismal is a clear indication of just how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become.

Since I started writing this post the Republicans have started objecting to President Obama’s job bill. As expected they are saying we cannot afford it. They are also saying that closing the tax loopholes corporations exploit and raising taxes on the rich is not acceptable. There is absolutely no doubt that they will kill the bill, and the employment situation will become worse. The Republicans are obviously counting on low information voters expressing their frustration by simply voting against all incumbents, including President Obama, in 2912. That strategy worked during the mid term elections, but will it work now? As frustrated as I am with the idiocy of low information voters, I am still optimistic enough to think that what the Republicans are doing will bite them this time around.

Too Much Of A Bad Thing

When the voters threw their temper tantrum in 2010 they elected right wing ideologues as governors and state legislators in a half dozen states. Those extreme right wing fanatics quickly set about pursuing their radical agenda. Taxes on businesses were slashed and there was a move to reward favored businesses by privatizing many government services. The fanatics then used the revenue shortfalls caused by decreasing taxes on large corporations to justify severe spending cuts for services the middle class depends upon, such as public education, health care and unemployment insurance. The right wing fanatics also mounted an all out assault on labor unions by stripping away the collective bargaining rights of public workers unions. This union busting correctly became a symbol for the destructive assault on the middle class, and it provoked massive demonstrations against the bills to bust the unions representing teachers, nurses, firemen, and policemen, among others. What is happening in those states where right wing fanatics have gained control of state governments should serve as an example of what will happen if the Republicans gain control of the federal government or are allowed to continue obstructing reasonable efforts to deal with our current recession.

Among the states in which the right wing ideologues gained control of the state governments are Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. I have chosen to focus on those states because there are some very interesting things taking place there. The constitutions of Wisconsin and Ohio provide middle class voters with some tools they are using to fight back. In Wisconsin there is the recall that has been used to oust two Republican State Senators who supported Governor Scott Walker’s unconscionable agenda. Scott Walker becomes eligible for recall in January of 2012. The defeat of two of the six Republican state senators the unions were trying to recall and the failure of the Republicans to recall any of the four Democrats they were trying to recall does not bode well for Governor Walker, nor do the polls which indicate that he is in serious danger of being recalled as soon as he becomes eligible for that procedure.

Governor Kasich of Ohio has a slightly different problem. Like Governor Walker, Governor Kasich did not even bother to try to negotiate with the unions or the Democrats; instead he ignored the demonstrations and rammed his union busting bill through the state legislature. Ohio does not have the recall, but it does have a referendum that allows voters to repeal unpopular legislation. More than enough signatures have been gathered to put a referendum to repeal the anti-union bill on the ballet. All of the polls indicate that Kasich’s union busting bill will be repealed. Furthermore, the polls indicate that his approval rating with the voters has slipped drastically. Governor Kasich is now sweating bullets over the certainty of the repeal, his slip in popularity, and what is happening in Wisconsin. He is desperately trying to back peddle. Come, let us compromise he is saying. This is a far cry from his demand that the unions apologize to him and the people of Ohio for protesting the passage of his union busting bill. The unions and the Democrats are saying he should have been willing to compromise before now. It seems that the only choices left to Governor Kasich are to repeal the union busting bill on his own and start over or to let the referendum process play out. The time for him to act like an adult has already run out. It is very unlikely that he will be able to take back what he has done and to demonstrate the ability and the willingness to be reasonable. Such efforts are a bit like trying to unpick a fight you started when you punched someone in the nose.

The Governor of Florida, Rick Scott, does not have to worry about a recall or a referendum. In this regard he is like the governors of most of the states where right wing fanatics have taken over the state governments. What he and the other right wing governors and state legislators do have to worry about is what the voters are thinking and feeling. All of the polls have shown a large increase in the number of voters who disapprove of what those right wing governors and state legislators are doing. None of those right wing governors, however, have experienced as great of a disapproval rating as has Governor Scott in Florida. A mere seventeen percent of the voters approve of the job he is doing. He has become so desperate that he is now sending out robo-calls in the middle of his term as governor. The voters of Florida are letting him know what they think of those robo-calls and his performance as governor by flooding his office with reverse robo-calls. Bless the hacker who was able to allow them to do that! As one voter who identified himself as a life long Republican said: “I’m so angry at you that I will not vote for any Republican again.”

It has taken something truly horrible to rouse the voters from their slumber and make them realize what the agenda of the right wing fanatics is doing to the middle class of this country. Now the voters in those states where the right wing Republicans rule are directing their anger where it should have been directed over the last ten years. And the voters in those states are finally fighting back. A serious battle has finally begun, and it is a hopeful sign. This is not good news to those right wing governors or the Republican Party. I am finding the right wing’s consternation of over the events in those states rather amusing. They are spinning for all they are worth, but it will do them no good; they are now spinning on the extended middle finger of an electorate that is very angry about the destructive agenda of the Republican Party. If I were in a more charitable mood I would take up a collection to buy and send to those governors some drip-dry underwear. Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but I think they and the Republican Party are going to need such underwear when the voters render their verdict in 2012.

Even Karl Rove is trying to warn the Republican Party of the perils of drifting too far to the right. The warning is too late, Karl! The Republican Party has nothing to offer but pettifoggery, and that will only carry them so far. The voters are finally beginning catch on. It is now up to President Obama and the Democratic Party to focus on jobs and reveal the intellectual bankruptcy of the obstructionists who put the interests of their party above the needs of the people of this country. President Obama and the Democratic Party must take the battle into the Senate, the House, and the Streets. They must urge the voters to follow the example of the good people in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. They must urge the people to demand an end to the obstructionist tactics the Republicans are using to prevent the government form doing what it needs to do to create jobs!

Another Election Stolen?

As a Southern Californian and an avid fan of PAC 10 football it is not often that I cheer for Wisconsin regardless of the fact that I have a tremendous respect for that state, its schools, and its football teams. Over the last year, however, I have been cheering mightily for the good people of Wisconsin. When the voters foolishly threw their temper tantrum in 2010 one of the results was the election in Wisconsin of a radical right wing governor and radical right wing legislators. Those right wing Republicans wasted no time in attacking labor unions, education and other things that are so important to the middle class while following the Republican agenda of enriching the rich. The good people of Wisconsin fought back. They held massive demonstrations and filed recall petitions against six entrenched Republican state senators. The results of the recall elections are now in. The Democrats won two of the six recall elections. They fell one election victory short of the total they needed to take over the state senate. The fight continues, and getting rid of the two right wing Republicans was still quite an accomplishment given the millions of dollars the right wing threw into those elections. What makes that accomplishment even more remarkable is that the election of one of those Republicans, Ms. Darling, is tainted.

Once more the results from Waukeshal were delayed and the Republican miraculously received the number of votes needed to win once those votes were counted. During the Supreme Court elections over fourteen thousand votes appeared two days after the election to give a supporter of Governor Walker the victory. The incompetence of the election clerk, Kathy Nicholaus, was noted at that time. The question then as now is whether it is a matter of incompetence or something far worse. There is nothing new about stealing elections. Bush quite obviously stole a presidential election in Florida. Furthermore the legislation passed in Wisconsin to severely restrict voter registration makes it clear that right wing Republicans will do anything to win elections and push their destructive agenda. While I cannot say that anyone tampered with the election results in Wisconsin, I can and do say that someone needs to investigate the possibility that there was tampering.

To the people of Wisconsin I say bless you. There is no doubt in my mind that you will continue to fight the good fight. You are an inspiration and an example we should all follow. The middle class needs to take this country back and return it to its place of being the land of opportunity.

It’s About Jobs, Stupid!

President Obama has been sucked into the nihilistic vortex of right wing fanatics. I do not blame him for this. When economic terrorists are threatening to blow up the economy by not paying our existing debts the President has to do what he can to avert the disaster. The problem is that his opponents see his willingness to compromise as a weakness. He gave into the Republicans before by extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich when the Republicans threatened to block an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class and threatened to shut down the government. In all fairness, I must say that the President gained something from the compromise reached at that time, but the Republicans saw the concessions he made as a capitulation. The combination of the weakness they perceived in President Obama and their fear of the lunatics taking over their party prevented Republicans who know better from opposing the dangerous scheme of holding the debt ceiling as a hostage. What is all too apparent is that those tea party fanatics are so delusional they think that if they cause another depression the voters will blame it on President Obama, and they are so viscous that they are willing to create another depression regardless have how much that harms the people of this country. I am afraid that the horrible precedent set by the extortionists and by our efforts to appease them will harm the recovery we so desperately need and will pose another grave threat to our economy in the future.

It is time for President Obama to stand up to the Republicans. He cannot continue to let the destructive fanatics define the issues and set the agenda. He has to start acting like a Democrat. The real issue is about getting this country moving in the right direction again. IT IS ABOUT JOBS! That is what the voters will tell him, and that is what he must emphasize. The Republicans cynically manufactured the debt ceiling crises in an effort to accomplish what the defeated Ryan plan failed to do. It is painfully obvious that the Republicans think destroying Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is more desirable than creating jobs and that their insistence on draconian cuts to federal spending is just another attempt to destroy those entitlement programs. While the budget deficit is a legitimate concern decreasing it will not create jobs. In fact drastic spending cuts are far more likely to increase unemployment. Greatly reducing government spending will dump laid off government workers onto the labor market and deprive private businesses of government contracts. In other words, sharp spending cuts will deepen the recession.

The Democrats have to educate the public. They need to define the programs that create jobs and the policies that kill jobs. They need to point out that it is the Democratic Party that is trying to create jobs and it is the Republican Party that is killing jobs. The Republicans have used the filibuster in the Senate a record number of times to keep the Democrats from passing legislation to encourage job growth, including a bill that would do away with tax incentives that actually reward companies for exporting American jobs. The Republicans have also opposed the stimulus bill, the loans that saved the automobile industry, and a tax break that encourages the growth of small businesses. There is not a single piece of legislation the Republicans have introduced to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Instead the Republicans stubbornly cling to the trickle down economics that failed during the great depression and failed again under George W. Bush. Enriching the rich does not create jobs, but that is all the Republicans are willing to offer – that and ill advised cuts to government spending that will only exacerbate the unemployment problem.

The Republicans have created the deficit smoke screen to mask their destructive agenda. The Democrats need to blow away that smoke screen to reveal the real economic conditions that are causing so much misery. Saying that we should take a balanced approach to balancing the budget is fine, but the Democrats cannot let the Republicans treat the deficit as a separate issue. The deficit is not a separate issue; it is simply a part of the overall economic situation. The way to avoid getting bogged down in a debate about the deficit is to put the Republicans on the defensive about the high unemployment. The Democrats need to introduce another stimulus bill or infrastructure bill in the Senate as quickly as possible. The Republicans will use the deficit as an excuse for blocking those bills, but this merely helps to draw the distinction between the party that is trying to create jobs and the party that is not trying to create jobs. Every time the Republicans scream “deficits” the Democrats should respond by screaming “Jobs!” If more people are working and paying taxes much of the deficit problem will be solved! Would you rather decrease the deficit by creating jobs or by destroying Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security? That is the real issue. There is little doubt in my mind that most of the voters will choose jobs. That is what all the polls indicate. It is also what our uncommon sense tells us. I say uncommon sense because the people who think all you need is common sense are demonstrating that they have no sense at all. They seem to think that balancing a household budget makes them economists. I suppose they think that their ability to use a knife and fork also makes them qualified to perform brain surgery.

Not Politics As Usual

Speaker Boehner revealed that the Republicans picked this very irresponsible fight over the debt ceiling when he replied to President Obama’s prime time speech on the subject. In an effort to try to portray Mr. Obama as being inconsistent and unwilling to compromise Mr. Boehner said that Mr. Obama’s original position was that the debt ceiling must be raised clean, without any conditions. What Mr. Boehner did not say is that the debt ceiling was raised clean eighteen times under Ronald Regan and seven times under George W. Bush. The reason why the debt ceiling was routinely raised without any strings attached is that the debt ceiling is merely an authorization to pay the debts incurred when Congress authorized the expenditures. In other words, these are current debts that must be paid. The debt ceiling has absolutely nothing to do with any future debts that may be incurred as a result of congress authorizing future expenditures.

The Republicans disingenuously analogize the national debt with household debt. Mr. Boehner did this when he said we must live within our means. It was a false analogy because he was talking about decreasing our future spending rather than debts that have already been incurred. If you default on all your debts the banks will foreclose on your house and your car will be repossessed. If you default on debts other than your house and or your car your credit rating will be downgraded and the interest you pay on your mortgage, your car loan, your credit card debt and all other debts will increase. In which case your monthly payments on all of those loans will increase. That is the reality and that is the proper analogy.

Frankly I think Mr. Obama should have stuck to his original position and insisted on a bill raising the debt ceiling with no conditions. The time to argue about spending is when the spending is being authorized or denied rather than after the money has already been spent. Mr. Obama, however, gave in to the Republicans by dropping his original demand and by addressing the question of how to decrease the federal deficit. He offered four trillion dollars in spending cuts but insisted that there be an increase in revenue as well. The Republicans predictably rejected this proposal because closing the tax loopholes to increase revenue would mean that corporations reporting almost obscene profits, hedge fund managers who pay capital gains taxes rather than income taxes, and the wealthiest people in our nation would have to share some of the burden by paying their fair share of the taxes. But the Republican intransigence does not end there. They are even rejecting Harry Reid’s proposal to cut two trillion in spending with no increase in revenue.

So why did the republicans create this phony issue? Why are they so eager to run our economy off of a cliff? The answer has two components, the first of which is revealed in statements made by Carl Rove and other Republicans who have said that the Republican Party should make it impossible for any Democratic President to govern. That is one of the major reasons why the Republicans have used the filibuster a record number of times in the senate to block bills that would increase employment, and it is why they have picked this fight over the debt ceiling. The second reason why they have picked this fight is because they want to destroy all entitlement programs, including programs such as Medicare and Social Security which people have been paying into throughout most of their adult lives. The Republicans are obviously more than willing to cause another great depression in order to accomplish those goals! When a group of people, certainly a minority in this case, intentionally set out to harm our nation and overthrow a duly elected government it is called treason. Not in my worst nightmare have I imagined myself accusing a politician, let along a political party, of being traitors, but no party in modern history has had a significant number of its members threaten our country in this manner before. The only defense for what the Republicans are doing is insanity and that defense also makes them unfit to govern.

What they are doing on the state level is every bit as bad. The Republican Governors and legislators are preparing to steal the elections of 2012 by passing restrictive voter registration laws that disenfranchise citizens who are likely to vote for Democrats. In Wisconsin the Republicans are feeling a real urgency to disenfranchise such voters because of the recall elections. The Republicans in Wisconsin are requiring picture identification in order to register to vote, and they are making it almost impossible to get picture identification by severely restricting the source of such identification to the Department of Motor vehicles which has closed many its offices and has very limited hours in which its remaining offices are open. The effort to disenfranchise people who are likely to vote for Democrats, however, is not restricted to Wisconsin. There is a concerted effort on the part of Republicans to make it far more difficult to vote in a large number of states, including but not limited to Tennessee, Colorado, South Carolina, Kansas, and Florida. This is something we cannot allow. The requirement for picture identification and proof of citizenship will disenfranchise the elderly who do not drive as well as college students and the poor. The saying that when one person’s rights are trampled the rights of all people are in danger could not be truer in this instance.

In a democracy ballets replace bullets. If you take away the ballets all you are left with are the bullets. Before you get your panties in a wad over this statement let me say I am not advocating violence. What I am saying is that these unconscionable restrictions on voter registration are a direct threat to our democracy. We are better than this! We must not let the aspiring despots do this. We must remember that George W. Bush was able to steal a Presidential election by disenfranchising people likely to vote for Democrats in Florida. This is not politics as usual. This is an assault on our democratic form of government, and, believe me, I would be saying the same thing if the Democratic Party was using such tactics.

What we now have is not the Republican Party of our fathers. The Republicans are a party that has gone berserk. They are a party that is more than willing to undermine our democracy and destroy our economy for political gain. We must punish them for this. We must purge our political system and cast the offenders into political infamy until the Republican Party is convinced that it must reform itself and act responsibly again. As the battle over the ceiling and the cynical efforts to disenfranchise lawful citizens illustrate we cannot afford to suffer such irresponsible and destructive behavior!

Make no mistake about it the threat posed to this country by the Republican Party is real. The oligopoly the Republicans champion is concentrating the wealth of this nation into fewer and fewer hands while everyone else is getting poorer, and the assault on our right to vote is a grave threat to very concept of majority rule. This is your fight. You hold the ultimate power in your hands. You must make a stand before it is too late to undo the damage. Contact any Republicans you have elected and let them know you have had enough. Reject the Republican bullshit and force our government to focus on moving our economy in the right direction again. Vote for Democrats in 2012 and demand that they set the proper priorities. We need jobs, damn it! We need more people working and paying taxes. If we accomplish that the deficit will take care of itself.

Burn It down

Bill Maher said it best. He said that people who voted for Republicans in the 2010 elections have no right to complain about the Casey Anthony verdict because those voters ignored all the evidence in regard to what the Republican Party was doing. Political analysts all look for some deeper meaning in the election results, and the victorious party always touts its stated agenda as the reason why the voters elected them. No one wants to believe how capricious voters can be. Bill Maher, however, hit the nail right on the head. The truth is that low information, independent voters expressed their frustration over the lagging recovery by throwing a temper tantrum. In doing that those voters gave economic terrorists control of the Republican Party and the House of Representatives. While it is true that the economic terrorists did not ascend to positions of leadership in the House it is their extreme anti-government philosophy that is mistakenly accepted as the reason why the Republican Party did so well in those elections. What passes for leaders in Republican Party now cower in fear of those extremists. So how did this happen?

In this blog I have been saying that the Republican Party is morally and intellectually bankrupt. For those who have not studied enough history to already know the fallacy of trickle down economics and deregulation the crash of 2007-2008 revealed those fallacies. The problem for the Republicans is that they accept those fallacious theories as a matter of faith, and they do not have an effective leader who is capable of adjusting to reality. With nothing constructive to offer, the Republicans concentrated their efforts on obstructing the implementation of measures we traditionally use to recover from recessions. Their goal in doing this was to stall the recovery and create a situation that would make the uninformed voters lash out at all incumbents, and it worked. The Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives as well as many governorships and state legislatures. The result was and still is chaos and legislative gridlock. Chaos is and always has been a condition favorable to demagogues and extremists, and it was the demagogues and extremists that were elected in 2010. Those extremists are now acting like economic terrorist by not raising the debt ceiling. Not even the warning issued by Ronald Reagan, who they claim to revere and have almost beatified, can dissuade those lunatics from causing this country to default on its debts. Make no mistake about it those economic terrorists actually want to cause another depression.

The reason why they want to send us into a depression is because they think they can tap into the anger this would create to advance their radical social and economic agenda. They really want to overturn Row v. Wade and to destroy Planned Parenthood, labor unions and all of the agencies responsible for protecting our air and the safety of our water and our food. Their economic agenda is to free all industry from any and all government regulation. They believe that a depression will allow them to defund the new Consumer Protection Agency, which is responsible for protecting us from the irresponsible actions of the banks and Wall Street among other things. But this is not all they want to destroy. The also want to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They have already passed through the House of Representatives the Ryan Plan, which would turn Medicare into a private voucher program while providing still more huge tax breaks for the rich. George W. Bush tried and failed to privatize Social Security and Congressman Sessions has introduced yet another bill to privatize it. Furthermore the Republicans have attached to the bill to fund the FAA a rider that would destroy all of the labor unions in the aviation industry. The only thing preventing the Republicans from accomplishing those destructive goals at this time is the fact that the President is a Democrat and the Democrats still hold a majority in the Senate. That, however, could change if the Republicans are able to create a depression and the voters are foolish enough to blame the Democrats for causing it.

Do not be fooled by this claptrap about the deficit. If the Republicans were really serious about reducing it they would endorse a balanced plan that would provide increased revenue as well as spending cuts. The reason why they will not do that and are insisting on drastic cuts in expenditures is because they want to destroy all social programs and all of the agencies that would make our large corporations, Wall Street and the banks behave responsibly. They do not give a damn about high unemployment; they are more than willing to take down our entire economy and throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work in order to further their despicable agenda.

A One Term President

This is a rant. In my previous post I stated what President Obama must do in regard to the Republicans holding the debt ceiling hostage and why he must stand firm. What has me so angry is that he is giving every indication that he is going appease them. He appears to be drifting with the tide like a jellyfish with no stingers. He appears to be someone who stands for nothing because he will not fight for anything. He has broken his sword by saying he will not use the 14th Amendment in this fight, and he is hinting that he might accept a deal in which some of the benefits of Social Security, Medicare and/or Medicate will be reduced. Such a deal must not stand! The Democratic Party has to fight for the people of this country. Democratic members of Congress must tell him they will reject any compromise that reduces the benefits of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid in any way.

The surest way for President Obama to become a one term President is to make any cuts to the benefits of those programs. If he does this, the independent voters will not be able to tell the difference between him and the economic terrorists. He will also lose my vote and the votes of many of the people in his base. We would rather have an enemy we know than a friend we cannot trust! I am afraid it is up to Congress to save him from himself. If he faces a revolt from members of his own party he just might grow a backbone. It would be a real tragedy if such a talented man goes down in history as one of our most disappointing Presidents. The election of 2012 is his for the taking if he has the courage to stand firm and to tell his Wall Street buddies that it is the Republicans who are hosing them by trying to set a precedent we cannot and will not permit.

All Out War

There is an all out war between the two major political parties. The Republicans are determined to make the President fail and to destroy the Democratic Party at all costs. The battle ground is both social and economic. There is an old saying that when the elephants fight it is the grass that suffers. In this case it is the country and its people who are suffering. The greatest threat right now is the Republican Party’s attack on our economy. In order to enrich the rich the Republicans want to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Furthermore, they are willing to cause a world wide depression in order to accomplish those goals. They are holding the debt ceiling hostage until their demands a met. This has never been done before because the consequences of this country defaulting on its debts are too destructive for anyone with a conscience to play such foolish games. Interest rates will soar and the value of the dollar will plummet if we allow the Republicans to cause us to default on our debts. Now is the time for extraordinary measures. We simply cannot allow the Republicans to destroy our economy.

Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, has said that not honoring our debts would be unconstitutional. Article 4 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution states in relevant part, “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law… shall not be questioned.” What this means is that we cannot default on our debts regardless of the debt ceiling! No president has used the 14th Amendment to bypass congress before, but no party has been irresponsible enough to hold payment of our debts hostage before. Forget the Republican crap about the deficit. As the deficit soared under George W. Bush the Republicans raised the debt ceiling seven times without so much as a whimper. I might add that if the Republicans were really concerned about our national debt they would raise revenues by letting Bush’s tax cuts for the rich expire and by getting rid of the loopholes that allow the most prosperous corporations on earth to avoid paying any taxes. Even Republicans raise revenue when they are serious about reducing the deficit. If the President acts in accordance with Article 4 of the 14th Amendment and provides for the continuing payment of the national debt without Congress first raising the debt ceiling, it will diminish the role of Congress somewhat. That is probably not a good thing, but the precedent the Republicans are setting by holding payment of the debt hostage to their destructive agenda is far more dangerous than the precedent that would be set by bypassing Congress in order to meet our obligations.

The Republicans obviously have no qualms about changing the rules or about setting bad precedents in an effort to win their war against the Democrats. They shut down the government when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House of Representatives, and they threatened to shut it down again if Bush’s outrageous tax breaks for the rich were not extended. The Democrats under Clinton’s leadership held firm. The Democrats under Obama’s leadership caved in, and the tax cuts for the rich were extended. When the Democrats tried to block Bush’s appointments of right wing Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court the Republicans threatened to do away with the filibuster in the Senate. The Democrats then caved in, and we now have the worst Supreme Court ever. Although the Republicans confirmed the one Supreme Court Justice appointed by Obama, they have used the threat of the filibuster to block over 200 hundred appointments to other positions. They have also used the filibuster a record number of times to block bills that would help us recover from this recession. The Democrats are cautious about changing rules and setting precedents, but like it or not, they are going to have to resort to Republican tactics in order to break through the gridlock the Republicans have created. Harry Reid must modify the filibuster rules in the Senate in order to get this country on the right track again, and President Obama must invoke Article 4 of the 14th Amendment if the Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling without the Democrats caving in to the outrageous demands of the Republicans.

There is little doubt in my mind that if the Democrats do what is right for this nation and thwart the Republican Party’s attacks on our economy and our middle class the Republican Party will have to start acting responsibly again or face extinction. This should be the lesson of the mid-term elections. The people did not see those elections as an ideological choice. Quite frankly, the voters never seem to be able to understand what those ideologies mean. What the voters know is what they are personally experiencing. They know the hardships caused by stagnating incomes as the costs of energy and food continue to increase. They know what will happen if Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are privatized. They know what will happen if the interest rates on their mortgages, credit cards, etc. go through the roof. They know they are getting the short end of the stick and are making all of the sacrifices while the wealth of this nation becomes more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The people of this country are frustrated by the high unemployment and deceasing opportunities. They want results they can see and feel. They want a political party that will fight to break up the gridlock and speed up the recovery. The Republican Party is unwilling to offer anything positive. It is up to the Democratic Party to demonstrate through its deeds and its words that it is the party carrying out to will of the people.

Clarence Thomas Must Go

Last week I argued that the Declaration of Independence was a part of our laws. The point I was making was that the principles upon which our laws are based are the very essence of our laws. Indeed, appellate courts take those principles and legislative intent into consideration when interpreting our laws. This is why it is not just congress that may not abridge the right to freedom of speech, religion, etc. If the states could abridge those rights the constitutional protections of those rights would mean nothing. Similarly, the principles for the conduct of judges are set forth in the rules of ethics those judges must follow. If U.S. Supreme Court Justices can ignore those rules and refuse to recuse themselves from cases in which those justices might have a conflict of interest or a bias in favor of one party over another then the right to an impartial hearing and decisions based upon the merits of the case mean nothing. In which case, our entire judicial system is a sham.

Obviously the intent of exempting Supreme Court Justices from those rules of ethics was not to permit the justices to act unethically; rather it was to preserve the independence of the court by preventing anyone from using a minor or questionable breach of those rules as a reason for expelling from the court a justice who has made an unpopular decision. As I said last week, the real question is not whether Supreme Court Justices must follow the rules of ethics but rather who, if anyone, has the authority to enforce those rules in regard to U.S. Supreme Court Justices. To conclude otherwise would be inconsistent with the most fundamental principles of our judicial system. The good reputation of the Supreme Court and its justices is essential if the people of this country are going to have any faith in the integrity of our courts. This was the argument Chief Justice Earl Warren made to Justice Abe Fortas when Mr. Fortas faced the threat of impeachment over the Wolfson scandal, and it was at least in part why Justice Fortas resigned from the court.

What Abe Fortas did to cause the threat of impeachment was not as egregious as the violations committed by Clarence Thomas. Justice Fortas at least had the good sense to recuse himself from hearing the cases involving Mr. Wofson. Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, heard the Citizens United Case and voted in favor of Citizens United even though Citizens United had contributed $100,000 to help Justice Thomas get confirmed. After receiving valuable gifts from American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Justice Thomas heard three cases involving AEI, and he either sided with AEI or took positions more extreme than AEI in all three of those cases. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Justice Thomas. He has demonstrated an unmistakable pattern of ethical violations that cannot be ignored. The evidence against him is mounting both in regard to the activities of his wife and in regard to his relationship with Harlan Crow, both of which should have caused Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases he has helped to decide. Clarence Thomas is the perfect example of why judges must follow the rules of ethics and why Supreme Court Justices cannot be exempt from those rules.

As Abe Fortas faced the threat of impeachment so must Justice Thomas. The evidence against him must be presented to Congress and to the court of public opinion. Doing this is essential to the integrity of our entire judicial system. Impeachment and removal from the court are the only available remedies to protect us from the judicial misconduct of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Clarence Thomas has committed more than just minor or questionable violations of the rules of ethics; he has disgraced the highest court in land with behavior that is unethical or criminal or both. The rules he has violated are serious enough to conclude that he is guilty of judicial misconduct at the least. We must not allow him to create even the impression that U.S. Supreme Court decisions can be purchased!

An Unethical Court

It is now being argued that Justices of the United States Supreme Court are not subject to the rules of ethics governing the behavior of judges. I liken that assertion to the argument that the Declaration of Independence is not a part of our body of law. The argument that this document, which sets forth the very principles on which our nation was founded, is not a part of our laws is absurd. Historians say that the first documented instance of someone quoting the Declaration as an authority was when Abraham Lincoln quoted it in his Gettysburg Address. In interpreting our laws, however, courts take into account the principles on which those laws are based, the intent of the law, and whether the law is equitable. There is little doubt that in framing the first ten amendments to our constitution our founding fathers had the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence firmly in mind. Unfortunately other parts of our constitution denied to many people the rights guaranteed by those amendments, and it took a civil war to cure that defect. Following that war several constitutional amendments and court cases extended citizenship to all people who are born in this country and established the primacy of federal law. Establishing the primacy of federal law meant that no state could deprive its citizens our groups of its citizens of the rights protected by our constitution. In doing this we made our written laws conform to the principles stated in our Declaration of Independence.

The assertion that Justices of the United States Supreme Court are not bound by the rules of ethics governing the behavior of all other judges defies all logic. The Supreme Court has enormous power. It can modify, change, and nullify laws. It therefore has the power to shape the fabric of the laws of this nation of laws. The guiding principal behind the rules of judicial ethics is to assure impartial hearings and fair and unbiased decisions. To say that the Justices of the highest court in the land are not bound by rules of ethics and can act unethically is ridiculous on its face. It violates the principle that no one is above the law, and it violates the intent of our entire body of laws. If those Justices are free to act unethically no one can be assured of a fair and impartial hearing, and no one can count on being afforded the protections guaranteed by our constitution!

The principles upon which our laws are based are the essence of our laws. Clearly it was not the intent of our founding fathers to establish a court that would undermine the integrity of our judiciary by acting unethically. The Supreme Court has tacitly acknowledged that its justices are not permitted to act unethically when it accepted the resignation of Justice Fortas who was pressured to resign because of his violation of the rules of ethics. The question, therefore, is not whether the Justices of the Supreme Court must follow the rules of ethics, but rather who has the authority to enforce those rules in regard to Supreme Court Justices. The only written law addressing the power to remove a Supreme Court Justice from the court is the power to impeach. A congressional committee or the Justice Department should therefore investigate Clarence Thomas to find the grounds for impeachment. The burden of proof to establish that he committed a high crime or misdemeanor is far more difficult than the burden of proof to establish that he behaved unethically, but the evidence of his corruption is mounting. There are also questions about whether a violation of judicial ethics constitutes judicial misconduct and whether judicial misconduct is a violation of criminal law. I will leave the answer to those questions to people who have the training and the time to research them, but I will say that Justices of the Supreme Court cannot be exempt from such laws. I am aware that many people will say that the precedent set by impeaching Thomas and removing him from the court could undermine the independence of the court. But the dangers of permitting Justice Thomas to remain on the court are far more dangerous than the precedent set by removing him. His refusal to recuse himself from hearing appeals when it is apparent that he has a conflict of interest is a judicial travesty. He must either resign or be removed. The integrity of our entire judicial system is on the line!

The Ladies of Wall Mart

Justice denied! That is what the five injustices of our Supreme Court have done. They have denied justice not just to the women of Wall Mart but to everyone fighting corporations that are blatantly violating the law. We no longer have a Supreme Court. What we have is a corporate court. I now modify my previous statements and pronounce this the worst Supreme Court ever. In my previous post I pointed to Clarence Thomas’s obvious violations of judicial ethics. I think it is apparent that he is not the only injustice who is guilty of such violations. Where are the feminist militants of the nineteen seventies? While this decision is a horrible precedent for everyone regardless of gender, it is particularly egregious to women. Women should be outraged about what the Republicans and what this outrageously partisan court are doing to them.

It is time to start using some of the civil disobedience tactics. The fact that the ladies of Wall Mart have no union or formal organization is going to make this very difficult but not impossible. What would be beneficial is if a very large number of ladies working for Wall Mart started filing small claims suits. Can you imagine how difficult and expensive it would be for Wall Mart to defend thousands of these suits filed all over the nation or risk losing those suits by default?

The second thing to do is to enlist women’s groups, Moveon.org, Credo and other liberal groups in this cause. All of them should call for a boycott of Wall Mart. Hit the bastards in their pocket books.

The third thing and I think the most important thing for this country is the need to break up the corporate cabal formed by the five injustices. Clarence Thomas is by far the most blatant violator of judicial ethics. Petitions must be circulated for his impeachment. Those petitions should be sent to Congressman Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama, and all news organizations. As I stated in my previous post, Thomas will not be impeached while the Republicans control the house. This, however, does not mean that the petitions are futile. We must win in the court of public opinion. We must start putting pressure on the politicians and the justices of the Supreme Court. The pressure must be relentless and eventually overwhelming. Republicans in particular must be warned that we will hold them accountable for the actions of the injustices appointed by Republican Presidents.

We Must Judge

If our present Supreme Court is not the worst in our history it is certainly the worst we have had in centuries. No court has been more politicized and no justice has behaved more unethically than Clarence Thomas. One has to be careful about accusing anyone of corruption. Such charges must be proven and the burden of proof is difficult. Ethical violations are another matter. Some behavior is so unethical on its face that it must not be tolerated. The evidence of unethical behavior is mounting in regard to Thomas. He ruled in favor of Citizens United even after receiving one hundred thousand dollars from Citizens United. He was the only dissenting voice in a decision rendered against a person who has given him valuable gifts and has done many favors for him. Justice Thomas has failed to report such gifts or to reveal his wife’s income, which is particularly egregious considering that she works for right wing groups that lobby for laws that are frequently placed before the Supreme Court. In no case has Thomas recused himself from hearing an appeal regardless of the apparent conflicts of interest that might have determined how he ruled.

Such behavior is the very antithesis of fair and impartial justice. It is a clear violation of the ethical rule that a judge must avoid any appearance of partiality or a conflict of interest. Justice Abe Fortas resigned over a scandal involving behavior that was no more unethical than Justice Thomas’s behavior. Unfortunately there is no higher court. Which is to say that there is no one who can enforce the ethics we have every right to expect members of the Supreme Court to follow. Justice Thomas’s action must not stand. Every other branch of government is subjected to a check and balance from another branch. Such must also be the case in regard to a Justice of the Supreme Court who violates the public trust. Impeachment has no teeth in this instance. The burden of proving a high crime or misdemeanor is too great under these circumstances. The politicization of the court makes it unlikely that the Republicans would ever oust a justice serving the very interests that support the Republican Party.

All we now have to redress this grievance is the court of public opinion. But what if that court never hears the case. What if there is no hue and cry that will make the public aware of these violations. Where is the President of the United States? Where is the Democratic Party? Where is the news media? Who will plead this case? It must be us and it must be now! The damage being done to our political and judicial system is far too great for us to remain silent. We must exert relentless and overwhelming pressure. We must make the Republicans set their interests aside and do what is best for this country. We must make the Republicans acknowledge that this is not a matter ideology because ethical standards have no ideology. Justice Thomas must resign or be forced out of office!