Tell Santa To Give Mr. Obama A Backbone

In 2008 then Presidential Candidate Obama promised a banquet of progressive legislation to deal with the horrible economic situation created by George W. Bush and the Republican Party. Since Mr. Obama’s election, however, he has demonstrated an unwillingness or inability to confront the bullies who are blocking his path to the groceries. As a result his failure to stand up to the Republicans he is serving us peanut butter on white bread. He is correct in saying that peanut butter sandwiches are better than nothing, but they are also less than what he promised, less than what we need, and less than what we want. He now has Bill Clinton trying to persuade us that caving in to the Republicans on budget busting tax cuts for the wealthy is a desirable compromise. The pundits are also weighing in on this subject. They are saying that Mr. Obama should follow Bill Clinton’s example by swinging to the right and seeking compromises. And how did the Republicans reward Bill Clinton for trying to work with them? They impeached him!

This is not the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower, Everett Dirkson, or even Ronald Reagan. There is nothing this Republican Party will not do to further its partisan interests. It has absolutely no conscience. It is more than willing to sacrifice the economic health of this country, its middle class and those who are unfortunate enough to be unemployed. The Republicans even think it is acceptable to get tax cuts for the rich by threatening to reject a treaty that will make the world a little safer and help us reduce our spending on defense. Two years from now the Republicans will blame Mr. Obama for the huge deficit created by those tax cuts for the rich. They will also use that deficit as an excuse for cutting Medicare, Social Security, and every other social program.

Independent voters may say they want the President to work with the opposition party, but they also want a President who has some principles and the courage to fight for what is in the best interests of this country. What we need from President Obama is more FDR and less Casper Milquetoast. He should stop attacking the members of his own party and start casting the blame where the blame belongs. One of the most difficult things George H. W. Bush faced when he ran for President was the perception that he was a wimp. Many of us are now beginning to think that Mr. Obama is a wimp. Sooner or later he must make a stand. If he does not make that stand this man who excited us with his vision will preside over an administration of broken promises and false hopes.

The middle class is the heart and soul of this nation. In 2008 most people voted to restore an equitable, productive society that required all people to pay their fair share. The voters were, in fact, rejecting the trend that concentrated the wealth into fewer and fewer hands. They wanted to make this country productive again and return it to the prosperous times when the people who made the products could afford to buy those products! Achieving this is no easy task. It is going to take a leader with vision and courage.

Now is the time to fight the good fight. We want no less than an all out effort, and we deserve no less than that! ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN PEANUT BUTTER!

Stand Up To The Bullies!

When Ronald Regan cut the income tax on the rich by a third the income of the wealthiest individuals of the nation soared. The national debt also soared and the income of the remaining ninety percent of the nation remained flat. When George W. Bush further reduced the taxes on the rich the income of the wealthiest individuals increased again. The surplus Mr. Bush had inherited from Bill Clinton was then turned into a huge budgetary deficit, job growth fell to the lowest level it had been since World War II, and the income of those who were fortunate enough to still have jobs remained flat. Obviously, enriching the rich does not stimulate the economy or create jobs. Tax cuts for the rich increase size of our national debt without giving us anything in return. Yet here we have the Republicans threatening to block the SALT treaty, which would reduce nuclear arms, if the tax cuts for the rich are not extended. The Republicans also threaten to block an extension of unemployment benefits for those who have suffered the most from Bush’s recession, and to block an extension of tax cuts for the middle class if the tax cuts for the wealthy are not also extended.

This places President Obama in a difficult situation. The Republicans are holding the best interests of this nation hostage. They are demanding a ransom to be paid to the wealthiest individuals of the nation regardless of how much harm paying that ransom may cause. President Obama obviously feels that the harm that would result from the Republicans carrying out their threats is greater than the harm of foisting off a huge debt to our children. I can understand why he is making this decision, but I think he is wrong.

The rules of the senate allow the Republicans to act like bullies. Those rules allow them to extort money from the nation for the moneybags who contribute to the campaigns of Republican candidates. Caving in to bullies only makes them bolder. Sooner or later President Obama must stand up to them. Sooner is better than later. Now is the time to make the Republicans reveal just how morally and intellectually bankrupt they have become. This is not a matter of ideology it is a matter of greed versus patriotism and common decency!

Waiting to stand up to the Republicans will only make matters worse. The only way to make a bully listen to reason is to bloody his nose. Unfortunately the voters of this nation were foolish enough to reward the irresponsible behavior of the Republicans by giving them control of the House of Representatives. In other words, the bullies are becoming stronger. The voters must be shocked into reality. It is time to take the battle into the streets, to use the bully pulpit, and to show the voters what is at stake. Appeasement does not work. The extortionist tactics of the Republicans must be stopped now. Believe me the cost of trying to stop them later will be much higher!

A Time For Reason:

When Rachel Maddow interviewed John Stewart he criticized her for being too partisan. I enjoy Mr. Stewart’s show, but I disagree with his criticism of Ms. Maddow and the other commentators on MSNBC. Although I was a child at the time I remember Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. I remember the Army-McCarthy hearings, which I watched with my parents, and I remember Edward R. Murrow putting his career on the line by taking a stand against Senator McCarthy. Edward R. Murrow was correct when he said we cannot promote freedom abroad by destroying it at home. The John Birch Society thought Joseph McCarthy was right even after he had been discredited. Their paranoid rants about traitors and conspiracies made them as dangerous as he was! No one should have remained non-partisan about Senator Joseph McCarthy or the Birchers.

Joseph McCarthy and the John Birch society were eventually defeated but the paranoia and irrational fears they exploited live on. The Republican Party has swung so far to the right that it is now pandering to the same sort of paranoia embraced by the Birchers and Joseph McCarthy. The Republicans are once more taking into their party people who are advancing wacky theories about traitors and government conspiracies. At least one Republican candidate for the Senate even advocated second amendment remedies, which means armed insurrection and/or assassinations. No one should be non-partisan about candidates who are making such threats!

The paragraphs above were inspired by Keith Olbermann’s commentary on Ted Koppel. In that brilliant commentary Mr. Olbermann also talked about Edward R. Murrow’s courageous stand against Senator McCarthy. What Mr. Olbermann addressed so well in that commentary are the issues of journalistic integrity and, perhaps more importantly, journalistic responsibility. He was saying that the fear mongering and demagoguery we are witnessing today are so wrong and so dangerous that they fall out of the realm of partisan politics and must not be tolerated. I agree with him, and I thank him for the stance he has taken. At the very least journalists have a duty to report the facts. They should point out the absurdity of Republicans alleging that the health care reform bill has a provision creating death panels. They should tell us what is actually in the health care bill that was passed. They should report that extending the Bush tax cuts for the Rich will add seven hundred billion dollars to our national debt and that it will not create as many jobs as other things on which that money could be spent. Omitting facts is not responsible reporting and including facts that reflect poorly on one of the parties is not a partisan act. The facts are never partisan; they are reality.

I can remember a time when there was a growing concern about the influence of television. There was a commitment to public service at that time. News broadcasters were expected to report the facts and educate the public about the issues. My sincerest hope is that Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and the other good people at MSNBC will have enough influence to make the main stream media accept the responsibility they have to inform the public regardless of which political party might benefit from that. Now is the time for reason. Only an informed electorate can make wise decisions! Since most people rely on television for the news it is up to news broadcasters to keep the public informed. That is the duty of any news organization, and most news broadcasters have been shirking that duty.

Note to my visitors: Please see my previous post entitled “Who Shall Pay?” It is about the extension of the Bush tax cuts, and we need to make it clear to President Obama that only the cuts for middle class should be extended!

Who Shall Pay?

I believe most people are misreading what we should learn from the midterm elections. President Obama and the Democratic Party did not do a good job of selling their accomplishments or their agenda. There was also a strong wimp factor. I know compromise is an essential part of the process, but the Democrats were the only ones giving ground on issues they let the Republicans define. As a result of this much of the legislation, although still significant, fell short of what we expected and wanted. The most pressing issue is now an extension of tax cuts for the middle class. We simply cannot afford to let those tax cuts expire; nor can we afford to blow a seven hundred billion dollar hole in the budget when we are running such a large deficit. Please join me in telling President Obama and your representative that we need those tax cuts and that we oppose the absurd tax cuts for the very people who are exporting our jobs. Below is an e-mail I have sent to President Obama and another e-mail I have sent to Speaker Pelosi. I know you might be too busy to write similar e-mails. If you are too busy to write, please use the link I am providing to Credo and sign their petition to Speaker Pelosi. If you have the time, please write to President Obama and to your congressperson as well.



Dear President Obama

I have been defending you from the criticism that you are weak. Not anymore! If you extend tax cuts for the rich for any length of time at all the Republicans will have no reason to compromise with you on anything because they will know you do not stand your ground. The people who have supported you will also know that. Get an extension of the middle class tax cuts through the House and into the Senate as quickly as possible. Then use the bully pulpit and crank up the PR machine. Say to the voters: “There is a bill in the Senate that will extend YOUR tax cuts. Republican Senators are threatening to filibuster that bill. If they succeed in holding up the passage of that bill until your tax cuts expire you will be paying much higher taxes. I know you need those tax cuts and you know you need those tax cuts. The Republicans either do not know that or they do not care about it. So tell them. Send your Senators e-mails or letters or telegrams demanding an extension of YOUR tax cuts.”

Do not let the Republicans draw you into a debate about the other Bush tax cuts. The tax cuts you are extending are for everyone. Whether people should get the tax cuts extended for amounts above two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or businesses should get tax cuts extended is not the issue. As far as the voters are concerned the tax cuts you are extending are their tax cuts; they are not tax cuts for an abstract group such as the middle class or for special interests. This is the sort of simple approach Republicans use to define issues, and it works. If you define the tax cuts you are extending in the manner I am suggesting I will bet you a tax cut that enough Republicans will blink. No politician wants to go into the elections of 2012 having to explain to angry voters why he or she opposed tax cuts that would have prevented an increase in the taxes those voters pay. Yes, it is brinkmanship, but you must make your stand while you still have the majorities you need to do it.

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Thank you for all you have done thus far. There is one more thing I am compelled to ask of you. Please make every effort to get a bill extending the middle class tax cuts through the House as quickly as possible. President Obama seems to be wavering on his stated opposition to extending tax cuts for the wealthy. Neither he nor we can afford to have him cave in on this issue. I have sent him an e-mail stating my position on this issue and suggesting how he can sell to the voters an extension of middle class tax cuts only. I have also posted that letter and this one on Macsbackporch.blogspot.com., and I am using that blog to encourage others to send similar e-mails.

An Alternate Universe

I am an old man. I remember when the John Birch Society was influential. What I said about the John Birch Society and other right wing extremists then is true of the Tea Party and other right wing extremists today. They live in an alternate universe. It is a universe where beliefs are never questioned and all inconvenient facts are either ignored or denied. I will not say the right wing extremists are unfazed by the honest reporting of accurate news stories or other factual information, but they have a traditional tactic for combating facts. They simply circle the wagons and poison all the wells outside of the circle. “You can’t trust anything outside of the circle,” they say. “Scientists and the main stream news media have a liberal bias, don’t you know?”

In the universe of the circled wagons the dialogue is circular; any story that seems to confirm the beliefs and feed the paranoia is passed around and repeated until it is accepted as a fact. Thus we find unprincipled purveyors of ring wing bull, like Andrew Brietbart, dumping crap onto the inter net, and other right wing bloggers spreading that crap like a plague. Profiteers such as Rupert Murdoch are more than happy to serve this crap to gullible viewers who accept it as the truth because they hear it from their friends and see it presented on what is supposed to be a news program.

The latest example of this is the rumor that President Obama’s trip to India will cost two hundred million dollars a day. The rumor was allegedly started by an unknown person in India and was soon being repeated on right wing blogs. Republican nut cases, like Michelle Bachmann, then cited this unconfirmed rumor as proof that President Obama is squandering the government’s money. The most ludicrous lunatic at the Fox disinformation factory, Glen Beck, also presented the rumor as though it were a fact. The babbling heads at Fox, who try to pass themselves off as reporters, never questioned the story. Neither they nor Glen Beck raised any questions about the veracity of the original source, nor did they ask any questions about the supposed use of assets, such as navy ships, that would make the trip so expensive. Since their viewers were more than willing to believe this rumor the babbling heads at Fox News reported it ad nauseum, as if the repetition somehow added some legitimacy to the allegations.

The thing to remember is that the Fox News organization is part of the political right wing’s alternate universe. The rules and standards that apply to journalists outside of the circled wagons have no place in the alternate universe of Fox viewers. In that universe it is a perfectly acceptable for Fox to lift a story from a supermarket tabloid and tell its viewers that it has been reported that the Los Angeles Police Department is squandering millions of dollars on jet packs for its police officers. Fox also thinks it is acceptable to air altered videos and other things from the Blog of Andrew Brietbart even after the previous things from Breitbart’s blog, such as the altered videos that caused Acorn to lose its funding, were proven to be outrageous hoaxes. Fox has no conscience. It is not embarrassed by revelations that many of the stories it presents as news are false. Whether a story is true or false does not matter to Fox if its viewers accept the story as the red meat that sustains the paranoia of their dark world. Fox’s primary goal is to keep those viewers tuning in; they are money in the bank. Most of them will not look outside of the alternate universe to find out the truth anyhow. Even the few viewers who find out that a story is untrue will not criticize Fox for presenting it. Where else are those viewers going to get stories that seem to confirm their erroneous beliefs and fears? Certainly not from any legitimate news organization!

Sustaining whatever influence the right wing extremists have on the real world, however, is not an easy thing to do. When reality asserts itself people of sound mind always reject the alternate universe. The John Birch society was literally laughed into irrelevance. It and its members became such a laughing stock that it was too embarrassing for the Republican Party to continue pandering to them. The same thing will eventually happen to the Tea Party and the right wing extremists who are now enjoying another surge of influence. The problem is that marginalizing them is not the same thing as getting rid of them. They will draw their wagons into a tighter circle, and they will continue to suck gullible recruits into their dark and dangerous world. There will always be a Rush Limbaugh, a Glen Beck, and probably a Fox News making loads of money by feeding their fears and supporting their beliefs.

What The Hell?

After the primaries I said that the nomination of so many extremists as Republican candidates had changed this election from being a political IQ test to being a mental health test. In the days leading up to the election Meg Whitman in California quoted Arnold Schwartzeneggar saying that insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Voting for people who want to continue the failed policies of George W. Bush and who have used every means to try to prevent the government from getting us out of Bush’s recession is insane by definition. Extreme Republican candidates such as Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell, to name just a few, want to go back much farther to the failed Republican policies that brought us the great depression. An informed electorate would have said “Hell No” by handing the Republican Party a devastating defeat; they would have given the Democrats a large enough majority to override filibusters in the senate and would have given the Democrats an even greater majority in the house. Instead the voters sent a mixed but angry message. They allowed the Democrats to keep a small majority in the senate but they also gave the Republicans control of the house.

Because of the number of elections for the house I am going to discuss the outcome generally rather than specifically. I am also going to confine my discussion to those senate races the pundits said the Republicans had to win in order to gain a majority in the senate.

Alaska: The results are not in but one thing is evident: the people of Alaska were sane enough to reject Sarah Palin’s stocking horse, Joe Miller. Ms. Palin responded by letting her populist veil slip. She blamed the defeat of Miller on media bias and called the reporters “corrupt bastards.” Sorry Ms. Palin, but those reporters were doing what reporters are supposed to do by presenting accurate stories. I guess when you work for or watch the disinformation factory known as Fox News it is difficult to imagine that real news organizations have some journalistic integrity.

Arkansas: It was not pivotal, but I cannot resist commenting on it. Thanks to Blanch Lincoln’s outrageous tactics during the primary the people of Arkansas had a very dismal choice to make. The result of telling Ms. Lincoln that there is only so much the voters will tolerate was appalling, but sending that message was the right thing to do.

California: This state waved a not for sale sign in the face of corporate candidates, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, and this demonstrated a high political IQ.

Colorado: Michael Bennett is clearly preferable to the extremist, Ken Buck, and it looks like Bennett has won a very close race.

Florida: I would like very much to blame the election of Rubio on the fact that there were three candidates but Rubio received too many votes for me to do that. It was an absurd outcome compounded by the election of Daniel Webster over Alan Grayson. Congressman Grayson is a breath of fresh air. His courage and integrity will be sorely missed. I hope he runs for office again.

Illinois: It looks like Republican Mark Kirk has defeated Alexi Giannoulias. Illinois also voted heavily for Republicans in the house races. I guess the voters there are not bright enough to figure out who will represent them and who will represent the people exporting their jobs. Just follow the bouncing dollars, folks. If those dollars are from hidden sources it cannot be good.

Kentucky: mental health clinics are desperately needed there! Rand Paul is such an extremist that he might even filibuster a bill raising the national debt ceiling. Doing this would cause the U.S. to default on the interest payments of its loans and would cause a world wide economic panic. The only good thing about him doing this is that it would result in the abolition of the filibuster rules the Republicans have been misusing to thwart the legislation needed to further an economic recovery.

Nevada: It took the outrageous race baiting of one of the worst political candidates ever to allow Harry Reid to win this election. What this says about the mental health of Nevada is not good, but at least Nevada does not have to admit that they elected someone as extreme and unqualified as Sharon Angle.

Pennsylvania: The difference between Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey are like night and day, and the voters made the wrong choice by electing Toomey. One can only hope that this insanity is temporary.

Washington: Patty Murray holds a slight lead over Dino Rossi. Electing Rossi would be stupid. Hopefully, sanity will prevail.

West Virginia: Joe Manchin had to swing too far to the right to defeat Robert Byrd. This does not speak well for the mental health of West Virginians, but they made the right choice.

There is obviously an ignorance gap between informed voters and the majority of voters. Too many people apparently do not pay any attention what is going on in Washington. As a result of this lack of attention and/or the inability to comprehend the events taking place they are too easily swayed by deceptive political advertisements and simplistic slogans like “death panels.” Instead of thinking about the issues they react viscerally to their personal situations and often crap on their own interests as a result. That is what they have done in this election. Believe me, I understand the desperation of being unemployed for a long period of time. It is something I have experienced. That is why I pay enough attention to know who is representing my interests rather than representing the people who export jobs. It takes more than two years to rebuild an economy. This is particularly true when the opposition is determined to make you fail. The Republicans have fought and will continue to fight legislation that would discourage the exportation of jobs and all other efforts to get this economy moving again. This does not mean you have to be patient. Informed voters prod the people representing them for quicker results, and they remove the people who are standing in the way of those results.

In this instance the voters damaged their own cause by lashing out blindly and angrily. They punished the party that was trying to get this economy moving again and rewarded the party that was impeding progress. I would like to think the Republicans will act responsibly, but their behavior over the past two years makes me believe they will not. The most likely result of this election will be greater gridlock in Washington and a deepening recession. The special interests who kept their identities hidden from you and me while pouring millions of dollars into the campaign efforts of Republican candidates will demand a return on their investments, and those returns will be taken out of your hide in the form of outsourcing and deficit producing tax cuts for the wealthy individuals who own or run the companies that export your jobs! The next two years are going to be hell, and the special interest lackeys you elected to the House of Representatives will be stoking the fires. For your own sake, pay attention to what is really happening!

Vote!

They say voters respond emotionally rather than rationally. This must be true when you consider the number of people who vote against their own interests or do not vote at all. Because of this it is as easy for politicians to become jaded as it is for voters to become jaded. If the voters will not pay enough attention to see who is looking out for them you might as well take the money and run. That is what the Republicans are now doing! They mask this by finding scapegoats they can blame for Bush’s recession. It is the immigrants, both legal and illegal, who are taking your jobs and driving down your wages, the Republicans say. The one thing the Republicans want to avoid is any revelation about the fact that they are representing the people who are exporting your jobs. That is why the Citizens United case was such a horrible decision. Because of that decision special interests are anonymously pouring millions of dollars into the election to support Republican candidates who will do nothing to prevent the exportation of jobs. We need to deal with illegal immigration, but the primary cause of the loss of jobs and decrease in wages is outsourcing, and the Democrats are the only ones addressing that issue. It is up to you to vote for your job! If you want to keep your job you will vote for a Democrat.

On a lighter note: California has the distinction of having candidates who have presented the silliest political advertisements and candidates who have presented the most brilliant advertisements. Conservatives are all too fond of waxing nostalgic. Meg Whitman did this to her detriment. She said that thirty years ago anything was possible in California, adding that that was why she and her husband moved here. She then said that she wanted to restore California to what it had been.

Her opponent, Jerry Brown, countered this advertisement by pointing out that he was the Governor thirty years ago, and Ms. Whitman was correct when she talked about how well the state was doing under his leadership.

Her ad was an oops and his ad was brilliant. I thank both of them for the comic relief.

Questionable Qualifications

When extremists on either side of the political spectrum control the debate the discourse becomes anti-intellectual. Extremists like to talk about common sense because they do not want to deal with the complexities of the real world. They find it much easier and, from a political standpoint, more effective to take a simplistic approach they can convert into mind numbing slogans people will remember. In this regard common sense has become a misnomer. Common sense is what tells us not to place our hands on a hot electric heater. Ohms Law and the other things we need to know to design or make an electric heater are not common sense. My point is that most of our endeavors require a combination of knowledge and judgment as well as common sense, and governing is no exception to this rule. We should expect everyone running for public office to know the structure of our government and how it works. We should also expect everyone running for public office to have a grasp of the issues and an understanding of the problems confronting us. It is perfectly reasonable for us to expect our legislators to know what a proposed bill will do for or to the citizens of this country.

Asking a candidate running for Congress or the Vice Presidency of the United States to name a Supreme Court decision with which that candidate disagrees is not a trick question. It is the job of the Supreme Court to decide complex and often controversial legal issues. The fact that those issues are controversial means that everyone who has given the matter any thought at all can name at least one decision they consider to be wrong. Furthermore, some of the decisions have such a strong impact on us that the names of the cases in which those decisions were rendered have become a part of our vocabulary. Yet neither Sarah Palin nor Christine O’Donnell could name a single Supreme Court decision with which they disagreed. The question posed to Ms. Palin allowed her to choose any case decided during any time in the entire history of Supreme Court. She could have at least said Dread Scott. The question posed to Ms. O’Donnell was to name a recent case. Ms. O’Donnell, however, was free to define recent. She also knew that Ms. Palin had fumbled a similar question, and because of the recent controversy over the decision in the Citizens United case she should have been prepared for a question about Supreme Court decisions.

The Supreme Court decisions a candidate will consider objectionable or desirable tell us a lot about that candidate’s political philosophy and what legislation that person will support or oppose. Given the position Ms. Palin and Ms. O’Donnell have taken on abortion they could have honestly named Roe v. Wade as a decision they find objectionable. The problem with calling the Roe v. Wade decision wrong, however, is that it will draw the ire of all the people who favor a woman’s right to choose. As candidates both women might have wanted to avoid that issue, but what about the role religion should or should not play in our public schools? Both Ms. Palin and Ms. O’Donnell have objected to what they erroneously consider to be a ban on prayer in public schools, yet neither of them named Engle v. Vitale or Murray v. Curlett as objectionable decisions. All right, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume for the sake of argument that they were looking for a case that would not draw attention to their unpopular opinions. The perfect case to cite as objectionable if they wanted to appeal to their anti-government base without appearing too extreme would be Kelo v. City of New London, which allows local governments to use eminent domain to procure property for commercial development. Kelo was a recent decision and easy to remember because of the outrage it provoked.

Since my political philosophy is somewhat left of center I agree with the decisions in Roe v. Wade, Engle v. Vitale, and Murray v. Curlett. There is not enough time for me to name all of the decisions with which I disagree. The four fairly recent decisions that come readily come to mind are as follows:

1. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The decision rendered in this case ranks right down there with the most poorly reasoned decisions in history. Freedom of speech does not mean the freedom to buy elections or politicians and it certainly does not mean the freedom to do so anonymously.

2. Bush v. Gore. This is the decision that helped George W. Bush steal the 2000 Presidential election. It was outrageously partisan and dangerous.

3. Miller v. California. In this horrific decision the Supreme Court abrogated its responsibility to interpret the first amendment to the Constitution by allowing local communities to ban any material those communities deemed pornographic.

4. Plessey v. Ferguson. This decision said segregation was constitutional under the separate but equal doctrine.

I will concede that even an educated person might not be able to name all of the decisions that person finds objectionable. I think we have all walked away from a conversation thinking about what we should have said. Sarah Palin did not have the opportunity to confirm the names of any Supreme Court decisions during her interview with Katie Couric, but an educated person still should have been able to name at least one of them. I also think Ms. O’Donnell should have been prepared for a question regarding Supreme Court decisions. Even if Ms. Palin and Ms. O’Donnell could not recall the names of the cases, they should have been able to demonstrate some knowledge of case law. For example, they should have been able to say they objected to the Warren Court’s decisions regarding the role of religion in public schools or the Rehnquist Court’s decision regarding eminent domain. The inability of either of then to do that could be cured, but the ignorance it demonstrated is just one example of why neither of them is qualified to hold a federal office. The way they yammer about common sense and almost flaunt their ignorance tells me they have to appeal to low information extremists. The sad fact is that they both lack the requisite intellectual curiosity to learn what they need to know to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, Sharon Angle, Art Robinson and the other extremists running as Republican nominees share that deficiency.

Say What?

There are polls that supposedly show blue color workers drifting to the Republican Party. All right, I know blue color workers are not intellectuals who spend any time studying the candidates or the political process, but I always thought they had some basic instinct for survival. I always thought that even people who are not paying attention can only be screwed a certain number of times before they realize they are being had. I always thought they would then respond appropriately to the politicians who are conning them. A blue color worker who votes for Republican candidates today is defying all reason and common sense. This worker is like a lamb walking up to a lion and asking the big cat if he is hungry. Even if those workers are cynical enough to think that all politicians are corrupt, it does not take an intellectual to realize that not all corruption is equal. Nor does it take an intellectual to understand that competing interests support different candidates. For instance, a large manufacturer will always support a candidate who is running against someone who is supported by labor unions. What this means is that even low information voters should be bright enough to realize how important it is to know who is buying whom.

The Citizens United Case greatly increases the influence of money on our elections, and it is making it far more difficult to see precisely who is buying whom. Large corporations now funnel their money into political groups with euphemistic names in an effort to conceal their influence. The names of those businesses are hidden from you and me, but the politicians who are receiving the funds indirectly know who is putting up the money. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the organizations engaging in this deceptive practice. It is pouring millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican candidates from a general fund that includes money from unrevealed U.S. sources and money from foreign countries such as India, China, Russia, and Bahrain. The Democrats are sounding the warning loud and clear. They think you have the right to know if foreign interests are influencing our elections and who else might be buying your politicians. The Democrats have introduced a bill to force all organizations that support political candidates to reveal who contributes funds to those organizations. The Republicans are preventing that bill from being passed.

The reason why the Republican Party does not want you to know who is supporting their candidates is all too obvious. Here is a hint for you: the Republicans are blocking a bill that would do away with the tax incentives given to companies who export your jobs; the Republicans are also threatening to repeal the recently enacted legislation that will protect consumers and the recently enacted legislation that will regulate the people who have gambled away the value of your 401K and other pension plans. In other words, the Republican Party does not want you to know they still represent the people who are exporting your jobs and the financial institutions that caused this recession!

Who the Republicans are now representing is not a historical departure for them. They have always received most of their financial support from large businesses, and the Democrats have always received much of their financial support from labor unions. It is not my intention here to be an advocate for labor unions, but it is an indisputable fact that labor unions have a strong incentive to keep and increase the number of jobs in this country because it is the people who work here that belong to those unions. The large businesses, on the other hand, have a strong incentive to drive down the cost of labor by exporting jobs. Given the high unemployment and low wages caused by George W. Bush’s recession what the Republican Party is now doing is unbelievably destructive. They are even opposing extensions of unemployment benefits and many of them want to lower or repeal the minimum wage while extending the budget busting Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country!

I am not naïve enough to think that blue color workers read this blog, but you do. If you know a blue color worker who is thinking of voting for a Republican candidate buy him a beer at a crowded bar where he has to stand up. And try to pull his head out of his ass!

An Attack On Sanity

The Republican Party has two groups of people who are living in alternate universes. They have the religious right and the billionaires. I know it must seem strange for the religious right to share a party with billionaires considering what the bible says about a rich man’s chance of ever reaching the kingdom of heaven, but logic and reason are very low on the religious right’s priorities. The religious right does not think the government should provide any services or protections that they have to pay taxes to support because God will take care of everything. The billionaires are in complete agreement with that attitude because they think they are God. In other words, the religious right-wingers are like zebras that refuse to think about the fact that they are on the lion’s menu and defend the lion’s predatory behavior on the grounds that lions have to eat.

Most of the religious right-wingers vote for Republicans but deny they are Republicans. A Prior generation of them described themselves as Birchers; this generation of them describe themselves as tea partiers. They are in favor of the benefits and services the government provides to them, but they think the government also provides the same benefits and services to people who do not deserve them. Since the government does not distinguish between who is worthy of benefits and services and who is not worthy of receiving those things the government must be evil, and it should do absolutely nothing. If you try to point out that the religious right is working against its own interests people who belong to that group will tell you it does not matter. The world is, after all, a wicked place. God knows who is worthy and who is not, and He will provide.

If you point out the inconsistency of denying you are a Republican while habitually voting for Republicans the religious right will tell you they are taking their country back starting with the Republican Party. Unfortunately, taking over the Republican Party is no idle boast. Now that a significant number of corporate Republicans have lost primary elections to the tea partiers even well established, moderate Republicans are afraid to anger the people who would abolish social security, medi care, abortion even in the case of rape or incest, and every other government program and/or regulation you can think of. Thus you have Michael Steel refusing to discuss with Lawrence O’Donnell the wacky behavior and absurd positions taken by Republican candidates such as Rand Paul, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell while still defending the political viability of those wing nuts. This interview with Michael Steel would have been comical if it were not for the danger posed by the possible election of those candidates and others who are now turning the November elections into a mental health test.

In California we have a different dynamic. The most notable Republican candidates, Meg Whitman for governor and Carly Fiorina for U.S. senate, are billionaires. Both live in an alternate universe of wealth and privilege, and are disconnected from the rest of us who object to being on lion’s menu. This disconnect is all too obvious. When Ms. Whitman was on the board of directors at eBay she approved laying off ten percent of the work force there while voting herself a huge golden parachute. She makes no apology for this or for the fact that she is trying to buy the election. When Gloria Allred filed a lawsuit against Meg Whitman for firing an undocumented house keeper Ms Whitman had employed for almost a decade, Ms. Whitman denied knowing the house keeper was undocumented. When Ms. Allred produced evidence to the contrary, Ms. Whitman still refused to admit she had made a mistake by continuing to employ the house keeper until just before Ms. Whitman filed to run for governor. What Ms. Whitman did instead was to accuse Ms. Allred of acting as a surrogate for gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown. She is so out of touch she thinks she can convince us that this is a phony issue rather than an indication of her flawed character and arrogance. High information voters are opposed to her because they know she is a billionaire who will represent billionaires rather then us. For less savvy voters, however, the hypocrisy revealed by the lawsuit will be a deciding factor.

Carly Fiorina’s political views are almost as hair brained as those held by the religious right. She has not made a show of those views as a candidate, but she is still disconnected from the majority of the voters. When she was CEO of Hewlett Packard she publicly bragged about shipping thousands of jobs overseas. Furthermore she is so clueless she allowed herself to be filmed as she made a snide remark about the hairdo worn by Senator Boxer. Ms. Fiorana is also running the lamest attack ad of the season. It is a clip of Senator Boxer asking a general to call her Senator rather than ma’am. The reaction of everyone I have talked to about this ad is “So?” Why Ms. Fiorana thinks it is so unreasonable for a senator to want people to call her Senator is a mystery to most voters.

This combination of the religious right and the billionaires would be laughable if it were not so dangerous. The anti-government stance of the religious right would give free reign to the very people who are exporting our jobs and whose irresponsible behavior almost took down our entire economy. Furthermore, the areas in which the religious right wants the government to interfere with our lives would take away many of the rights we take for granted. I am talking about a woman’s reproductive rights, a worker’s right to be protected from injury in the work place, and freedom of and from religion, etc.

Tune in, turn out, and vote! I am not making this stuff up. There is far more at stake than you might think!

I’m Angry

Let me tell you who makes me angry. It is not so much the Republicans. I have already reconciled myself to the fact that they are scumbags who will take no responsibility for governing this country and will use any tactic to try to get a competitive advantage regardless of how much harm that does to this country. What really has me steaming is the wimpy response to those tactics. Yes, I know politics is the art of making friends even with people who disagree with you. I know it is the art of cutting deals and reaching compromises. That is all fine and dandy if the other side is doing the same thing, but the other side has absolutely no interest in doing that. The Democrats are still acting as though the Marques of Queensbury rules apply when the Republicans are trying to kick the Democrats in the groin. It is high time for the Democrats to punish those tactics.

The first step is to make the blue dogs act like Democrats on the most important issues. The House should bring the extension of tax cuts for the middle class to the floor for a vote. I doubt that many blue dogs would like to have to explain why they did not prevent an increase in the taxes paid by their constituents. Any politician worth his salt could easily answer accusations that he was actually voting to raise taxes by simply saying: No, I’m voting to keep your taxes low unless you’re a small business like the Koch brothers who are worth twenty-five billion dollars or you’re part of the Wall Street crowd who got us into this mess or you’re one of the companies exporting our jobs. Forget the excuse of being afraid of thirty secant ads sponsored by the special interests. The bottom line is that the blue dogs represent those interests and are afraid not too. But again, any politician worth his salt would say to those interests: “I didn’t have a choice. They forced vote me to vote and if I voted no I’d no longer be in Congress to represent you.”

The next step is to make the price to high for BP if the Republicans keep the committee investigating the oil spill from getting subpoena power. President Obama should call Harry Reid and say: “Now you can tell Mitch or I can tell Mitch, but here’s what’s going to happen. If that committee does not get subpoena power within four days the Justice Department is going to file lawsuits against BP, Halliburton, et al, because they’re going to testify under oath one way or another. And let me tell you that once those suits are filed they aren’t going away!”

The third and perhaps most important step is defeat the tactics of not even letting bills come up for debate. Harry Reid has to pull Senator McConnell aside and say: “Remember how you threatened to go nuclear and declare the filibuster unconstitutional when we were using it to oppose the appointment of extreme judges. Well, its payback time. If you keep those bills for coming up for debate we're going to get rid of the rules that allow you to do that. If you are going to filibuster those bills, you’re to have to do it the way it’s always been done. You’re going to have to stand up on the senate floor and show the world what asses you are!” Let’s face it folks, the senate rules are in drastic need of reform anyhow.

In spite of my anger I am still going to vote a Democratic ticket. Wimps or not, they are the only ones who will get us out of this mess.

Toxic Tea

Not even the person who knows Christine O’Donnell best will touch her intimately. This is not because she is physically unattractive; it is because she passes noxious gas disguised as thought. All right, I am being snippy. Doing so is a bit immature, but I cannot help myself. She is the sort of religious right-winger who believes the earth is an evil place, and she is doing her best to make everyone else in the world miserable enough to believe her. How did she get the Republican Party to nominate her as a senatorial candidate? Was it witchcraft? She did dabble in witchcraft. She admitted that in an interview with Bill Maher. The right wing bloggers are now in full attack mode. They are accusing Bill Maher of being a black mailer, an extortionist, and even worse as far as they are concerned, a liberal! I do not have the stomach to read those idiots, but I am sure they pointed out that the interview from which the excerpts were taken occurred nine years ago and that she has repented for her walk to the dark side. Maybe, but Mr. Maher did the right thing by posting those excerpts because her “dabble” in witchcraft reveals something very disturbing about her personality. The extreme opinions she holds today also indicate that she still embraces the dark side. The only difference between what she was doing when she dabbled in witchcraft and what she is doing now is that she now uses Christianity justify her destructive view of the world.

If Ms. O’Donnell was the only Republican nominee espousing extreme and paranoid views we could dismiss her as an aberration. Unfortunately there are at least eight Republican nominees who are members of the crowd dumping toxic tea into the political waters. Furthermore, the nomination of those candidates is just the latest and scariest manifestation of the Republican Party’s hard shift to the right. Most Republican politicians are opposed to any government regulation of the companies exporting our jobs. Leaders of the Republican Party also say they would repeal the regulations designed to prevent another economic melt down and regulations designed to protect consumers from the predatory behavior of giant corporations. The Republicans are also threatening to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage in an effort to extort an extension of the deficit creating tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the nation. Make no mistake about it, the Republican Party’s cynical efforts to obstruct all reasonable attempts to deal with this recession attracts and encourages the extremists. If the tea party candidates are elected in November they will join the other Republicans who want to forbid abortions even in the case of rape and incest. They will also join the Republicans who are already attacking all social programs including social security, medicare, and unemployment insurance. The religious right does not want the government to regulate anything except what you do in your bedroom. They are not following the examples of our founding fathers; instead they are following the examples of Joe McCarthy and the John Birch society.

The Republican Party wanted to tap into the energy of the extreme right wing. They succeeded but at a horrible price. Rational Republicans who once acted responsibly are now afraid to oppose the lunatics who are determined to take this country into a very dark and dangerous place. Positions that were once considered too extreme are now being accepted. As the moderate Republicans who were defeated in the primaries will tell you, any and all compromise is anathema to the extreme right wing. In the religious right wing’s warped view of the world there is only good and evil. They believe the world is evil, and they are opposed to anyone who tries to make it better. The Republicans think this sour view of the world fits their partisan agenda of making our current government fail. They will soon discover that this negative energy is not a tool easily discarded. The religious right has been empowered. They are the Republican attack dogs, and they are determined to assert their authority over rest of the pack.

If you think things are bad now just wait until the Republicans shut our government down. Believe me, they will do it. The only thing that can prevent it is your vote. We are at the crossroads. Rational people must make rational decisions and they must act on those decisions. We can take the path to recovery or we can turn the other direction and slide into the abyss of self-destruction. The choice is yours. If you do not turn out at the polls to reject the nihilistic tactics of the Republican Party you will have no one but yourself to blame for the consequences of letting the religious right set the agenda.

Your Fate Is In Your Vote

You may have noticed that I stopped giving political IQ scores after the June primaries. The problem is that too few people voted in the primaries. The Republicans had a higher turn out than the Democrats, but even the percentage of Republicans who voted was low. This in itself indicates a very low political IQ. It means that a majority of the people left the decisions to others rather than taking some responsibility for selecting our leaders. This gave the people at the far end of the political spectrum a greater voice because it was the extremists who were passionate enough to get to the polls. This resulted in the Tea Party candidates scoring upset victories over their more moderate Republican opponents. The elections in November are no longer a political IQ test; instead they are a mental health test. Mad is a word that is defined as anger or insane rage. I keep hearing that the voters are mad at all politicians over the sorry state of our economy. The question that will be answered in November is whether the people of this country are insanely angry or whether their anger and frustration will make them pay enough attention to determine who is to blame and what needs to be done to get us back on track.

Shortly after the election of President Obama the Republicans cynically threw out the honored tradition of compromise in an effort to make his administration fail. To this day they continue to oppose things they once favored; things such as making loans available to small businesses, tax breaks for people making less than a quarter of million dollars per year, and an extension of unemployment benefits. They are doing this at the expense of the middle class, which is still suffering from the steady erosion of real wages and decreased employment opportunities brought about by the policies of George W. Bush. The fact the Democratic Party has still managed to make some meaningful changes can only be attributed to the fact that the voters gave them a large enough majority do it. The fact that the Democrats have not accomplished more is because even this majority is not sufficient to totally overcome the procedural obstructions the Republicans in the Senate are using to create gridlock.

Thanks to the rise of the Tea Party, the contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans has become even sharper. In an earlier post I said there is a real danger that the Republicans will shut down the government as they did when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house and that they will use the Congressional Subpoena to trump up charges they can use to impeach the President as they did when Bill Clinton was President. The chances that the Republicans will do both of those things if they gain control of the Senate or the House of Representatives have greatly increased with the nomination of so many extremist candidates. If you think the government has failed to respond to the recession thus far just consider what will happen if the government is shut down and becomes completely dysfunctional. One look at Rand Paul, Susan Angle, and the other extreme Republican candidates will tell you I am not sounding a false alarm!

The premise behind this democracy or any democracy is that an informed electorate will make wise choices. This means that you must listen and you must vote! If you are foolish enough to let the lunatics elect extreme anti-government candidates who will run this country over a cliff do not blame the politicians; the responsibility is yours. You are either sane enough to accept the responsibility for selecting our leaders or you are not. You are either bright enough to realize that our government must take resolute action to deal with this economic crises or you are not. It is your decision to make. It is up to you to prevent the nightmare scenario I have presented!

God and Country

Hold your bible in front of you and wrap yourself in the flag; as long as the booze and the money are out of sight you will be all right. This political advice is even older than the statement about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels.

Whose Jesus do those politicians claim to represent? Is it the Jesus of the Puritans who came to America to escape persecution by the Church of England? Is it the Jesus of all Protestants who split off from the Catholic Church? Is it the Jesus of Catholics who the Protestant majority in this country did not consider Christians for centuries? The demagogues are acting as though they want a theocracy rather than a secular democracy that protects the rights of those who hold divergent views. Obviously the freedom of religion guaranteed by the first amendment of our Constitution was difficult to make a reality even for fellow Christians. This fact is strong evidence supporting the adage that if anyone’s rights are trampled everyone’s rights are in peril. We either have freedom of religion or we do not.

Whose America do those politicians claim they are defending? Is it the America of Standard Oil of New Jersey, U.S. Steel and J.P. Morgan, or is it the America of the majority of the citizens who had the reasonable belief that in order for competition to produce quality goods at affordable prices we had to prevent the monopolies that crushed competition? Is it the America of Andrew Carnegie and other industrialists who exploited their worker, or is it the America of the workers who had to form unions and fight for a living wage? To put it in more modern terms is it the America of the corporations who are exporting our jobs and driving down our wages, or is it the America of people who depend on those jobs and are eager to produce the products that provide them with their livelihood?

The short answer is that it is the America of all of its citizens and all of the people going through the process of becoming citizens regardless of race, creed, ethnicity or gender. It is the nation of the majority who select our leaders and our policies. It is also the nation of the minorities and competing ideas. It is the nation of grand principles and wise laws that protect the free speech of the dissenters so that people holding a minority view can become the majority.

During the administration of George W. Bush I said that I considered myself to be a moderate, and that I only appeared to be a liberal because the country had swung so far to the right. The Republican Party has now swung so far to the right that here is no room for moderates. According to the demagogues anyone who embraces the pragmatic rationality and broad principles that have made our country so great are now liberals. The demagogues wrap themselves in the flag and scream about God as though America and virtue belonged only to them. From whom do they wish to take America back? Do they wish to take America away from all the ethnic, racial, and religious minorities who collectively form a powerful voting block? Do they wish to take America away from anyone who disagrees with them in any way?

The demagogues are divisive rather than inclusive. They appeal to emotions rather than reason, therein lies the problem. Living wages and opportunities to advance are good for everyone. If one group is paid lower wages than another for the same work, the people commanding the higher wages are at a disadvantage in finding gainful employment and the wages paid sink to the lower level. If one or two companies command the market place for a particular product those companies do not just set the price for the product they also set the price for the labor they hire unless there is a labor union to prevent that. Fair competition and living wages benefit everyone except the companies trying to gain an unfair advantage. So why do the Republicans oppose any regulations that would prevent unfair competition, and why do they oppose all labor unions? Loans that would let small businesses expand and hire more people are good for everyone except for the large corporations that might face more competition. So why are the Republicans opposing a bill that would provide those loans even though they once favored such a bill? Green industries would lesson our dependence on fossil fuels from other countries and would also produce jobs. Those green industries would be good for everyone except the oil companies and coal companies. So why are the Republicans opposing attempts to stimulate green industries? Unemployment insurance stabilizes the market place during times of high unemployment. Everyone benefits from that stabilization unless they consider the United States market expendable. So why did the Republicans oppose the extension of unemployment benefits? Affordable health care helps to provide healthy workers. Healthy workers benefit everyone except for the people who are profiting from the broken health care system and the people who see a world wide supply of labor that makes workers in this country expendable. So way did the Republicans oppose health care reform?

The scapegoating and demagoguery of the Republican Party is a cynical attempt to keep you from asking the questions I just posed. Do not let your misery in this economy make you join the people that can be fooled all of the time. Do not fall prey to the demagogues. You deserve to be represented by politicians who represent your interests. The Democratic Party may not be doing everything you want done, but it is the only party that is trying to get this economy moving again. The Republican Party is offering nothing but divisive demagoguery and the same incompetent policies that created this mess in the first place!

Newt Gingrich

For the life of me I cannot understand why people describe Newt Gingrich as an intellectual or a historian. If he is an intellectual and/or a historian he is also a liar and the worst sort of demagogue. He says America should not allow Muslims to build mosques in this country as long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against Christians. Anyone who is educated and rational knows that the reason why we must allow the followers of Islam to build places of worship in this country is because the first amendment of our constitution guaranties the freedom of religion. What any other country does is irrelevant. We are a nation of laws, and our constitution is our constitution. No real American would ever violate our laws or renounce the principles on which those laws are based because of what some other nation does!

Not being content to spew forth this absurdity about violating the first amendment in order to protect our freedom, Mr. Gingrich wanders even farther into the insane world of right wing paranoia. He actually said he would pass a constitutional amendment making it illegal to replace our constitution with sharia law. It is difficult to imagine a statement more ignorant than that. Anyone who graduated from high school knows there is already a vast body of law to prevent the establishment of sharia law in this country. That body of law is called the Constitution, and among the laws that prevent the establishment of sharia law is the very same first amendment Mr. Gingrich wants us to violate. We cannot have a law guaranteeing the freedom of religion and not have a law guaranteeing the freedom of religion. We either have that freedom or we do not. Whipping up irrational fears about imaginary threats to our constitution actually threatens the body of law Mr. Gingrich so disingenuously claims he is trying to defend. In this case it threatens one of the most fundamental freedoms our constitution guarantees. What Mr. Gingrich is advocating is like burning down your cabin to protect it from a forest fire. To say that his logic is flawed would be an understatement.

The greatest threat to our constitution and the freedom it guarantees is not Islam; rather it is demagogues like Newt Gingrich who would have us violate the rights set forth in our constitution. The fact that he is considered a prominent member of the Republican Party is yet another example of how intellectually bankrupt that party has become. There is no depth to which he and other members of that party will not stoop in order to exploit the ignorance and irrational fears of what they consider to be the base of their party. This is a very dangerous thing for them to do. When beliefs and irrational fears cause us to ignore facts and reject rational thought all we are left with is rage. Need I remind you that beliefs, irrational fears, and rage are what drive the very terrorists we are trying to defeat?

The America I know and love is a tolerant nation that wants to know the facts and places a high value on reason. It is a nation of hard working people who embrace the lofty principles that are stated in our declaration of independence and are codified in our constitution. It is a beacon of freedom that became the most prosperous nation on earth. It is a shining example for all people who long to be free. We must renounce the demagogues who would make it anything less than that.

Sounding the Alarm

Let me tell you what is at stake in this election. I ask you now to think back to the very recent past. I ask you to remember when then Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, literally shut down our government. I ask you to remember when the Republican Party impeached President Clinton and tried to throw him out of office. This is the toxic political atmosphere created by the Republican Party. It is an atmosphere that has become worse rather than better over time. What is at stake in the upcoming elections is the economic health of this nation and the real wages you work so hard to obtain. What is also at stake in the upcoming elections is the political process itself; it is accepting the will of the majority; it is the traditional ability to compromise. We place a trust in our leaders to work together for the good of this country. The Republican Party violated that trust when Newt Gingrich shut down the government. They violated that trust again when they impeached Bill Clinton. They are violating that trust now!

They are using the Senate rules to thwart the ability of our government to deal with this recession. They stubbornly oppose an extension of unemployment benefits as well as the bill that would make loans available to small businesses so that those businesses can expand and hire more people. They oppose any public works programs that would provide temporary employment, improve our infrastructure, and stimulate the economy. They cynically cite their concern over the federal deficit for opposing those things while opposing the lapse of the tax cuts for the wealthy that helped cause that deficit. They did everything they could to oppose the passage of regulations designed to prevent the irresponsible behavior that nearly caused another depression. They even oppose raising the liability limits on oil companies for the spills caused by those companies. They also sided with the insurance companies over health care reform and continue to tell outrageous lies about that legislation.

If you do not think the Republican Party will try to use the Congressional subpoena to trump up some charges they can use to impeach President Obama, you are sadly mistaken. The only thing preventing them from doing that now is the fact they do not have a majority in the house or the senate. The elections in November could change that. If you think I am overstating the danger of an attempt to impeach President Obama just think about the outrageous signs carried by the tea partiers, consider the fact that Republican politicians frequently call him a socialist who is trying to destroy this nation, consider the birther movement challenging Mr. Obama’s citizenship, consider what the Republicans did to Bill Clinton. The masters of the Republican Party, the wealthy and the powerful, will stop at nothing to increase their wealth and their power. The will of the majority and the finality of elections mean nothing to them. The only thing that can prevent them from further perverting our political system is your vote. If you do not vote this November you are turning the matter over to older, wealthy, white Americans who always vote for Republicans.

There has always come a time when the American people have said enough. There has always come a time when they have fought back. Now must be one of those times! A President elected by the majority must be allowed to remain in office and carry out the duties of his office. The people poisoning the politics of this nation in order to serve their greedy masters must be struck down. The weapon provided to you by our Constitution is your vote. Use that weapon and use it well. The economy of this nation and the survival its precious political traditions depend on your vote!

The New Robber Barons

The more I listen to the leaders of the Republican Party, such as Congressperson Boehner and Senator McConnell, the more I realize that the Republicans are still trying to sell us what George W. Bush has already inflicted on us. Under George W. Bush we regressed to a time before Franklin Roosevelt’s reforms and regulations gave us the most stable stock market and prosperous economy any industrial nation has ever achieved. We have even regressed to a point before Theodore Roosevelt fought the trusts that had a strangle hold on our economy. What emerged from this regression are the new robber barons. The sub prime loan debacle, the creation of complex derivatives, and the “shitty deals” Goldman Sachs foisted off on unsuspecting investors were not unlike the watered down stock of worthless companies that the robber barons unloaded on unsuspecting investors. Furthermore, we are seeing the power and wealth of this nation becoming more and more concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer companies and individuals.

This concentration of wealth and power is social Darwinism rather than capitalism. It does not matter whether you call Social Darwinism the trickle down theory or supply side economics the result is the same. The powerful and greedy few wind up with great fortunes while everyone else struggles just to survive. It is a recipe for disaster. It is what prompted Karl Marx to write Dos Capital. Even President Grant knew he could not let Gould and Fisk corner the gold market, and Teddy Roosevelt knew he could not let Standard Oil corner the oil market and the products made from petroleum. The whole concept behind the free enterprise system is that there will be competition rather than monopolies that hold our economy hostage while exploiting the consumer. What our economy and every economy must have are regulations that prevent monopolies and that prevent any company from becoming too important for us to allow that company to fail. Furthermore, we must have regulations that force companies and brokers to act ethically so that potential investors will not be afraid to buy securities.

So why did the Republicans oppose the modest regulations the Democrats just enacted? Why do they still oppose any regulations at all? It is not too difficult to figure out. They have been bought by the modern robber barons and by the companies that are trying to become monopolies. This is not to say that those same interests cannot also buy Democrats, but it is a more difficult task because of labor unions. The first reason the Republicans rail against labor unions is because labor unions force employers to share a greater share of the profits with their employees. The second and perhaps even more important reason the Republicans rail against labor unions is because labor unions support the candidates of the Democratic Party. Some have cynically but not inaccurately called the political clout of business interests and labor unions a balance of greed. This balance is a good thing because it keeps both of those interests in check. Unfortunately the number of labor unions that still have any political clout is rapidly dwindling.

The most frequent thing the Republican say about any government regulation or program is that it is socialistic. What they want us to forget is that every successful modern democracy, even ours, have an economy comprised of a combination of free enterprise and socialistic regulations and programs. Transportation was so important to our growing economy that the building of railroads was subsidized by land grants from the federal government. Our modern limited access highways were built completely with federal funds. Utilities were so important and expensive to start up that monopolies were allowed but the Public Utilities Commission was established to help control the rates those monopolies could charge. All of those things are socialistic, as are social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, public education and the postal service.

Not surprisingly the Republican Party has generally favored the brand of socialism that dumps money into private companies, which I suppose is why they placed the postal service into the hands of a private company that has to make a profit, thereby guaranteeing that the postal rates would rise faster than they would have if the government was still providing that service. Given their usual position in regard to private businesses, the Republican Party’s opposition to the bill that would make loans available to small businesses so that those businesses can expand and provide more jobs is a glaring inconsistency. This inconsistency only becomes understandable when we acknowledge the fact that those small businesses do not put enough money into the campaign coffers of the Republican Party. In other words, the Republicans consider those small companies and the jobs they could provide to be expendable. Their strategy is to sacrifice those businesses in order to say that the Democrats cannot get this country back to work. It is truly amazing that the Republicans are able to do this with a straight face, knowing full well that they are ones who are stifling the ability of businesses to provide jobs.

The Republican Party, like its powerful and wealthy masters, is motivated by greed and a quest for power. It is not the once proud party whose members placed a limit on what they would do to serve their wealthy and powerful masters or what they would do to regain power. The Republican Party is now the party of the modern robber barons and the bloated entities that nearly sent us into another great depression. It is also the party of Joe McCarthy, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and the Fox disinformation factory. It is a very bad and destructive joke. Hopefully the middle class will realize that joke is on them and will respond appropriately!

The Arrogance of Wealth

The decision rendered in the Citizens United case was one of the most poorly reasoned decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. In this decision the court struck down limitations on campaign contributions and made it much easier to buy our politicians. The only way to lesson the impact of this horrible decision is to require full disclosure. We voters do not just have a right to know who is buying our politicians, we have a need to know. This is not a matter of free speech as the Republicans and the special interests would have you believe. The right of free speech is not synonymous with the right to remain anonymous. The premise of this democracy or any democracy is that an informed electorate will make the right decisions. The advertisements supporting candidates and supporting positions on issues are intentionally deceptive. Knowing who is behind those advertisements and who is supporting political candidates is essential if we voters are going to make informed decisions.

The most recent polls indicate that a large majority of the voters favor full disclosure. They want to know who is buying whom and who is supporting or opposing proposed legislation. Yet the Republicans are almost unanimous in their opposition to legislation that would require this transparency. The Republicans are ignoring the will of the people, and they are using procedural rules to defeat this legislation in the senate. They will not even let it come up for a vote. The reason they are doing this is all too obvious. They have been bought and paid for by Wall Street, the banks, the insurance companies, and the businesses that are exporting our jobs. The Republican Party is not motivated by ideology alone; they are motivated by greed! They are siding with the wealthy because the wealthy are funding the Republican Party.

The evidence supporting my contention is overwhelming. The Republicans sided with the insurance companies over the issue of health care reform. They sided with Wall Street over regulations to reform our financial institutions. They are now siding with the oil companies over liability for spills and compensation to the victims of those spills. They are siding with the wealthy over taxes while trying to deny the victims of this recession the benefits of unemployment insurance. How many ways can you say bought and paid for?

The greed of the special interests the Republican Party represent is detrimental to the economy this country. We are already seeing this in our current recession, in the destruction of the livelihoods of fisherman and others on the gulf coast, in the loss of manufacturing jobs, and in the shrinking market for the goods we still produce. We are seeing it in the concentration of wealth that deprives the middle class of the means to purchase goods and services. The bottom line is that the Republican Party represents the wealthy rather than middle class. They are not doing anything to help create jobs. Furthermore, in spite of their stated concern about the federal deficit, they are actually increasing that deficit by opposing the lapse of tax cuts for the rich. In doing this they are trying to shift the burden of paying for that deficit onto the middle class.

The whole idea behind a progressive income tax is that it shifts the burden of paying for our government onto the people who have the ability to pay those taxes. A progressive income tax involves a fundamental issue of fairness as well as a very sound economic policy. Our economy is demand driven. Henry Ford’s statement that everyone prospers when the people who make the cars can afford to buy the cars is correct. Cutting the taxes of the rich does nothing for the middle class; it does not create jobs. After the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy we saw a job growth rate of 0.28 per year. This is the lowest growth rate since the great depression, and it was accompanied by the largest federal deficit ever.

Make no mistake about it. What we are seeing is the arrogance of wealth. The special interests the Republicans represent think they can recoup the losses in demand for goods in this country with the increased demand for goods in foreign markets. The Republican Party thinks it can get away with representing those interests to our detriment because deceptive advertising paid for by anonymous interests will keep us from finding out the truth. We cannot afford to let them get away with this. We must insist on full disclosure, and we must send a clear message to the Republican Party by defeating their candidates in the elections this November.

Duped Again

When Andrew Breitbart posted the highly edited and deceptive videos of Acorn employees allegedly helping a pimp commit crimes Fox News jumped at the opportunity to air them. Those videos were not just a sensational story they also fit the Fox disinformation factory’s agenda. How dare anyone help the poor! How dare anyone help progressive candidates get out the vote! The evidence against Acorn, if you can call it evidence, appeared to be damning. I was skeptical. Something did not add up. What was missing was motive. Why would Acorn employees help a pimp commit crimes?

The problem was that the mainstream media picked up the story and congress actually withdrew the funding for Acorn. I am afraid that I, like everyone else, placed too much faith in the news media and congress. I thought some real news organization would have checked the integrity of the videos and would have done a little investigating. I thought that congress would have looked into the matter before reacting to the videos. By the time someone finally did investigate it was too late save Acorn’s funding. I do not know everyone who behaved responsibly enough to unravel the real story. What I do know is that California’s Attorney General, Jerry Brown, subpoenaed the full videos. The unedited videos and the other evidence he gathered revealed that the videos shown on Fox were a vicious hoax perpetrated by an unethical punk with a right wing agenda.

Congress and the mainstream media had rushed to judgment. They had assumed that a real news organization would have checked its sources and would have some journalistic integrity. Breitbart and Fox denied all knowledge of the videos being altered. They denied all knowledge of the fact the Acorn’s employees actually notified the police of the illegal activities of the self-described pimp. They offered no apologies for their sorry role in this matter. Instead they acted like innocent victims. Worse yet, Fox has now helped to perpetrate another hoax to further its right wing agenda.

Breitbart posted another altered video, and Fox eagerly aired it with their so called news people adding their own right wing invective as editorial comments. Once more the main stream media picked up on the story and aired it without first checking the sources or investigating, and once more the government over-reacted to the story. As a result, Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from her position with the Agriculture Department. Now, of course, the full version of her speech to the NAACP has come to light, and it reveals that another vicious right wing hoax has been perpetrated. Fox News offers no apologies for its role in this, nor is it retracting the story. Instead, it is blaming the Obama Administration for rushing to judgment!

While I agree that the Obama administration over-reacted, this in no way exonerates Fox News for its irresponsible behavior. Andrew Breitbart is not a newsman; he is a political operative with absolutely no regard for the facts. Fox News knew or should have known that Breitbart is not a credible source of information. Furthermore, these two instances are not the only times that Fox has presented blatant falsehoods as news stories. I will not go into all of those instances because I think Rachel Maddow and others have already done it better than I can. What I am saying is that Fox indulges in selective ignorance, and selective ignorance is a deception rather than an excuse. A news organization is supposed to perform a public service. It is supposed to keep the public informed. It has a duty to check the voracity of its sources and confirm the accuracy of the stories it presents. It has a duty to be as factual as it can be. It is called journalistic integrity. What is all too evident is that journalistic integrity is a concept that is foreign to Fox News. Fox is not a news organization; it is a disinformation factory with a political agenda. It is high time to hold Fox News accountable!

Please do not misunderstand what I am saying. I am a champion of the first amendment. I would never think of depriving anyone of the right to express an opinion. Fox has every right to broadcast Glen Beck throwing up all over his black board. Anyone with an IQ above ninety knows he is stating opinions. There is a real difference between that and characterizing falsehoods as news. Even real news reporters will occasionally make a mistake. When they realize they have made an error they will retract the inaccurate story and apologize to their audience or readers. The will do this because they know there is a public trust involved in reporting the news. People and organizations that continually violate this trust have no right to characterize their verbal garbage as news. We must insist that anyone who is reporting news has enough journalistic integrity to make the stories they present as factual as possible, and we must insist that opinions are clearly characterized as editorial comments. Slander and libel laws are supposed to protect people and organizations from specious stories purported to be true. Those laws should be enforced.

Even when we insist on accurate news reporting we are not insuring balanced reporting. People who have a bias will still be able to select the stories they choose to report. They will still have the ability to emphasize the stories that further their agenda. I do not have a problem with that if what they omit is not deceptive. In the case of Fox what was omitted were not stories but facts that were vital to the accuracy of those stories. Fox must not be allowed to hide behind selective ignorance. Fox has done that far too often. Fox must be forced to retract the story, and it must face some stiff penalties if it continues perpetrate outright falsehoods on a public that is depending on Fox News for information. The only other option is for the main stream media and our government to acknowledge the fact that Fox News is a disinformation factory and to stop acting as if Fox ever presents anything resembling factual reporting!

Here They Go Again

I hate to sound like Ronald Reagan, but here they go again. The Republicans still want us to believe that enriching the rich produces jobs. They are still arguing that letting Bush’s outrageous tax cuts for the rich lapse will hurt “small” businesses. This argument is so obviously false that is an insult to our intelligence. Letting the tax cuts lapse would restore the higher tax rates for large personal incomes rather than increasing the taxes paid by businesses. Increasing the personal income tax of wealthy individuals will not create a disincentive to for them to invest in their businesses. In fact, it will have the opposite effect because the sums used to improve or increase the size of businesses are deductible business expenses rather than personal income. In this regard, it makes perfect sense to defer some personal income by using it to improve their businesses. This will lower the taxes they pay on personal income and increase the future personal incomes they will derive from those businesses.

It is interesting that the Republicans are trying to cast their argument in terms of small businesses rather than giant corporations. Could this be because most people are not very sympathetic to executives who are pulling down base salaries of several million dollars per year and do not have the same expenses other people have because of all the perks those executives also receive? Ah, but there is the stock market. The problem with the stock market argument is that it is based on the same trickle down theory that has failed time after time. Dumping more money into the stock market simply inflates the price of stock. It does nothing to increase demand, and demand for the goods the corporations produce is the only incentive for producing more goods. There is no reason to make more products if no one is going to buy them.

During the Bush administration we have seen an increasing concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. The result has been a decrease in real wages and a shrinking market. What has made this country so great and so prosperous is the middle class. It is the labor unions that allowed workers to earn more then they needed to buy the most basic necessities. It is the small entrepreneurs who could get the loans they needed to produce innovative products that allowed them to compete with the giants. The fallacy behind what the Republicans euphemistically call supply side economics is that it fails to recognize that wages and employment create the demand that drives our market based economy. In other words, they are still trying to till the garden with the wrong end of the hoe. They are still saying that the rich should not pay taxes they can well afford to pay even though reducing those taxes has only resulted in decreasing the revenue the government can collect and thereby increasing the deficit. The remarkable thing is that the Republicans are doing this while predicting dire consequences because of the deficit. If this hypocrisy does not tell you the Republican Party is still selling old bricks, I do not know what will.

Wall Street

So Wall Street does not like the Democratic Party’s proposed reforms. Imagine my surprise. During the height of the great depression Wall Street fought President Roosevelt’s reforms with every resource at its disposal. Then as now the capitalists had to share a large measure of the blame for the economic collapse. Then as now their greed and questionable practices posed a danger to this nation. The New Deal legislation was passed in spite of the opposition of the financial institutions and the large corporations, and fifty years of unprecedented prosperity followed. We ran into trouble when much of that legislation was repealed or ignored. How quickly we forget.

It is not easy to pass much needed reforms when such powerful interests oppose them. Those opponents will use their considerable resources to publicize lies about those reforms and to defeat the Party that is trying to prevent the reckless practices that have caused so much trouble. In this regard, one of the most effective tactics is diversion. Which is to say that the special interests will attack the reformers on issues that have little or nothing to do with the reforms. The most successful attack on President Roosevelt was the government’s deficit spending. Indeed, the concern about the consequences of that deficit spending actually caused Mr. Roosevelt to prematurely scale back some of the programs he was using to stimulate the economy. The hue and cry over the deficit now is also a smoke screen. The real issues are production and employment. It is all about jobs! People who work pay taxes, and they will buy more goods. This in turn will provide the incentive to produce more goods and hire more people. The increased revenue resulting from a healthy economy will then allow the government to reduce the deficit.

Today the special interests are aided and abetted by a Party that is putting partisan politics ahead of the interests of this country. The Republican Party is opposing the badly needed reforms and the stimulus program. They opposed the health care reform that would have driven down the cost of health insurance and would have, therefore, given the people of this country more money to spend on the goods we produce. They are heartlessly opposing an extension of unemployment insurance payments, which means more home foreclosures and fewer people who can afford the goods and services we produce. They are even apologizing to British Petroleum for the fact that the Democrats are insisting that BP compensate the victims of BP’s reckless and negligent behavior. What is obvious to anyone who is paying attention is that the Republican Party is trying to keep our government from dealing with this recession and the causes of this recession.

The motive for the Republicans to obstruct any recovery from the recession is cynical self-interest. They are hoping to gain a political advantage by making this government fail. They do not care about the victims of the recession or the victims of the oil spill. They are more than willing to let the people of this country suffer for whatever political success that suffering will bring to their political party. The choice in November could not be clearer. The people of this nation must hold the Republicans accountable. They must reject the party that is putting its interests ahead of the interests of this country!

A hell of a mess!

When Mr. Obama was running for President I told my brother we needed someone who was bright enough to deal with all of the problems and insane enough to want to do it. The economy was in a shambles. We were also engaged in two wars. One of the wars was unnecessary, and it was causing us to neglect the necessary war. The most damning thing we can accurately say about the administration of George W. Bush is that it was the administration of neglect. Regulations that would have helped to prevent the economic meltdown were done away with or ignored. The same thing holds true of regulations that would have helped to prevent the gulf oil spill. Whether we are talking about foreign or domestic issues, there was a total lack of direction and no sense of priorities.

Mr. Bush’s failure to pursue a rebuilding program in Afghanistan and vigorously conduct the war there has made the situation much more difficult than it should have been. Like everything else inherited from the Bush administration the situation was out of hand, and none of the options left to Mr. Obama were very appealing. The frustration General McCrystal expressed is understandable, but his public criticism of his superiors is wrong under any circumstances. The first thing all military officers are taught is to defend their men from criticism and to defend their superiors from criticism. A field commander can and should be critical of strategy and tactics, but his criticism must not travel beyond the hearing of his superiors. His role is to advise his superiors and to carry out their directives to the best of his ability. If he feels that those orders are too foolish, his only recourse is to resign and then make his case in public. Every general knows there are very good reasons for those rules and why they must be followed. General McCrystal's irresponsible statements have undermined the command structure. At a time when we must carefully weigh our options, he has made himself a distracting side issue. In doing this, he has added one more problem to the many crises situations our President must now handle.

Tea Parties and Whisky Rebels

In an earlier post I took issue with Chris Mathews because he made the right wing lunatics sound like something new. Much to Mr. Mathew’s credit he showed a brief history of this right wing hysteria. He also showed a campaign advertisement by some tea party nimrod running for congress. In the advertisement this nimrod was having an imaginary conversation with George Washington. Nimrod was complaining about big government and taxes. His advertisement made it appear as though he had something in common with George Washington and the folks who participated in the original tea party. Like most right wingers, Nimrod demonstrated his ignorance of history. The members of the modern tea party have little or nothing in common with folks who participated in the Boston tea party, and George Washington would undoubtedly reject their cause.

Participants in the Boston Tea Party were rebelling against a tax levied at a time when they were being deprived of the hard currency they needed to pay for the most basic goods and services. The deprivation suffered by the colonists was so severe that they had to resort to the barter system. In fact Spanish currency derived from smuggling was actually as common if not more common than English currency, which is why we now have the dollar rather than the pound. Saying that the modern tea party is following the legacy of our founding fathers is a major brain fart. If our modern tax protesters resemble anyone of that era it is the people who participated in the Whisky Rebellion.

It quickly became apparent to George Washington and our other founding fathers that the government had to collect revenue if it was going to provide for the common defense and do the other things a government needs to do. They, therefore, levied a tax on whisky. When the whisky producers rebelled, President Washington vigorously quelled that rebellion. The tax on alcohol financed our government clear up until Prohibition. The income tax replaced the taxes on alcohol when alcohol was made illegal. The modern day right wing is not really against the income tax; it is against any and all taxes. Like the whisky rebels, they do not want any government they have to pay for regardless of how necessary or beneficial that government may be.

Those right wing idiots will undoubtedly object to my analogy if they ever figure it out. No one wants to be told they are supporting a cause that resembles one that was on the wrong side of history and failed. This, however, is what today’s right wing is doing. They have already had their man in office. Their man was George W. Bush, and the failure of his philosophy is apparent to anyone with more than a beer soaked peanut for a brain. Under his administration the wealthy became even wealthier, and everyone else became poorer. What is needed is not less government interference. What is needed is a government that tries to level the playing field and enforces regulations that keep the powerful from exploited the rest of us. It is not taxes that are hurting the middle class; rather it is high unemployment and the precipitous drop in real wages. It does not take a genius to realize that we are getting screwed by the insurance companies, the financial institutions, and the huge corporations that are chasing cheep labor overseas. A government that works to correct those things is a good government.

Primaries 2010

The first small section of the political IQ test has been taken. It is the primaries, which means it groups voters by party. California not withstanding, this is as it should be in what is essentially a two party system. My assessments here are rather limited and superficial due to time constraints and my sources of information. Because of this I am concentrating mainly on California, which is my home state.

Arkansas: At first blush it appears that members of the Democratic Party in Arkansas demonstrated a low political IQ by nominating Blanch Lincoln who betrayed her party and her constituents by threatening to join the Republicans in a filibuster to thwart health care reform. She is often described as a Corporate Democrat, which means that she represents greedy business interests rather than the working men and women of her state and this nation. In all fairness to the Democrats in Arkansas, however, I should point out that there were some extenuating circumstances. A piece of unethical pig shit went to great lengths to stack the deck in Ms. Lincoln’s favor by eliminating polling places in the districts where her opponent, Mr. Halter, had the greatest support. The wait to vote at the polling places that remained open was as long as four hours. Hopefully, voters will remember this unconscionable tactic when they vote in the general election. A Republican will not be any better than Ms. Lincoln but could not be any worse. Voting Ms. Lincoln out of office will at least send a powerful message. The voters in Arkansas should also try to find a political shovel they can use to remove the pig shit!

California: Democrats in California showed a low political IQ by not turning out to vote. Granted that none of the prominent Democrats were in danger of losing the primary, but there were also important propositions on the ballet. By staying at home the Democrats let the Republicans decide measures put on the ballet by greedy insurance companies, Pacific Gas & Electric, and other special interests. This was an incredibly stupid thing to do.

Proposition 13 eliminates the tax penalty for retrofitting buildings. It passed and raises the voters’ political IQ score.

Poposition 14: In this blue state the Republicans favored Proposition 14, which all but eliminates Party primaries by allowing voters to vote for any candidate regardless of party affiliation. The candidates in the primary do not even have to declare a party. Thus Republicans and others can mask their party affiliation. Furthermore, since only the top two vote getters run off in the general election third parties will be excluded from the general election. In 1959 California did away with cross filing, which allowed a candidate to run in both the Democratic primary and the Republican primary at the same time. There were very good reasons why cross filing was abolished. It gave incumbents and candidates with name recognition too much of an advantage, and it increased the role money plays in our elections, which meant that special interests exerted a greater influence on our politicians. Proposition 14 should have been rejected for the same reasons. It gives politicians a greater ability to mask their agendas and increases the ability of special interests to influence the outcome of the primary elections as well as the general elections. Passing this measure lowers the IQ score of California voters.

Proposition 15: This proposition would have permitted public funding for candidates running for Secretary of State. The Secretary of State enforces many of the regulations governing the activities of lobbyists. It was a measure that should have been passed and its defeat lowers the voters’ political IQ score.

Proposition 16 would have required voter approval by a two-thirds majority before local governments could start or expand electric services. The voters correctly defeated it, and raised their political IQ score.

Proposition 17 would have allowed insurance companies to base their prices in part on a drivers’ history of insurance coverage. The voters correctly defeated it, and raised their political IQ score.

The California Republicans demonstrated a slightly higher political IQ than I expected by narrowly defeating Orly Taitz’ bid to become Secretary of State. This woman is insane even by tea party standards, and most pundits were saying she would have taken down the entire Republican ticket.

As for the nomination of Ms. Whitman and Ms. Fiorina, all I can say is that it is too difficult to predict trends from those nominations. The one thing I can say is that those two corporate Republicans were able to get nominated. Both are female but so are Senators Boxer and Feinstein. Whether the corporate backgrounds of Ms. Whitman and Ms. Fiorina will be an advantage or disadvantage in the general election remains to be seen. Both have political views that could be problematical in a blue state and both are packing some serious baggage.

California voters scored in the low part of the average range, which is a much like getting a C- on a social studies test. Hopefully, they will do better in the general election. I think they will if Democrats get off their lazy butts and vote.

Nevada: The Republicans demonstrated a low political IQ by nominating tea party favorite Sharron Angles for U.S. Senate. Her extreme right wing views give Senator Harry Reid a fighting chance in the general election. She is, in fact, the candidate Senator Reid wanted to run against.

Kentucky: The Republicans’ nomination of Rand Paul demonstrates a very low political IQ. Much of what can be said of Orly Taitz can be said of Rand Paul. If the overall political IQ in Kentucky is higher than ninety, he will be defeated easily in the general election.

How high of a political IQ will America demonstrate in the general election? Stay tuned in to find out. Voters who want to cure our economic malaise and wrest the control of our government from the special interests who are largely responsible for this recession must become active and involved. It takes a virtual ground swell of reformers to counter the influence of money in our political system. I am not naïve enough to think we will ever negate the influence of money, but I do think we can set some limits on it. We can and must support progressives who will give the people of this nation a more level playing field by passing effective reforms and regulations. While I do not begrudge a reasonable return on investments or a reasonable profit for innovation and hard work, I do begrudge the excessive greed that results in exploitation and poses a threat to our economy. Unions have been emasculated by globalization, and the government is our only option for controlling the excessive greed of those who put profits ahead of the welfare of our citizens and our country.