So Tea Party Cult Congressman Allen West is throwing around the word "communist" is he? I don't know why people get upset about this. I just tell them they're right, I'm a "communist." Really? Tell them they're right? Absolutely! Don't you worry, they won't enjoy their "victory" for long. You see, according to them, every Democrat is a communist . . . going all the way back to 1933 when FDR set up New Deal Communism. That would be the same New Deal communism these tea partiers grew up under . . . the New Deal Communism that made the United States the richest, most powerful nation in history . . . the New Deal Communism that took us to the moon just 36 years after FDR was sworn in. Let me show you the track record of those New Deal Communist Democrats.

• Communist Truman left 2.5 percent unemployment to Eisenhower.
• Republican Patriot Eisenhower left recession and 6.5 percent unemployment to Kennedy.
• Communist Johnson left 3.5 percent unemployment to Nixon.
• Republican Patriot Ford left recession and 7.5 unemployment to Jimmy Carter.
• Communist Carter wasn't able to improve much on the recession he inherited . . .
• . . . and neither were Republican Patriots Reagan and Bush, who left recession and 7.2 unemployment to Bill Clinton.
• Communist Bill Clinton left 4.2 percent unemployment to Dubya . . .
• Republican Patriot Dubya left recession and 7.6 percent unemployment to Communist Barack Obama.

Tea Party Cult Belief #1. "The wealthy are 'job creators.'" They used to call it "trickle down economics." It's the theory that wealth flows from the top to the bottom, and the wealthier the rich become, the more prosperity they will spread around to the rest of us. The most obvious theoretical attack on this belief is in the very mechanics of wealth creation. Capital does not create labor, labor creates capital. When a small elite has accumulated the lion's share of wealth, demand dries up, and the economy grinds to a halt. It happened in 1929, and again in 2008. But you don't really need a theoretical explanation. Just look at the charts and data, after the jump.

Babylon Has Fallen

"The Cain campaign is mainly down the drain..." --Anon.

I simply must confess to massive, utter astonishment at the complete and utter collapse of Pizza man Herman Cain. After the initial revelations of sexual harassment, he just metamorphosed into a pool of muddy water rolling down the gutter into a sewer! Oh, sure, I knew he was a mean, small-souled bigot and dumber than dust bunnies: EVERYBODY knew that...but the fact that it was finally his female trouble which did him in came as a full-fledged between-the-eyes surprise. That he wasn't even bright enough to convincingly lie his way out came as an even bigger one!

Did he think that nobody would ever find out what a sexual dirtbag he was on top of everything else?? And how is it that Republicans just can't be bothered to behave themselves?

So now Noot, everyone's least favorite Grinch, has a commanding lead of the GOP field as they go skidding into the Iowa primaries, mere weeks away. And Democrats can barely contain their glee; they are positively giddy at the prospect of reducing him to smelly dust and foul fragments in front of God and everybody during a bare-knuckle head-to-head contest for the White House. This isn't even funny any longer, folks, it's finally entered into the realm of the absurd and ridiculous. Let me out of this funhouse, somebody: I'm not laughing...

Babylon Has Fallen

Funny?!? By George, it's been nothing less than downright hysterical out there in Wingnut Land lately! without one single electable candidate in their field--and that dismal collection of or mutants is now locked in for good or ill--Republicans are running around in panic circles trying desperately to salvage SOMETHING out of an election that's looming just about 13 months away...and looking suspiciously like it may just sweep them with one single stroke. It doesn't get much funnier to me than this...

They've boxed themselves in securely by trying to blame Barack Obama fior their own profligate spending for years under George Dimbulb Bush... and then writing a letter to Ben Bernanke asking him to refrain from helping mend this broken economy and keep unemployment high. No, I'm not kidding. Let us also not forget that they've voted--twice!--to bring Medicare crashing down with Paul Ryan's catastrophic budget scheme...which even a majority of THEIR OWN PARTY opposes. And as I sit here writing this, they're positioned to sink the President's Jobs plan without a trace. A large majority of the electorate favors that one.

Here's a question: If the GOP actually lost their minds, how could anyone tell??

Babylon Has Fallen

When I put up my first post on this sordid subject, I was morally certain it wouldn't be the last. T'was inevitable; after all, we're still a year and three months out from Election Day 2012 and that huge sucking sound you hear is the the latest version of the Republican Party as typified by its field of loons and losers who are competing for the presidential nomination. The plain fact of it is that the GOP is more unpopular RIGHT NOW than it's been since the question started being asked of voters in 1992, according to the CNN/ORC International Poll. Only 33% of people have a favorable view of the right...while fully 59% hold an unfavorable opinion. The Party appears to view this with considerable trepidation, but they don't seem to want to change anything! YOU figure it out!

Remember former Congressman Alan Grayson? Here was his defining moment. The video is two and a half minutes, but here is the short transcript: "The Republican healthcare plan is 'don't get sick. If you do get sick, die quickly.'" I actually remember seeing that clip played on Countdown the very day the Congressman delivered that speech. Like most of you, I cheered. If you're a Democrat, and especially a progressive Democrat, there is a lot to like about Alan Grayson. I have never heard anyone complain that Congressman Grayson was "centrist," or that he was an "appeaser" of Republicans, or that he practiced any of that "triangulation" stuff. Alan Grayson was an unapologetic liberal Democrat, who fought for his beliefs and principles. Alan Grayson can fairly be called a poster boy for the kind of progressive leadership many Kossacks hoped Obama would display. Which brings me to the bad news about Alan Grayson. Alan Grayson lost.

For those of you who have been reading Conceptual Guerilla for nearly a decade now, you might remember when Mr. Lyles pointed out that winning an argument online isn't about swaying the other poster, it's about swaying the opinion of all the readers. His analogy was that the debate was like a legal battle in which you're the lawyer for your side and the other guy is the lawyer for the other side and you're never going to convince him that you're right and he's wrong. In fact, that's not even your job. Your job is to convince the jury and in an online debate, that jury is the readership.

In the political world, that jury is the voter base.

Which is why I wonder why a smart man like John Conyers thinks we should protest outside the White House in response to Obama's move to cut Social Security:

I've been trying to write this for days, including a big long drawn out explanation. I've decided to take my own advice to other diarists, and get right to the point. If Republicans control the White House and Congress: 1. They're going to privatize Social Security and Medicare. 2. They're going to repeal the minimum wage. 3. They're going to undermine if not outright destroy, public education. 4. They're going to repeal the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 5. Once that is accomplished, Republican controlled state legislatures are going to bring back literacy tests. For those of you who doubt this agenda, they're already doing it.

Babylon Has Fallen

So today, what am I reading? Another pair dueling diaries praising/critical of Barack Obama.

"He didn't give me my pony,"

"Oh yeah? He never promised you a pony."

"Did so, did so."

"Did not, did not."

Here's the truth. This ain't civics class. We don't all come up with "good ideas" and then have a healthy spirited debate . . . and may the best policy win. In fact, a President's ability to give you whatever pony you think he promised you, is far more limited than you imagine it is.

But wait, I was re-reading my "People's History Of The United States" when I ran across a passage written by Howard Zinn that explains it all for you . . . perfectly . . . after the jump.

Samuel Huntington, a political science professor at Harvard University and long-time consultant to the White House . . . wrote . . .

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You know what I'm talking about . . . and you know who's sending them to you. You might have two or three people sending you those mail forwards full of rightwing myths, bromides, distortions urban legends, and outright lies.

But how to respond. It can take forever to track down facts and compose a response. It would be nice if progressives had a shop to produce responses to rightwing email forwards . . . and make no mistake, those forwards are produced by professional propagandists.

Well I've got the all purposes response to every rightwing email forward you ever received . . . and are ever likely to receive . . . regarding Barack Obama.

Send them a link to this.

Or if you prefer, download the wmv from this link, and send that to them.

Here is the simple question . . . and the simple answer. What should Obama do about closing the budget deficit? Yesterday, he actually came up with the answer . . . all by himself. Raise taxes on the wealthy . . . back to the level they were under Bill Clinton when we had budget surpluses. Now go to the watercooler . . . when the office dittohead is there . . . and say that. The dittohead will ask why we should "punish" the wealthy for their "achievement" by taxing them more. He will ask why we should "redistribute" their wealth . . . and give it to some undeserving deadbeat. He will ask why we shouldn't balance the budget by "making government smaller." He will suggest that the way to balance the budget is to "cut spending." The first question is whether you will respond to him at all . . . and second, what will you tell him.

Here is a simple thought experiment . . . conservatives love to use analogies and fables, you can use them too. Imagine your favorite restaurant. Perhaps it is locally owned . . . or maybe you like one of those chains like Chili's or TGI Friday's. You go in, and take a seat, and pretty soon somebody comes out and gets your drink order. Who makes that drink for you? And who brings it to you? Who cooks that steak, bakes that potato, and tosses that salad? Who fed the cow? Who cut the steak? Who grew that potato? Who picked the lettuce and the tomatoes in the salad? Who operated the distillery that made the tequila for your margarita? Who brought your steak out to you? Who cleaned up after you, when you were done? Now go find the restaurant owner. Better yet, go find one of the stockholders in a restaurant chain. Tell him that somebody slaughtered the cow, and picked the lettuce, and tossed the saled, and baked the potato, and broiled the steak, and brought it all out to you. Then someone cleaned up the dishes after you . . . . . . and you paid for all of that. What did you pay the owner to do? Supervise? Stockholders don't even do that.

This is a diary for Daily Kos. It is part of the opening effort to start promoting the film "Megadittoes: Rush Limbaugh's America." I am now putting segments together that will form the backbone of the film . . . and I want to start generating some buzz. [I'll be getting more active here doing other things too.] With that introduction . . . Here's what you do. Pick something you want to see Obama enact. Single payer healthcare? Close Guantanamo Bay? Civil trials for terror suspects? [That one's high on my list.] How about just a public option to buy affordable health insurance? Or how about something timely? Why don't you suggest that instead of cutting spending during a recession, we raise taxes on the wealthiest 1 percent. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman thinks that's a good idea. Now, walk to the watercooler where you work. Or maybe it's the "break room" or the loading dock, or just wherever people hang out when they're taking a break. Just to make it interesting, wait until the office dittohead is within earshot. Every office has one [at least] . . . and I'm betting you know exactly who I'm talking about.

Babylon Has Fallen

Greetings, friends and neighbors! It's your everlovin' Angel Of Mercy back yet again to help jump-start a bright and shiny New Year...not to mentioning providing some much-needed snark and sass to balance that dreadful Republican majority which now infests the House of Representatives. The all seem to have worn their baggy, polka-dotted trousers, their wide, flat shoes and their official honking Bozo noses to open up the 112th Congress.

But more about THOSE clowns in subsequent posts.

At the moment, I'm here to tell you about something with which you may not be familiar as yet. This time last year, two noble denizens of Progressive Blogsylvania put their heads together to hammer out a deliciously subversive idea and embark upon a witty and wonderful podcast that you absolutely need to hear if you have not done so already. And right now I'm sending them a big, fat, juicy birthday greeting!

Radio is fun, and so are my podcasts. And I like doing them. Hell, I might even do one every once in a while. But it's hard to produce something everyday . . . and you have to do it everyday. Also the audience is tiny. I had a thousand listeners to the Limbaugh of the Day. Not nearly enough to make a difference . . . and yes, I would like to make a difference.

So I'm getting back to work on the film -- "Megadittoes: Inside Rush Limbaugh's America" -- after dicking around for two months chasing one skirt in particular [more about that in the next post]. Because the film might actually reach a sizable number of people. If I can ever finish the god damn thing.

Anyway, I'm looking over some notes I wrote late last year and early this year. My creative brain has been pretty much totally shut down since the end of July [and again, more about that in the next post.] Here is a taste of what I found in my journal notes.

The rule of the alpha males.

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Greetings good citizen,

As nonsense levels continue to rise these commentaries have taken on a surreal dimension.

The borders of the absurd are no longer clearly defined making contrast increasingly difficult.

As we examine tonight’s first offering we get a glimpse of just how ‘out of control’ the situation has become.

The U.S. Wins the Right to Abduct Innocent People with Impunity
June 15th, 2010

Via: Salon:

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Greetings good citizen,

With the disaster playing itself out in Gulf of Mexico, we once again encounter, er, ‘evidence of foreknowledge’. Just as there was heavy shorting of both United and Continental Airlines stock immediately prior to 9/11 (and attributed to the ‘terrorists’ themselves) it seems someone had a ‘bad feeling’ about BP right before the Deep Horizons rig blew up…

What we’re left to ponder here is whether or not the most successful investment bank on Wall Street is really ‘that good’ or that ‘lucky’?

Goldman Sachs sold $250 million of BP stock before spill

[This article purloined from Cryptogon ]

By John Byrne
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 -- 10:12 am

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Greetings good citizen,

I don’t commonly attack conservative positions directly but today’s post from one of conservatism’s more ‘moderate’ voices piqued my curiosity.

‘Prune and Grow’? What could he possibly mean? Is this ‘more of the same’, er, BS that conservatives have been preaching for nearly four decades now, that ‘tax cuts pay for themselves’?

With our ‘social safety net’ in tatters and a radical drop in, er, ‘taxable domestic activity’ undercutting the support of longstanding social programs, is bonehead proposing we ‘cut’ these ‘social protections’ in a time when we need them most?

Which points directly to why ‘conservatism’ is widely considered an incurable mental disorder. It’s insistence on doing the same thing over and over, each time expecting a different outcome, is the very definition of insanity!

Greetings good citizen,

Different parts of the country do things differently…so when I stumbled upon an article that detailed ‘outrageous’ behavior by government officials, I forced myself to calm down and learn more. Although one aspect of this situation does sort of jump up and punch you right in the eye, since when did taxpayer funded services become collection agencies? Which is to ask, why should YOU foot the tab so corporate predators can collect, WITHOUT RE-IMBURSING YOU?

What am I ‘babbling about’ this time? read it an weep good citizen, the corporate police state is here!

[I refer you to yesterday’s post for ‘how’ corporate USA pulled this off…]

In jail for being in debt

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