"Modern Conservatism Has Become a Form of Mass Hysteria"

Michael Fumento, a former conservative who worked for President Reagan and wrote for National Review, says the new hysterical right cares nothing for truth or dignity:


“...'mass hysteria.' That’s a phenomenon I wrote about for a quarter-century, from the heterosexual AIDS 'epidemic”'to the swine flu 'pandemic' that killed vastly fewer people than seasonal flu, to 'runaway Toyotas.'

Mass hysteria is when a large segment of society loses touch with reality, or goes bonkers, if you will, on a given issue – like believing that an incredibly mild strain of flu could kill eight times as many Americans as normal seasonal flu. (It killed about a third as many.)

I was always way ahead of the curve. And my exposés primarily appeared in right-wing publications. Back when they were interested in serious research. I also founded a conservative college newspaper, held positions in the Reagan administration and at several conservative think tanks, and published five books that conservatives applauded. I’ve written for umpteen major conservative publications – National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among them.
But no longer. That was the old right. The last thing hysteria promoters want is calm, reasoned argument backed by facts. And I’m horrified that these people have co-opted the name 'conservative' to scream their messages of hate and anger."

[Messages from conservative heroes like Michael Savage who defines liberalism as a "mental disorder."  That sort of rhetoric, and the acceptance by otherwise reasonable conservatives, will continue to divide us and inflame our national dialog. --SK]

Fumento continues:

Extremism in the defense of nothing


"Last month [April 2012] U.S. Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican recently considered by some as vice-president material, insisted that there are '78 to 81' Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party, again with little condemnation from the new right.

Mitt Romney took a question at a town hall meeting this month from a woman who insisted President Obama be 'tried for treason,' without challenging, demurring from or even commenting on her assertion.

And then there’s the late Andrew Breitbart (assassinated on the orders of Obama, natch). A video from February shows him shrieking at peaceful protesters: 'You’re freaks and animals! Stop raping people! Stop raping people! You freaks! You filthy freaks! You filthy, filthy, filthy raping, murdering freaks!'

He went on for a minute-and-a-half like that. Speak not ill of the dead? Sen. Ted Kennedy’s body was barely cold when Breitbart labeled him 'a big ass motherf@#$er,' a 'duplicitous bastard' a 'prick' and 'a special pile of human excrement.'


The new right loved it! Upon his own death shortly after, Breitbart was immediately sanctified and sent to lead the Seraphim. He was repeatedly eulogized as 'the most important conservative of our time never to hold office,' skipping right past William F. What’s-his-name Jr."

Seriously?  Do the hysterically-honked-up people on the extreme right ever, ever listen to themselves?  Reflect on their bombast?  When you read their rhetoric in cold print, like Fumento has shown here, one wonders if these extremists are nothing more than street performers hoping to win a prize on America's Funniest Videos, and not representing an actual political faction.  Savage, remember, calls liberals mentally ill.  --SK

Fumento:

There was nothing 'conservative' about Breitbart. Ever-consummate gentlemen like Buckley and Ronald Reagan would have been mortified by such behavior as Breitbart’s...Civility and respect for order – nay, demand for order – have always been tenets of conservatism. The most prominent work of history’s most prominent conservative, Edmund Burke, was a reaction to the anger and hatred that swept France during the revolution. It would eventually rip the country apart and plunge all of Europe into decades of war. Such is the rotted fruit of mass-produced hate and rage. Burke, not incidentally, was a true Tea Party supporter, risking everything as a member of Parliament to support the rebellion in the United States.

All of today’s right-wing darlings got there by mastering what Burke feared most: screaming 'J’accuse! J’accuse!' Turning people against each other. Taking seeds of fear, anger and hatred and planting them to grow a new crop.


...how much fact was there in Heartland’s billboards, whose shock purpose has been likened to tactics of the hard-left animal activist group PETA, with whom I’ve repeatedly locked horns. Or in West’s assertion? Or Breitbart’s tirades? Rush Limbaugh compared Breitbart, who never wrote a single investigative report, to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the dynamic duo who brought down the thoroughly corrupt presidency of Richard Nixon. He actually said Breitbart’s work was superior. Oh, dear!

I know these words coming from somebody identified with the right are heresy – as defined by this new right. An invite to a marshmallow roast with you as guest of honor. Or worse. It’s to be labeled with the ultimate epithet: RINO.

[skip]

The hate, anger and fear machine

A single author, Ann Coulter, has published best-selling books accusing liberals, in the titles, of being demonic, godless and treasonous. Michelle Malkin, ranked by the Internet search company PeekYou as having the most traffic of any political blogger, routinely dismisses them as 'moonbats, morons and idiots.' Limbaugh infamously dispatched a young woman who expressed her opinion that the government should provide free birth control as a 'slut' and a 'prostitute.”'

As a conservative, I disagree with the political opinions of liberals. But to me, a verbal assault indicates insecurity and weakness on the part of the assaulter, as in 'Is that the best they can do?' This playground bullying – the name-calling, the screaming, the horrible accusations – all are intended to stifle debate, the very lifeblood of a democracy.

Meanwhile, these people who practice shutting down the opposition through shouts and smears accuse President Obama of having dictatorial dreams? A recent email I received, based on accusations from umpteen right-wing groups, blared in caps-lock fury: 'BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA HAS SIGNED A MARTIAL LAW EXECUTIVE ORDER!' This specific message, from a group calling itself RightMarch.org, goes on: 'THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS! BARACK OBAMA IS TRYING TO VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION, BECOME A DICTATOR, AND TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS!'

Outrageous, indeed. Obama’s order updated a National Defense Resource Preparedness act, which was essentially identical to one signed 19 years earlier and actually originated in 1950. It granted no authority to Obama that he did not already have under existing laws.

President Obama is regularly referred to as a Marxist/Socialist, Nazi, tyrant, Muslim terrorist supporter and – let me look this up, but I’ll bet probably the antichrist, too. Yup, there it is! Over
5 million Google references. There should be a contest to see if there’s anything for which Obama hasn’t been accused. Athlete’s foot? The 'killer bees'? Maybe. In any case, the very people who coined and promoted such terms as “Bush Derangement Syndrome, Cheney Derangement Syndrome and Palin Derangement Syndrome” have been promoting hysterical attitudes toward Obama since before he was even sworn in."


Go HERE to read the rest of Fumeto's scathing article about what conservatism has become.  And then stop and think about the sort of extremists who smugly call liberalism a "mental disorder." 


Here are some of Michael Savage's thoughts about liberals:

According to Savage, Obama is 'surrounded by terrorists'  for friends and is "raping America."

He's a "neo-Marxist fascist dictator in the making" with a plan to  'force children into a paramilitary domestic army." Savage has also attacked gays as people who are "raping our children's minds.'

He has condemned illegal immigrants for having "destroyed" California and accused them of having  'raped and disheveled'  the Statue of Liberty. 

"I fear that Obama will stir up a race war ... in order to seize absolute power"

Obama Is "Emotionally And Intellectually" Close To Mass Murderer Pol Pot

All of Michael Savage's rhetoric is, of course, protected by our Constitution, just like the Constitution protects the Westboro Baptist Church's right to do this. 

In my opinion, they are both the same:  extremists who seek to divide us; and in Savage's case, enrich himself while doing so. 

************

More reading by conservatives who've left the GOP and by those who remain in the party, hoping it wakes up to what it has become:

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

Schwarzenegger: ‘Extreme Right Wing’ Of Republican Party Has Litmus Test That ‘Doesn’t Allow Compromise’


We Republicans Have Completely Lost Touch With Reality

<><><><>

Can the Republican Party be rescued from right wing extremism?

Cambodian Children's Fund

My niece, Sophia, who lives in Los Angeles and will be a sophmore in September at Parsons School of Design, is in Cambodia working with the Cambodian Children's Fund.

Brava to Sophia and everyone involved in this worthy cause.

That's Sophia in the middle of the photo, behind the boy with the black and white shirt.

Sophia!

Check out more photos from Cambodia

HERE


Another niece, Pat, has been with Heifer International for 18 years.  She's the National Community Volunteer Manager. 

Kudos to Pat and the good work Heifer International does for Americans and people around the world!

Dreams From Obama

Good news.  President Obama has implemented a version of the Dream Act, using an executive order:



"The executive order taking advantage of prosecutorial discretion in deportation cases will cover individuals brought to the United States through no fault of their own before the age of 16 who have:

• lived in the U.S. at least five years
• have no criminal record
• have earned a high school degree
• or served in the military,
• and still be under 30.

Those who meet the criteria can get deportation proceedings (or the threat of same) deferred for two years and seek work permits."

This isn't "amnesty."  The young people who are here through no fault of their own can earn their way toward citizenship.

The obstructionists in the GOP would not and did not address this issue, and we're glad the president used his executive power to act on it.


"Sure, this is election-year positioning, but sometimes good policy is good politics. And not only will this be good for Obama's electoral chances directly, but it presents Republicans with an excruciating dilemma: either lay low and piss off their base or else follow their usual anti-Obama playbook and unleash a blizzard of criticism that will torpedo their efforts to attract Latino voters for years to come." --Kevin Drum

"Republicans will call this "amnesty." Yet this move doesn't grant citizenship or legal status. It's essentially a promise not to deport and permission to work—unless the order is reversed. This is a temporary solution to a policy problem that Congress has consistently lacked the courage to resolve: the presence of undocumented immigrants who are here through no fault of their own and who have never known another home. And the devil is in the implementation. Previous promises to excercize discretion by the administration haven't panned out as advertised." --Erica Johnson


To put a personal face on this story and understand how this issue affects people, read Maria Gomez's story in the LA Times:

"It was early Friday morning, and UCLA graduate Maria Gomez had only heard some of the news -- something about President Obama granting immunity to young illegal immigrants like herself -- when the congratulatory text messages began flying in.

She would be able to apply for a work permit, and a driver's license, according to texts from her friends. Although Obama is paving the way for work permits, obtaining driver's licenses are a matter of state law and unaffected by his announcement.

For Gomez, these little privileges mean so much. "

INTERESTING.  SOUND FAMILIAR?

 

Maureen Gill:

"The Know-Nothing movement of the mid-1800s would be very much at home in modern America. Know-Nothings were native-born, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant males – women could not yet vote; the movement was a xenophobic, anti-immigrant response to massive waves of Irish and German immigrants flooding America between 1830-60, most especially Irish Catholics; however, Know-Nothings also railed against Jews, and in California, they targeted Asians, primarily the Chinese.

The movement’s name was the result of its semi-secret organization; when asked about the movement’s activities, members were instructed to reply “I know nothing.” The Know-Nothing platform called for: Severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries; restricting political office to native-born Americans of English and/or Scottish lineage and Protestant persuasion; mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship; restricting public school teacher positions to Protestants; mandating daily Bible readings in public schools; restricting the sale of liquor; restricting the use of languages other than English."

Bruce Bartlett Explains It All For You

Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.”


"Republicans assert that Barack Obama assumed sole responsibility for the budget on Jan. 20, 2009. From that date, all increases in the debt or deficit are his responsibility and no one else’s, they say.

This is, of course, nonsense – and the American people know it. As I documented in a previous post, even today 43 percent of them hold George W. Bush responsible for the current budget deficit versus only 14 percent who blame Mr. Obama.

In January 2001, the office projected that the federal government would run a total budget surplus of $3.5 trillion through 2008 if policy was unchanged and the economy continued according to forecast. In fact, there was a deficit of $5.5 trillion.

The projected surplus was primarily the result of two factors. First was a big tax increase in 1993 that every Republican in Congress voted against, saying that it would tank the economy. This belief was wrong. The economy boomed in 1994, growing 4.1 percent that year and strongly throughout the Clinton administration.

The second major contributor to budget surpluses that emerged in 1998 was tough budget controls that were part of the 1990 and 1993 budget deals. The main one was a requirement that spending could not be increased or taxes cut unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases. This was known as Paygo, for pay as you go.

During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush warned that budget surpluses were dangerous because Congress might spend them, even though Paygo rules prevented this from happening. His Feb. 28, 2001, budget message reiterated this point and asserted that future surpluses were likely to be even larger than projected due principally to anticipated strong revenue growth.

This was the primary justification for a big tax cut. Subsequently, as it became clear that the economy was slowing – a recession began in March 2001 – that became a further justification.

The 2001 tax cut did nothing to stimulate the economy, yet Republicans pushed for additional tax cuts in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The economy continued to languish even as the Treasury hemorrhaged revenue, which fell to 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000. Republicans abolished Paygo in 2002, and spending rose to 20.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 from 18.2 percent in 2001.

According to the C.B.O., by the end of the Bush administration, legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by $1.6 trillion. Slower-than-expected growth further reduced revenues by $1.4 trillion.

However, the Bush tax cuts continued through 2010, well into the Obama administration. These reduced revenues by another $369 billion, adding that much to the debt. Legislated tax cuts enacted by President Obama and Democrats in Congress reduced revenues by an additional $407 billion in 2009 and 2010. Slower growth reduced revenues by a further $1.3 trillion. Contrary to Republican assertions, there were no additional revenues from legislated tax increases.

In late 2010, Mr. Obama agreed to extend all the Bush tax cuts for another two years. In 2011, this reduced revenues by $105 billion.

On the spending side, legislated increases during the Bush administration added $2.4 trillion to deficits and the debt through 2008. This includes $121 billion for Medicare Part D, a new entitlement program enacted by Republicans in 2003.

Economic factors added almost nothing to increased spending – just $27 billion in total. This is mainly because interest rates were much lower than C.B.O. had anticipated, leading to lower spending for interest on the debt.

After 2008, it becomes harder to separate spending that was initiated under Mr. Bush from that under Mr. Obama. We do know that spending for Part D has risen rapidly – Republicans phased in the program to disguise its budgetary cost – adding $150 billion to the debt during 2009-11.

According to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan increased the debt by $795 billion through the end of fiscal 2008. The continuation of these wars by Mr. Obama added another $488 billion through the end of 2011.

Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 – enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000.

Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011.

Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts. And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008.

Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous.

Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts."

Do you understand now what happened to the economy and which party was the most responsible for sabotaging it?  Good.

Now read what this commenter had to say about Mr. Bartlett's excellent article:

Sleater

Chicago

 

"Are there really this few comments on this sage, empirically solid article by Mr. Bartlett, a Republican who worked for both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush?

Moreover, why isn't this article on the front page of the New York Times? Why don't any of the paper's economics reporters lay these facts out so clearly? And why can't a single TV talking head use these same facts--because facts they are, not mere opinions, or misstatements, or lies--to lead and guide a discussion on one of the Sunday news forums? Thank you, Mr. Bartlett, for your fair, informed article. Now, how to get this information to far more people?"

Source

Sunday Night Poetry -- Why The Chicken Dies

WHY THE CHICKEN DIES

Because on the other side
there is ginger root and lime.

Because there is tarragon and wine
and recipes in the New York Times,

and an aproned priestess
carving its breast into pieces,

preparing it for boil
and anointing it in oil.

Because it is chicken, there'll never be
a Bolívar in its pantheon of poultry.

It is a thing with feathers
with no hope that it will ever

be unchickened from its fate
from egg to porcelain plate.

                  --Shaw Kenawe

Dear Romney and other GOPers, Mr. Obama did NOT have a super majority in Congress for two years...

...so please stop repeating that claptrap:

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

This stood out to me in "The Lies of Mitt Romney III":

"we remember the president’s own party had a super majority in both houses for his first two years"

I'm not sure how Romney defines a super majority, but my recollection was that the Dems only had a filibuster-proof majority (including two independents) from the time that Al Franken was finally seated (July 7, 2009) until the point that Teddy Kennedy passed away (August 25, 2009). That's only seven weeks, not two years.

And there was never a supermajority in the House as Romney claims. The balance at the start of the Congress was 257 - 178, which is a Democratic share of only 59 percent, not 67. So again, Romney simply lied. Obama never had a super majority in both Houses, let alone for two years. In the Senate, his super-majority lasted seven weeks.

Please stay vigilant. Your eyes are as good as ours. Scan Romney's statements for factual untruths - not embellishments or exaggerations, but empirically false statements. Update from a reader:

Not to let Mitt Romney off the hook, because his "two years supermajority" claim is still blatantly false, but there was an interim Senator from Massachusetts who was, in fact, the 60th vote for healthcare reform after Ted Kennedy died. Paul Kirk served as interim Senator from Massachusetts from September 24, 2009 to February 4, 2010.  Therefore, the Democrats had a Senate supermajority for seven weeks with Kennedy and nineteen weeks with Paul Kirk, for a total of 26 weeks, or half a year.

Update from another reader:

By the time Al Franken was sworn in on July 7, 2009, Ted Kennedy had not cast a Senate vote for about four months because he was terminally ill with brain cancer. (He died on August 25, 2009.) Robert Byrd was also hospitalizedfrom May 18 through June 30, 2009 and may not have been well enough to attend Congress and vote for some time afterward. Thus the Democrats did not really have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster until Kirk took office. Byrd (who died in June 2010) was also periodically too ill to attend and vote during the September 2009-February 2010 period, though I have not been able to confirm this with a quick Google.

CAN ROMNEY HAVE IT BOTH WAYS?

I'm off to the great state of Maine for a niece's graduation. 

Meanwhile, I think this post from Rachel Maddow's blog demonstrates how Romney and his team play the blame game when it suits them.   Romney's people claim that a lousy Massachusetts economy and tanking job numbers when he became governor were responsible for his poor economic record.  Massachusetts saw some improvement in four years, just as Romney voluntarily decided not to seek a second term [he started his run for the presidency at that time.]

Irony is most certainly dead.

"Romney's staffers had to know that when they appeared on the Sunday shows yesterday [June 3], they'd hear questions about Massachusetts being 47th out of 50 states in job creation during Romney's tenure. And what was their explanation? Romney inherited a bad situation, and when he left, things were marginally better.

Seriously, that's their defense.

---

Eric Fehrnstrom told ABC, "Can I just say, on the jobs question, because this comes up repeatedly that Massachusetts was 47 out of 50 in terms of jobs growth. Actually, when Mitt Romney arrived, Massachusetts was an economic basket house." Kevin Madden, naturally, took the same line on "Meet the Press." On Fox News, Ed Gillespie went so far as to suggest the job losses in Romney's first year shouldn't be held against him.

He wasn't kidding.

This comes on the heels of Fehrnstrom arguing 10 days ago that Romney inherited a "recession" and an economy that was "losing thousands of jobs every month" in 2002, and a Romney campaign press release last week that argued, in all seriousness, 'Governor Romney inherited an economy that was losing jobs each month and left office with an economy that was adding jobs each month.'

David Axelrod's response seemed wholly appropriate given the circumstances: 'They're kidding, right?'

Look, this isn't complicated. Romney is trying to create a standard for success that only he's allowed to use. After all, what's President Obama's defense on the economy? He inherited a disaster but helped turn things around. After one term, conditions weren't excellent, but they showed clear improvement after four years. An economy that was losing jobs was, finally, adding jobs.
And what's Romney's defense of his jobs record in Massachusetts? He inherited a mess but helped turn things around. After one term, conditions weren't excellent, but they showed clear improvement after four years. An economy that was losing jobs was, finally, adding jobs."

MITT ROMNEY ON THE HEALTH CARE MANDATE

The Republicans are smacking their lips over the idea of putting Mitt Romney in the White House and replacing the Liberal, Socialist, Commie, Kenyan.

And we liberals are scratching our heads over why the GOP is in thrall with the idea of replacing a moderate liberal with moderate liberal.

Recently uncovered emails from Romney's term as governor of Massachusetts show how diligently and earnestly Romney worked for the individual mandate for the universal health care legislation he crafted, the very mandate that the SCOTUS may overturn this month on the ACA.

Wall Street Journal Uncovers Romney E-Mails Supporting the Health Care Mandate

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:21 PM

"For team Romney, it was clear from the start that a mandate would be critical. Analyzing a proposal offered by the Senate leader, Romney’s health secretary Tim Murphy wrote in a Feb. 2006 email to the governor and key aides: 'It is unclear that the plan adopts an individual mandate. We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work.' "

Emails Reveal How Romney Persuaded Skeptical Dems To Adopt Health Care Mandate

"The emails, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, reveal a politically savvy governor and his team seeking to maneuver a complex bill through the Massachusetts legislature. The bill became the template for President Obama’s national health care law, which Romney promises to repeal if elected president.

For team Romney, it was clear from the start that a mandate would be critical.

Analyzing a proposal offered by the Senate leader, Romney’s health secretary Tim Murphy wrote in a Feb. 2006 email to the governor and key aides: 'It is unclear that the plan adopts an individual mandate. We must have an individual mandate for any plan to work.' ”

I've yet to read or hear an explanation of why the Republican idea of a mandate turned into an apocalyptic assault on the Constitution once a Democrat embraced the conservative idea.

"Romney signed the bill into law on April 12, 2006.

Days prior, the governor personally drafted several versions of an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal making the case for the legislation. In the drafts that his aides helped edit, Romney seemed keen on defending the mandate to skeptics on the right, invoking an argument that he has since used and that Obama often uses to defend his mandate.

'Some of my libertarian friends balk at an individual mandate,' Romney wrote in draft language that was edited. 'But is it libertarian to insist that government pick up the tab for those without insurance or means to pay? An uninsured libertarian might counter that he could refuse the free care, but under law, that is impossible — and inhumane.'

On the day he signed the bill into law, Romney wrote an email thanking top aide Tom Trimarco.

'Quite a day! You deserve a great deal of credit for making today happen,' Romney wrote. 'You have made a huge difference for me and for hundreds of thousands of people who will have healthier and happier lives. Thanks Tom. Best, Mitt.' "

But making "a huge difference...for hundreds of thousands" of Americans who need health care coverage is, to presidential candidate Romney, something he believes is wrong and promises to overturn the ACA on his first day in office.  That is what Romney has said [even though he Constitutionally cannot do so].  Somehow this guy believes making health care a reality through individual mandates is a good thing for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents, but wrong for hundreds of thousand of other Americans.

"Romney's op-ed, published during the heat of the health care debate and...unearthed by BuzzFeed, is squarely on the side of health care reform being driven by the federal government. In fact, the national plan that Romney sketched out as acceptable to conservatives closely resembles the one that Obama ultimately signed into law.

The op-ed no longer appears on the USA Today website but is archived on the Mitt Romney fan site "Mitt Romney Central" and is accessible on the former Governor's old website via the web archive.

"Health care cannot be handled the same way as the stimulus and cap-and-trade bills. With those, the president stuck to the old style of lawmaking: He threw in every special favor imaginable, ground it up and crammed it through a partisan Democratic Congress. Health care is simply too important to the economy, to employment and to America's families to be larded up and rushed through on an artificial deadline. There's a better way. And the lessons we learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it.

Romney continues further down in the op-ed bringing up the individual mandate dreaded by conservatives."

Romney, after touting the success of the Massachusetts plan in the op-ed, noted that the main problem facing health care generally is soaring inflation and that only the federal government can rein it in. 'Here is where the federal government can do something we could not: Take steps to stop or slow medical inflation,' he wrote."

GOP Obstructionism = Slow Job Growth

I'm following up  with more detail on Friday's post on Republican Obstruction and the Poor Jobs Report.  People on the Right/Libertarian side who commented on the post ignored any culpability the GOP has in the sorry state of the unemployment numbers.  They conveniently dismissed the fact that President Obama proposed a jobs act.  Instead of working with the president to find some common ground to help put Americans back to work, the GOP didn't even bring the proposed legislation up for a vote in the House, where the GOP is a majority, and the AJA was filibustered in the Senate--thanks to the ongoing abuse of this procedure by the GOP in the Senate. 


This deliberate sabotaging of President Obama's proposals to help put Americans back to work is, of course, part of the GOP's plan to make Mr. Obama a one-term president.  A goal that puts politics first and country at the bottom of the GOP's concerns.

Jamelle Bouie of The American Prospect:


"Under a Republican president, the United States endured eight years of disastrous economic stewardship—arguably the worst of the post-war era—that nearly led to a second Great Depression. In response, voters elected a Democratic president and gave him huge majorities in both chambers of Congress. Rather than work with the new president, Republicans ran to the right and promised to defeat this president by any means necessary. They abused institutional rules to block nominees, and imposed a de-facto super-majority requirement on all legislation. Republicans rejected stimulus, the automobile rescue, a climate bill built from their ideas, a health care bill built from their ideas, and a reform bill designed to keep the Great Recession from happening again.

This was an amazingly successful strategy. It destroyed Democratic standing with the public, energized the right-wing fringe, and led to a historic victory in the House of Representatives. Once in command of the House, Republicans pushed hugely draconian budgets, risked a government shutdown, and nearly caused a second economic collapse by threatening to default on the nation’s debt. This reckless behavior depressed the economy, prolonged the recovery, and destroyed trust in the nation’s political institutions. The Speaker of the House has even promised to do this again, if Democrats don’t bow to his demands for greater spending cuts."


Slow job growth is the result of GOP obstructionism not pro-business President

 "...based on President Obama’s actual record, this writer agrees with Timothy Egan who wrote in the New York Times: “For no matter your view of President Obama, he effectively saved Capitalism.” Timothy Egan is spot on. Jamie Dimon and Bernie Marcus should be thanking this President for saving this economy and Capitalism not attacking him. Moreover, this President is in fact one of the most pro-business Presidents in the country's history.

The facts speak for themselves. Does this sound like a President who is ant-business or anti-Capitalism? President Obama continued what George Bush started of bailing out and stabilizing the banking sector, and effectively saving Wall Street from a complete disaster that it created on its own. Then he went on to rescue the American automobile industry. In his $447 billion jobs plan, President Obama recommended slicing the payroll tax paid by businesses. The President signed the Small Business Jobs Act giving small business owners eight small business tax cuts, zero taxes on capital gains from key small business investments, extension and expansion of small businesses’ ability to expense capital investments, extension of 50% bonus depreciation, an increase in the deduction for entrepreneurs’ start-up expenses and many more pro-small business incentives. Do any of these measures sound 'anti-business?' "

Steve Benen, Washington Monthly:

"Republicans have an incentive, not only to hold the country back on purpose, but also to block every good idea, even the ones they agree with, because they assume voters will end up blaming the president in the end.

And when the political system breaks down, and congressional Republicans kill ideas that are worthwhile and popular, there’s an assumption that the president is somehow to blame, even if that doesn’t make any sense at all. Indeed, here we have a quote from a voter who is inclined to reward Republicans, giving them more power, even though the voter agrees with Obama — whose ideas (and presidency) Republicans are actively trying to destroy.

As Greg Sargent, who first flagged the quote in the AP article, explained: “Voters either don’t understand, or they don’t care, that the GOP has employed an unprecedented level of filibustering in order to block all of Obama’s policies, even ones that have majority public support from Dems, independents and Republicans alike."

Is the GOP deliberately trying to sabotage the economy to hurt President Obama?

REPUBLICANS IN 2012:

"KEEPING MILLIONS OUT OF WORK TO PUT ONE MAN OUT OF A JOB."

ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT PROGRESSIVE ERUPTIONS

Progressive Eruptions [and its blog hostess] is pleased to report that it got a very nice shout-out in About.com's Business and Finance/Women in Business section, along with Amanda Winkler of the Washington Post, Jennifer Epstein of Politico, Steve Kornaki of Salon.com, Marie Diamond of ThinkProgress.org, and Igor Volsky, also of ThinkProgress.

 

The link is here. 

 

Shaw Kenawe is quoted on the second page.

 

 

REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTIONISM AND THE POOR JOBS REPORT

The jobs report is brutal. 

But the GOP's crowing about the bad news is misplaced, because they are a very large part of the problem.  And their obstuctionist policies--to stop any and everything President Obama proposes--has had a negative impact on unemployment. 

The executive and the legislative branch have to work hand in hand to solve the unemployment problem.  But we all know for a fact that the GOP's ONLY GOAL has been to stop the president from doing anything that would improve the job situation and see unemployment numbers go down.

Never, never, never forget that the GOP's primary focus has been to defeat President Obama and not to put Americans back to work.

I place most of the responsibility for this very disappointing jobs report on the GOP for their narrow focus on defeating Mr. Obama and for their partisan politics that have hurt the American people.



"...it was just last September when the president delivered an address to a joint session of Congress, laying out a detailed plan to boost job creation. It's easy to forget, but it was a credible, serious plan -- the AJA would have prevented thousands of layoffs for teachers, cops, and firefighters; invested heavily in infrastructure; and cut taxes intended to spur hiring.

Independent analysis concluded the plan would have a significant and positive effect. From an AP report in September:

'A tentative thumbs-up. That was the assessment Thursday night from economists who offered mainly positive reviews of President Barack Obama's $450 billion plan to stimulate job creation. [...]

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimated that the president's plan would boost economic growth by 2 percentage points, add 2 million jobs and reduce unemployment by a full percentage point next year compared with existing law.'

Macroeconomic Advisers wasn't quite as optimistic, but its analysis projected that the White House plan "would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term." The firm would expect to see the proposal create at least 1.3 million jobs.

Despite public clamoring for action on jobs, congressional Republicans reflexively killed the American Jobs Act, saying it was unnecessary. The House wouldn't bring it up for a vote, and a Republican filibuster killed it in the Senate. For GOP policymakers, this was a time when Washington should stop investing in job creation and start focusing on austerity -- lower the deficit, take capital out of the economy, and everything would work out fine.

As panic sets in after this morning's brutal jobs report, take a moment to consider a hypothetical: what would the economy look like today if Congress had followed Obama's lead, responded to public-opinion polls, and passed the American Jobs Act? In 2012, do you think the nation could use those 1.3 million jobs or not?

Are we better off now as a result of Republican obstructionism and intransigence, or would we have been better off if popular and effective job-creation measures had been approved?"

and this:

Matt Yglesias manages to make two important points about the May jobs report (and the larger economic picture) in one paragraph:

'A lot of this is already getting fed through an election year politics lens, but it’s important to remember that this is first and foremost a human tragedy for unemployed and underemployed people, and for employed workers who’ve been stripped of bargaining power due to persistent labor market weakness. If growth stays dismal and Barack Obama loses the election, he and Michelle and Jack Lew and Tim Geithner and all the rest will go on to have happy, healthy, prosperous lives. Other people’s careers are much more in the balance. And the responsibility for addressing this crisis lies first and foremost with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the one institution in the U.S. government specifically charged with focusing on macroeconomic stabilization. For months now they’ve been dawdling instead of rolling up their sleeves and thinking as hard as they can about what to do to increase demand and employment.'

On the first point, I think progressives need to make it clear that the worst thing about Americans reacting to a weak economy by punishing Barack Obama isn’t that Barack Obama gets punished or the “other team” wins office, but that we have every reason to believe that the lives of the very people out of work or otherwise struggling economically today will take a large turn for the worse if Mitt Romney is president and Republicans control Congress. Even if you believe GOP policies will in the end boost growth and eventually reduce unemployment, the policies they are promising to implement immediately will be a disaster for the most vulnerable in our society."

SOURCE:   Washington Monthly

Bloggingdino of The Swash Zone posted on this as well.

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