"A DEEP STRAIN OF MADNESS"

That's how Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial and an economic advisor to the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Board, characterized the current Republican Party, the party that's been taken over by lunatics.  For truly, those in the Tea Party branch of the GOP have exposed themselves as lacking normal neuronal and axonal activity.  How else to explain people like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin suggesting the United States of America, for the first time in its history, default on its debts and create a financial catastrophe here and in the global markets.

I could explain it this way:  Both of those women are stupid.  There is no other explanation for such a monsterously reckless position.  They believe they're being "tough" and "standing up" for those who want to stop adding to the debt.  Instead, they've exposed themselves as useless flibberty-gibbets who know nothing about the Constitution or the financial obligations of this country.

Yet.  Yet, those two women are supported by millions of Americans who apparently are only a few steps away from eating book paste and sticking forks in their eyes.

Here is more of what Diane Swonk, someone who, y'know, actually knows what she's talking about, said:

"...Swonk explained, “Coming back from Europe, the Europeans just can’t believe we’d be so foolish as to decidedly squander away our debt rating in such a frivolous manner. This just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

“Right now, financial markets in the U.S. are giving this a 0% probability of happening. With all the time I’ve spent in Washington, although everyone believes it’s just inconceivable, those who don’t agree it’s inconceivable are the Congresspeople we need to actually vote on it. And that’s what really is disturbing: they’re the ones who are unconvinced that there’s any problem out there.

“Everybody else is saying, ‘This is just so horrible. There’s no way they could possibly be this stupid.’ Well, I’m not sure. They could possibly be so stupid.”

Asked how economists can explain reality to those who don’t want to raise the debt ceiling, Swonk went on to say, “I don’t even know how to explain it any more clear to them…. This is something you just don’t play with.”

It got me thinking about how I might try to explain this to someone outside the United States. Why would American officials, on purpose, choose to stop paying America’s bills? Why would these officials want to deliberately undermine the country’s credit rating? Why would elected lawmakers, who presumably like their country, risk an economic crash on purpose? Why would American voters elect such lunatics?

Alas, I’m not sure how I’d answer any of these questions from an outsider looking in. The best I can do is try to explain that there’s a deep strain of madness that’s overcome one of our major political parties, and it’s an illness that puts us all at risk."



Dear Ms. Swonk,

Yes, they are "this stupid." They are the current Republican Tea Party.

GOOD GOING WISCONSIN!

The Democrats blew away by HUGE margins the GOP candidates in the election yesterday.

The Democrats prevailed despite the low-level dirty tricks of running fake Democrats and urging GOPers to register as Democrats and voting for the fakes.

"Wisconsin Democrats have easily fended off a Republican ploy in the state Senate recalls, with the official Dem candidates in each of six races easily defeating Republican activists who also filed in the Democratic primaries. But Republicans have not failed to reap some advantages from the situation.

With the vast majority of the precincts now in, all six official Democrats have been projected as the winners by the Associated Press. Only one primary, for the 10th District (GOP Sen. Sheila Harsdorf), has turned out to be tight or seriously contested, with official Dem candidate Shelly Moore winning by a margin of 54%-46%.

The other Dem primaries are nowhere near that close: Nancy Nusbaum is winning the primary for the 2nd District (Sen. Robert Cowles) by 65%-35%; Sandy Pasch is winning the 8th District (Sen. Alberta Darling) by 67%-33%; Fred Clark is winning the 14th District (Sen. Luther Olsen) by 67%-33%; Jessica King is winning the 18th District (Sen. Randy Hopper) by 68%-32%; and Jennifer Shilling is winning the 32nd District (Sen. Dan Kapanke) by 70%-30%.

Soon after the recall elections were triggered, Republicans declared a strategy to plant fake candidates in the Democratic primaries -- which they have called "protest candidates" -- in order to delay the general elections from July to August, while the GOP incumbents ran unopposed. The candidates included a GOP activist in his 20s, and an octogenarian former GOP state representative, among others. As it turned out, the scheme would cost local governments throughout the state over $400,000."

h/t TalkingPointsMemo

WISCONSINITES HAVE VOTED AND PUSHED BACK AGAINST THE DESTRUCTIVE GOPers AND THEIR ANTI-UNION POLICIES. 

LET'S HOPE THE MOMENTUM HOLDS FOR THE 2012 ELECTIONS.

And from California, more good news for liberals:

Source: Associated Press

(07-12) 23:40 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) --

Democrat Janice Hahn has won a hotly contested race to fill a vacant U.S. House seat in Southern California, beating Republican Craig Huey.
An unofficial tally of ballots in the 36th Congressional District special election showed Hahn had 41,585 votes, or about 55 percent, to Huey's 34,636, or about 45 percent, with 100 percent of precincts reporting.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/0...

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BACHMANN SIGNED PLEDGE THAT SUGGESTED CHILDREN OF SLAVES WERE BETTER OFF THAN CHILDREN OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN-AMERICAN FAMILIES

Then after the fecal matter hit the air-circulating device, she back-tracked and said she hadn't read that part of the pledge.  (That part of the pledge was the very first bullet on the four-page document.)

Bullet #1 of the pledge:

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President."

But never mind that obvious "misstatment" by Bachmann about missing that part of the pledge, what's really jaw-droppingly stupefying is that the document would make such an assertion.  "In fact, the statement contained NO truth. Slaves, considered property, not people, did not really have families. Any slave could be sold at any time - not to mention raped, assaulted or killed. To claim that free contemporary African-American children, with the highest rate of survival and education ever (despite being well-behind that of white children) are worse off than slaves is ludicrous.  Ever since slavery ended they tried to buy their own land, start their own businesses, move into nice homes, go to good schools and colleges and get good jobs. Do you know who stopped them up until maybe 30 years ago?  Racists."

But like her doppelganger, Sarah Palin, Bachmann appears to be a history ignoramus.  And even if Bachmann doesn't know anything about the history of slavery in this country, why bother with stuff that happened over a hundred years ago?  Get over it!  There's no slavery now!

Anyone who claims that September 22, 1862, saw the end of slavery and everything after that was all unicorns and rainbows is, of course, a simpleton.  One would have to ignore the Jim Crow era, and all the laws passed to deny African Americans their civil rights--even the right to marry the person they loved if that person had a different skin color.  Civil rights for African Americans is recent history.




That Bachmann signed a document that mischaracterized the lives of African-American slaves before emancipation as a model of family harmony reveals her bottomless stupidity and crass dismissal of the suffering endured by African-Americans and their families.  She's done that before; and no doubt, she'll do it again.
 


As Albert Einstein once stated:  "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."




Or Michele Bachmann.

Who's Responsible For The Explosion In Government Spending and the Massive Deficit?

The Republican Party (mostly).  But like all loud-mouthed bullies, they take no responsibility for the economic mess this country is in.  Their hero, Ronald Reagan didn't pay any mind to deficits, and he raised taxes when the country needed them.  The current GOP, as David Brooks stated, however, is an ABNORMAL political party.  Their leaders promised to  address the jobs situation as soon as they took over the House.  Instead, they went after Planned Parenthood and NPR.  They did not introduce one piece of legislation for improving the jobs crisis.

Remember that fact when you read the howling bloggers on the right who have convenient amnesia on how the GOP burned the house down while playing with matches, then blamed the fire department for not saving it.



Business Insider explains this with charts and facts:

Mention anything about the US's huge debt, deficit, and debt-ceiling problem, and fans of both political teams will immediately begin shouting at each other.

Republicans howl that the whole problem is the fault of President Obama, who exploded federal government spending the moment he took office.

Democrats, meanwhile, blame massive increase in federal government spending during the Bush years and the triumphant assertions by Republicans during those years that "deficits don't matter."

So, what's the truth?

They're both right. (And wrong. And, on the Republican side, hypocritical.)

Federal government spending has risen under President Obama, mostly because of the $800 billion stimulus designed to offset the massive recession he inherited from President Bush. But the increase in federal spending under Obama is dwarfed by the colossal increase under President Bush.

And about that deficit:

The Truth About Who's Responsible For Our Massive Budget Deficit

Say the words "budget deficit," and Republicans and Democrats begin screaming at each other about who's to blame.

Republicans howl that the deficit is President Obama's fault, because he has exploded government spending and failed to fix the economy.

Democrats roar that President Obama inherited a catastrophic economic mess, that this mess will take time to clean up, and that our massive deficit is therefore President Bush's fault.

So, who's right?

Let's start by looking at the deficits under Presidents Bush and Obama. Then we'll figure out what has caused them. Finally, we'll assign some blame.

First, the chart below [go to link for the chart] shows the progress of the annual deficits under Presidents Bush and Obama.

President Bush, you will recall, inherited a budget surplus (the first in decades). Then, hit with a recession, he took the budget into deficit. Then he cut taxes, growing the deficit to $400 billion a year. Then, the economy boomed between 2005 and 2008, reducing the deficit to $200 billion a year. Then, the financial crisis hit, and the Bush deficit ballooned to $400 billion again
.
In early 2009, President Obama took over, amid the worst recession since the Great Depression. President Obama signed an $800 billion spending increase at the same time that GDP and tax collections tanked. The combination of these two factors--growth in spending and a drop in revenue--exploded the deficit to $1.4 trillion. In 2010, the economy and tax collections improved modestly, and the deficit shrank to $1.3 trillion annualized.
 [skip]
Republicans howl that President Obama has exploded the size of federal government spending in his short tenure as President, and it is true that he has increased it. But President Bush actually increased federal spending by more than 2X as much as Obama has. So it is unfair to lay the explosion in spending at the feet of President Obama: Both presidents are responsible.

The increase in government spending, meanwhile, is actually NOT the only factor that has caused the deficit. The other factor--equally if not more important--is the fall-off in government revenue (tax receipts).

This second and larger factor can be blamed on two things: First, the Bush tax cuts, which reduced revenue, and, second, the weak economy, which has reduced the incomes and capital gains upon which most federal taxes are based.

In the chart below [link to chart here.], you can see what happened to both federal receipts (red line) and spending (blue line) over the past decade.

President Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003. These tax cuts hit federal revenue, while federal spending growth continued apace. This combination ballooned the deficit in the early years of the Bush presidency.

By the middle years of the Bush presidency, however, on the strength of the housing boom and strong economic growth (much of which now looks like a debt-fueled mirage), federal revenues began to grow rapidly. By 2007, in fact, the gap had almost closed.
But then the bottom fell out. The housing bubble burst, the financial crisis hit, and the economy plunged into recession. And then President Bush handed President Obama the worst recession in more than 70 years and left Obama to clean up the mess.

This recession clobbered federal revenues (tax receipts--red line), which still have not regained their 2007 bubble highs. President Obama's stimulus, meanwhile, helped add about $600 billion to federal spending (blue line). The combination of these two factors ballooned the deficit from $400 billion when President Bush left office to ~$1.3 trillion now.


 

"REPUBLICANS ARE PLAYING A CYNICAL POLITICAL GAME. SHAME ON THEM!"

The Economist: “The Republicans are playing a cynical political game. SHAME ON THEM”

THE ECONOMIST!

"IN THREE weeks, if there is no political deal, the American government will go into default. Not, one must pray, on its sovereign debt. But the country will have to stop paying someone: perhaps pensioners, or government suppliers, or soldiers. That would be damaging enough at a time of economic fragility. And the longer such a default went on, the greater the risk of provoking a genuine bond crisis would become.

[skip]

This newspaper has a strong dislike of big government; we have long argued that the main way to right America’s finances is through spending cuts. But you cannot get there without any tax rises. In Britain, for instance, the coalition government aims to tame its deficit with a 3:1 ratio of cuts to hikes. America’s tax take is at its lowest level for decades: even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so.

And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look.

Earlier this year House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85%-15% split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83%-17% split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer.

Both parties have in recent months been guilty of fiscal recklessness. Right now, though, the blame falls clearly on the Republicans.

Independent voters should take note."

MR. BOEHNER: WHERE ARE THE JOBS?!

Since the Republicans took control of the House 185 days ago, they have not passed one jobs creation bill.  Not one.

Here is a list of the bills they have blocked.


Republicans said if they took control of the House of Representatives they would start creating jobs. This is a list of some of the things they’ve done, instead of creating jobs. Click on each example to find a link to an article regarding that issue.

1. Symbolically read the constitution, skipped parts of it, and also read part of the Declaration of Independence, while still claiming to be reading the constitution.
2. 2 Congressman swore themselves in by watching the swearing-in ceremony on TV, without actually attending. They later had to be sworn in again, and 2 of their votes were deemed invalid since they had not been properly sworn in.
3. “Symbolically” voted to repeal the healthcare bill. Spent hours debating it beforehand, even though they knew it was purely symbolic and would not become law.
4. Attempting to de-fund Global Warming research.
5. Attempting to defund healthcare, which is also mostly symbolic.
6. Proposed a budget that would cut billions of dollars in aid to the poor, the homeless, and women and children.
7. Extended the Patriot Act.
8. Attempted to cut all funding for Planned Parenthood and PBS.
9. Attempted to redefine rape to no longer include statutory rape, incest rape, or drugged rape.
10. Cut Pell Grants
11. Attempting to cut 1 billion dollars from Head Start. This would mean that over 200,000 kids would lose their spots in preschool.
12. Working on adding guidelines to delay implementation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, despite overwhelming support for its repeal.
13. Proposed a bill that would let a hospitalized pregnant woman die instead of having a life saving abortion, if she needed it.
14. Holding hearings into “radicalization” in the American Muslim community.
15. Attempted to cut money to Veterans.
16. 1 married Republican congressman was found to be looking for women on craigslist.
17. Refused to compromise on a budget and are threatening a Government shutdown, which will put thousands of people out of work.
18. Made 2 responses to President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Neither of them offered any real solutions to create jobs.
19. Currently considering privatizing Medicare.
20. Voted to fund chemical contraception for wild horses, but voted to cut funding for contraception for human women.
21. Voted to continue spending millions of tax payer dollars to sponsor a NASCAR racecar.
22. Michelle Bachmann stated she believes Glenn Beck is qualified to solve the budget deficit.
23. John Boehner has decided to use the Congress to defend DOMA in court, since the Justice Department will no longer defend it.
24. Voted against letting the last surviving, American, World War 1 veteran be honored in the Capitol building’s rotunda, after he passed away.
25. John Boehner has said himself that if jobs are lost because of his proposed cuts to the budget “so be it”.
26. John Boehner has cried excessively over his own personal history, but has not cried once for the millions of Americans who lost their jobs thanks to policies he supported while Bush was President. Policies he still supports.

 h/t  Matthew Desmond

Remember this?

John Boehner: If GOP Cuts Cause Federal Job Losses, 'So Be It'

More jobs were lost in the public sector than in the private.

READ THE REPORT HERE.

THE ADP SMALL BUSINESS REPORT HERE.

RICK PERRY FOR PRESIDENT?

Is the country ready for another rightwing Christian fundamentalist yeehaw president?  Here are some highlights of Texas Governor Rick Perry's 10 years in office:

Jim Hightower:

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry is less than revered back home, where he is widely ridiculed as Gov. Good Hair. So he's now on the road with a traveling medicine show, billing himself as the "Texas Miracle Man." From New York to New Orleans, he's been wowing the Republican hard core by telling astounding tales of his job-creating prowess in our state, suggesting he can do for America what he's done for Texas.

Such GOP sparklies as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are hailing the economic wunderkind, and his roadshow spiel has prompted some party stalwarts to tout him for the presidency, hoping he can do for America what he has done for Texas. As a giddy New Yorker put it, "We want a piece of that!"

Hold it right there. First, while the Texas unemployment rate of 8 percent is 1 percent lower than the national rate, 23 other states are doing even better — including New York. Also, his self-touted record of job growth is essentially the same as Democratic Gov. Ann Richards produced and far lower than what Texas had under George W.'s governorship.

Most damning, however, is that Perry-jobs are really "jobettes," offering low pay, no benefits and no upward mobility. In fact, under Rickonomics, Texas has added more minimum wage jobs than all other states combined! After 10 years in office, Gov. Perry presides over a state that has more people in poverty and more without health coverage than any other.

Meanwhile, the Miracle Man has dug Texas into one of the deepest budget holes in the country — $27 billion short of the money needed to cover the same miserly level of state services Texans now get. Although his party controls the state Senate and has a supermajority in the House, he was unable even to get a budget passed in the regular legislative session, forcing him to convene a costly special session. His plan is to cut $4 billion and as many as 100,000 teachers from our public education system, even as school enrollment is growing exponentially."

How would this Republican governor improve our economic growth?  He wouldn't.  He's had 10 years with a Republican legislature to plunge his state into a deep, economically miserable hole.

There is also Perry's treasonous suggestion that Texas could secede from the Union, which he happily demagogued during a frenzied Tea Party gathering in April of 2009.  Even hinting at secession should have landed him in an impeachment trial and resulted in his being run out of office, after being tarred and feathered.

If the secession-loving governor didn't look foolish enough when he made his treasonous threat, he eagerly added to his reputation as a wingnut by a proclamation that designated a weekend for Texans to pray for rain. 

Perry harangued against the federal government and spending money, but then scolded the federal government for not sending him money to deal with the drought in Texas.  Change you tune a little bit, Governor Good Hair?  When the prayers don't end the draught, Uncle Sam can be counted on to help out.

Rick Perry for president?  Yeah.  When long horns fly.

THE GOP: UNWILLING TO COMPROMISE, BUT WILLING TO RUIN AMERICA

Conservative columnist, David Brooks, writing in today's NYTimes, explains why this country is in so much trouble, and he correctly identifies the reason that nothing is being done to correct the economy.  The GOP is on a suicide mission, and if it continues its intransigence, it will take this country with it.  There is no way forward without compromise, and compromise is not in the current GOP's vocabulary.  Brooks rightly says that this GOP is "infected" by extreme ideology, and is unwilling to do the right thing for our country because their only goal, from all appearances and from what they have unequivocally stated in public, is to make Mr. Obama a one term president.  This is the basest form of politics--playing with other people's lives and fortunes for political gain. It is beyond gross dereliction of duty, it is perilously destructive, and the American people will not forget the GOP's moral recklessness.

I agree with Brooks that if the GOP does not come to its senses and act like a political party instead of an arm of Rush Limbaugh's hate radio show, it will pay dearly for its moral indecency.

"A normal Republican Party would seize the opportunity to put a long-term limit on the growth of government. It would seize the opportunity to put the country on a sound fiscal footing. It would seize the opportunity to do these things without putting any real crimp in economic growth.

The party is not being asked to raise marginal tax rates in a way that might pervert incentives. On the contrary, Republicans are merely being asked to close loopholes and eliminate tax expenditures that are themselves distortionary.


This, as I say, is the mother of all no-brainers.

But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no.

The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency. A nation makes a sacred pledge to pay the money back when it borrows money. But the members of this movement talk blandly of default and are willing to stain their nation’s honor.

The members of this movement have no economic theory worthy of the name. Economists have identified many factors that contribute to economic growth, ranging from the productivity of the work force to the share of private savings that is available for private investment. Tax levels matter, but they are far from the only or even the most important factor.

But to members of this movement, tax levels are everything. Members of this tendency have taken a small piece of economic policy and turned it into a sacred fixation. They are willing to cut education and research to preserve tax expenditures. Manufacturing employment is cratering even as output rises, but members of this movement somehow believe such problems can be addressed so long as they continue to worship their idol.

Over the past week, Democrats have stopped making concessions. They are coming to the conclusion that if the Republicans are fanatics then they better be fanatics, too.

The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.

If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern.

And they will be right."


David Brooks:

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence is a 12-by-18-foot oil-on-canvas painting in the United States Capitol Rotunda that depicts the presentation of the draft of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. It was based on a much smaller version of the same scene, presently held by the Yale University Art Gallery. Trumbull painted many of the figures in the picture from life and visited Independence Hall as well to depict the chamber where the Second Continental Congress met. The oil-on-canvas work was commissioned in 1817, purchased in 1819, and placed in the rotunda in 1826.

As we prepare for another July 4th celebration, think about this sad statistic:

26 Percent Of Americans Don’t Know U.S. Declared Independence From Great Britain | According to a new poll by Marist, more than a quarter of Americans couldn’t correctly identify the country from which the United States declared its independence. While 74 percent correctly named Great Britain, 20 percent said they weren’t sure and six percent named other countries. In the South, 32 percent of respondents either responded incorrectly or weren’t sure. The poll comes on the heels of test scores that showed few American students gaining proficiency in U.S. history, a problem presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed on the “conscious effort” by “the left” to keep Americans uninformed. (HT: The Hotline’s Steve Shepard)

I am happy to report that the highest literacy on this question was in the Northeast region of the country (84% got it correct).  Sadly, the least literate was in the South (32% did not know the answer).

What has happened to this country that its people do not know or do not care to know its most basic history.  I don't know the statistics, but are there more home-schoolers in the south than in the northeast?  Anyone?

Boston will be celebrating the 4th with its traditional reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Old State House at 10 am on July 4, a tradition that has continued since the day the DoI arrived in Boston, July 18, 1776.

I hope everyone has a safe, happy holiday.

John Adams' famous letter of July 3, 1776, in which he wrote to his wife Abigail what his thoughts were about celebrating the Fourth of July is found on various web sites but is usually incorrectly quoted. Following is the exact text from his letter with his original spellings:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not." (The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, Harvard University Press, 1975, 142).

OH THOSE FABULOUS SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES!

American Family Association Invokes Slavery To Slam RNC’s Appointment Of Gay Fundraiser

By Alex Seitz-Wald posted from ThinkProgress LGBT on Jul 1, 2011 at 12:20 pm

Some social conservatives are extremely upset with the Republican National Committee for appointing the executive director of the pro-gay Log Cabin Republicans to its finance committee, with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer suggesting the move makes it time to “stop giving even one more dollar to the Republican Party” or even to start a new “3rd party.” The “GOP just threw us under the bus,” he tweeted. Fischer, whose influential organization regularly hosts GOP lawmakers and presidential candidates, was so incensed he even compared the appointment to that of a pro-slavery Republican during the Civil War:


The Family Research Council sees the situation as similarly dire, writing on their action arm’s blog, “If you are pro-life and pro-family you should NEVER donate to the Republican Party.”

ThinkProgress

No surprise there.  And no surprise to read what presidential hopeful and batshyte crazy Michele Bachmann's husband said about gays just last summer:

"Dr. Bachmann explained his position on homosexuality while offering theoretical advice to parents concerned that one of their children was gay.

BACHMANN: We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps…

And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it but to encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase."

Apparently homophobia doesn't run in the Bachmann family; it gallops.

Michele Bachmann:
"Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years. I am not understating that."


[Sept. 11, 2001, was just a hiccup, I guess.]
BACHMANN WARNED ‘THE LION KING’ WAS GAY PROPAGANDA: At the November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”

FROM THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA: TRUTHS ABOUT THE SORRY STATE OF THE GOP

From the heartland of America, and the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

"EIGHT MYTHS TO CHILL AN OLD SCHOOL REPUBLICAN SOUL:


When Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., quit the (no longer) bipartisan deficit-reduction talks last week, it was not exactly a "Profiles in Courage" moment.


Serious deficit reduction can't be — and shouldn't be —accomplished without tax increases and broad elimination of tax expenditures, which would have the effect of raising taxes. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform last year acknowledged that.

But tax increases, in whatever guise, fail the current Republican purity laws. Mr. Cantor, who will be running for reelection next year, understands that very well. So does Mr. Kyl, who won't seek reelection in 2012 — though he's generously offered himself as a vice presidential nominee.

It's sad to see what has happened to the Party of Lincoln, and for that matter, the party of lesser mortals like George H.W. Bush of Texas, Bob Dole of Kansas and Jack Danforth of Missouri. No one ever would mistake them for liberals, but they were statesmen who put country before party.

Today we have the spectacle of smart, patriotic men and women putting their brains and integrity on ice to please a party dominated by anti-intellectual social Darwinists and the plutocrats who finance and mislead them.

Consider the mythology that makes up GOP orthodoxy today. Imagine the contortions that cramp the brains and souls of men and women of intelligence and compassion who seek state and national office under the Republican banner.

• They must believe, despite the evidence of the 2008 financial collapse, that unregulated — or at most, lightly regulated —financial markets are good for America and the world.

• They must believe in the brilliantly cast conceit known as the "pro-growth agenda," in which economic growth can be attained only by reducing corporate and individual tax rates, especially among the investor class, and by freeing business from environmental rules that have cleaned up America's air and water and labor regulations that helped create America's middle class.

• Though rising health care costs are pillaging the economy, and even though health care in America is now a matter of what you can afford, Republican candidates for office must deny that health care is a basic right and resist a real attempt to change and improve the system.

• GOP candidates must scoff at scientific consensus about global warming. Blame it on human activity? Bad. Cite Noah's Ark as evidence? Good. They must express at least some doubt about the science of evolution.

• They must insist, statistics and evidence to the contrary, that most of the nation's energy needs can be met safely with more domestic oil drilling, "clean-coal" technology and greater reliance on perfectly safe nuclear power plants.

• They must believe that all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States can be rounded up, detained, tried, repatriated and kept from returning at a reasonable cost.

• Even though there are more than four unemployed persons for every available job, GOP candidates should at least hint that unemployment benefits keep people from seeking jobs.

• They must believe that the Founding Fathers wanted to guarantee individuals the absolute right to own high-capacity, rapid-fire weapons that did not exist in the late 18th century.

By no means is this list complete. It almost makes you feel sorry for the people who pretend to believe this stuff.

Almost."

FEAR THE FLAKE?

BACHMANN IN HER OWN WORDS:




 "I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America?" -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, calling for a new McCarthyism, Oct. 2008


"If we took away the minimum wage -- if conceivably it was gone -- we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level." Michele Bachmann, Jan. 2005


"Something that I think sometimes people don’t like to hear is that secular people can be sometimes even more dogmatic in beliefs than people who are not secular. ... In some ways, to believe in evolution is almost like a following; a cult following — if you don’t believe in evolution, you’re considered completely backward. That seems to me very indicative of bias as well." - Michele Bachmann quoted in the Stillwater Gazette, September 29, 2003.

 "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out under another, then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on the 1976 Swine Flu outbreak that happened when Gerald Ford, a Republican, was president, April 28, 2009

"There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, Oct. 2006


 "Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." -Rep. Michelle Bachmann, April, 2009, In 2008, a Stanford scientist revealed “direct links” between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and “increases in human mortality” — globally, he found that as many as “20,000 air-pollution-related deaths per year per degree Celsius may be due to this greenhouse gas.


"That's why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress, and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions." -Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a pro-lifer who completely missed the irony of using the same slogan as the pro-choice movement in arguing against health care reform

"Does that mean that someone's 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus? That night, mom and dad are never the wiser." -Rep. Michele Bachmann, on health care reform's potential to dupe parents, October 2009

BACHMANN SUGGESTED GAY SINGER SHOULD REPENT AFTER GETTING CANCER: Bachmann saw Melissa Etheridge’s cancer as a teachable moment: “Unfortunately she is now suffering from breast cancer, so keep her in your prayers,” she said in November 2004. “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

"This is a ticking time bomb and there is a very real threat that an Activist Judge Strike down DOMA this year"--Sen Michele Bachmann, Interview with Jan Markell, Olive Tree Ministries.


"I look at the Scripture and I read it and I take it for what it is. I give more credence in the Scripture as being kind of a timeless word of God to mankind, and I take it for what it is. And I don't think I give as much credence to my own mind, because I see myself as being very limited and very flawed, and lacking in knowledge, and wisdom and understanding. So, I just take the Bible for what it is, I guess, and recognize that I am not a scientist, not trained to be a scientist. I'm not a deep thinker on all of this. I wish I was. I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I'm not a scientist." - Michele Bachmann interviewing with Todd Fiel at KKMS as quoted in the Stillwater Gazette, September 29, 2003.

BACHMANN CLAIMED THAT GLENN BECK COULD SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS: During a February trip to South Carolina, Bachmann told a South Carolina audience, “I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this [the national debt].”


From Matt Taibi's article in Rolling Stone:


"...Michele entered one of the most ridiculous learning institutions in the Western Hemisphere, a sort of highway rest area with legal accreditation called the O.W. Coburn School of Law; Michele was a member of its inaugural class in 1979.


Originally a division of Oral Roberts University, this august academy, dedicated to the teaching of "the law from a biblical worldview," has gone through no fewer than three names — including the Christian Broadcasting Network School of Law. Those familiar with the darker chapters in George W. Bush's presidency might recognize the school's current name, the Regent University School of Law. Yes, this was the tiny educational outhouse that, despite being the 136th-ranked law school in the country, where 60 percent of graduates flunked the bar, produced a flood of entrants into the Bush Justice Department."

F     L     A     K     E     ?

"Anyone wanting to understand how President Bachmann might behave should pay close attention to what happened at New Heights. Because the school took government money, like other charter schools, it had to maintain a separation of church and state, and Bachmann was reportedly careful to keep God out of the initial outlines of the school's curriculum. But before long, parents began to complain that Bachmann and her cronies were trying to bombard the students with Christian dogma — advocating the inclusion of something called the "12 Biblical Principles" into the curriculum, pushing the teaching of creationism and banning the showing of the Disney movie Aladdin because it promoted witchcraft.

"One member of Michele's entourage talked about how he had visions, and that God spoke to him directly," recalled Denise Stephens, a parent who was opposed to the religious curriculum at New Heights. "He told us that as Christians we had to lay our lives down for it. I remember getting in the car with my husband afterward and telling him, 'This is a cult.'"



Under pressure from parents, Bachmann resigned from New Heights. But the experience left her with a hang-up about the role of the state in public education. She was soon mobilizing against an educational-standards program called Profile of Learning, an early precursor to No Child Left Behind. Under the program, state educators and local businesses teamed up to craft a curriculum that would help young people prepare for the work force — but Bachmann saw through their devious scheme. "She thought it was a socialist plot to turn our children into little worker-automatons," says Bill Prendergast, a Stillwater resident who wrote for the town's newspaper and has documented every step of Bachmann's career."   --Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone

No, I don't think she's a flake.  I think she's a religious fanatic who hasn't the ability to separate her right-wing religious fantasies from reality.  And anyone who would utter these words:  

 

"God Told Me to Run for President..."*

 

 http://news.dedlines.com/2011/06/michelle-bachmann-god-told-me-to-run.html

 

is a dangerous homophobic nut, and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.

 

*That, and the moronic quote on Glenn Beck.

 

CHRISTIAN PASTOR, PAT ROBERTSON, DAMNS AMERICA

Old Squirrel Brain is at it again.  This time he damns America and predicts God Almighty will destroy her because people who love each other have been granted the civil right to marry.

I'm posting on this because of the double standard going on here.  Robertson harangs his audience about the passage of legislation in New York and warns that the god he and his millions of viewers believes in will destroy America because of it. 

That is damnation.

Pat Robertson damned America.

Remember how the conservatives were all over Mr. Obama for attending a church where the Rev. Wright damned America?  I wonder who, on the right, will be the first to denounce Robertson for doing the very same thing?

From The Raw Story:

"Television evangelist Pat Robertson responded to New York’s decision to legalize same sex marriage by warning Monday that the result would be America’s destruction.


“I think we need to remember the term sodomy came from a town known as Sodom and Sodom was destroyed by God Almighty and the thing that they practiced was homosexual activity and even they tried to rape angels who came down there, so that’s the kind of people they were,” Robertson said. God “sent an angel down there and He said to Lot and his family, ‘get out now because I’m gonna destroy this whole area.’”

“We’re heading that way as a nation. In history there’s never been a civilization ever in history that has embraced homosexuality and turned away from traditional fidelity, traditional marriage, traditional child-rearing, and has survived. There isn’t one single civilization that has survived that openly embraced homosexuality. So you say, ‘what’s going to happen to America?” Well if history is any guide, the same thing’s going to happen to us,’” he predicted.

Robertson also admitted that Jesus “didn’t say anything about the homosexuality.”

NEW YORK APPROVES THE CIVIL RIGHT TO GAY MARRIAGE!

Another victory in the civil rights campaign to treat all Americans equally under the law!

This is wonderful news for our LGBT citizens and for all of us!

Thank you New York for doing the right thing.

                                                

From The New York Times: 

"Supporters of the same-sex marriage bill danced in the streets of the West Village after the State Senate approved it on Friday night.


Crowds gathered, screamed and embraced in Sheridan Square near the Stonewall Inn, where the gay-rights movement began more than 40 years ago. Many stood on park benches to get a better view. Gay and lesbian bars in the neighborhood were packed with patrons, and the neighborhood had the feel of jubilant celebration.



“Equality is what this means; this is our right as people,” said John Huls, 52, standing in the Stonewall with his partner, Jay Hoff, 50. “It’ll be our same relationship. We’re the same people as when we met, except now it’s proper in the eyes of the state, and I’ll be able to look at people and say, ‘This is my husband.’ ”

Washington Post:

"New York joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia in allowing gays to wed. A court challenge to a 2008 amendment to the California state constitution that banned gay marriage after a state Supreme Court ruling made it legal there is wending its way through the federal appeals court process. If marriage-equality proponents succeed in the Golden State, 23.3 percent of Americans will live in states where gay couples can legally wed."

Greg Sargent says it best:

"This is another major defeat for those self-described “conservatives” who hate government except when it’s enforcing a form of legalized discrimination that comports with their prejudices. But this isn’t about them. It’s about everyone but them.

What just happened in New York is not just a big legal breakthrough; it’s an important chapter in a larger story. For the first time this year, majorities of Americans support legalized gay marriage, which means majorities of Americans are not prepared to assign subpar status to the intimate relationships of gays and lesbians. Majorities of Americans no longer think it’s acceptable to tell people they have no right to partake in a basic human ritual that is viewed by the religious as sacred — or viewed by the nonreligious as merely fundamental to life as we live it — on the basis of sexual orientation alone."

I am thrilled to see this country maturing and moving away from the imposition of religious prejudices and hatreds on our citizens by way of unConstitutional laws.  The party that loves to shout FREEDOM! and LIBERTY! has tried to obstruct and challenge the freedom and liberty of our gay and lesbian citizens.  State by state, this will no longer stand.

*

*Yankees not included.

JAMES "WHITEY" BULGER NABBED IN CALIFORNIA!

Big news here in Boston.  Fugitive Boston mobster, James "Whitey" Bulger, was arrested in Santa Monica, California.

BOSTON GLOBE: 

"Fugitive South Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, wanted for 19 murders, was captured last night in Southern California, the result of a tip from FBI television spots that began airing this week. His capture ended a 16-year manhunt that spanned the globe.

Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, and Steven Martinez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, released a statement this morning confirming that FBI agents had arrested the fugitive, who was on the bureau's Ten Most Wanted list, and his companion, Catherine Greig, in California. Neither resisted arrest. Cash and guns were found hidden in the apartment, police confirmed.

"Recent publicity produced a tip that led agents to a residence in Santa Monica, California, where they located Bulger and Greig Wednesday evening," the statement said.

The arrests of Bulger, 81, and Greig, 60, were initially announced by FBI headquarters on Twitter.

The arrest is a long-sought victory for the FBI, whose reputation was sullied by its connection to the mobster and whose fruitless efforts to find the fugitive had been regarded by some with suspicion.

Bulger did not appear to be in good health, an official said.

"I don't think he's in a position to be fighting anybody," the official said, adding, "They got a confession from him."

Bulger's brother, former president of the state Senate William M. Bulger, had little to say this morning when a reporter knocked on the door of his South Boston home.

"No comment," said William Bulger, who answered the door in his T-shirt. Informed that his brother had been arrested, Bulger said, "Thank you."

Assistant US Attorney Brian Kelly, part of the prosecution team that brought the federal charges against Whitey Bulger, said this morning, "It's a long time coming and we're glad he's finally in custody."

Bulger fled just before his federal racketeering indictment in January 1995. It was later revealed in federal court in Boston that he was a longtime FBI informant who had been warned by his corrupt handler, former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr., that he was about to be arrested.

Betrayed by the revelation that Bulger was an informant, several of his former associates began cooperating against him, leading to the discovery of secret graves of his victims in the Boston area and additional charges that Bulger murdered 19 people.

According to the Los Angeles Times, authorities had investigated two possible Bulger sightings in Southern California. In 2000, a tipster reported seeing Greig having her hair done at a salon in Fountain Valley, the newspaper reported. In 2005, the FBI investigated whether Bulger may have been the elderly man who robbed three Orange County banks.

But ultimately, the trail appeared to grow cold and no link was made to the mobster.

On Monday, the FBI announced that after years of focusing on Bulger, it was launching a new initiative aimed at daytime TV viewers.

It began airing a 30-second public service announcement in 14 cities across the United States urging people to be on the lookout for Greig, a dental hygienist who was devoted to her appearance, had plastic surgery in the past, and frequently had her hair cut and teeth cleaned. The spots aired during daytime shows, including, "Ellen," "The View," and "Live with Regis & Kelly."

A woman who answered the door at the South Boston home of Greig's sister, Margaret McCusker, was told of the arrest by a Globe reporter this morning. "They found him? Finally," she said. "I want my sister to come home."

Travis Andersen and Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report."

Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character, Frank Costello, in Martin Scorcese's "The Departed" -- particularly because of his time in the 1970s as an FBI informant.



In 1999, Bulger was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list.