The GOP's One Unforgivable Sin

Sen. John Ensign's confession that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff is a good news/bad news story. It's good news for Romney, Gingrich, Palin and other Republicans hoping to unseat Obama, but it's bad news for a party that continues to lose voters.

This is their problem, according to The Las Vegas Sun.

The Republican Party didn’t make a deal with the devil.

It made a deal with God, or at least people who said they were God’s representatives — a certain class of very political and ideological preachers.

The deal, engineered by Republican operatives such as Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, went like this: Be against gays and abortion and for prayer in the schools, and in return, those preachers would proclaim the GOP the party of God and deliver millions of suburban and rural voters — enough to win elections for three decades.

But the deal carried a risk: Any behavior by Republican officeholders or public figures that seemed at odds with a certain kind of Old Testament morality — a tryst in an airport bathroom, a painkiller addiction, a sexual harassment lawsuit — and voters might feel betrayed and manipulated.

And the deal would collapse.

The last couple of elections show that the deal has been collapsing for sometime, and it's not just among Bible believing Republicans. As the LVS points out, voters are leaving the party because of their one unforgivable sin: Hypocrisy.

People are disgusted with Republicans. Instead of attacking other people's patriotism, morals, marriages, work ethics, etc., the GOP needs to get their own house in order. Calling for Ensign to resign is a good first step. After all, it was Ensign who called for Bill Clinton to resign, and it would certainly go a long way toward fulfilling the Senator's vision of "people who are in office who will hold themselves to a little higher standard."

Or do higher standards only apply to other people?

Republicans Turn to Newt for Salvation

Michigan Republicans are stuck in the past, Saul Anuzis is stuck in the past, and so is Saul's new boss - Newt Gingrich. I'll let Matt Yglesias explain:

Somehow or other the conservative movement has gotten so intellectually bankrupt that the lunatics running the asylum think that Newt Gingrich is an intelligent and canny man. Consequently, he’s snagged himself a situation where he’s in the news constantly offering aperçus like “The Democratic Party has been the active instrument of breaking down traditional marriage.”

Far be it from me to say that Newt Gingrich’s 1981 decision to ask his first wife for a divorce while she was in the hospital recuperating from cancer should bar him from commenting on the value of traditional marriage. But six months after the divorce was finalized, he married a new woman, Marianne Ginther, which suggests there was some infidelity involved. Then in 2000 he divorced Ginther and married a third woman with whom it turns out he’d been having an affair. That, I think, is a bit much. Then after that, he became a Catholic!

Seriously, does Newt really want to go down that road? Several high-profile Republicans have histories of being maritally challenged. Talk about hypocrisy.

As for Newt's recent conversion to Catholicism:

At a moment when the role of religious fundamentalism in the party is a central question for reformers, Gingrich, rather than making any kind of case for a new enlightenment, has in fact gone to great lengths to placate Christian conservatives. The family-values crowd has never completely embraced Newt, probably because he has been married three times, most recently to a former Hill staff member, Callista Bisek.

The religious right didn't embrace Newt, so now he'll try to kiss up to Catholics. He recently tweeted, "It is sad to see notre dame invite president obama to give the commencement address Since his policies are so anti catholic values."

He was also recently interviewed by Christianity Today magazine. Their article started off by saying, "As the Republican Party searches for a future leader, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pops up on the short lists."

Newt can't manage to stir up controversy with the religious right anymore, so he's aligning himself with right-wing Catholics.

But the growing movement to stop Obama's visit isn't your ho-hum sort of Catholic League media dust-up, where Bill Donohue harumphs on television and then goes away. It's part of a well-funded lobbying effort by a group of right-wing Catholics to run liberal Catholics, and dissenting doctrine, out of the church, and to recruit the remainder of the faithful for the GOP.

Newt's alliances may be new, but the tactics are the same and still out of touch with mainstream Americans. Someone should tell him and other old school Republicans that 59 percent of Catholics still think Obama is doing a good job, and a recent Gallup poll finds Catholics are actually more liberal than other Americans on the so-called moral issues.

Pay attention, Republicans!

Republican CEO Says "Yes" To Socialism

Limbaugh won't be happy when he hears this. The CEO of a construction company awarded the first recovery project from the stimulus package is a big Republican donor. (h/t HuffPo and ProPublica)

The selection of the company, American Infrastructure, was announced by Obama at a news conference highlighting how stimulus money was helping transportation projects. The $2.1 million road resurfacing project in Silver Spring, Md., will support 60 jobs and be completed by late fall, Gov. Martin O'Malley's office said.

In 2008, the company's chief executive, A. Ross Myers, gave $25,000 to McCain Victory 2008 and $20,400 to the Republican National Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records. He has donated thousands of dollars each to Rudolph Giuliani's presidential campaign, RNC chairman Michael Steele's Senate campaign and Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Pa., who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Myers was one of the top donors to Lynn Swann, a Republican who unsuccessfully tried to unseat Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, according to Pennsylvania campaign finance records. Democrat Rendell was often mentioned as a potential Obama pick for transportation secretary, and his deputy chief of staff was appointed undersecretary for transportation policy this week.

But, but...I thought Republicans didn't want any part of this socialism stimulus package?

It is all about the jobs, and this money will allow the company to call 60 employees back to work (they've had to lay off 350 people), but I love how they rant against spending money while putting their hands out to grab it. What hypocrites.

One more thing, I hope someone keeps an eye on American Infrastructure to make sure every last cent gets spent on employees wages and material. I don't want Myers donating any taxpayer dollars from the stimulus package to Republicans - and I especially don't want him pocketing any of the money.

Senator Shelby owes Michigan an apology

Senator Shelby from Alabama has been pretty outspoken in his opinion that the Big Three shouldn't get financial aid from Washington. He had this to say on Meet the Press recently:

This is a dead-end, it's a road to nowhere, and it's a big burden on the American taxpayer.

And this:

We don't need government--governmental subsidies for manufacturing in this country. It's the French model, it's the wrong road, we will pay for it. The average American taxpayer is going to pay dearly for this, if I'm not wrong.

Senator, we don't take kindly to southern hypocrisy in the north, as Wizardkitten was quick to point out:

Turns out that Senator Richard Shelby has some authority to speak on being a "big burden on the American taxpayer". As of 2005, his home state of Alabama is No. 7 on the list of beneficiary states of the federal taxpayer dollar...They take in more and more federal taxpayer dollars, but yet keep falling behind the rest of the country.

Alabama taxpayers receive more federal funding per dollar of federal taxes paid compared to the average state. Per dollar of federal tax collected in 2005, Alabama citizens received approximately $1.66 in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 7th highest nationally and represents a rise from 1995 when Alabama received $1.33 per dollar of taxes in federal spending (ranked 9th nationally).

FYI Senator: Michigan is a donor state. We pay more in federal taxes than we receive back from the government.

The Senator probably doesn't care what some blogger thinks, but he should care that Peter Karmanos, Jr. (CEO of Compuware Corporation and owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, Plymouth Whalers, and Florida Everblades hockey franchises) thinks his comments were inaccurate, over-simplistic and hypocritical.

I trust it is safe to say that when you refer to “government subsidies,” you are referring to subsidies provided by both federal and state governments. And if this is in fact true, then I am sure you were adamantly against the State of Alabama offering lucrative incentives (in essence, subsidies) to Mercedes Benz in the early 1990s to lure the German automobile manufacturer to the State.

As it turned out, Alabama offered a stunning $253 million incentive package to Mercedes. Additionally, the State also offered to train the workers, clear and improve the site, upgrade utilities, and buy 2,500 Mercedes Benz vehicles. All told, it is estimated that the incentive package totaled anywhere from $153,000 to $220,000 per created job. On top of all this, the State gave the foreign automaker a large parcel of land worth between $250 and $300 million, which was coincidentally how much the company expected to invest in building the plant.

With all due respect, Senator, where was your outrage when all this was going on? … I certainly don’t recall you going in front of the nation (as you did this past Sunday) to discuss what a big mistake Alabama was making in providing subsidies to Mercedes Benz. If you had, however, you could have talked about how, applying free market principles, Alabama shouldn’t have had to resort to subsidies to land Mercedes Benz. Competitively speaking, if Alabama had been the strongest candidate under consideration (i.e. highest quality infrastructure, workforce, research and development facilities, business climate, etc.), then subsidies shouldn’t have been required.

The fact is that Alabama knew that, on a level playing field, it could not compete with the other states under consideration and, thus, to lure the German car builder to the State, it offered the aforementioned unprecedented subsidies. In effect, Alabama — your state — did exactly what you said government should not do: provide subsidies for manufacturing.

Karmanos ended his letter by saying, "It’s no great mystery why Alabama politicians went to such dramatic anti-free-market measures to secure Mercedes Benz — they did it for the betterment of their state through job creation and increased tax revenues. And who could blame them? Is that so different than what would occur by providing financial aid to help rescue the domestic auto industry? Such aid would save millions of jobs and millions of dollars in lost tax revenue."

Jobs and tax revenue that would probably finds its way back to Alabama.

Voters to Republicans: Our eyes have been opened

In talking to friends who formerly voted for Bush but now plan on voting for Obama, one theme continues to come through - Republican hypocrisy. People are finally connecting the dots and beginning to see that Republicans treat other Republicans differently, depending on income.

One recent example is McCain's claim that Obama's plan to cut taxes on the middle class and lower-income families is welfare. They felt that was a bunch of hooey and agreed with Obama's take:

"If John McCain wants to talk about redistributing wealth to those who don't need it and don't deserve it, let's talk about the $700,000 tax cut he wants to give Fortune 500 CEOs, who've been making out like bandits -- some of them literally. Let's talk about the $300 billion he wants to give to the same Wall Street banks that got us into this mess. Let's talk about the $4 billion he wants to give oil companies like Exxon-Mobil or the $200 billion he wants to give the biggest corporations in America. Let's talk about the 100 million middle-class Americans who John McCain doesn't want to give a single dime of tax relief. Don't tell me that CEOs and oil companies deserve a tax break before the men and women who are working overtime day after day and still can't pay the bills. That's not right, and that's not change.

Democrats and Republicans differ on giving people opportunities too. Democrats support expanding Pell Grants and the GI Bill, as well equal pay for equal work and affirmative action. Republicans believe people should succeed on their own merit without a helping hand. At least that's their talking point, but as Alberto Gonzalez, Monica Goodling, Harriet Myers, Brownie and all those no-bid contracts awarded to war contractors showed, who you know still trumps merit among Republicans.

In fact, while reading Lawyers, Guns and Money, I was surprised to find that Bill Kristol and right wing journalists benefit from the same connections. [emphasis added]

Right wing journalism/punditry is absurdly nepotistic, and not just in the sense that many of the major pundit/journalists are second generation. Everything depends on relationships; this is of course true in every community of this sort, but the importance of relationships is more pronounced in the world of conservative punditry than in liberal or mainstream. Every conservative writer of note has a portfolio of these relationships, which allows said writer to place articles, give talks, find jobs, get invited on junkets, and even find the best parties. [...] These relationships are the grease that makes the world of conservative journalism run; it's mildly absurd that a community whose ideological focus rests so firmly on conceptions of "merit" depends almost entirely on relationships, but nevertheless.

But surely Bill Kristol, the godfather of conservative journalists, earned his position entirely on his own merits, right? Not according to a comment left by Harry Hopkins at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

I remember back in the late '90s when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture to an economic philosophy class I was taking. [...] Anyhow, Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol back either during the first Bush administration. The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at The White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at UPenn and the Kennedy School of Government. With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. "I oppose it", Irving replied. "It subverts meritocracy."

That's affirmative action Republican-style and the voters are not amused. They're finally beginning to realize that the torchbearers for the Republican Party have defrauded them.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

China is not impressed with Paulson

Eighteen months ago, Henry Paulson told the Shanghai Futures Exchange that China risked trillions of dollars in lost economic potential unless it freed up its capital markets.

``An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention,'' Paulson said.

That was then, this is now, and the grasshopper is not impressed with the master according to Bloomberg.

``The U.S. financial system was regarded as a model, and we tried our best to copy whatever we could,'' said Yu Yongding, a former adviser to China's central bank. ``Suddenly we find our teacher is not that excellent, so the next time when we're designing our financial system we will use our own mind more.''

They've noticed the hypocrisy too:

The recent moves by Paulson, the former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., contradict what the U.S. told Asian governments over the past decade. Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia were urged to let unviable banks fail during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

``It's the end of an era,'' said Shanghai-based Andy Xie, a independent analyst who was formerly Morgan Stanley's chief Asia economist. ``In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, socialism was discredited and the whole world turned right. Now financial capital has been discredited and the whole world, including the U.S., is turning left.''

China learned something from our failures and plans to make some changes:

That road may be different from the one Paulson proposed 18 months ago, according to Arthur Kroeber at economic research company Dragonomics Advisory Services Ltd. in Beijing.

``China's made it clear it won't listen to these snake-oil salesmen who come from Wall Street, even if they're wearing suits issued by the Treasury Department,'' he said. ``It's strengthened the hands of all the people who are very skeptical about financial liberalization in China.''

The question is...will we learn from this, or will it be business as usual?

Drill, drill, drill is a Big Oil handout

What do we know about the Republicans drill, drill, drill plan? We know that new offshore drilling won't have a significant impact on domestic crude oil production or prices for almost 20 years, and the amount we'd save at the pump would be less than 6 cents by 2025.

So, what's the point? Who's really going to benefit from opening up our coastal shores to oil drilling? Bill Scher says we should "follow the money."

While coastal drilling amounts to nothing in regards to lower energy costs for you and me, it does amount to a fat giveaway to Big Oil.

How so? More domestic oil=more exports for U.S. oil companies. A recent Reuters-UK article had some figures showing just where the oil goes. (Hint. It doesn't stay in our country.)

While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil get the lion's share of exported U.S. oil products, yet Republicans continue to blame tight supplies for our record prices.

While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.

To recap, Republicans want to open more land to drilling so oil companies can export more oil out of the country, which will keep supplies tight here at home and keep prices high. Who wins? Big oil and the Republicans who benefit from their donations. Who loses? Everyone else.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for MI.)

Why do Republicans hate the poor?

Just when I think Republicans can't stoop any lower, I come across something like this from the National Low Income Housing Coalition that makes my blood run cold. [My emphasis]

WASHINGTON, DC - Responding to pressure from Ranking Member Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee appears to be on the verge of diverting funds designated for a housing trust fund for housing for the poorest Americans to pay for Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s (D-CT) new program to refinance homeowners facing foreclosure.

In his bill “The Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of 2008,” Chairman Dodd proposes to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure refinanced mortgages of homeowners who face foreclosure. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this new program creates a potential liability for the federal government of $1.7 billion.

Reports are that Senator Shelby will only agree to the new FHA program if it is paid for by non-taxpayer funds. Senator Dodd’s bill also creates a housing trust fund with resources from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build or preserve rental housing for extremely low and very low income people. Senator Shelby wants those funds to be used to pay for the new FHA program instead.

“After the $30 billion taxpayer guaranteed bail out of Bear Sterns and the $25 billion Senate-passed taxpayer funded bail out for homebuilders, for Committee Republicans to insist that the taxpayers should not pay $1.7 billion to prevent homeowners from losing their homes, has to be called what it is - hypocrisy,” said Sheila Crowley, President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

In a letter today to Chairman Dodd, the National Housing Trust Fund Campaign urged him to “identify other resources to pay for the new FHA program besides the only ones in this broad housing package that are dedicated to serving the poorest families in our country.”

I can think of two sources off the top of my head: They could roll back the tax cuts on the richest Americans or ask those billionaire fund managers to pay the same tax rates on wages the rest of us do.

The Republicans continued attacks against our most vulnerable citizens is cruel and immoral, and I honestly can't understand why they continue to do so much for the rich at the expense of those with the least. I'm dumbfounded by their mean-spiritedness.

h/t Dean Baker

Cross-posted here.

Will the real frauds please stand up?

Republican efforts to suppress minority votes worked according to plan in the Indiana primary.

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph. Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote. [...]

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

Who do you think is more likely to commit voter fraud? Nuns or pious-sounding Republicans?

Indiana has the strictest photo ID law in the country thanks to Republican-led efforts designed to combat ballot fraud, not that fraud has every been found to be a problem. In fact, no one has ever been prosecuted for impersonating a voter at the polls in Indiana.

On the other hand, I know many Republicans who could be accused of impersonating compassionate Christians.

McCain Is Like Every Other Old Republican

This headline from The Huffington Post is meant to warn us about McCain, but I think most voters know he only pretends to be a moderate. After all, it's common knowledge that McCain has earned an 83 lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union and votes with his party 88.3 percent of the time.

McCain also pretends to care about working class Americans. Or, as this writer puts it: It Takes Real Chutzpah For A Guy Who Owns Eight Houses (McCain) To Call Barack Obama An "Elitist"

The McCain campaign is managed by a cadre of Washington-insider special interest lobbyists. He and his current wife are estimated to be worth about $100 million. He reportedly owns eight houses. His let-them-eat-cake economic policies are based on George Bush's failed radical conservative "you're on your own buddy" philosophy. One after another he supported trade agreements that protect the rights of corporations, but ignore the rights of labor, and have devastated one Pennsylvania community after another. He gets most of his campaign cash from the wealthiest corporate interests around. And he has the gall to call Barack Obama an "elitist"?

The McCain campaign said of Obama, "It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans," but McCain is the guy who supports the Bush tax cuts, offers everyday Americans no solutions on the housing crisis, and thinks a return to trickle-down economics would be good for the country.

Talk about being out of touch. McCain is just more of the same. He's Romney, he's DeVos, and he's George (this is my base) Bush all rolled into one.

The GOP Loves Reverend Wright

According to this post at Politico, the GOP thinks they've finally found an antidote to Obamamania.

In their view, the inflammatory sermons by Obama’s pastor offer the party a pathway to victory if Obama emerges as the Democratic nominee. Not only will the video clips enable some elements of the party to define him as unpatriotic, they will also serve as a powerful motivating force for the conservative base.

Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis was quoted too:

“I usually get three or four emails a week on Obama,” said Michigan Republican chairman Saul Anuzis Monday. “Today I received more than 10, all of them on his minister.”

You can almost hearing them licking their chops. The GOP believes they now have the ammunition to bring Obama down.

Just as with John F. Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, Republican strategists view the Wright flap as deeply damaging to Obama because it strikes at the message, or set of principles, at the heart of his candidacy.

In Obama’s case, the core of his appeal has been that he transcends race and is more inclined toward conciliation than combat.

“He wants the authentic black image but he also wants to keep all his safe, suburban Obamacans in line,” said Rick Wilson. “Well, you can’t have both. They’re mutually exclusive.”

“This is a guy who associates with some real haters,” he added.

What a double standard the Republicans have, or maybe I should call it what it is - a white preacher double standard. Did they forget about these preacher/politician associations?

Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

And don't forget Rev. John Hagee who called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore" or the Rev. Rod Parsley who believes America was founded to destroy Islam (he's also John McCain's spiritual guide). Why aren't people outraged over their outlandish statements? Is it because they're white? Or maybe it's because they approve of their discriminating messages against gay Americans and Muslims.

If the way the Republicans and the media handled this isn't racist, then what is it? Maybe it's simply that those rich, white men who run the Republican Party and the media can't handle the truth.

Wall Street Cheers Spitzer's Fall

This was my immediate thought when I heard about Eliot Spitzer: Spitzer’s Shame Is Wall Street’s Gain. I thought about writing a few comments after his arrest and subsequent resignation, but Robert Scheer does a better job.

Tell me again: Why should we get all worked up over the revelation that the New York governor paid for sex? Will it bring back to life the eight U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq that same day in a war that makes no sense and has cost this nation trillions in future debt? Will it save those millions of homes that hardworking folks all over the country are losing because of financial industry shenanigans that Eliot Spitzer, as much as anyone, attempted to halt? Perhaps it provides some insight into why oil has risen to $108 a barrel, benefiting most of all the oil sheiks whom our taxpayer-supported military has kept in power?

Sure, the guy, by his own admission, is quite pathetic in all those small, squirrelly ways that have messed up the lives of other grand public figures before him, but why is an all-too-human sin, amply predicted in early Scripture, getting all this incredible media play as some sort of shocking event? The answer is that, while having precious little to do with serious corruption in public life, it does have a great deal to do with stoking flagging newspaper sales and television ratings.

I'm sure people like U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue spent a lot of time calling major media sources to push the story too. He's made no secret of his contempt for anti-business politicians. Of course, the media didn't need much encouragement. They were already jumping on the yellow journalism bandwagon. Back to Scheer:

I wouldn't have written this column had I not read The Wall Street Journal's Page 1 news story headlined "Wall Street Cheers as Its Nemesis Plunges Into Crisis." The article begins with the crowing statement "It's Schadenfreude time on Wall Street" and goes on to quote those whom Spitzer went after over what should be considered the criminal greed that has predominated on Wall Street. It was Spitzer, as much as anyone, who sounded the alarm on the subprime mortgage crisis, the obscene payouts to CEOs who defrauded their shareholders and the other financial scandals that have brought the U.S. economy to its knees.

The best rule of thumb these days is that ordinary Americans should be mightily depressed over any news that Wall Street hustlers cheer, for they have been exposed as a dangerous pack of scoundrels quite willing to rob decent, hardworking people of their homes. And of course no one on Wall Street ever paid for sex.

Yeah, right. And they never lie or cheat people out of their pensions either. As a wise friend of mine said recently, "drug dealers, cops, politicians, [and Wall Street types] all playing by very different rules, but otherwise they're all pretty much the same."

Bush's Legacy: Debt

I read this, The Dubious Priorities Of The President’s FY 2009 Budget, and this...

The President’s budget would provide more tax cuts heavily skewed to the most well-off while cutting vital services for low- and moderate-income Americans, generating large deficits, and increasing the strain on states already confronting budget problems as a result of the economic downturn. The budget reflects misguided priorities that would leave the American people more vulnerable in a number of ways.

And I thought, "thank heaven Bush's term is almost over and the next president can start fixing the damage he's done." Then I read Robert Reich's column, Financing the Common Good, and found myself getting nervous.

A new Democratic president will face many of the same challenges Bill Clinton faced at the start of his administration -- but all made worse by George W. Bush. Clinton, recall, inherited a fiscal straightjacket. At the start of 1993, the federal budget deficit was running $300 billion a year as far as the eye could see. Prior Republican administrations had sought to "starve the beast," going deep into the red by spending heavily on defense while at the same time cutting taxes.

Yes, I remember those years, and I see the similarities between the economy then versus today, but it can be fixed. Right?

A new Democratic president coming into office in 2009 will face a national debt much larger than it was in 1993. Despite the $5 trillion 10-year budget surplus that ended the Clinton years, the federal debt at the end of the Bush years will be almost $4 trillion larger than it was then. It will have grown about 70 percent during Bush's reign. If you assume 5 percent interest, the Bush debt burden will require the government to pay its creditors -- prominent among them, the Japanese and Chinese -- $200 billion a year, forever. That will use up a lot of tax revenue even before any of the nation's problems are addressed. In this way, George W. and company have done Reagan one better. They've not only starved the beast through tax cuts for the rich and increased defense spending; they've just about dismembered it. [emphasis mine]

To all the people who voted for Bush, I hope you're happy. You got your short-term monetary gain at the expense of my grandchildren and their grandchildren into perpetuity.

A truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare

Right-wingers are still busy sliming 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family because they received benefits from - and spoke out in favor of - the SCHIP program. E.J. Dionne does a particularly good job of illuminating the right's hypocrisy, which he calls a "a truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare."

From TruthDig:

[The Frost's reward for speaking out] was to be trashed on right-wing blogs and talk radio as if they were multimillionaires ripping off the system.

And of what were the Frosts guilty? Well, they own their own home, which they bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000; they invested in a commercial property, valued at $160,000; Halsey Frost, a self-employed woodworker, once owned a small business that was dissolved in 1999; and Graeme attends a private school on scholarship. I rely here on facts reported this week in The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times, both of which set straight the more outlandish claims made by the Frosts’ attackers.

So rather than just condemn the right-wingers as meanies, let’s take their claims seriously. Doing so makes clear that they are engaged in a truly perverse and incoherent form of class warfare.

The left is accused of all manner of sins related to covetousness and envy whenever it raises questions about who benefits from President Bush’s tax cuts and mentions the yachts such folks might buy or the mansions they might own. But here is a family with modest possessions doing everything conservatives tell people they should do, and the right trashes them for getting help to buy health insurance for their children. [...]

Most conservatives favor government-supported vouchers that would help Graeme attend his private school, but here they turn around and criticize him for ... attending a private school. Federal money for private schools but not for health insurance? What’s the logic here?

Conservatives endlessly praise risk-taking by entrepreneurs and would give big tax cuts to those who are most successful. But if a small-business person is struggling, he shouldn’t even think about applying for SCHIP.

Conservatives who want to repeal the estate tax on large fortunes have cited stories—most of them never check out—about farmers having to sell their farms to pay inheritance taxes. But the implication of these attacks on the Frosts is that they are expected to sell their investment property to pay for health care. Why?

Oh, yes, and conservatives tell us how much they love homeownership, and then assail the Frosts for having the nerve to own a home. I suppose they should have to sell that, too.

The real issue here is whether uninsured families with earnings similar to the Frosts’ need government help to buy health coverage. With the average family policy in employer-provided plans now costing more than $12,000 annually—the price is usually higher for families trying to buy it on their own—the answer is plainly yes. All the conservative attacks on a boy from Baltimore who dared to speak out will not make this issue go away.

Dionne is right. The issue won't go away because the problem affects so many Americans, not just children. That's what has the conservatives and their insurance friends so rattled that they're willing to smear a little boy. They're putting dollars and cents ahead of people, and they call themselves the "values" party.

(If you're interested, check out my post at BFM: Would Jesus have vetoed the SCHIP bill?

Two Michigans

Recent events in Michigan got me thinking about John Edward's "Two Americas" and it saddened me to realize Michigan could claim a similar title - Two Michigans.

Yesterday, the UAW went on strike against GM in an attempt to hold onto their jobs and keep them from being outsourced to China or Mexico. Meanwhile, our state still faces a shutdown if legislators can't come to an agreement on the budget. Republicans want to cut Medicaid funding, state police, and education, among other things. They also want to eliminate 2,232 jobs. To add insult to injury, today we learned that Bank of America plans to layoff 1500 workers in Michigan over the next two years. Too bad all these people don't have a union working on their behalf. These cuts will drastically affect the lives of average citizens just trying to give their families a decent quality of life on increasingly stagnant or falling wages.

Contrast that to the lifestyles of those Republicans who would like to be our next president. They recently gathered on Mackinaw Island to hold their Republican Leadership Conference and it was quite the aristocratic affair according to this article in Salon:

The GOP gets gaudy in Michigan

How do Republican presidential candidates woo the beleaguered voters of what may now be a crucial primary state? Party like aristocrats!

For about 36 hours beginning Friday afternoon, more than 2,000 politicians and party activists passed through the Grand Hotel, boozing and slapping backs in one of America's last bastions of Victorian aristocratic nostalgia. One by one, the leading Republican presidential candidates came as pilgrims to pay homage to the gaudy affair. At times, the scene recalled Jack Nicholson's ballroom hallucinations from the 1980 horror movie, "The Shining."

Built in 1887, the Grand Hotel is columned and cavernous, with a candy-striped interior, a pink hair salon, a maroon wine bar and a jewelry store named "The Colony Shop," which was sold out of canary diamonds for the weekend. The wait staff, imported from Jamaica on temporary visas, was entirely black, and they served food to invariably white Republicans while wearing white-tie tuxedos with jackets the color of AstroTurf. (Brochures left in the guest rooms explained that the Jamaican help is provided with laundry and "recreational facilities" at their on-island dormitories.) Croquet and bocce ball could be played down in the Tea Garden, which was decorated with abundant blooming flowers and bushes shaped like horses. At tea time, a harpist in heels played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" while women in maid costumes served tea cakes and champagne just a few steps from an exhibit of vintage oil paintings that showed young girls in lace dresses and young boys with spent shotguns and dead birds. [...]

The candidates' appearances, however, were almost tangential to the real point of the weekend, which was to celebrate the pleasures of money and privilege. The diners supped on cold strawberry soup, prosciutto, and pecan-coated ice cream balls. People did not use the word "money" when they talked about money. "Everyone in this room understands the importance of resources, the importance of finance, in winning campaigns," said Dick DeVos, the son of the billionaire founder of Amway, who lost a costly race for governor last year, which he funded with $35 million of his own fortune.[...]

Yep, two Americas: Those who have the money and power - and the rest of us, the ones who need unions or PACs like MoveOn in order to be heard.

Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.

Republicans two-faced about taxes

I wouldn't send a Republican to McDonald's with a $20 bill to pick up a hamburger for me. Not only would they keep the change, they'd probably eat my hamburger. How did I reach this conclusion? Follow along.

From Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, I learned that five MI GOP Members of Congress sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, House Leader Craig DeRoche, Rep. Joe Knollenberg, Thad McCotter, Fred Upton, and Tim Walberg urging them to hang tough against a state tax increase. Michigan faces a government shutdown if the legislature doesn't pass a new budget by the end of the month. State Republicans want $1 billion in cuts; meanwhile, Gov. Granholm and Democrats called the cuts draconian and said they would hurt our citizens, schools, police, etc.

The Republicans are outraged that Granholm and the Democrats would put people and a decent quality of life ahead of tax cuts. How dare they waste tax dollars they ask? Well, what about Iraq? Where's the outrage about the amount of money we're spending there? We've spent over $500 billion on that lie so far, but according to Daily Kos that's just the beginning.

A new Congressional study finds that President Bush's plans for the U.S. in Iraq over the next several decades will reach the trillions of dollars, on top of the approximately $567 billion the war has already cost. That accounting assumes a significant troop drawdown -- and still tallies a daunting expense for the United States [...] [emphasis added]

A prior CBO study estimated that U.S. costs in Iraq from 2009 to 2017 will total approximately $1 trillion. On top of that, under the reduced-force combat scenario envisioned in this CBO estimate, the U.S. will spend another $1 trillion by 2057 -- the lifespan of the U.S.'s Korean presence to date.

Kos says, "I'd respect the Republicans mishandling this war a tiny bit more if they actually worried about paying for this war rather than blather on about tax cuts."

To paraphrase Kos, I'd respect our state Republicans a tiny bit more if they were honest. They argue that no amount of money is too much to spend in Iraq, but when it comes to meeting the needs of people here at home - the ones who send their tax dollars to Washington to pay for their war - they snap their wallets shut and expect the rest of us to follow along. They know this war is based on a lie, but it's more important to stick to the party line than admit they were wrong.

So you see, it's okay for us to send money to Washington so they can continue their war indefinitely - a war that enriches Republican profiteers and CEO's of defense contractors - but we get nothing in return, not even some change to spend on our schools, infrastructure, health care, etc.

We're being robbed.

Rich, white and male? The GOP wants your vote.

Either the Republicans are intentionally trying to alienate voters or they're just plain stupid. From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Three of the four leading Republican presidential candidates turned down invitations to a PBS debate this month at a historically black college in Baltimore, leading moderator Tavis Smiley on Thursday to accuse them of ignoring minority voters.

Smiley told USA TODAY the rejections are part of a pattern, noting most GOP candidates declined invitations to address several black and Hispanic groups, including a Univision debate for a Latino audience.

"No one should be elected president of this country in 2008 if they think that along the way they can ignore people of color," said Smiley, host of radio and TV talk shows. "If you want to be president of all America, you need to speak to all Americans."

Arizona Sen. John McCain, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney have declined to participate in the Sept. 27 debate at Morgan State University.

Smiley makes a good point, but he should have expanded that a bit to include homosexuals, women, poor people, children, illegal immigrants, and working class Americans.

A new special interest group: The Working Poor

Of all the dumb comments I've heard from politicians, State Sen. Nancy Cassis wins the prize. Cassis wants to delay the onset of a promised earned income tax credit meant to give relief to Michigan's lowest-paid workers until the state's rainy day fund is restored to $250 billion, which last happened in 2001.

Why did Cassis zero in on the working poor? From the Flint Journal:

[...] Cassis cynically refers to these working poor as just one more "special interest" among many seeking relief.

Special interest? Cassis must be confusing the working poor with Dick DeVos and his All Children Matter PAC. They're throwing around some serious money in Utah trying to win their voucher referendum.

In a post titled, Why Is Michigan Money Coming Here?, Accountability points to the DeVos family who, "has spent a good chunk of their fortune on the PAC. Along with them, Wal-Mart heirs Jim and John Walton are frequent donors, giving more than $3 million to the PAC in 2004."

Utah isn't the sole beneficiary of their influence, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan have all received funds too.

Why is DeVos' PAC spending money in Utah? Accountability sees it this way:

[...] it makes it clearer to me why Utah was picked for this voucher plan: It's considered a "small state" by the people who fund All Children Matter, so it would be cheaper here to run a voucher plan through the legislature and past Utah voters, and then use that victory to build momentum for campaigns in bigger states. It means this a national campaign, not just an idea that grew from Utah voters or lawmakers.

And what does this say about our legislature, that this organization targeted us -- a small, cheap state -- to pour money into some legislative campaigns in order to protect or win enough votes to get a voucher plan through the assembly? What does it say that for a few million dollars, these people from Michigan got exactly the bill they wanted, House Bill 148, by a one-vote margin in the House this winter?

Nancy Cassis knows the answer to those questions. She's a Republican. Cassis knows that money talks and money buys influence.

The special interest working poor? They don't have a chance as long as people like Cassis remain in government.

It's time to redefine compassion

I have to give credit where credit's due. The person responsible for "compassionate conservatism" was a marketing genius. He/she managed to paint Republicans as people who really care about the needs and concerns of average Americans. The public knows otherwise now and sees the hypocrisy behind the words, but I wonder if the person responsible for that term ever felt any remorse?

Moving along, Mother Jones has a rather lengthy list of the ways all that compassion dings the poor and middle class. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but here's a sample.

1 in 4 U.S. jobs pay less than a poverty-level income.

During the 1980s, 13% of Americans age 40 to 50 spent at least one year below the poverty line; by the 1990s, 36% did.

Bush’s tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those earning $1 million are saved $42,700.

Bush has proposed cutting housing programs for low-income people with disabilities by 50%.

83% of those earning $75,000 or more work for companies that offer insurance, versus 24% of those who earn less than $25,000.

2 in 5 elderly live on less than $18,000 a year, including Social Security benefits.

Since 1983, college tuition has risen 115%. The maximum Pell Grant for low- and moderate-income college students has risen only 19%.

Credit card late fees are 194% higher than in 1994.

And the item I found absolutely horrifying was this one:

Last fall, Minnesota firefighters let an elderly man’s mobile home burn down because he hadn’t paid a $25 “fire fee.”

Why is that allowed to happen in a country as rich as ours? Is that how a "compassionate" country treats their elderly?

Reading through that list again, I find myself shaking my head and asking is that how a "compassionate" country treats their poor, their uninsured, their students, and the people who work hard to provide for their families?

It's time for the Democrats to step up and redefine "compassion." The Republicans have corrupted and twisted the term to exclude the majority of us. They don't even respect our troops serving our country, as witnessed by their unwillingness to give them more time at home with their families between tours of duty. In fact, they don't even respect our troops after they serve. The Bush administration said it will resist restoring full educational benefits for returning veterans.

Some compassion, eh? You have to be a corporate crony if you expect to get any compassion from the Bush bunch.

Censorship doesn't belong in Michigan

Censorship doesn't belong anywhere in this country either, but it's alive and well in Michigan thanks to a certain state Republican. Here are the pertinent facts from Conservative Media:

Senate Majority Leader and chief obstructionist Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, took the unusual step and for the first time in Senate history illegally censored a liberal blog for daring to call him out on his foot-dragging and attempt to hold the state budget hostage for his political gain.

Subscription only Gognwer News Service reported Bishop ordered "Blogging for Michigan" blocked from being accessed from Senate computers, using the false claim that the blog was “created by a Senate employee using Senate equipment.” The blog was created and operated by Shiawassee County resident Christine Barry, a systems engineer, from her home. All the material posted comes from public sources, such as newspapers, newsletters, the Senate websites, the Senate Journal and the Senate session and most of the committees are broadcast live on the Senate web site. Not only that, the info is properly sourced with links, something you don’t see in the mainstream media. [...]

Ironically, this is the only blog that was blocked; leaving all three of the conservative blogs in the state, as well as that thing ran by the chair of the state GOP, even Michiganliberal was not blocked. [emphasis added]

I don't see the irony. I think this was a blatant attempt to censor BFM because they said things about our state Republicans that made them look bad (excuses like work productivity were also given). In fact, Matt Miner, Bishop's chief of staff, said other sites like Michigan Liberal weren't banned because they didn't say bad things about them. Boo-hoo, gentlemen. Get a grip on your manhood. We're talking about constitutional rights, not bruised egos.

Sadly, Michigan doesn't need anymore Republican-generated bad publicity, but that's just what's happening. The story has already been picked up by the AP, Detroit Free Press, Lansing State Journal, and DailyKos.

More important than the black eye this gives our state, is the fact that Bishop is violating the free speech of one blog and, as BFM points out, he's following in the footsteps of scandal-ridden Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky and (closer to home) Flint's Mayor Don Williamson. In Fletcher's case, he's being sued and the case is still in court, and in Williamson's case, the City of Flint ended up paying $150,000 for violating a person's civil rights. Detroit News blogger, Libby Spencer, sums up Bishop's actions best:

Bishop who is dancing faster than the hapless drunk in an old western trying to justify his boneheaded move, is surprised by the reaction. Maybe he should bone up on his constitutional knowledge. If he wants to ban blogs in the hallowed chambers of Lansing on account of work productivity, fine. But then he has to block all of them -- or none. In America, freedom of speech means everyone gets to talk. Not just the people who agree with him.

That's right, Mr. Bishop. Everyone gets to talk, not just Republicans.

Thankfully, knowledgeable, rational people like Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer have stepped up and spoken out against censorship, and Michigan Liberal (the "not banned because they don't say bad things" blog) stepped up too:

We at Michigan Liberal, committed to free speech and expression, have just posted a petition calling for an end to blocked access to Blogging for Michigan to show our solidarity. All of you are encouraged to pop in and sign it as a sign of solidarity, and to recommend it to everyone you know who lives in, or cares about Michigan, to do likewise.

We commit to bumping this to the bottom on a regular basis and leaving it in a prominently displayed place until such time as Mike Bishop's staff has reconsidered its actions. We also encourage all of you who run your own blog to post a link to this pledge and encourage your readers to come and sign our petition, because we know that Michigan Liberal continues to be monitored and read by Senate Republicans.

I've signed it. If you believe in the concept of free expression laid down in the U.S. Bill of Rights, then I encourage you to sign it too by clicking here.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." ~ Noam Chomsky

Update: Mike Bishop yielded to the First Amendment and restored access to Blogging for Michigan. Chalk one up for democracy!