Conservative Two Faced Hypocrite of the Week Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) - Thinks Government Subsidized Education is OK for Him, Not for American Moms

Conservative Two Faced Hypocrite of the Week Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) - Thinks Government Subsidized Education is OK for Him, Not for American Moms

To avoid a government shutdown at the end of 2011, Republicans succeeded in their campaign to cut the federal Pell Grant program by effectively kicking up to 100,000 low-income students off the rolls.

Last week, Arkansas constituent Kelly Eubanks, a college student who has two jobs and two children, confronted her Congressman, Rep. Steve Womack (R), at a town hall meeting over his attack on the program she now relies on. But instead of any explanation, Womack lashed out at Eubanks, telling her to pay her own way by “joining the military” like he did. After refusing to answer her question, he finally just asked her to “be quiet and listen.” Blue Arkansas reports:

    According to Kelly and a handful of other witnesses, Womack happily retorted that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to pay for education (he’s doing this in a college town mind you) and then quickly added that he paid for his education by joining the military, apparently suggesting that the mom of two do the same and totally oblivious I guess to the fact that it was, in fact, the federal government that paid for his education then. Well Womack tried to skirt the rest of Ms. Eubanks question and she proceeded to try and get him to address the discrepancy she pointed out. Well at this point, according to Kelly and several other people that were in the room, Womack blew a gasket.

    He skirted the rest of my question and I called him out on it.. he ended up getting pissed off.. and screaming at me.. “are you going to be quiet and listen”, [Eubanks said.]

    According to Kelly, some of his aides came up and tried to get the mike from her, but she held her ground and kept her cool, insisting her congressman answer her question.

Watch KHBS news coverage of the town hall:

The irony here, as Campus Progress’ Emily Wood notes, is that Womack actually attended college on taxpayer money by joining the National Guard. But instead of acknowledging that fact, he dodged the issue and had the mike taken away from Eubanks. Eubanks attended the town hall with the hopes of understanding Womack’s view. “I thought maybe meeting him and asking him why he’d vote to hurt students but protect Big Oil interests, face to face, would get me a real answer,” she told the Arkansas Times. “I really thought maybe he could explain it somehow. I did not think he was a heartless or arrogant person going in to this, but I definitely do now.”

Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) is just one of your typical smiley faced fascist hypocrites otherwise known as a conservative. Government is here to serve the arrogant elite like him, not American moms who are trying their best to improve their lives and that of their children. The fanatics like Womack are destroying America from within. Taking down the educational opportunities that are frequently the only path to a better life - especially sine it has been the policy of conservatives not to attach any strings at all to those jobs big corporations that help Womack get into office, sent to Asia. Womack might be a good citizen we just need to figure out what country he is a good citizen of. It sure isn't the USA.

President Obama Announces Initiative to Help Stop Exporting American Jobs

President Obama Announces Initiative to Help Stop Exporting American Jobs

The White House announced Wednesday that it would step up its efforts to improve the economy by encouraging both U.S. and foreign companies to generate more jobs at home of the sort that have been shipped overseas or lost to foreign competitors, a process being called by the new buzzword, "in-sourcing." Included in those efforts will be tax breaks and $12 million in new resources for the SelectUSA initiative begun last year:

    “Since day one, this Administration has been focused on encouraging investment and job creation here at home,” Vice President Biden added. “The business leaders coming here from across the country today have looked at the facts and concluded what the President and I have been saying all along: that America is the best place in the world to do business and create jobs.  We’re calling on other companies to follow their lead and bring jobs back to America—jobs that provide middle-class families not just with a paycheck, but with a fundamental sense of dignity.”

The process of "out-sourcing" has for many years contributed to the off-shoring of millions of American jobs to foreign companies and the shuttering of businesses coast to coast. The practice has hit U.S. manufacturing especially hard as emerging nations have taken advantage of an intensification of globalization, which encourages a relatively free flow of goods, services, capital and financial capital across international boundaries but maintains more or less strict immigration laws.

As a counterpoint, in-sourcing seeks to reverse the flow of jobs with government policies that encourage businesses, both U.S. businesses and foreign ones, to invest in the States. Those policies can include not only tax breaks but also tax disincentives for those who continue sending jobs overseas.

The White House announcement was made in conjunction with an in-sourcing forum that brought 14 large and small U.S. companies to meet with President Obama and discuss what kinds of policies might work to encourage the generation of jobs here instead of abroad. The 14 were Ford, DuPont, Otis Elevator, Intel, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, Master Lock, Lincolnton Furniture, GalaxE Solutions, AGS, KEEN, Chesapeake Bay Candle and NOVO 1.

This might be all for nothing since conservatives are doing everything they can to increase the number of unemployed before the election to try and make the president look bad.

For Americans Who Never Want to Act Like Reasonable Adults Ron Paul (R-TX) is Your Candidate

For Americans Who Never Want to Act Like Reasonable Adults Ron Paul (R-TX) is Your Candidate

Like many other little American kids, all I wanted to do was eat junk food, play video games and goof around with my friends. I didn’t like being made to go to school, going to bed at 9 PM, eating vegetables, doing homework after school, or taking out the garbage. And like most other little kids who don’t like abiding by the rules of their parents, I sometimes fantasized about what it would be like to run away from home. But when I packed my backpack full of clothes and individually-wrapped packs of peanut butter crackers from the pantry, I could never go through with my plan. I knew if I ran away, I’d be hungry, cold, lost, and eventually found by the police and returned home.

Libertarian views of government regulation are very similar to how the 6 year-old views the authority exerted by their parents. Ron Paul’s every-individual-for- themselves rhetoric appeals to young, radical libertarians with simplistic viewpoints of authority, and an ignorance of why government exists in the first place.

In Ron Paul’s ideal America, safety regulations imposed on employers by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would be a thing of the past. Clean air and water regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would be no more. Taxpayers would save money since Ron Paul would abolish the Department of Education and cut the Food & Drug Administration budget by 40%. Employers would save money by paying workers as little as they wish, since Ron Paul would abolish the Davis-Bacon Act. Corporate giants would be free to monopolize markets, since Ron Paul opposes federal antitrust legislation. And employees would no longer be required to pay into Social Security.

So what would this libertarian utopia look like, if Ron Paul were elected and followed through on his campaign promises?

-Families grieving for loved ones lost due to Massey Energy’s negligence in the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion would have to accept that their relatives were casualties of the invisible hand of the unfettered free market. And Massey would've gotten off scot-free for polluting Martin County, Kentucky's drinking water supply with 300 million gallons of coal slurry.

-Millions of college students dependent on Pell grants would be forced to move back home and work minimum-wage jobs, no longer financially able to further their education. Oh wait-- what minimum wage?

-Food recalls would be a regular occurrence when tainted meat and vegetables hit supermarket shelves and cause record outbreaks of e-coli. And risky new drugs will avoid FDA tests and hit the express lane to the pharmacy, endangering the health of millions.

-Too-big-to-fail banks like Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase and Bank of America would be allowed to merge and/or buy out their competitors, as would oil giants like ExxonMobil, and Chevron, as would cell service providers like AT&T and Verizon.

-The Social Security trust fund would become insolvent, making retirement that much harder for those who paid into it all their lives.

Ron Paul and his right-libertarian ideology does espouse a new kind of freedom, just as rebellious children who fantasize about running away from home dream of a new kind of freedom. But as much as we may have rebelled against our parents as little kids, we eventually matured and realized that the rules and regulations our parents imposed on us were meant so we’d grow up to be responsible, functioning adults in society.

An unregulated little kid free to eat junk food and play video games all day won’t ever learn the responsibilities of adulthood. And an unregulated society where every individual is out for themselves will quickly collapse.


Carl Gibson is a spokesman and organizer for US Uncut, a nonviolent, creative direct-action movement to stop budget cuts by getting corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

Libertarians give a lot of lip service to freedom, but they're selling tyranny. Many Americans have been stricken with cancer because of the dumping of toxic chemicals boy corporations. Paul and his moronic followers would take up for the freedom of corporations to do that. Those with cancer or kidney failure or other ailments can just suck it up and die.Think the average American is powerless now - you have a point, but just wait till conservative libertarians like Paul run the country and corporations grow into monopolistic powers with unlimited money to spend to influence politicians. Who do you think Washington will listen to, you or the powers that be with billions to spend on campaign contributions and lobbyists.

If Rick Santorum is God's Candidate than God Loves Corrupt Pathological Liars

If Rick Santorum is God's Candidate than God Loves Corrupt Pathological Liars

Behind the sweater vests, the faith and family, and the self-definition as a congressional reformer lies another Rick Santorum. This Rick Santorum favors big business, curries favor from lobbyists, and helped to bind the Washington influence industry to the Republican Party while serving in Congress.

Beginning in 2001, after Republicans seized control of Congress and the White House, then-Sen. Santorum (R-Pa.) began hosting Tuesday morning meetings with a select group of lobbyists. These meetings were part of a larger plan -- originally launched in the 1990s by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), conservative activist Grover Norquist and others when the GOP retook the House of Representatives after 40 years of Democratic control -- to pressure lobbying firms and trade associations to dump their Democratic lobbyists and replace them with Republicans. Named after the Washington business corridor famous for housing lobbying firms, the K Street Project was aimed at installing a permanent Republican majority in Washington.

Journalist Nicholas Confessore explained Santorum's role in the K Street Project in a 2003 Washington Monthly article: "Santorum's responsibility is to make sure each [top lobbying job] is filled by a loyal Republican -- a senator's chief of staff, for instance, or a top White House aide, or another lobbyist whose reliability has been demonstrated. After Santorum settles on a candidate, the lobbyists present make sure it is known whom the Republican leadership favors."

This wasn't just backroom chatter. There were real direct effects on policy. When Jack Valenti, the longtime chief of the Motion Picture Association of America, retired, Republicans led by Santorum and DeLay sought to pressure the trade group to hire a Republican. The MPAA ultimately replaced Valenti with former Clinton administration Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, deeply offending leaders of the K Street Project.

Santorum brought up the Glickman hire at a closed-door Republican caucus meeting and was quoted in a 2004 Roll Call article saying, "Yeah, we had a meeting and, yeah, we talked about making sure that we have fair representation on K Street. ... I admit that I pay attention to who is hiring, and I think it's important for leadership to pay attention."

Later in 2004, the Republicans in Congress voted down $1.5 billion in subsidies for the movie industry. Grover Norquist told Roll Call at the time that the movie industry's hire of Glickman was one of the reasons Republicans scuttled the subsidies. "Hollywood has recently expressed contempt for the Republican leadership in the House, Senate and White House," Norquist said.

The MPAA did ultimately hire a Republican for another top position, and many other big influence-industry jobs started to fall into the hands of partisan Republicans. A 2003 Washington Post article reported, "A Republican National Committee official recently told a group of GOP lobbyists that 33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans."

These new jobs provided partisans with a direct line to client funds -- that is, contributions from corporate executives and political action committees -- to funnel to the Republican candidates of their choosing. In some cases, these trade associations ran issue advocacy campaigns to support GOP policies or to attack vulnerable Democratic lawmakers.

Running for reelection in 2006, Santorum leaned heavily on this new fundraising base. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Santorum received $496,683 from Washington lobbyists, the most of any candidate during that election cycle. Over his career, Santorum received $731,937 from lobbyists in Washington.
If the K Street Project's goal was to turn Washington's lobbying world into a petri dish of movement conservatism, it backfired. The project's real outcome was to strengthen the connection between the Republican Party in Washington and the business community at large. The business-backed influence industry gained new power over the GOP lawmakers -- and it paid off. Pharmaceutical companies won big in the prescription drug expansion of Medicare, energy company lobbyists wrote most of the 2005 energy bill, and legislation was filled with earmarks requested by the influence peddlers.

The tight ties binding business, lobbyists and the Republican Party became one of the key gripes of the Tea Party movement as it rose to action in 2009 and 2010. Former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has decried "crony capitalism" and called lobbyists "symptomatic of the greater problem that we see right now in Washington." Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) referred to lobbyists as a "distinctly criminal class" in his 2010 run for the Senate.

Matthew Continetti, conservative writer and former editor of the Weekly Standard, wrote a book about the corrupting influence of lobbyists in the Republican Party, "The K Street Gang," back in 2006. In a National Review interview, he explained, "Many lobbyists place the private over the public interest and the economic interests of a client over the national interests of the American people. This contributes to the degradation of public-spiritedness and national identity, and should trouble anyone concerned about American politics and American civic life."

Indeed, by 2006, the K Street Project was a national scandal. Two of its best-known participants, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and DeLay, had been indicted for other crimes -- Abramoff for corruption and DeLay for money laundering. Santorum distanced himself from the project, stating in February 2006, "We don't have a K Street Project. ... I have never called anybody or talked to anyone to try to get anybody a position on K Street with one exception, and that is if someone from my office is applying for a job and an employer calls me."

But one month later, after the temporary, scandal-induced hiatus, Santorum restarted his lobbyist gatherings. He lost his reelection bid later that year by a whopping 18 percentage points, partially due to his role leading the K Street Project.

Rick might be the "values" candidate if you have the values of a gangster, which most conservatives do. If conservatives really cared about corruption in Washington or at the state level there would hardly be any. Conservatives ignore corruption because if they can get what they want using corruption, that justify the corruption. never mind that they are as usual destroying America one piece at a time.

The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

The Year 2011 Was The Year That Anti-American Conservative Talking Points About Obama's Foreign Policy Crumbled

Since President Obama took office, right-wing (conservative) media have argued that his foreign policy is making the United States less safe and is bent on attacking Israel. Those attacks have continued in 2011, even as the Obama administration has overseen the death of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Anwar Al-Awlaki, repeatedly supported Israel, and been praised by Israeli leaders.

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Speech On Israeli-Palestinian Peace Based On '67 Borders With Agreed Swaps Condoned "Potential Genocide"

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Supporting "Intifada" Against Israel By Restating U.S. Policy Regarding Settlements
RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Making The U.S. Less Safe

Since Obama Took Office, Right-Wing Media Have Repeatedly Suggested That He Is Weak On Terror And Not Serious About Defending America From Terrorism Threats.

REALITY: Obama Administration Oversaw The Killing Of Osama Bin Laden And Other Terrorist Leaders

    [The New York Times, 5/2/11]

Obama Authorized The Operation That Resulted In The Death Of Osama Bin Laden. Following the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported that the "surgical" special forces operation that resulted in the terrorist leader's death was authorized by President Obama on Friday, April 29 after months of intelligence gathering, and was carried out early the following Monday morning (local time) as a small force of elite American troops descended on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. According to the Post, the U.S. "did not share any intelligence with foreign governments, including Pakistan's."

Obama Ordered Drone Strike That Killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, An American-Born Al Qaeda Leader. Reuters reported on September 30:

    The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on Friday by a U.S. drone strike is the culmination of two years of extensive U.S. efforts to track down the American-born member of al Qaeda and put him out of action.

Under Obama, FBI And DEA Agents Foiled Alleged Iranian Plot To Assassinate Saudi Ambassador To The U.S. ABC News reported on October 11:

    FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.


Numerous Other Terrorist Leaders Have Been Killed During Obama's Presidency. In a September 30 blog post, ABC's Jake Tapper compiled a list of senior terrorist leaders killed during Obama's presidency. From Tapper's post:

    Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda's chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.

    In August, 'Atiyah 'Abd al-Rahman,  the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.

    In June, one of the group's most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri,  was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa'ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa'ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.

    Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani  in Quetta.

    Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.

    In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.

    Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and 'Abdallah Sa'id were killed.

    In February 2010, in Pakistan,  Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.

    In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin -- accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings -- was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

    In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.

    In May, al Qaeda's number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.

    In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed. [Political Punch, 9/30/11, via ABCNews.com]

RIGHT-WING MEDIA CLAIM: Obama's Actions In Libya Were Incoherent And Dangerous For Israel

REALITY: With U.S., NATO Support, Libyans Overthrew Gadhafi      

Wash. Post: Libyan Rebels Captured, Killed Gadhafi Following "Unprecedented NATO Air Campaign." The Washington Post reported on October 20:

    Former Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday after being seized in a sewage tunnel in his home town -- the final triumph for pro-democracy fighters who have struggled for eight months to take control of the country.

    Gaddafi's death came on a day of intense military activity in Sirte, the last loyalist holdout in Libya, where his supporters had fended off better-armed revolutionaries for weeks. Before his capture, a U.S. drone and French fighter jets fired on a large, disorganized convoy leaving the city that he appears to have been in. It was not clear whether the airstrikes hit Gaddafi's vehicles, NATO officials said.


RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE MEDIA CLAIM: Obama Is Anti-Israel And His Administration Is Anti-Semitic

REALITY: Obama Has Stood By Israel And Lobbied Against Palestinian Statehood At The UN

    [WhiteHouse.gov, 9/21/11]

Obama Declared His Opposition To Palestinian Statehood Bid At The UN

Obama: "Peace Will Not Come Through Statements And Resolutions At The U.N." The New York Times reported on September 21:

    President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Has Repeatedly Praised Obama

Netanyahu On Obama's Opposition To A Unilaterally-Declared Palestinian State: "I Think This Is A Badge Of Honor And I Want To Thank You For Wearing That Badge Of Honor." From a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Netanyahu  "Offered A Special Thank You" To Obama For Helping To Free Israelis Detained In Cairo. From a Jerusalem Post article:

    Israel will continue to adhere to the peace treaty with Egypt, which serves the interest of both countries, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night, at the end of a dramatic 24-hours during which an Egyptian mob laid siege to Israel's embassy in Cairo.

    All of Israel's emissaries to Cairo -- including six security guards who were holed up behind a metal door in the embassy and extracted by Egyptian commandos -- returned to Israel on Saturday, with the exception of one diplomat who will remain to represent Israel in the Egyptian capital.

    Netanyahu, in a televised announcement on Saturday night, offered a special thank you to US President Barack Obama who "said he would do everything he could" to extricate the six security guards, "and did.

Netanyahu "Expressed His Deep Appreciation" For U.S. Funding For Missile Defense System For Israel. From an April 18 Agence France-Presse article:

Former Israeli Prime Minister And Current Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "I Can Hardly Remember A Better Period Of ... American Support" For Israel Than "Right Now." From the August 3 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:


A Majority Of Jewish Israelis Have A Favorable View Of Obama

Brookings: "A Majority (54%) Of Israeli Jews Polled In 2011 Expressed A Favorable View Of [Obama]." A "2011 Public Opinion Poll of Jewish and Arab Citizens of Israel" by the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy found that a "majority" of Israeli Jews support Obama:

Just another year in which the deeply anti-American movement known as conservatism has the nerve to wrap its lies and Anti-American agenda in the flag and the Bible to deceive and mislead the American people. It is time for real Americans to stand up and push back at this dangerous anti-democracy political radicals known as conservative Republicans.

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Really Cares About The Workers

His Royal Highness Mitt Romney Really Cares About The Workers

Speaking to reporters tonight in Des Moines, Iowa, a worker laid off by a company owned by Bain Capital accused former Bain Capital CEO and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of being “out of touch” with the concerns of average Americans.  Randy Johnson and more than 250 of his fellow workers at a Marion, Indiana American Pad and Paper (AMPAD) facility lost their jobs after Bain decided to close the plant amid a labor dispute.  Johnson, who noted that he personally reached out to Romney during the labor dispute, said, “I really think [Romney] didn’t care about the workers. It was all about profit over people.”  In addition to the layoffs and eventual bankrupting of AMPAD, Bain Capital under Romney’s leadership drove several other firms into bankruptcy and caused thousands of layoffs.

Conservatives and of course the radical anti-American movement known as conservatism finds nothing wrong with this kind of dog-eat-dog crony capitalism. Fair and humane capitalism in the tradition of American values is considered communism by the rabid fake patriots like Romney.

Conservatives Keep Mangling American History - Maybe That is Why Their Agenda is Anti-American

Conservatives Keep Mangling American History - Maybe That is Why Their Agenda is Anti-American

The mortgage crisis began in 2006 and it’s all President Obama’s fault—at least according to Fox News host Sean Hannity. Hannity recently blamed [1] Obama—“his policies, his economic plan, his fault”—for the mortgage crisis, ignoring who was actually president (that would be George W. Bush) as the housing market slipped [2].

Hannity’s is just one example of the selective memory and historical revision frequently on display in the conservative movement. Right-wing pundits, politicians and pseudo-historians are nibbling away at objective historical truths to rewrite history for present-day purposes, and hardly any topic is off-limits: glorifying the “Reagan Revolution” to children, sugarcoating the Jim Crow South and revising textbooks to offer a favorable view on Phyllis Schlafly—among many others.

Below, read about eight ways in which conservatives try to rewrite, sugarcoat or ignore aspects of American history.

1. Michele Bachmann on the founding fathers and slavery. Propelled to the front of the Republican field after her victory in the Iowa straw poll, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann’s historical views are notoriously error-prone. In one her infamous gaffes, she said [3] the founding fathers “work[ed] tirelessly to end slavery” (in fact, George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves) and that John Quincy Adams [4] was a founding father—he was born in 1767.

Bachmann was a research assistant to John Eidsmoe for his 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of our Founding Fathers, in which Eidsmoe wrote, “The church and the state have separate spheres of authority, but both derive authority from God. In that sense America, like [Old Testament] Israel, is a theocracy.”

....................

2. Secession was fine, dandy and legal. Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is fond of pro-secession comments [7]; in 2009, he joked [8] that “we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.”

In his dreams. In fact, these attempts at humor sidestep what secession actually leads to: a nullification crisis, a Civil War, hundreds of thousands of casualties and the federal government as the victor anyway. And secession is illegal. In 1866 the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White [9] that Texas’s ordinance of secession was “absolutely null.”

...3. Forgetting September 11? Conservatives have an uncanny ability to misremember when the September 11 attacks occurred. In July, Fox News [12] host Eric Bolling said “we were certainly safe between 2000 and 2008?—?I don’t remember any terrorist attacks on American soil during that period of time.” (In his “apology [13],” he accepted no blame: “Yesterday, I misspoke when saying that there were no US terror attacks during the Bush years. Obviously, I meant in the aftermath of 9/11, but that is when the radical liberal left pounced on us…. thank you liberals for reminding me how petty you can be.”)

A surprising slip came from ex–New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In January 2010 he claimed [14] that “we had no domestic attacks under Bush.”

.....4. Mike Huckabee’s “Learn Our History.” Mike Huckabee’s cartoon history series is whitewashing American history. While claiming to engage children in an easy-to-digest format without “misrepresentations…historical inaccuracies, personal biases and political correctness,” personal biases somehow make an appearance [17]. Each video is produced with consultation from Learn Our History’s “Council of Masters;” one “Master,” Larry Schweikart, is the author of 48 Liberal Lies About American History, including “Lie #45: LBJ’s Great Society Had a Positive Impact on the Poor.”

In a DVD [18] on the “Reagan Revolution,” viewers are invited to “journey to a time when America suffered from financial, international and moral crisis:” Washington, DC, 1977. A knife-wielding African-American man demands “gimme yo’ money!” Ronald Reagan’s arrival—against triumphant music playing and a caption reading “one man transformed the nation…and the world”—changed all that for the better, the DVD suggests.

5. The New Deal did harm. Anti–New Deal views have long reverberated among Republicans. Bachmann [19] blamed FDR for turning a recession into a depression by passing “Hoot-Smalley Tariff” (never mind that it’s Smoot-Hawley and it was passed three years prior to Roosevelt’s inauguration). And a barrage of recent books, including FDR’s Folly, by Jim Powell of the Cato Institute, and Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man, blame FDR and the New Deal for prolonging the Depression. Newt Gingrich has praised [20] The Forgotten Man, with its anti-stimulus message, as a blueprint for a return to “Whig-style free-market liberalism.”

6. David Barton. An amateur-turned-“historian,” Barton is the founder of WallBuilders, a pseudo-historical organization “with an emphasis on the moral, religious, and constitutional foundation on which America was built,” says its website. One of his revisions [21] insists that John Adams claimed that government cannot exist without the Holy Ghost. In his presentations of the subject, Barton misunderstands Adams’s mocking statement about fervent believers in the Holy Ghost as historical truth, omitting succeeding sentences wherein Adams describes those beliefs to be “Artifice and Cunning.”

Barton’s claims about the religious roots of the country have been debunked from academics, even from Christian colleges. John Fea, chair of the history department at Messiah College, wrote [22], “Barton claims to be a historian. He is not. He has just enough historical knowledge, and just enough charisma, to be very dangerous.”

7. Texas Textbook Revisions. Last year the Texas Board of Education revised public school textbooks, expanding [23]discussion of Ronald Reagan at the expense of public figures like Justice Sonia Sotomayor, omitting reference to Thomas Jefferson as an Enlightenment thinker in favor of Protestant leader John Calvin, and offering favorable views [24] on Senator Joseph McCarthy, women’s rights opponent Phyllis Schlafly and the Heritage Foundation.

Many historians opposed [25] the changes—but the board voted along party lines [26] to approve of the revisions. Nearly 5 million Texas students live with the result.

8. Jim Crow wasn’t that bad. Last December, Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi sugarcoated Jim Crow–era Mississippi, saying [27] of his native Yazoo County, “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” and, “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders.”

In reality, 1960s Mississippi was 42 percent black, of which only 2 percent were registered to vote, according to the nonprofit African-American Registry [28]. Civil rights activists were murdered [29] and students rioted [30] against integration. “Not bad” indeed! 

The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were both based on Liberal political theory. Democracy itself is a liberal concept. As is small-r republicanism. The latter is tricky, trying to find the balance between individual rights and the other extreme where everyone, citing their individual rights, does anything they please. Conservatives plainly do not believe in balance. They believe the financial elite should have all the power and run the country instead of the people.

Happy New Year From Anti-American Fox News Who Dreams of the Day All Americans Hate Each Other

Happy New Year From Anti-American Fox News Who Dreams of the Day All Americans Hate Each Other - Fox's History Of Mainstreaming Hate

Fox & Friends recently hosted Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled an anti-gay "hate group." Lafferty, who has described SPLC's designation of her group as a "badge of honor," is the latest member of an organization that SPLC has designated as a hate group or otherwise criticized for propagating hateful rhetoric to be invited to speak on Fox News.

...Southern Poverty Law Center: TVC Is An Anti-Gay "Hate Group"

SPLC Labels TVC An Anti-Gay "Hate Group." According to the SPLC, TVC will be listed as an anti-gay hate group as of 2011. SPLC elevates anti-gay groups to hate group status "based on their propagation of known falsehoods -- claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities -- and repeated, groundless name-calling." From SPLC:

    The group has at times enjoyed remarkable access to the halls of power -- during the George W. Bush Administration, Sheldon and Lafferty visited the White House a combined 69 times, meeting personally with Bush in eight of the visits. But that does not mean that it has not long had a record of extreme gay-bashing.

    In 1985, [TVC founder Lou] Sheldon suggested forcing AIDS victims into "cities of refuge." In 1992, columnist Jimmy Breslin said that Sheldon told him that "homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual." Sheldon later denied that he made the comments, but his website today includes strikingly similar language..

...TVC Is Just The Latest Hate Group Or Individual Criticized For Hateful Rhetoric To Be Mainstreamed By Fox

Fox & Friends Hosted President Of FAIR, Which SPLC Designated An Anti-Immigrant Hate Group. On the March 30 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Carlson hosted Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) President Dan Stein to attack immigrants. According to SPLC, FAIR is an anti-immigrant hate group. SPLC noted:

    Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR's founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country. One of the group's main goals is upending the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a decades-long, racist quota system that limited immigration mostly to northern Europeans. FAIR President Dan Stein has called the Act a "mistake." [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 3/30/11; Media Matters, 3/30/11]

Beck Hosted Author Who Was Member Of League Of The South Hate Group. On the June 8, 2010, edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck hosted author Thomas Woods, who has been a member of League of the South, which SPLC describes as:

    [A] neo-Confederate group that advocates for a second Southern secession and a society dominated by "European Americans." The league believes the "godly" nation it wants to form should be run by an "Anglo-Celtic" (read: white) elite that would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks and other minorities. Originally founded by a group that included many Southern university professors, the group lost its Ph.D.s as it became more explicitly racist. The league denounces the federal government and northern and coastal states as part of "the Empire," a materialist and anti-religious society. [SPLC, accessed 8/4/11; Media Matters, 6/8/10]

Beck Promoted Book By "One Man Hate Group" Eustace Mullins. On the September 22, 2010, edition of his Fox News show, Beck attacked 20th century diplomat Edward House by promoting a book by Eustace Mullins called Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Mullins was described as a "nationally known white supremacist and anti-Semite" in his obituary and was "described in 2000 by the SPLC as a one-man organization of hate." From the Daily News Leader in his hometown of Staunton, VA:

...Fox Has Repeatedly Hosted Pam Geller, Subject Of SPLC "Hatewatch" Post. Fox News has repeatedly hosted anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, even after she was the subject of an August 25, 2010, "Hatewatch" post by SPLC titled, "White Supremacists Find Common Cause With Pam Geller's Anti-Islam Campaign." From the SPLC's description of Geller:

    Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals. [SPLC, 8/25/10; SPLC, accessed 8/5/11; Media Matters, 7/25/11]

Fox Hosted Head Of Anti-Gay Hate Group Family Research Council To Attack Gender Diversity Education. On the May 26 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, co-host Martha MacCallum hosted Family Research Council president Tony Perkins to attack a school in California that was teaching a gender diversity class. The Family Research Council has been labeled by the SPLC as an anti-gay hate group.  

Rupert Murdoch's Fox news and other right-wing media want Americans to be intolerant, hateful and suspicious of each other because they and their organizations make millions of dollars doing so. It also gets conservatives with radical anti-American agendas elected to office. One might call the whole operation a kind of pyramid scheme of hate. As long as it pays, they'll keep telling the lies, dispensing distorted information and stirring up division among the American people.

Wisconsin Right-wing Nut Governor Scott Walker Thinks Corporate Taxes Can Never be Low Enough and he is Willing to Kill Women to Prove It

Wisconsin Right-wing Nut Governor  Scott Walker Thinks Corporate Taxes Can Never be Low Enough and he is Willing to Kill Women to Prove It

First he gutted worker's rights [1], then slashed state education funding [2] and dumbed-down sex ed [3]. Next on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's hit list? Breast and cervical cancer screenings for women. Come January 1, Wisconsinites who rely on Planned Parenthood to access free cancer screenings may be out of luck.

The Wisconsin Well Woman Program [4] is an 17-year-old state service created to ensure that women ages 45 to 64 who lack health insurance can access preventive health screenings. It is administered by the Department of Health Services and provides referrals and screenings for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and multiple sclerosis at no cost. The state currently uses a number of contractors to coordinate and provide those services, including Planned Parenthood. But now, in a move that could leave many women in the state without access to the program, the Walker government is ending Planned Parenthood's contract.

In four Wisconsin counties, Planned Parenthood is the only health care provider currently contracted as a coordinator for the cancer screenings. Coordinators evaluate women for eligibility, enroll them in the program, and then connect them to health care providers that can perform the exams. The coordinators also do community outreach, letting women know that there are options for preventative care even if they don't have health insurance. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin has been a contractor since the program began—including during the terms of previous GOP governors Tommy Thompson and Scott McCallum—but the group recently learned that its contract is being terminated at the end of the month.

Beth Kaplan, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health Services, told Mother Jones that no decision has been made on the contract and would not comment on why it might not be continued. But Tanya Atkinson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, says they were told that the state is cutting them out of the program. "They have very clearly stated that they were ending the contract with us," she says. [UPDATE: Walker himself has confirmed [5] that the state is ending its contract with Planned Parenthood.]

Atkinson says the DHS cut is politically motivated; as far as she knows, her group was the only service provider whose contract was not renewed. The move puts in question what will happen to the more than 1,000 women that access the Well Woman Program through Planned Parenthood in Winnebago, Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, and Outagamie counties every year. Doctors found 15 cases of cervical and breast cancer in the 1,260 women screened in those counties in 2010—cases that likely would not have been detected if women didn't have access to the Well Woman Program. The county health officers in two of those counties have already issued statements decrying the state for targeting Planned Parenthood for the cut and for risking the health of their residents.

"If it's not Planned Parenthood, then who's going to coordinate? Where do women go?" Atkinson asks. "We don't have any indication at this point."

If Walker goes through with the cut, women like Laurie Seim might not get the services they need. Two years ago, the 52-year-old Seim discovered a lump in her breast and started feeling feverish and sick. Even though she had a part-time job as a medical assistant, she didn't have health insurance and had never had a mammogram. The doctor she worked for sent her to the Well Woman Program coordinator at the Outagamie office of Planned Parenthood. She was able to get a mammogram the next day as well as an ultrasound, and both were covered by the program. Thankfully, she learned she had a cyst, not cancer. But without the program, she says, she probably wouldn't have gotten that care.

"I didn't have to worry about anything. It was such a godsend," Seim says. "If I hadn't been referred to that program, I don't know what I would have done." She worked in the medical field but still didn't know how to navigate the system. "Well Woman was there for me."

Just another day among the fake patriots who call themselves conservatives. They honestly believe in having a dog-eat-dog survival of the lucky society. If you have health problems and cannot afford care, conservative Republicans believe you should die. They proved that to the entire nation when they applauded a question during the Republican debates about letting someone without health insurance die. 

Yet Another Anti-American Republican Ignores Constitution - Gingrich Front Group Calls For Punishing Judges By Eliminating Their Court

Yet Another Anti-American Republican Ignores Constitution - Gingrich Front Group Calls For Punishing Judges By Eliminating Their Court

Earlier this month, a unanimous panel of 9th Circuit judges held that a 43-foot tall Latin cross cannot constitutionally be displayed on federal land in San Diego. Even though this decision flows naturally from the First Amendment and from Supreme Court decisions forbidding the government from endorsing Christianity — or any other faith — above others, the right’s reaction to this decision has been predictably apoplectic.

Perhaps the most unhinged reaction comes from Newt Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership, which proclaims that the judges who decided this case must be punished by having their court abolished:

    Upon ascending to the presidency, Jefferson then did something remarkable — he and his congressional allies passed the Judicial Act of 1803 that simply abolished the newly-created judgeships and the courts they presided over. He reminded the deposed judges that they had no cases to hear, no building in which to hear them, and no funding for their salaries. The former judges took their case to the Supreme Court, demanding that their positions be restored. Under the plain terms of the Constitution, however, they didn’t have a leg to stand on, and President Jefferson emerged victorious.

    Today we face a similar issue: those whose policies are unable to win at the ballot box are seeking to build a stronghold of government power in the courts, without needing to garner a single vote. Just as it did in 1803, the Executive and Legislative branches could take action today and ”reorganize” the Ninth Circuit Court right out of existence!

Gingrich himself made a similar argument last year, when he told the now-floundering CPAC convention that Thomas Jefferson’s “judicial reform act of 1802 abolished 18 out of 35 federal judges, over half…I am more cautious than Jefferson. I would only abolish the Ninth Circuit Court.” This proposal, however, has one big flaw: the United States Constitution.

The Constitution provides that “[t]he judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office,” a provision which exists entirely to prevent Congress from strong-arming judges by threatening their jobs. While there is some precedent for reducing the size of a judge’s area of jurisdiction for non-punitive reasons — the 5th Circuit was split into two circuits in 1981 after it became too large and unwieldy — an Act of Congress which effectively stripped a court’s judges of all their responsibilities would certainly run afoul of the Constitution.

Moreover, while Gingrich is correct that Jefferson did unconstitutionally abolish several federal judgeships, this precedent is best read as a sign that the framers, while brilliant, were no less capable of letting their passions overcome their ability to follow the Constitution than modern lawmakers occasionally prove to be. Indeed, Jefferson himself came to power in part because of a nationwide backlash against wildly unconstitutional laws passed by his predecessor.

Ultimately, however, the most frightening thing about Gingrich’s proposal isn’t its direct conflict with the Constitution, but the implications of such a violation of the Constitution for a fair and impartial judiciary. The framers protected judges from exactly this kind of intimidation because they knew that judges cannot be trusted to enforce unpopular laws or to extend the law’s protection over unpopular groups if they constantly have to watch their backs. At the end of the day, Gingrich’s proposal is nothing more than another sign of the right’s utter contempt for the Constitution and the law.

Gingrich is supposed to be one of the big thinkers of the Anti-American conservative movement. Which just goes to prove how low their standards are to be considered a great thinker.

Internet Bill SOPA Was Introduced By Republicans. SOPA is a Clear Attack on the First Amendment.

Internet Bill SOPA Was Introduced By Republicans. SOPA is a Clear Attack on the First Amendment. Why Do Republicans Hate America?

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School, argues the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) violates the First Amendment in a memo sent to members of Congress on Thursday.

The bill would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines, Internet providers and payment processors cut ties with websites "dedicated" to copyright infringement.

Tribe argues the bill amounts to illegal "prior restraint" because it would suppress speech without a judicial hearing.

Additionally, the law's definition of a rogue website is unconstitutionally vague, Tribe writes.

"Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement," Tribe writes. "Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials."

He argues SOPA undermines the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which protected websites from being held responsible for the actions of their users. 

The bill would "effectively require sites actively to police themselves to ensure that infringement does not occur," he writes.

Tribe concludes the result is that the law would chill protected and lawful speech.

"The threat of such a cutoff would deter Internet companies from adopting innovative approaches to hosting and linking to third party content and from exploring new kinds of communication," he writes.

In a footnote, Tribe acknowledges that he was hired by the Consumer Electronics Association, which is lobbying against SOPA, but he adds, "The views expressed in this paper represent my own views as a scholar and student of the Constitution."

A spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans pointed to a competing legal analysis by constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams.

 The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2] Now before the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the Protect IP Act.[3]

"In addition to domain-name filtering, SOPA would impose an open-ended obligation on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent access to infringing sites...Preventing access to specific sites would require ISPs to inspect all the Internet traffic of its entire user base—the kind of privacy-invasive monitoring that has come under fire in the context of 'deep packet inspection' for advertising purposes", said Center for Democracy and Technology lawyers David Sohn and Andrew McDiarmid in an article written for The Atlantic.[33]

"Is this really what we want to do to the internet? Shut it down every time it doesn't fit someone's business model?" asks Harvard Business Review blogger James Allworth, concluding that the bill would "give America its very own version of the Great Firewall of China."[44]

The legislation would lead to many cloud computing and Web hosting services moving out of the U.S. to avoid lawsuits, predicted Christian Dawson, COO of Virginia-based hosting company ServInt. "I see SOPA as a stimulus package for Asia and Europe and their Internet economies," he said.[45]

Today In Dishonest Fox News Charts - It looks like Fox is trying to mislead its viewers on the unemployment rate. Again. As more and more Americans are learning Fox News is an anti-American propaganda channel run by the Rupert Murdoch international media empire. Its goal is to spread authoritarian style government over as much of the world as possible. It is a secret conspiracy. Fox personnel frequently espouse the virtues of what historians call proto-fascism.

Where Does Romney Stand On Iraq - Depends on Which Way The Wind is Blowing

Where Does Romney Stand On Iraq - Depends on Which Way The Wind is Blowing

When President Obama announced in October that he was ordering all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, Mitt Romney’s campaign issued a statement assailing the president, calling his decision an “astonishing failure”:

    “President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government. The American people deserve to hear the recommendations that were made by our military commanders in Iraq.”

Yet today during an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, Romney backtracked. Immediately after criticizing Obama for not keeping up to 30,000 troops in Iraq, the former Massachusetts governor said the withdrawal is the right move:

    ROMNEY: With regards to Iraq, of course we’re following the Bush timeline with one exception and that is the [blank space] President Bush and I believe others anticipated that we would have an ongoing force, somewhere between 10 and 20 and 30,000 there to help with the transition. President Obama’s own Secretary of Defense suggested that would be the case and they were unable to negotiate a status of forces agreement to allow the 10 to 20 to 30,000 troops to remain which I think was a failure on the part of the administration. But is the wind down in Iraq appropriate? Yes.


It seems like Romney and Newt Gingrich are in stiff competition for this year’s top GOP flip-flopper. Gingrich’s recent Iraq reversal clocked in at an impressive 13 seconds. Perhaps Romney is trying to reclaim the mantle.

It is either sad or ironic that Romney is the smartest of the Republican presidential candidates and probably the most compassionate. Those could be the two things that sink his campaign with a right-wing conservative base that has more in common politically with the Italian fascists of the 1940s than Abe Lincoln.

Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum: ‘Science Should Get Out Of Politics’

OMG, Supercommittee Republican Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) Admits Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Create Jobs, Can’t Explain Why

OMG, Supercommittee Republican Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) Admits Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Create Jobs, Can’t Explain Why

Republicans this week filibustered a Democratic plan to extend a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, objecting to the fact that the extension was paid for by implementing a small surtax on income in excess of $1 million. To justify their objection to taxing the wealthy, Republicans have revived their false claim that taxing the rich amounts to taxing small business owners and job creators.

Bloomberg’s Al Hunt asked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — who represented the GOP on the fiscal supercommittee that failed to craft a deficit reduction package — to explain this viewpoint, considering that more jobs were created under the Clinton administration and its higher taxes on the rich than were created following the Bush tax cuts. Upton admitted that “I don’t know specifically the answer to that question,” nonsensically pointing to Friday’s jobs report instead of trying to argue the premise of Hunt’s question:

    HUNT: Why under those pre-Bush tax cut tax rates did the economy do so well in the ‘90s? And why under the Bush tax rates, less for the wealthy, to do so poorly in this decade?

    UPTON: Well, a couple things. One, spending went up, Al, the wars. I mean, that’s trillions of dollars. And also there was no change in the entitlements. And we also know -

    HUNT: But that shouldn’t hurt the economy. That shouldn’t hurt economic growth.

    UPTON: Yeah, but that impacts the debt and the deficit.

    HUNT: But I’m asking, why did the economy grow a lot? Why were more jobs created in the previous decade under higher taxes than in this decade under lower taxes?

    UPTON: I don’t know specifically the answer to that question. I can – I can maybe merit a guess. But, I mean, in large part is because our job – we lost jobs. I mean, look at the jobs report that came out this last week, three-hundred- some-thousand people actually stopped looking for jobs.



As Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden found, “in the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.” In fact, “if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher.” The GOP, as Upton displays, simply has no explanation for these facts.

In a Bloomberg op-ed, wealthy investor Nick Hanauer also blew a hole in the GOP’s line of thinking, writing, “I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate. That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs.” The GOP would do well to take note.

This is not particularly breaking news in the sense we know that conservatives practice economics the way cults practice their beliefs. Conservatives pay no attention to evidence, they just irrationally believe in what they believe, no matter how many millions of decent hard working Americans they hurt.

Georgia Confederate Republican Loon Bill Looman is an Embarrassment to America

Georgia Confederate Republican Loon Bill Looman is an Embarrassment to America

A business owner in western Georgia instituted a new company policy recently: “We are not hiring until Obama is gone.”

Bill Looman, who owns U.S. Cranes, LLC in Waco, Georgia, explained that while “I’ve got people that I want to hire now,” he didn’t think he would be able to foot the expense “unless some things change in D.C.”

Not content to simply implement the new policy internally, Looman decided to plaster it on all his company’s trucks. He did so, as 11Alive noted, “for all to see as the trucks roll up and down roads, highways and interstates.” Watch it:

The notion that President Obama’s economic policies preclude small businesses from hiring new workers isn’t the only ludicrous claim Looman pushes. A cursory glance at Looman’s public Facebook page shows he is prone to anti-Obama conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, he posted a false report that Larry Sinclair – the man who claimed he did drugs and had sex with President Obama – had died and implied foul play, writing “MAKES YOU WONDER HUH?” Looman’s page is also riddled with pro-confederate and anti-Muslim postings.

More importantly, Looman’s assertion that he would be able to hire more workers but for Obama’s economic policies defies reason. In the last few months alone, Obama has proposed giving major tax credits to businesses that hire new workers, including a $4,000 credit for hiring the long-term unemployed. Just this week, Obama signed a law to give additional tax credits to businesses that hire veterans.

Ironically, despite the fact that he claims to want to hire new workers, Looman’s anti-Obama anti-hiring stance will prevent his business from enjoying any of these new incentives.

Since taking office President Obama has given small businesses 17 tax cuts. Small businesses in the U.S. now have the lowest tax rate since 1960. That's right, Obama's tax rats are lower than Saint Ronnie Reagan. Looman, a fan of the treasonous Confederacy is doing a lot of people a favor. Who would want to work for this treasonous nut bag who pushes tin-foil wrapped conspiracy theories. 

Anti-American Conservative Newt Gingrich Was Pro Health Care Mandate Before He Was Against It

Gingrich Backs Away From Individual Mandate: ‘I Never Focused On It Much’

In 1993, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed the concept of a national individual mandate, saying on Meet the Press, “I am for people, individuals — exactly like automobile insurance — individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance.” He reiterated the principle in 2007 — writing in a Des Moines Register op-ed, “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance” — and again in 2008: “Finally, we should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond).” His for-profit think tank, the Center for Health Transformation (CHT), still promotes the concept on its website, writing, “Anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year must purchase health insurance or post a bond.”

But since the requirement is also included in the Affordable Care Act, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is against it and believes it to be unconstitutional. During an interview with the Union Leader on Monday, he announced that despite the long public record, he actually “never focused on it much on the federal level”:

    GINGRICH: I never focused on it much on the federal level. I talked about it at the center, at the state level and what we were trying to solve, we just concluded you couldn’t do it, it was too hard…As you work through it, at the time it was designed to block Hillarycare and the more you thought about it, the more you realized, a Congress that can compel you to do something like that, could compel you to do anything. What’s the limit to Congress’ power to dictate your life? And that, I think, will be heart of the argument at the Supreme Court?

The limit is actually fairly clear. The Supreme Court grants the Congress broad deference in regulating the country’s economic activities, so long as the activity is itself economic in nature. And since we all have bodies and they all get old and sick, health care costs are shifted to other payers throughout the country. In 2008, the government spent $43 billion providing uncompensated care to uninsured individuals. In that sense, even the failure to buy a product constitutes an “economic activity.”

For over sixty years conservative leaders such as Gingrich have been lying the Constitution. They say they believe in it literally word for word. While that kind of interpretation is not one the Founders intended - they did not have broadcast airwaves or air travel to regulate back in 1775 for one thing. Conservatives consistently cannot pass their own litmus tests. They decide to believe in whatever screwy point of view and than they find some way to shoe horn in their beliefs into the Constitution. This approach to living in a modern democratic republic is inherently Anti-American.