What The H?

Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter H.

Few things in life are as predictable as reactions to gun violence in America. (“In America,” of course, goes almost without saying.) When one of their own is threatened, Republicans will blame the rhetoric of Democrats. They’ll call for repression of speech. Like Gym Jordan, they’ll make connections that don’t exist and lie about them, as when he said, "I don't think it should be lost on anyone that we have a third assassination attempt on President Trump in the same week we learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center has been paying and generating hate."

For the record, like the FBI, with which the SPLC cooperates, it engages paid informants within hate groups, which is not “paying and generating hate.” Jordan knows that. He’s venal but not stupid.

If it’s one of their own who committed the act, they’ll make no mention of Republican rhetoric that preceded it. Like, oh, “Journalists are the enemy of the people.” “Democrats are the party of ‘hate, evil, and Satan.’” “Democrats want to destroy our country.” “I’m glad he’s dead.” “No Kings marchers hate America.” “[Senator Mark Kelly and others] ... should be put to death.” Stuff like that.

You didn’t hear criticism of Trump from the right when he shared the home address of President Barack Obama, following which a man was arrested outside, with a gun.

Until Trump, there was never a president who openly sought to foment that level of hate and violence against an opposing political party. And, before Trump, no president had a party that loved him for it.

What you will hear is that the person was mentally ill and doesn’t represent their party, and that a “president” spewing hate for liberals has nothing to do with it. What you won’t hear are suggestions for making guns less available to people with a history of violence or mental illness. Nor will you hear calls for funding treatment of mental illness.

You will hear conspiracy theories from both sides. Staged. False flag. Crisis actors. Ear cartilage. Groomed. In that, there is political equity. However, those theories generally emerge from higher up the right-wing chain than ones from the left, both media personalities and elected officials.

Still, people pushing those theories, from whatever direction, demean us all, just as political violence endangers us all. As do calls to punish those who speak the truth. Or tell jokes on TV. As Donald Rumsfeld famously told us, “Democracy is messy.”

Something original did come from the correspondents’ dinner episode: Trump demanded, his words received throughout right-wing media like tablets from Sinai and put on loop, that his ridiculous ballroom be built immediately, lest he be in “grave danger.” Lindsey Graham wants taxpayers to pay for it. Let's keep the secret hidey-hole underneath. Rebuild the East Wing.

More sponsorship from the letter H:

Trump just re-indicted James Comey. Remember when Rs investigated President Biden for “weaponizing” government and came up empty? Trump’s is as obvious as it is copious.

Republicans rejoiced when Texas initiated the mid-term gerrymandering that gave them five newly red districts. Trusting Democrats to cling to their tradition of clinging to their tradition, other red states followed suit. Then, OMG! Virginia Democrats did the same dang thing. Backlash from the right is set to eleven. The Washington Bezos, which previously editorialized that the Texas ploy was no big deal, called Virginia’s move a danger to democracy. N.B.: House Democrats teed up a bill outlawing gerrymandering months ago. Republicans refuse.

Trump just fired all members of the National Science Board, which sets scientific standards “for how rigorous, intellectual, scientific decisions should be made.” Like education, rigorous science, whether applied to healthcare, climate change, pollution, and more, is a greater threat to Trumpism than Democratic gerrymandering. Right up there with free speech.

Some have praised Trump for dropping his suit against Fed Chair Jerome Powell. No, it wasn’t because it was petty and unfounded. It was to get Senator Tom Tillis to drop his hold on the nomination of Kevin Warsh until the suit was dropped. It was and he did. As with every Trump nominee, Warsh is expected to do Trump’s bidding, for his sake, not ours.

We’ve just learned Trump’s State Department, headed by born-again yes-man Marco Rubio, will be putting Trump’s image on US passports, in honor of America’s 250th anniversary. It’s always and only about Trump. He’ll be on our money next.

Never has any American leader displayed such malignant narcissism. It’s reflected in everything he does. In foreign “policy,” the results have been disastrous. Can anyone imagine the reaction from the right, the apoplexy on Trump-state media, if Presidents Barack Obama or Joe Biden had demanded such a thing? Or added their name to the Kennedy Center, torn down the East Wing for a ballroom, proposed a garish memorial arch? Or launched a war, expecting surrender in two days, after ignoring warnings of the inevitable consequences?

In fact, everyone can imagine it. It’s filed under “H.”

Behold The Hypocrisy

What an embarrassing performance by truly loathsome people. As others on the Senate Judiciary Committee sat by, buttockly-self-thumbed, lifetime members of the Republican Deplorable Caucus harangued Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, repeating the same discredited charges, over and over, each climbing higher into the grandstand. Interminably interrupting her answers. Rudely. Deliberately disrespectful. To impress their disrespect- and rudeness-loving base.

Cruz, Graham, Hawley, Blackburn, Cotton. Wasting opportunities to question her substantively, they chose to play for airtime on Fox “news,” et screech. Generate money-raising campaign ads. Cruz, about whom there aren’t words, printable or otherwise, adequately to convey his repugnance, was caught searching for online self-mentions immediately after he’d finished his act. Q, as they say, E.D.

Ignoring the number of national police organizations supporting her, encephalopathy-vector Josh Hawley, who openly encouraged violent lawbreakers on January 6, claimed she’s “soft on crime.” Loves her some child pornographers, said all the rest; most especially the smarmy, self-righteous Lindsey Graham. No matter her explanations, cut off so often she may as well have not even tried, they perseverated in their made-for-TV charges. 

Previewing the game-plan for future elections – namely, pushing culture wars, transgenderism most especially, because they have little else to offer -- Blackburn demanded a definition of the word “woman.” As only he can, Cruz notched it up. And they all harped on base-inflaming “critical race theory,” nonexistent in K-12 schools, and forehead-slappingly irrelevant to the proceedings. For particulars, read this.

Then, for those interested in what’s really behind it all, watch Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) lay it out like a picnic blanket, confirming why we so desperately need conscientious congresspeople.

Have those preening protectors of Supreme integrity spoken out about the ethical travesty of Ginni Justice Thomas pressuring Trump’s chief of staff to overturn a lawful election? Or her husband, alone, voting against allowing Congress to see those communications? What may we extrapolate about his own mindset, when his wife extols and parrots a certifiable lunatic, in those emails he wanted hidden? On the list of concerns about the ultimate arbiters of American law, doesn’t this rank higher than children’s books?

Those questions don’t matter to that claque. Closing the feedback loop that runs directly from internet conspiracies to Congressional deplorables to Fox “news” and thence injected into Trumpofoxified brains, which restart the loop, Laura Ingraham did her part. To her contentedly credulous viewers she horrored that if Judge Jackson is approved, "It's goodbye to voter enforcement. It's goodbye to the Second Amendment. It's goodbye to moms and dads raising their kids as they see fit. Goodbye to the right of the unvaccinated to live freely in society. And someday goodbye to the right to maybe even drive a gasoline-powered car.” Didn’t have time, evidently, to include forcing your children into sex acts while drinking their blood.

But that’s not the worst current example of the downward-spiral churning between Republican leaders, right-wing media, and their dupable believers. It’s biolabs in Ukraine, which do exist, but about which Putin lies that they’re manufacturing weapons to attack Russia, therefore justifying his invasion. Debunked but regurgitated (which should become their corporate motto) by Fox’s tyrannophilic talkers, the lie lives on. Last week, Russia’s Defense Ministry took it to Q-worthy levels: Hunter Biden bankrolls the labs.

Care to guess who lapped it up, passed it on like a kidney stone? “What are the outlines of that story,” asked Tucker. “We’re not sure. We know it’s legitimate to ask what it means, why wouldn’t it be? You’re not a Russian agent repeating discredited Putin talking points if you ask. You’re a good citizen.” Butter wouldn’t melt, as he oh-so-innocently, just-askingly poisons his followers. Putin seems to have designed the perfect disinformation dissemination scheme.

And so it goes. The SCOTUS hearings revealed the cynical depths to which right-wing media descend in order to deceive their listeners; how the lies start, who repeats them in Congress, and how Foxification embeds it too deeply to be excavated. We’re seeing how irresistible and effective it’s become. Force-feeding an oligarchic Trumpublican agenda which will, in fact, make life worse for most of their viewers, and for democracy. But not themselves. It’s a dangerously effective, democracy-destroying, self-perpetuating, perverted system of virtual brainwashing; a solution to which, having become “normalized,” is hard to envision.

Finally, an off-topic word about President Biden’s speech and the ad-lib which, according to “analysts and experts,” pushes our relationship with Russia “closer to collapse.” After the invasion, other than Trump’s continued praise of Putin, and, yet again, asking him for electoral help – this time mid-war-crimes -- what relationship remains? Here’s fuller-than-Fox context, for when President Biden said what we’re all thinking.

Debt? Didn't They Once Care?

I'm probably misremembering. Here I'd been thinking Republicans laid claim to fiscal responsibility. That they were outraged at the deficits under Obama, despite the fact that they got steadily lower than when he took over for George Bush. Who was, I seem to recall, a Republican.

Turns out -- imagine my surprise -- that government borrowing is taking a huge leap in Trump's first fiscal year:

... The federal government is on track to borrow nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year — Trump's first full year in charge of the budget.

That's almost double what the government borrowed in fiscal year 2017.

Here are the exact figures: The U.S. Treasury expects to borrow $955 billion this fiscal year, according to documents released Wednesday. It's the highest amount of borrowing in six years, and a big jump from the $519 billion the federal government borrowed last year. 

Treasury mainly attributed the increase to "the fiscal outlook." The Congressional Budget Office was more blunt. In a report this week, the CBO said tax receipts are going to be lower because of the new tax bill... (bolding by yours truly)

There really are no immutible values among Republicans, other than tax cuts and the pretense that they pay for themselves and help people other than the very wealthy.

One Of These Things Is Just Like The Other

Tomorrow's newspaper column:

It’s a good week to talk hypocrisy. 

First, the obvious: anyone who voted to put “their” sex predator in the White House isn’t allowed to criticize any Democrat who accepted money from “theirs.” The difference between the despicable Harvey Weinstein and the deplorable Donald Trump is that one got fired and the other got elected.  

Polls indicate the vast majority of Democrats and Republicans believe the accusations against Weinstein; only eight percent of Republicans believe those against Trump. There, in full view, is “Foxification” and how it ruins our country. It’s of a piece with Trump supporters who received hurricane aid saying American citizens in Puerto Rico don’t deserve it. 

If that sort of hypocrisy is normal in today’s political climate (the one that’s not changing), another is far worse: Niger. As to the more minor issue: maybe Trump’s bone-headed call to Myeshia Johnson was the result of a doomed effort by John Kelley to teach a sociopath how to fake empathy. Kelley gave him words; Trump, unable to understand any suffering but delusions of his own, had no idea how to use them. Lacking the moral tools or simple decency to allow a war widow her grief, he’s been making it worse ever since.  

At one time, despite his enthusiasm for deporting non-offenders while at DHS, General Kelley appeared possibly honorable. His attacks on Representative Wilson eliminated that misconception faster than EPA quashed its scientists’ speaking engagements. For his false accusations, there are two possible explanations: either he was provided inaccurate (or misremembered) information about her speech at the FBI building, or he knowingly lied. If the former, a correction and apology would be forthcoming from a man of honor; if the latter, then of course there’d be none. To date, there’s been none. 

Then, with Trumpic name-calling, Kelly went far beyond mere lies. Trump’s amorality is a virus. The White House is an immunosuppression zone.  

Steve Bannon said criticism of Trump dishonors the military. And when Sarah “Going to hell in a Huckabee” Sanders says it’s “highly inappropriate” to question a four-star general, where we’re headed with this administration became even clearer. True conservatives (do any remain?) should be appalled. It hardly needs stating that Trump has criticized four-stars repeatedly (just did so regarding Niger). Or that the Pentagon scramble to come up with names for belated condolence proves he lied when he said he’d called “virtually all” Gold Star families.  

But let’s get to the hypocriticrux of it. Dots aplenty surround the action in Niger that got four Green Berets killed, and we have a right to know if they’re connected: why was Chad, a reliable partner in the fight against ISIS, placed on Trump’s banned immigration list? Was its subsequent withdrawal from Niger related? Did that endanger whatever mission those men were on? Was there adequate support for that mission? Was it, as a “Congressional source” said, the result of a “massive intelligence failure?” Why did Trump use “private contractors” to retrieve the bodies? How many are in Niger and what are they doing? Why was Trump silent on the episode for so long? Was it because it belied his claim of vanquishing ISIS? What IS the mission in Niger, and why didn’t Congress know Trump had sent a thousand troops there? Does it dishonor America to want more than Joint Chiefs Chairman Dunford’s account?  

These questions are at least as important as those surrounding Benghazi (asked and answered, over and over, for eight years). Yet we’ve heard of no plans by our Koch-owned, Republican-run Congress to convene hearings, Benghazi-style (kangaroid, multiple, parallel, repetitive, witness-limited, televised) or otherwise. Not Russian hacking, either. Oh, but they’re opening yet another dead-horse email investigation, and reanimating their uranium distortions. 

Will we be told, from the other side of Congressional mouths, inquiry into Niger would “politicize” a matter of national security? As opposed to Benghazi, et al.? How about considering it “supporting our troops,” which, General Kelly made clear, is becoming the prime measure not only of patriotism, but of dispensation to raise questions. From such an undrained swamp do juntas arise.  

Looking away is the biggest hypocrisy of them all. And there remain too many examples for limited space: deficits, executive orders, deficits, fair elections, deficits… And opposition research. Let’s not forget that.
 

Immutable Values

My upcoming newspaper column:

Donald Trump used to love polls. There’s a recent one he might have liked, though it received little attention. Comparing views of Democrats and Republicans on Trump bombing Syria, and how they differed from four years ago under President Obama, it found that in 2013, 38% of Democrats supported the idea. Now the number is 37%. In 2013 22% of Republicans favored it. This time around, it’s 86%. That’s as revelatory as it is unsurprising. One party had consistent values, another didn’t. For Trump, that’s good news, and affirming.  

There’s nothing Trump can do or do not that will diminish support among those who see wonderfulness in him. Failures? He tried. Michele Bachmann (among others) still believes Jesus put him in the White House. Jesus, who bade us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, who warned about rich men, camels, and needles, and had a thing about healing the sick, gave us a president who’d ignore the needy while taking away their health care and enriching the wealthy. Jesus was silent on coal sludge in our streams and lead in our pipes, but I’m guessing He’d have been against them. Also, praising despots. Trump’s His boy? Not buying it.  

I send my columns in before Saturday, but I’ll predict that today, Trump’s hundredth in office -- a benchmark he repeatedly touted and by which time he promised big things during the campaign but has, like most of his assertions, recently disavowed -- Obamacare hasn’t been repealed and replaced, ISIS hasn’t been defeated, a budget agreement hasn’t been reached, tax overhaul hasn’t happened, and the wall isn’t under construction. Or funded.  

You’d think these reversals would be of concern to his supporters. They aren’t. You’d think there’d be second thoughts among those who voted for a naïf who only now discovered health care is complicated, relations between China and North Korea are fraught, NATO is indispensable, the Import-Export Bank does good, China stopped being a currency manipulator (Trump claims they stopped when he got elected. It ended at least two years earlier.) That each of these represents a one-hundred-eighty-degree flop ought to give Trumpists pause. Likewise, that Angela Merkel had to tell him eleven times how the EU works.  

It hasn’t. To them, it means he’s flexible. Their votes for a person who opines on subjects about which he knows nothing, makes up facts, lies repeatedly about impossible plans, changes his tune after talking to China’s Xi for a mere ten minutes, are of no concern. No worry about who he’ll spend the next ten minutes with, to arrive at what epiphany. “No one knew flying was hard,” said the pilot. “No prahhhhblemmmmmm,” said the passengers, all the way down.  

Recently, a letter here complained about jokes at Trump’s expense. What if it were Obama, the writer asked. Fair enough: who can explain humor? But could that writer or any Trump apologists say they’d have had no problem were it Barack Obama whose people had shady Russia connections, lied about them, and the lies were covered up? What if he’d promised not to golf and then did, at record-breaking pace? Would they have been okay with blatant conflicts of interest, lining his pockets with taxpayer money at various businesses? They hated President Obama’s use of executive orders. Not Trump’s. Or his projected trillions in budget deficits. Aren’t core values sort of immutable?  

With rare exceptions, Trumpophiles email me with linguistically colorful avoidance of issues. I offer to engage, curious why they’re okay with reversing pollution regulations, auto emission standards, workplace protections, cutting medical research, and childcare for working moms. I ask which of Trump’s actions have helped anyone but corporatists. No replies. It’s puzzling.  

In Donald Trump I see a man who blames others for his failures, a perpetual liar who’s admitted he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, hasn’t fulfilled any important promises, whose idea of foreign policy is dropping explosives, literal and vocal. I see someone unable to form intelligible sentences, stick to a topic or avoid gasconade from capital letter to period; who has no appreciation of the Constitution; who’s more interested in ratings than reality, who wastes valuable time holding pretentious rallies for himself. 

His people love it.

There's Hypocrisy, And Then There's Hypocrisy

I was gonna write something like this, but then I found it pretty much already wrapped up with ribbon. I don't know who "Alex Schiller" is. But it's evidently making the cyber rounds (I saw it on Kos):

Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him. Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. 2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem. Immigrants don't pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. He's a business genius. Hillary's foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She's a crook. Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy... Put him in the white house. 

Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans" he received would be worth $12 billion today... without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He's a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She's a criminal. Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar loss in 1 year. Genius. Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he's just telling it like it is. 

Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd. Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform.
Alex Schiller

[Image source]

Hypocrisy

No comment needed.

[Image source]

Opposite Day

Karl Rove's epiphany regarding running against a strong opponent was to take that person's strengths and try to make them weakness. When you have no trouble sleeping with yourself at night, it's pretty brilliant.

Barack Obama's policies stopped the torrential hemorrhage of jobs that Bush/Rove created? It's a failed policy, government overreach.

Barack Obama got Osama bin Laden after George Bush gave up? He's a criminal for "leaking" vital national security information, even though the CJC had no problem with it.

Barack Obama has far better "likability" than The Rominee? He's evil and power-mad.

Barack Obama, after all other presidents failed, put together health care reform that'll allow millions finally to be covered? It's killing grandma, it's death panels, and anti-capitalist treason.

Barack Obama saved the auto industry? Well, uh, that was our idea, see?

Barack Obama has killed more terrorists than George Bush could have dreamed? He's standing idly by in the war on terror.

The economy (splutteringly) is recovering from the policies Ryan/Romney will reinstate? Yeah, but his policies made it worse.

I think maybe, if it's possible to pick one out of the slime, the Osama stuff is the worst. I learned, as a physician, that there are docs out there who'll prostitute themselves and say any damn thing they're asked by a plaintiff's attorney, for a price. So it's not surprising that there are ex-military who hate Obama enough to try to take him down by any means possible, while faking non-partisanship, just like they did John Kerry. But this? Is there any evidence -- any at all?? -- that suggests what's been revealed about the finding and killing of bin Laden has compromised anyone or anything? And, by the way, it's not as if our president put on a flight-suit/codpiece and staged a carrier landing over it. But Rs would have you believe he did.

When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs hasn't a problem with it, when the director of the operation has nothing but high praise for Obama and his role in the project, it's hard to look at this so-called nonpartisan group (that just happens to share an office with a Republican PR firm) as anything but soulless shills. Even among a party famous for despicable acts, this one stinks enough to stand out.

And, following the script, Mitt Romney and his campaign, while putting out lie after lie, claims Barack Obama is a liar. While attacking his character like Crazy Horse at the Battle of Greasy Grass, they weep and cry foul like Chris Crocker over perceived attacks on their character. And claim angelic high ground.

I'm a good-hearted liberal, but god, it's hard not to hate these guys.

Swing And A Miss

Following up on this morning's post on political hypocrisy, the above is about as blatant as it gets.

There's a qualitative and quantitative difference between Republican and Democratic hypocrisy. Rs do it without batting an eye, without creating the slightest sense that they're embarrassed by it -- or even recognize it. And they do it all the time. Ds are hardly blameless; but it's not a game plan fundamental to who they are, the way it is on the other side. And it makes them twitch a little.

Look at Nancy Pelosi: when she tells a whopper, her face screws up, her eyes blink, and it looks like she's shitting a brick. Rudy? It melts in his mouth like butter.

Words Fail

I gotta say, this huffing and puffing, these shrieks and weeping and hurt feelings by Congressional Republicans and teabaggers over President Obama's recent speech is a new level of stupid, hypocritical self-parody, even for this current crop of hysterical and hyper-partisan purveyors of political porn. Really? They didn't like his tone? People who've, on the floor of Congress, claimed Obama had plans for concentration camps? Who continue, daily, to claim he's intent on destroying our country, hates our country, is in cahoots with terrorists? They take exception to his tone?

Seriously?

They've produced and signed on to a plan, the truth of which our president spoke as he outlined the differences between his approach and theirs, a plan which is mathematically and historically and politically and economically unworkable, is blatant in its skew toward the wealthy at the expense of the poor, is built on false assumptions. Congressional teabaggRs say any changes to it would be "non-starters;" they lie about "Obamacare," distort and demagogue it relentlessly, in the most inflammatory and dishonest terms; and they're offended by what Obama said? After two years of smears that make Bush-haters seem like Mr Rogers? Have I passed through some sort of wormhole? Might there be a planet on which this makes sense, and I'm just not on it?

Is there no point -- none -- beyond which our house teabaggRs won't drag the corpse of their hypocrisy? Is there no blame, for the very things they do as often as Muslims pray, which they'd not place on others? Hell, is there no time when they'd just stop and listen to themselves? Or do they actually -- confounding the most common of common sense -- not realize the irony, the dishonesty, the laughability of what they're saying?

Could it be a joke, and we're just not in on it?

I'm hardly naive; I grew up with a few politicians and I think I've heard it all. My aunt spent years in hard-scrabble politics; my parents were close friends of senators, congresspeople, governors. My brother was a U.S. Senate page; I visited him in D.C back in the good old days, watched at least a little of the goings-on. But these guys are literally beyond words; exceptional in a world of exceptional dishonesty. I have no way, nothing to bring to bear to describe them. It is both to laugh and to cry; to know their unseriousness is beyond doubt, and, yet, to be forced to realize that there are millions of people in this country who actually buy what they're selling. Swallow it whole. Are impervious to persuasion, refractory to the obvious.

What is there to say about that? It's literally unbelievable to me, as beyond my comprehension as insisting the earth is six thousand years old. Insisting that cutting taxes on the wealthy creates jobs, when it never has; demanding further cuts in taxes on the wealthy when they're at historical lows, paying for them by cutting services to the most needy, and expecting people to sign on. Who could possibly think that normal people would buy such discredited, dishonest, deceptive, and patently unworkable plans? That the very people who'll be hurt by it, will line up to support plans to enrich the already rich, at their own expense, to the detriment of our nation?

And yet, there it is.

The (S)Hits Just Keep On Coming

Transparency. Fiscal responsibility. Gone in sixty seconds.

First, this (yes I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago):

On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dems' House fundraising arm, accused Republicans of a double standard in blocking the disclosure:

ISRAEL: Every Republican voted to hide their own government health care, while many of them are pledging to repeal health care for everyone else. So, you go from hypocrisy to hypocrisy; from broken promise to broken promise. And this is just the first day of the new Congress.

MATTHEWS: You mean, they didn't want to admit that they're taking health care?

ISRAEL: This is a very straightforward amendment that we offered, that, if you're going to take government-sponsored health care and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, simply disclose. Let your constituents know that you are taking that government health care. Every single Republican voted to hide their health care while many of them are pledging to repeal it for their constituents.

Then, in reference to repealing health care reform, this, .

As a result of changes in direct spending and revenues, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 2012-2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion (on the basis of the original estimate), plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. Adding two more years (through 2021) brings the projected increase in deficits to something in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes.

John Boner, of course, dismissed the report out of hand:

House Speaker John Boehner said today that the Congressional Budget Office is "entitled to their own opinion" - a striking statement in light of the deference usually shown information from the nonpartisan CBO from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle...

... He added that "I don't think anybody in this town believes that repealing Obamacare is going to increase the deficit."

Other than, you know, the experts who looked into it. With, uh, data.

Fortunately for our future, we've learned that deficits only matter if Democrats create them. And transparency is something you can't see through, when used by Republicans.

Simple, huh? And easy to understand.

And, though the above was written a little while back, yesterday House Rs made good on their silly and fact-free promise to repeal the health care law. Calling it "the repealing the job-killing health care bill act," a name which doesn't exactly trip off the tongue (bill act??) or rise to the lyricism of the founding fathers, they passed it knowing full well it was just for show. And, assuming they don't apply the same Bonerian logic detailed above, they know it's not job-killing, either. I'd love to hear Harry Reid explain why the Senate won't take it up: "They called it repealing the job-killing health care law," he could say. "But I've looked through the Congressional Record. There is no job-killing health care bill, so I have no idea what the f*ck they're talking about."

And let's not fail to notice that, despite earlier promises and perfectly in keeping with their "party of no" behavior over the past two years, they didn't even make a pretense of coming up with any ideas of their own with which to replace the bill. (They did, however, vote to continue their own government-provided healthcare.)

If it weren't so pitiful, it'd be quite entertaining.

Dishonesty On Display

We've known for a while now that House Republican claims of fiscal seriousness is crap. In particular, they've announced that any deficits that accrue from their planned tax cuts don't need to be offset. Deficits from tax cuts don't count; only those from spending do. It's Teabagger Econ 101. If anyone can bend that one around the idea of budgetary seriousness, please show me how.

On a roll of illogic, they've gone even further. Were they to succeed in repealing health care reform, with its projected hundreds of billions in savings, that doesn't count either. Doesn't need to be balanced in some way.

GOP RULES EXEMPT COSTS OF REPEALING HEALTH CARE - House Republican rules for the 112th Congress exempt all sorts of tax cuts from any requirement that their deficit impact be offset -- including one they jarringly refer to as the "estate tax" (the wha??) -- but they specifically "exempt the budgetary effects of legislation repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010."

Wonder what the difference is. Are tax-cut deficits made of something different from spending ones? Smoke? Cotton candy? Congressional Republicans assume their supporters are idiots. Will they ever be proved wrong? This is me, not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, in another of what has been and will continue to be an endless string of hypocritical reversals, the newly-powerful house Rs plan to use a legislative trick about which they screamed like scalded eagles when the Ds considered using it (and then, of course, backed down.)

This week, House Republicans will resurrect an arcane tool that will give its Budget Chairman temporary, but unilateral authority to set federal spending levels for part of this year.

Welcome back to the so-called "Demon Pass", which is scheduled to make its return to the Capitol Hill on January 5.

Because Democrats didn't pass a budget, and because spending authority expires in early March, there's a strong chance that the government will run out of money before the House and Senate agree to new spending levels. When that happens, under the new House rules, spending will continue -- but at levels no higher than those chosen by the House Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan.

As soon as those rules are adopted on Wednesday, Ryan's spending levels will be considered -- or "deemed" -- adopted by the full House as if they'd passed a budget with a floor vote. The legislative language in the rules package holds that Ryan's spending limits, "shall be considered as contained in a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2011 and the submission thereof into the Congressional Record shall be considered as the completion of congressional action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2011."...

...This quickly became known as "Demon Pass," or the "Slaughter Solution," named after House Rules Chair Louise Slaughter....

...Republicans rebelled, and conservatives went off the deep end. Radio talk show host Mark Levin called it "100 times worse than Watergate."

Democrats eventually bowed to that pressure and decide not to use the process -- known technically as "deeming," or a "self-executing."

In reality, deeming is used fairly frequently by both parties, but not typically on such high-profile issues. Democrats used it in lieu of passing a budget resolution last year -- a move the GOP similarly opposed.

Were I to try to document each and every instance of Rs doing exactly the opposite of what they promised, I'd have no time for anything else; they've barely taken over the House, and the list is endless. (Remember when they claimed bills were shoved down their throats without the ability to offer amendments? Never happened.)

It's gonna be some year.

Motto Citizen

Hope you're sitting down. Turns out, Fox "news" and the RWS™, in their mad-on about Obama referring to "E Pluribus Unum" as the national motto, ignoring god like the America-hating Muslim Kenyan terrorist that he is, might have been a teensy bit selective in their outrage.

Would Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator, the Gipper, refer to E Pluribus Unum as our national motto?

The answer is Yes. Speaking at the National Forum on Excellence in Education, on Dec. 8, 1983 in Indianapolis, Indiana, Ronald Reagan said, and I quote:

“The motto of the United States is ‘E Pluribus Unum,’ from many, one.”

As far as I can tell, there wasn’t a Congressional Prayer Caucus around in 1983 to scold Mr. Reagan for calling E Pluribus Unum the official motto of our nation. [Turns out, that latin phrase is the official motto of our nation's seal] and the official motto of the president’s seal, but not the official seal of the good old U.S. of A.]

There wasn’t a national outcry when Ronald Reagan called E Pluribus Unum our “national motto.”

In addition to Barack Obama, such luminaries as Dwight Eisenhower (WWDD), Jimmy Carter (WWJD), and Pope John Paul II (WWJPIID) have referred to E Pluribus Unum as the nation’s motto.

In more recent days: WWWD — What Would W. Do? Well, George W. Bush issued two separate proclamations (here and here) referring to E Pluribus Unum as the national motto.

Neither claim unleashed an avalanche of letters, press releases and condemnations. Did Bush’s gaffes simply escape the attention of the Congressional Prayer Caucus? Or is the prayer caucus a Republican attack machine denouncing President Obama for political purposes?

Will it ever happen? Ever? Will the teabaggers who fell for the well-planned manipulation ever have a second thought? Will they realize how toxic are the people they revere? How they got used by the very rich and very private-agenda-driven?

And while you contemplate that, ponder this: what will they think (a word, for the benefit of teabaggers, that means applying some brainpower to something) if they ever learn of this?

Bamboozled much?

We'll Miss You, Alan

Some of us, anyway.

(And, yes, I remember what I said about him before. Doesn't mean I won't miss him.)

Art For God's Sake

I don't much care what Bill Donohue says, other than the fact that it's pretty amazing he's the spokesman for anyone, let alone a religious group. So the fact that he doesn't like a particular piece of art amuses me at worst.

What's not funny, though, is that we've now undeniably entered the age of right wing censorship and fear-mongering. Under fear of defunding by our new destructors, the National Gallery of Art (which I just visited and which is a treasure) has removed a controversial work. What's next can't be too hard to figure out, even for teabaggers. But they, of course, love everything about it. The bullies are back in charge.

I'm no art critic, but I did find this counter-view compelling.

Well, I'm a Christian and far from feeling insulted or injured or assaulted, I saw something as raw as it was orthodox. The whole video incorporates the image of Jesus as a dying, tortured man like those with AIDS: "unclean" as the audio shrieks over the image, rejected, covered by insects. It splices that image with grotesque attempts to sew a loaf of bread back together, to sew a human being's lips back together, along with desperate images of fire and decay. We are looking at the hysterical images of a dying man suddenly surrounded by the dying, overcome by the attempt to sew life back together. To see a rejected Jesus left on the cross and on the ground to be covered by ants, is, in this context, clearly neither offensive nor heresy; it's orthodoxy, for Pete's sake, with the death of Jesus one of countless images of suffering and isolation.

As Blake Gopnik notes:

The irony is that Wojnarowicz's reading of his piece puts it smack in the middle of the great tradition of using images of Christ to speak about the suffering of all mankind. There is a long, respectable history of showing hideously grisly images of Jesus - 17th-century sculptures in the National Gallery's recent show of Spanish sacred art could not have been more gory or distressing - and Wojnarowicz's video is nothing more than a relatively tepid reworking of that imagery, in modern terms.

This is so obvious in context that one simply wonders what on earth the fuss could be about. Maybe what is truly offensive to men like Donohue is the notion that gay men might actually seek refuge in Jesus' similar experience of marginalized, stigmatized agony. Since the message cannot be objectionable - Jesus shares in our suffering and exemplifies it - maybe it is merely the association with gay men that appals. For the powerful and privileged like Donohue, Jesus belongs in the corridors of power and respectability, among the mainstream, depictions of him restricted to images of pristine, prissy reverence rather than the alienated, despairing, naked agony he actually suffered. The idea that Jesus died for homosexuals is insulting to Donohue; but it is what the church teaches and what Jesus lived.

The thing about art is, you don't have to look at it. The thing about books is, you don't have to read them. The thing about blogs is, you don't have to go to them.

The thing about censorship is... it shuts off debate. It suppresses dissent. It leads to totalitarianism. It's the central and essential tool of totalitarianism.

Hypocrisy? Stupidity? Becoming (always being, actually) the thing they decry; namely that Obama is a Nazi communist socialist terrorist Kenyan constitution-ignorer America hater? Given the keys to power, these guys are intent on turning us into a theocracy, empty of ideas, toeing their unbendable line.

Of course this, this, is just art. Who cares about that?

Surprised?

No, I'm sure there must be some mistake...

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

"It's disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "There's going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks."

In founding the caucus in July, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she was giving voice to Americans who were sick of government over-spending.

I've been asked why I write about this stuff, and haven't mentioned Charlie Rangel. It's pretty simple, really. What Charlie Rangel does has no impact on me. (Same reason I didn't mention Tom Delay, now that he's out of Congress.) If he did something wrong*, I'm glad he was censured; but it doesn't affect our country one way or the other.

What does affect our country, and what I feel like writing about, are the big-picture issues: like how teabaggers have been sandbagged by their chosen party; how the people they elect aren't just frauds: they're actively and happily stupid, hypocritical, and about to take our country in a very destructive direction. Namely, the very direction that Obama and the Democrats were tasked with reversing and repairing the damage thereof. Except this time around, it'll be worse. We'll not only be led by a bunch of uninformed and anti-intellectual people; we'll be addressing our most impactful problems with Bible quotes.

And of course I do criticize Ds. Often. For their lame policies, their constant caving, poor messaging, and worse.

Charlie Rangel?

Small-potatoes.

Returning to the proven-failed policies of Bush and Reagan, amplified by biblical certainty and ignorance?

Fatal.

The internet is full of people ranting about Charlie Rangel and Obama hugging the MOH winner. Devoid of actual policy, it's all they've got. I prefer to talk about the important stuff.

Not that anyone listens.

_________________

*Added after comment by Molly NYC, below. Thanks, Molly.

Spectrum

This pretty thoroughly demonstrates the whole range of differences between Obama and Bush, and between Republican tactics and normality. It also shows what I consider good about Barack Obama, and what drives me crazy about him.

Not long after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a variety of Democratic lawmakers proposed creating the Department of Homeland Security. George W. Bush, at least initially, balked, fearing a cabinet agency would lead to more oversight.

In time, Bush reversed course, and embraced the idea. But when it came labor laws and the new DHS, the White House and the Democratic Senate majority were on opposite sites. As the dispute intensified, Bush ultimately gave a speech on Sept. 23, 2002, insisting, "The Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people."...

...Eight years later, Dana Milbank reflects on the incident while noting that it's Republicans who are "blocking a Senate vote on a treaty with Russia that is critical to securing loose nukes and keeping Iran from gaining the bomb."

For Democrats, the opposition's gamesmanship with security should present an opportunity. Republicans seem to have entered a post-post-9/11 era, in which national security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama. There's no need to resort to the demagoguery once used against Democrats, but neither would it hurt the White House and congressional Democrats to point out that their opponents are trying to weaken Americans' security. [...]

Milbank suggests if the situations were reversed, and Democrats were blocking a nuclear arms treaty negotiated by Bush, the Republican president would not only be questioning Dems' motives, but Republicans "would no doubt be running ads juxtaposing Democrats with Osama bin Laden, or alleging, as they did then, that Democrats are giving 'comfort to America's enemies.'...

...And so we hear a very different tone. Eight years ago, Bush said Democrats don't care if we live or die. Yesterday, President Obama said of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), "I believe that Senator Kyl wants a safe and secure America, just like I do, and is well-motivated." Obama added, "Senator Kyl has never said to me that he does not want to see START ratified. ... What he said is, is that he just felt like there wasn't enough time to get it done in the lame duck. And I take him at his word."

That's a degree of graciousness Kyl almost certainly doesn't deserve, and one Bush never even considered.

(Sorry about the psychedelic font changes.) I wrote about this recently. The behaviors of both sides are astoundingly and diametrically different, with one being blatantly cynical and hypocritical and the other -- the president, anyway -- eschewing the sort of tactics that everyone knows the Rs would be using were it reversed.

It says a lot about President Obama that he retains the FAR higher ground.

I just wish I knew what.

Empty He

Some stories are so perfect, you just can't get ahead of them on the intertubes. By now, pretty much everything that needs to be said has been said. But it's still worth a note over here. Because, after all, the stupidity, dishonesty, factlessness, gullibility, hypocrisy, superficiality, vacuity, laughability-were-it-funny, and over-arching unhelpfulness (to name only the first few appropriate adjectives that come most obviously to mind) of the teabaggers and those candidates supported by them, is a central theme of this blog, without which what'd be the point? Like sex without a partner. (Well, okay... )

First of all, let no reader of comments on this blog be surprised or fail to note that the shameless hypocrite in question, with no useful ideas, is an anesthesiologist from the Southlands. Just sayin'.

So this guy, who likes to appear on camera in the starchy white coat and pressed scrubs of the non-operational, campaigned against government-run health care, mischaracterizing as "government takeover" the plan that was sadly far short of and anything but a government takeover. "Market solutions" was his brilliant, original, and pre-failed proposal.

Announcing for everyone to see (those that hadn't figured it out or read this blog, that is) that he and everyone who campaigned on the falsehoods and simplicity of the teabag variety weren't serious at all, he arrives in D.C. and demands, I tell you, DEMANDS his free government health care. A one month wait, he says, is intolerable. Even though it's two months shorter than for the average American new employee in, y'know, market-based private business. Then, when reaction is, well, exactly what you'd expect, he tries to say he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government sponsored care. Yeah, by demanding that he get it right away. Convincing. (It's all in the preceding links.)

Yep. And Mitch McConnell climbs clumsily on board the anti-earmark haywagon, pitchfork in his ass, after requesting a billion dollars --A BILLION DOLLARS -- of his own.

Y'know, I've criticized Congressional Democrats roundly for their fecklessness, for their weak-kneed wobbling on their own principles. But at least they've been trying to get things done, and they haven't been presenting themselves completely as people they are not. Not completely, anyway. But these guys, these new majority Congresspeople, and the ones already in place whom they're joining? What a bunch of disingenuous and empty-headed deceivers. How transparent is their selfishness, their dishonesty, their goals being only about personal power and preserving wealth for the richest while ignoring everything and everyone else.

This guy, this anesthesiologist from the South who, like our favorite commenter, probably sucks a little too much nitrous at home, in his clumsy and instantaneous dropping of tea party pretense almost makes it funny. But really, it's not.

I can only wonder, trembling (mostly with fear), what disasters they're about to wreak upon us (and embarrassments on themselves); and whether even the self-centered and unthinking people who put them in Congress will wake up in time to undo the damage. Or, since it'll be too late, at least to recognize what they've done.

After putting this post to bed, as it were, I got an email linking to the following, by Sam Seder, cleverer and much better known than me:

Silence On The Right

Considering that he committed an act he once characterized as a felony, you'd think there'd be at least a little stirring in discomfort on the right at Eric Cantor's latest buffoonery. But that would only occur in a world where Congressional Republicans (and John Bolton) aren't shameless hypocrites. It really is appalling, and is but a taste of the horrors to come. These are dangerously deluded and unserious people.

Then there's this guy.

So that's it: foreign policy aimed at discrediting and undermining a president, feloniously. Domestic policy based on biblical literalism.

Nice going, teabaggers. Glenn Beck and his RWS™ pals, the Koch brothers, Dick Armey -- all of them sold you a bill of goods, you signed on the bottom line without discharging a single axon. You've sunk us all.

Gee. Really?

It begins.

One Tea Party hero, Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), jumped on the anti-earmark bandwagon early, making “a ban on wasteful earmark spending in Washington D.C. one of the key points of his campaign” in March. Lambasting lawmakers who opt for “photo-ops with oversized fake cardboard checks,” Paul vowed to “dismantle the culture of professional politicians” even if he “ruffled a lot of establishment feathers” while doing it.

But after joining the GOP flock on Election Day, Paul is singing a different tune. In a Wall Street Journal profile this weekend, Paul signaled an about-face on his earmark position, committing to “fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork.”

Cold water doesn't steep, teabaggers. I feel your pain.