Rand Paul Wants Himself Deported

I have neglected the Rand Paul beat, partly because it's too embarrassing and depressing, and partly because he's just another repug attention whore, willing to say or do anything for publicity.

Fortunately, Media Czech keeps a close watch on Mr. Tribble Head:

Rand Paul, fearless defender of Liberty from having its door bashed in by government thugs and drug away, told Sean Hannity on Friday that if you attend a speech by a "radical" promoting the violent overthrow of the government you should be put in jail or deported:

SNIP

That's certainly an interesting point of view by Rand.

Made all the more interesting by the fact that Rand Paul attended, even spoke at, a rally where militia members holding assault rifles advocated the violent overthrow of the government and execution of liberal journalists. You know, the same militia that is good buddies with the Hutaree out of Michigan that where arrested for plotting just that.

Hear the tape, watch the video and read the whole thing.

Failed War on Drugs Now Officially a Clusterfuck

This shouldn't even be news anymore, it's so common and it's been going on for so long. I remember an LA Law episode with a similar wrong-house SWAT attack - and that was back in the '80s.

Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Read David Axe’s fantastic account of the Pima County SWAT raid:

The May 5 assault by a Pima County SWAT team on an address on Red Water Street, outside Tucson, was meant to apprehend a suspected member of a “rip crew” — a team of heavily-armed thugs, working for one of the cartels, that steals drugs from rival cartels. The special-weapons team, made up of at least seven men and seen in the leaked helmet-camera footage above, would pull up in a “Bearcat” vehicle — a sort of law-enforcement-optimized Humvee. Then they’d bust into the single-story house, hold the occupants at gunpoint and serve a search warrant, looking for drugs, illegal weapons and other evidence of cartel involvement. Just another day for a team accustomed to risky missions.

But something went very wrong. And within seconds of ramming in the door, the SWAT team opened fire, killing Jose Guerena, the owner of the house. Guerena, a 26-year-old Marine veteran, reportedly confronted the police with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle, possibly to protect his wife kids, who were huddled in rooms behind him.

Let’s say it again; there is no remaining plausible defense for the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs. Whatever interest the state may have in controlling consumption of certain substances is clearly overwhelmed by the economic, social, and legal cost of enforcing prohibition.

That Spirit That Says "Send Me"

It's a day late, but still worth watching President Obama at Arlington on Memorial Day.

He gets it.



Full transcript here, courtesy of David Niewert, who singles out this passage:

That’s what we memorialize today. That spirit that says, send me, no matter the mission. Send me, no matter the risk. Send me, no matter how great the sacrifice I am called to make. The patriots we memorialize today sacrificed not only all they had but all they would ever know. They gave of themselves until they had nothing more to give. It’s natural, when we lose someone we care about, to ask why it had to be them. Why my son, why my sister, why my friend, why not me?

These are questions that cannot be answered by us. But on this day we remember that it is on our behalf that they gave our lives -- they gave their lives. We remember that it is their courage, their unselfishness, their devotion to duty that has sustained this country through all its trials and will sustain us through all the trials to come. We remember that the blessings we enjoy as Americans came at a dear cost; that our very presence here today, as free people in a free society, bears testimony to their enduring legacy.

Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay. But we can honor their sacrifice, and we must. We must honor it in our own lives by holding their memories close to our hearts, and heeding the example they set. And we must honor it as a nation by keeping our sacred trust with all who wear America’s uniform, and the families who love them; by never giving up the search for those who’ve gone missing under our country’s flag or are held as prisoners of war; by serving our patriots as well as they serve us -- from the moment they enter the military, to the moment they leave it, to the moment they are laid to rest.

If the Saudis Are Against It, Let's Do It Immediately

From Zandar:

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal admits he wants to see oil prices drop to keep the US and Europe from switching to green energy sources.

Remember the Saudis? They stuck the first shiv in the back of the U.S. economy 38 years ago with the first Oil Embargo. If you don't remember 1973 - and they did it again in 1979 - trust me, it was bad.

Fifteen of the 19 9/11 terrorists were Saudis. Bin Laden is a Saudi, who lived and terrorized for two decades on the money the Saudi princes paid him to not attack their country. Saudi money probably backs most Sunni terrorism, just as Iranian money probably backs most Shiite terrorism.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace, and remains the keeper of the flame of Wahhabism, the antediluvian, fanatic variety of Islam that keeps muslims who follow it locked in the Dark Ages, subject to mutilation and death by stoning for "crimes" like stepping outside your home alone or falling in love with the wrong person.

A Saudi prince is the second-largest shareholder of Fox. How much more proof do you need that they are evil motherfuckers on a level with China?

Saudi Arabia has proven multiple times over the past 40 years that it is America's enemy.

And now we have America's enemy on the record hoping Americans eschew renewable energy in favor of burning more oil and thus enriching the Saudis.

How about this for a renewable energy slogan?

Every Gallon You Burn Enriches Al Qaeda

Mitchie-poo Still Lying About Medicare

After forcing the careers of several repug candidates to crash and burn and putting the 2012 reelection chances of every repug in the country in jeopardy, Paul Ryan's Plan to Eliminate Medicare is dead.

But that's not stopping Senator Mitch McConnell from continuing to lie about Medicare every chance he gets.

Why? Because the only hope for the repugs going into the 2012 election is to make Democrats take the rap for cuts in Medicare. And the fastest way to make Democrats sign that particular suicide pact is to repeat, over and over and over again, how the only way to save Medicare is to cut it, and it's the responsibility of Congressional Democrats and President Obama to do so immediately.

But that's so obvious, Democrats would never fall for it. Right? Right?

Blue Girl is all over that lying sack of shit.

Mitch McConnell is continuing with his gig singing backup on the Paul Ryan Roadmap to Ruin tour, telling Fox news Sunday yesterday that Ryan's scheme is "very sensible" and will "save Medicare." He then trotted out the discredited "death panels" BS, saying that the ACA will empower "a board that would ration health care," before adding "Let's just stipulate that nobody's trying to throw grandma off the cliff," alluding to an ad run by an "independent" interest group against Jane Corwin in the recent New York 26th Congressional Districe special election.

Let's unpack what McConnell is asserting, shall we?

McConnell seems to be implying that rationing is not occuring now, when it most certainly is, in every healthcare delivery system, everywhere. For starters, the uninsured are subject to the harshest rationing of all. If they can't pay cash, they don't get healthcare.

People who are insured have been self-rationing as a result of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. So of course the insurance companies are whining that they need rate increases because the day is coming when their policy holders will actually use their insurance is surely looming, and then they won't have record profits any longer.

And of course, everyone who is fortunate enough to have insurance knows that rationing occurs every time you go to the doctor. If you buy insurance and have a pre-existing condition, there is no coverage for that condition for a specified waiting period, if ever. You also know that you can't just walk in and demand procedures. You have to get preauthorization letters to see specialists, who then have to get the authorization from your insurance company before they can perform any procedure deemed necessary and appropriate.

And pity the poor soul who turns up with a serious condition that requires long term or intesive treatment. They will spend all their time and energy fighting for the care they need to survive. What is this if not rationing?

Or consider lifetime caps. A million dollar lifetime cap is pretty standard. Now consider the family whose seven year old child gets cancer. It can easily happen that such a child will reach that cap in two or three years. Then the family that is probably on the hook for 20% of every charge the child has incurred face paying cash for all future care for that child, unless they are so financially wiped out by the disease that the child can get Medicaid. You know Medicaid -- that is the other program they are out to kill.

Do they really want to talk about "death panels" considering the way the system they not only defend, but want to return the worst parts of, works?

Don't forget it's not just McConnell; virtually every repug in Congress voted to kill Medicare, including all four of Kentucky's repug members of Congress. Rand Paul voted against the repug plan only because he thought it didn't go far enough. One step further would be outlawing medical care for seniors altogether.

Read the whole thing.

Death Sentence for Driving Without a License

If she were from Ireland, all green eyes and alabaster skin, you know damn well she'd be let off with a warning and a fast-tracked naturalization.

From the Courier:

A Kentucky woman who faces deportation to her native Mexico is seeking asylum, saying she fears domestic violence from her ex-partner and that Mexican authorities can’t be counted on to protect her.

Ana Lilia Alanis-Paulin entered the U.S. illegally in 1997 at age 17. She is in an Illinois jail after being arrested May 5 in Lexington, where she lives, for driving without a license. She was turned over to federal immigration authorities.

A legal brief filed on her behalf alleges the father of her youngest child has threatened to harm her if she returns to Mexico, where he now lives. Alanis-Paulin had called Lexington police three times to report abuse allegations in 2008 and 2009 when he lived there.

If you haven't been keeping up on Mexico news, our NAFTA partner is about a half-puff of pot away from being a failed narco state. There is no such thing as law enforcement outside of Mexico City. The closest thing to a shelter for victims of domestic abuse is a closet you can lock from the inside. Not that that will help when the gangs decide to just burn the whole place down.

One more time, the facts on Mexican immigration:

The "law" these people "broke" is the result of the ludicrously small number of legal immigrants from Mexico permitted to enter the U.S. each year. Increase that number to match the number of Mexican workers needed by U.S. employers, and illegal immigration disappears.

Speaking of employers, their need for millions of desperate immigrants willing to work for pennies and accept horrific conditions is what keeps the coyotes busy. They are also why the border is so porous. You got a problem with Mexican immigration? Tell it to the Chamber of Commerce.

Which is correct: "Immigrants built this nation" or "White people built this nation"? Trick question! It's both. Because unless you are 100 percent Native American, you are the descendant of immigrants.

And the only thing that separates you from Ana Lilia Alanis-Paulin is an arbitrary quota.

But don't look for compassion, logic or humanity from ICE, either. The terrorism-terrified immigration service works as far beyond the law as any drug cartel.

Kentucky Governor's Race and GOP Overreach

Four years ago, Steve Beshear's victory over incumbent Gov. Ernie Fletcher was taken as a harbinger for the 2008 presidential election. It probably wasn't, even though Democrats ran the table nationally, because a rabid ferret could have beaten Fletcher that year.

Now Beshear is the one seeking re-election, and is again fortunate in his opponent: David Williams is the most hated man in Kentucky, and his running mate is so dim they're not letting him speak in public. If Beshear wins, will it be good news for national Democrats in 2012?

Joe Gerth at the Courier asks the opposite question: will GOP overreach nationally help Beshear?

And the votes had barely been counted in Hochul's election when the Democratic National Committee sent out an e-mail to Kentucky reporters reminding them that Republican Reps. Ed Whitfield, Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers and Geoff Davis — the state's entire Republican House delegation — voted for the GOP plan, which would also reduce federal Medicaid payments for children and the poor.

Alec Gerlach, a spokesman for the DNC, declined to say if he thought the issue could play a role in Kentucky's gubernatorial race. If it does, it wouldn't be the first time.

The last time national politics played a role in a Kentucky gubernatorial race was in 1995, following the ’94 Republican revolution.

That year Democrat Paul Patton and Republican Larry Forgy were duking it out for the governorship.

Early in the race, it appeared that Republicans had the advantage on national issues. The Republican revolution had, in fact, begun in Kentucky with a special election win by Ron Lewis in the state's 2nd District during the summer of 1994.

And Forgy had an advantage in the polls.

But the Republicans, fresh off winning control of the House for the first time in 40 years, went about rolling back decades of Democratic rule like they were killing snakes. And the public didn't like it.

Democrats focused on proposed cuts to Medicare and on Republican plans to sell power-generating plants located at 22 Corps of Engineers reservoirs in the southeast, including on four popular Kentucky lakes.

Patton won by 2 percentage points and served eight years as Kentucky's most progressive governor in 40 years.

This year, it's pretty clear that neither Beshear nor the Kentucky Democratic Party has any interest in attacking the GOP at its weak points: the KDP because it's run by a republican and Beshear because he's running as hard and fast to his right as he can.

If Beshear runs as a faux republican and loses, that's the real lesson for national Democrats.

Vermont Wins Single-Payer Debate; When Will Obama Concede?

Yep, it's done, and for once, working people and government in the public interest won.

Down With Tyranny:

Yesterday Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont signed a single-payer health care bill into law, the first of its kind in the U.S.

Legislators say the plan, approved by the Democratic controlled House and Senate this spring, aims to extend coverage to all 620,000 residents while containing soaring health care costs.

A key component establishes a state health benefits exchange, as mandated by new federal health care laws, that will offer coverage from private insurers, state-sponsored and multi-state plans. It also will include tax credits to make premiums affordable for uninsured Vermonters.

The exchange, called Green Mountain Care and managed by a five-member board, will set reimbursement rates for health care providers and streamline administration into a single, unified system.

Residents and small employers will be able to compare rates from the various plans and enroll for coverage of their choosing.

As designed, the goal is an eventual state-funded and operated single-payer system. ... Advocates of change say the existing fee-for-service care has a financial incentive to deliver more care, such as tests, with little attention to quality or better outcomes.

The single-payer concept was omitted from the federal health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama, in part due to Republican criticism it meant excessive government control.

Progressives in Vermont, including Shumlin and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, have worked for years to modify the state's health care system.

...If the state secures one key federal waiver related to exchanges, Green Mountain Care could begin as early as 2014. Another waiver needed to implement the single-payer component under federal law would not be available until 2017.

Vermont's plan calls for the board to consider the likely costs of coverage, factor in potential savings from reforms and recommended sources of revenue. It is charged with delivering a financing plan to legislators by 2013.

If that plan's single-payer component is adopted, lawmakers would approve a budget annually.

Single-payer proponents say the present system is too expensive and excludes too many residents. Vermont has around 47,000 uninsured and 150,000 underinsured residents.

Meanwhile, President Obama and the Congressional Democrats who insisted on health care "reform" that handed trillions of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance and Big Pharma, are about to get rolled by repugs demanding that dems cut Medicare, and cut their own 2012 electoral throats in the bargain.

Digby:

Ezra Klein systematically dismantles Paul Ryan's phony arguments in defense of his health care plan. It's an excellent post and one that shows just how dishonest the Republicans are. (There's no point in excerpting it, just read it.)

I only wish that Ezra had been as clear on Hardball today when Michael Smerconish was going on and on about the need to cut Medicare and Ezra replied that because Mitch McConnell is insisting on cuts in order to raise the debt ceiling, it will be done. That's probably technically true. But the fact is that the debt ceiling will be raised whether Mitch McConnell holds his breath and turns blue or not. He knows which side his campaign contributions are buttered on and so does everyone else. Medicare will only be cut because the Democrats allow it.

It's hard for me imagine that any good policy can come of this nonsense, but I'll leave it to the wonks to sort it our later. But on the politics it's very foolish. Right now you have a nice clean contrast and muddying it destroys the Dem advantage. But Ezra seems to be in the know so I guess at this point the only question seems to be how it will be cut. If that's the case, anyone want to bet on the return of the Obama Death Panel boogeyman in 2012?

If you wondered how the dems were going to snatch impossible defeat from certain victory in 2012, that's how.

How Many Warnings Do We Need?

Tornado season's got a month to go, and we probably haven't seen the worst yet.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

Some clarification on a subject that's on a lot of our minds, via Good Environment:

This incredible satellite video from NOAA shows all of the vortexes throughout April as red dots. Watch the historically unprecedented month unfold:

For any concerned and conscientious soul, it's hard to mentally and emotionally put the pieces together of these connected, but distinct, disasters.

There's the climate change question, of course, which has been answered unsatisfyingly dozens of times already. Short answer: we don't really know. It's complicated.

Two essential reads on this subject are Andrew Freedman's take on the Capitol Weather Gang blog, and Joe Romm's on ClimateProgress, in which he concludes:

When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.

Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.

In other words, it'd be irresponsible to make a straightforward connection between tornadoes and climate change. But it'd also be irresponsible not to discuss the potential for a connection and to work to better understand that potential.

Kevin Drum had a chart that doesn't seem to be scaring as many people as it should:

From the Arctic Sea Ice Blog, this chart shows the extent of (what else) Arctic sea ice by month since 1979, with trend lines drawn in. On current trends, the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in September by about 2016, and will be ice-free year-round by the early 2030s. Probably nothing to worry about, though. Who needs ice, anyway?

Just buy property in Utah and West Virginia, soon to become beachfront, right?

If you want to know what the real threats are, read Gwynne Dyer's Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats. Originally published in 2008, Dyer updated the 2010 paperback edition with the latest data. It reads like a thriller - or horror - yet addresses nearly the full spectrum of both catastrophic scenarios and ways to avoid them.

We really need this relatively fortunate time, when only minor issues like terrorism* disturb international peace and order, to continue for at least another twenty years while we all work to get global warming under control. Whether we will actually be granted the extra time, unfortunately, is impossible to say. There are many unknowns in the field of climate change, through the sheer weight of scientific effort now being brought to bear on them is rapidly shrinking the areas of uncertainty .... But the political, economic and straegic variables are even harder to calculate, and it is threy that will decide whether human beings manage to contain the problem. The proposed remedies are numerous, but they don't all match up, and they almost all require that scarcest of commodities - political will.

*Yes, compared to the likely scenarios of failing to act on global warming, terrorism really is minor.

Mitchie-poo Gets Subtle With the Social Security Lies

Blue Girl catches Mitch McConnell trying to use subtle misrepresentation to spread his Social Security lies.

McConnell's implication is that there is a hair-on-fire emergency and Social Security has to be fundamentally changed because it's doomed to bankruptcy otherwise; when in fact what the trustees presented was an either/or -- either revenues will have to be raised, or benefits will have to be cut decades down the road.

The essential Dean Baker had the best analogy I have seen on McConnell's misrepresentation:

This would be like driving from Chicago to Detroit and determining that at some point you will need more gas to complete the trip. That would mean stopping at a gas station and refilling your tank. By contrast, McConnell's comment implies that the car is about to breakdown and will not make the trip.

SNIP

The reality is there is no Social Security crisis, no matter how loudly the greed-mongers and deficit scolds insist there is.

They can wail and gnash their teeth and rend the cloth from their breast all day long and into the night. That still won't change the fact that Social Security is not only not responsible for our deficit woes, it is independent of the deficit /and/ it is solvent for decades. Period. Full stop.

The trustees report that McConnell misrepresented actually presents the same findings as the CBO report in that last link. Both report that the Social Security trustfund, without changing a thing, will be able to make full payouts through 2030-something -- it should also be noted that the full payout projections have been pushed downward not by flaws in the system, but by the economic downturn of the last couple of years. Both note that those numbers should start ticking back up as the economy recovers, and if that isn't the case, we have a lot bigger problems than Social Security heading our way.

In reality, any projected shortfalls in future Social Security benefits could be easily remedied with either of a couple of easy fixes would not only fill that hole, it would put the program on a sound footing indefinitely. The first option would be to raise the cap. Currently, a person making more than $106,800 pays no Social Security tax on any monies earned over that amount. Removing the cap and taxing all monies equally would put the program on solid footing indefinitely. So would a very modest increase -- 1% or less -- in the amount of payroll tax withheld from the wages of those of us who earn less than $106,800.

I don't know about you, but I would be willing to give up three designer coffees a pay-period now to assure that Social Security will be there when I reach retirement age.

Elected leaders who embrace the "fundamental change is necessary" mantra are either stupid, or lying. In neither instance should they be making decisions that affect millions of Americans. And that goes double for those who parrot the BS knowing full well it's just that...BS.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, there are lies, damnable lies, and lies about Social Security.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

Obama at Westminster

Barack Obama is only the third American president to address the British Parliament - the last was Bill Clinton.

"For both of our nations, living up to the ideals enshrined in these founding documents has sometimes been difficult, has always been a work in progress. The path has never been perfect. But through the struggles of slaves and immigrants, women and ethnic minorities, former colonies and persecuted religions, we have learned better than most that the longing for freedom and human dignity is not English or American or Western –- it is universal, and it beats in every heart. Perhaps that’s why there are few nations that stand firmer, speak louder, and fight harder to defend democratic values around the world than the United States and the United Kingdom."



Full transcript here.

When Bad Banks Attack

Tom B is one of my fellow trouble-makers at They Gave Us A Republic. There he is renowned for his passionate rants on all the many different ways corporations and our corporate-owned government abuse citizens like himself.

But he also has his own blog - "Things That Really Piss Me Off" - where he posts more personal rants.

This one on Bank of America's corporate assholes is long, but well worth your time.

After more than 10 years I finally stopped being a lazy lout and am finally severing all ties with Bank of America. Lord knows I've had numerous reasons over the years, some even worse than this latest little source of outrage on my part, but it's a cumulative thing, you know? I'm an easy going guy and it takes a while for me to get mad enough to actually yell but when it happens I tend to yell loudly and a lot.

Read the whole thing.

If the Medicare vouchers don't getcha, the Medicaid Block Grants will.

TPM has a reader's warning against assuming that cuts in programs for "poor people" won't affect the middle class.

Medicare gets all the attention, for a lot of good reasons. But as TPM Reader KH argues the cuts to Medicaid are no less devastating, though most people don't figure it will ever directly affect them ...

I'm seeing little on what I think is one of the most devastating proposed results of the Ryan budget bill, if it ever was put into law, and one that has the potential to be just as powerful as the "Turn Medicare into a voucher program" part, if and when people ever begin to see what the Medicaid cuts mean. Most middle-income people have no idea the impact of the Medicaid cuts. They assume those have no direct results on them.

It's the part about turning Medicaid into flat-amount Block grants. Most people go right on by that part - "it's poor people, has nothing to do with me, so we'll cut dental and podiatry and vision coverage, etc. for poor people (as California Medi-Cal\Medicaid did a year or two back). That's too bad, terrible, but we'll save lots of money." But actually, as the link shows, Medicaid pays the bill for 66% of all nursing home residents. And these aren't the indigent - most\many of them are the result of middle-income people who have already run through their own money paying for their nursing home costs, and then become eligible for Medicaid. If Medicaid doesn't pick that up anymore, who's left? The children of the residents? Who are trying to send their kids to college and saving for their own retirement? Not that Paul Ryan cares, but essentially, states will need to choose between basic healthcare for low-income people and nursing home care for formerly-middle-income people with no money left. Who wins, you think? Most people have no awareness that Medicare pays nothing for basic Nursing Home care. Most of the family members don't necessarily know - just the one poor son\daughter who is "taking care of\managing" the parent's finances. You think people get worked up over the proposed Medicare changes? Imagine their reaction when they learn (too late?) that the Medicaid changes Paul Ryan and the Republicans want to make would mean they have to pay several hundreds of dollars a day to keep their parents in the nursing home they have been in for months\years? My mother, who eventually developed dementia (sort of like Alzheimer's but with no awareness of it), was in a Nursing Home for years. But, having had to deal with it when her mother developed it back in the 1960's, and having the great fortune to have worked for a large employer who offered Long Term Care Insurance many years ago (when almost no company did), she realized the importance of it and signed up immediately. Though she came close, she never had to apply for Medicaid. Her insurance paid for it. The exception, not the rule, I'm afraid, even today. My point is - we (well, most of us) all "get" how threatening the "voucher" change is for Medicare, but people don't seem to see the danger of the Medicaid "Block Grant" change is to middle-income people in their 30's, 40's and 50's who have elderly parents who could lose\never be eligible for their Medicaid Nursing Home coverage. They just see "Medicaid" and assume it has nothing to do with them. Are we really going to devolve into that sort of country? How sad. And how sad that so many Republicans are determined to make it happen. Hopefully, the reality will wake up the people who can make the difference, as it did in 2008.

Here's Steve Benen on recent remarks by National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling making the same case officially.

Here's Digby on how Sperling's remarks may mean the White House won't allow health care cuts.

And David Dayen has the full transcript.

And last but not least, a reminder that the GOP has been trying to kill Medicare for literally its entire existence.

And Chrysler Makes Three Healthy American Car Companies

It cannot be emphasized enough that the auto "bailout" that saved the American car industry and thousands of American jobs was bitterly, savagely opposed by every rethuglican in Congress. Even today, with the bailout an unmitigated success, rethuglicans can't bring themselves to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it.

Yes, rethuglicans hate America. I don't ever care why anymore.

Atheist Shadenfreude of the Year

Have I mentioned lately that electing freakazoids to public office is not just evil but stupid?

And really, really expensive?

Media Czech nails it:

What happens when two Kentucky counties fight a 12-year battle to save souls by posting Jesus Rules and wind up owing $456,881 to the Godless ACLU when they fail?

Well, they fight over who's going to pay the bill, that's what.

SNIP

I love it when fundies fight among themselves about who's going to get the bill for their ridiculous and unnecessary PR scam.

Ken Ham and Steve Beshear, this is the Ghost of Christmas Future!

I don't expect the Flintstone Truther Park to ever actually get built, but that doesn't mean there's not a huge opportunity here for the first atheist organization with some volunteer lawyers on its board.

Quote of the Day

From The Rude Pundit, regarding the coincidence of California prisons being at 200 percent capacity while Corrections Corporations of America saw its California contracts soar in value:

Yeah, whenever there's some horror occurring to the poor and disenfranchised, you can bet there's a profit motive somewhere.

Why Being Nice to the Freakazoids is Wrong

A commenter at They Gave Us A Republic .... here recently posted strong objections to our (OK, my) aggressive atheism in the form of attacks on freakazoids.

Ironically, the comments were posted on one of the least aggressive anti-religion posts I've written in quite some time. All it asked was that freakazoids who insist on publicizing their political preferences from the comfortable position of a tax-exempt entity should lose that tax exemption and be forced to pay taxes like the rest of us.

I didn't even bother to demand that the many, many freakazoids who have, over the last several years, blatantly and with malice aforethought broken the IRS rules prohibiting political activity actually be prosecuted and imprisoned, even though that should be the minimum first requirement for eliminating this scourge of tax cheats.

But why am I blathering on, when @PZ Myers handles it so much better:

Chris Mooney was on Point of Inquiry recently. I know, he's always on PoI anymore, which was the big reason I've tuned that podcast out, but in this case, he's in the hot seat with Ron Lindsay interviewing him on accommodationism. Lindsay is excellent, just calmly and quietly asking killer questions that Mooney flounders over. Ophelia Benson has a short summary of the highlights, if you'd rather not sit through it all.

Once again, the problem revolves around a central argument for the Mooneyites: that harsh criticism of cherished beliefs, like religion, leads to an immediate, emotion-based shutdown of critical faculties by the target, and makes them refractory to rational evaluation of their ideas. To which I say, yeah, so? I agree with that. I know that happens. It's what I expect to happen.

But that's all short-term thinking, and I don't care what happens in the mind of a believer five minutes or a day after I make an argument (the usual domain of the psychology experiments accommodations love to cite in defense of their position; there's an awful lot of psychology done in our universities with horizons no longer than the next publication deadline). What I'm interested in seeing happen is the development of a strong cadre of vocal atheists who will make a sustained argument, over the course of years or generations, who will keep pressing on the foolishness of faith. I also don't mind seeing believers get angry and stomping off determined to prove I'm a colossal jackhole — that means they're thinking, even if they're disagreeing with me. At the very least, I hope that a few of them will realize, even if they don't change their mind about the god nonsense, that quoting the Bible at me has no effect, and maybe some years down the road I won't be hearing as many idiots telling me "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" as if they've made a profound point.

I'll also cop to the obvious fact that, knowing that reason will not get through their skills, I'm happy to use emotional arguments as well. Passion is persuasive. Look at all those assertive Gnu/New Atheists — they are not making Spock-like dispassionate arguments only, although there is a strong rational core — we are hitting people in the gut and telling them to open their eyes. It gives us that unseemly aggressive reputation, but at the same time it's a very effective way to let people know we think they are dead wrong.

And that's the other flaw in the accommodationist position: they are so concerned with being nurturing and sensitive to beliefs — no gut-punching for them! — that they end up being really, really boring to read, and they also end up affirming religious idiocy through neglect. Somebody has to set up the conflict so that someone, maybe even the accommodationists, have leverage to set up the resolution. But someone must voice the objections with clarity and without wooly excuses.

I'll treat the freakazoids and their apologists with common courtesy when they demonstrate the common courtesy of acknowledging that facts, logic and reason are on our side, not theirs, and not a minute earlier.

Restoring a Lost Giant

Want to do something that will live on long after you, that will make generations yet unborn praise your name in gratitude?

Plant a new American Chestnut tree.

Niki King at the Courier:

This time of year a century ago, Kentucky ridges would have looked almost snowy with blooms from the American chestnut tree.

It's a sight local volunteers want future generations to see again.

American chestnuts — massive hardwoods highly prized for their timber, tannin and nuts — were all but lost a half-century ago to an Asian blight that killed 4 billion of them, decimating 25 percent of the Eastern U.S. tree canopy.

But years of efforts to restore the American chestnut are finally taking root across the country — and in the Louisville area.

Nuts from a major research farm in Virginia that were bred over 28 years to be blight resistant were planted at public and private sites in the Louisville area this year. Only a limited number of nuts were available.

Also, members of the Kentucky chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation are breeding offspring of the state's 20 surviving trees for blight resistance and research. An orchard in Oldham County is expected to bear nuts this fall for the first time.

The ultimate goal is to restore the American chestnut to the Eastern forest, where it was once the dominant hardwood, so it can again provide an abundance of high-quality food for wildlife and strong, rot-resistant timber for building needs, said Bryan Burhans, president and CEO of the American Chestnut Foundation.

“We want to bring back an iconic tree species that was so much a part of history, culture and heritage,” he said. “There was no other tree that could replace the niche that it occupied.”

Louisville-area volunteers who are planting and growing American chestnuts say their work will help the public learn about the tree.

“I'm anxious to see them restored to the countryside,” said George Gibbs, a retired forester who contributed $250,000 to Louisville's 21st Century Parks for a chestnut restoration program. “I may not live that long, but I'd like to see it started.”
'Redwood of the east'

Once called the “redwood of the east,” American chestnuts grew over 200 million acres, from Maine to Mississippi, most prolifically in the Appalachian Mountains. In the Louisville area, they were found in the Knobs region, from Southern Indiana to Fort Knox.

SNIP

The Kentucky chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation is seeking money and volunteers. To donate or volunteer, email Dr. Anne Myers Bobigian at annemonique@bellsouth.net. For more information, go to www.kychestnut.org

To get nuts: People who contribute $300 a year to the American Chestnut Foundation are eligible to receive two potentially blight-resistant chestnuts for planting. To learn more, go to www.acf.org.

Pay Off the Debt: Tax the Freakazoids

Kevin Drum has your clip-and-keep chart of the day:

What accounts for the growing U.S. debt load? You already know the answer, but CBPP has a new chart that lays it out yet again. What we're interested in is public debt — that is, debt that the government actually owes to other people. It's this debt that can cause problems if it gets out of hand. So here's where our projected debt in 2019 comes from:

[This chart] shows that the Bush-era tax cuts and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — including their associated interest costs — account for almost half of the projected public debt in 2019 (measured as a share of the economy) if we continue current policies.

Altogether, the economic downturn, the measures enacted to combat it (including the 2009 Recovery Act), and the financial rescue legislation play a smaller role in the projected debt increase over the next decade. Public debt due to all other factors fell from over 30 percent of GDP in 2001 to 20 percent of GDP in 2019.

Put this one up on your refrigerator along with the last one. Then, if a friend comes over after watching Glenn Beck and insists that we're doomed, just point to the chart. If you want to save America from a crushing future debt burden, you need to repeal the Bush tax cuts, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and stop pursuing austerity policies that will slow down economic recovery.

Once we've done that, then it's time to talk about Medicare. But the other stuff comes first.

But Kevin doesn't mention where there are spare billions of dollars per year lying around, just waiting to be picked up and used to pay off that dangerous debt:

Tax breaks for freakazoids.

Diana B. Henriques at the NYT:

(Note: article published in 2006; tax exemption estimates are even older.)

The property tax exemption is one of the oldest tax breaks granted to religious organizations, but it is not the only one. Lawmakers and judges have also approved what amounts to special tax treatment for religious organizations and some of their employees, including exemptions on personal-income and payroll taxes, and have made it easier for them to get tax-exempt construction loans for purely religious projects.

Like the exemptions from federal and state regulations that have proliferated for religious groups in recent years, these tax breaks are widely defended both as an acknowledgment of religion’s contributions to society and as a barrier to unjustified government limitations on the liberty that religious organizations enjoy under the First Amendment.

But in some communities like South Bend, tolerance of religious tax breaks is fraying as local governments struggle to provide basic services with limited resources.

There are no national figures on how much money these tax breaks save religious organizations and on how much extra cost is shifted to other citizens. But a typical state, Colorado, reported that religious real estate valued at more than $1.1 billion was exempt from local property taxes there last year. Nationally, tax-exempt financing for religious organizations totaled at least $20 billion during the decade that ended last year.

Congressional budget records show that just the income tax breaks uniquely available for ministers, rabbis and other clergy members cost taxpayers just under $500 million a year.

And the price is almost certainly increasing, experts on taxation and congregational growth agreed, because today’s larger congregations need more land, employ more clergy members and pay them more money. Moreover, the definition of a religious mission is expanding beyond schools and hospitals to include operations as obscure as a biblical theme park in Florida and as upscale as a retirement community at Notre Dame.

If a 2006 estimate of just some of the tax breaks that fatten the freakazoids came to about $2.5 billion, I'd guess the real number back then was at least double that, and has doubled since.

Now $10 billion per year will barely keep a decent-sized Army in some desert hell-hole. But think of the ancillary benefits: freakazoids will be able to talk politics and promote or condemn political candidates as much as they want with no fear of losing their tax exemption.

It's such a shame that their high moral values about obeying the Constitution keeps them silent on political issues - imagine how much richer our national discourse would be if we only knew what they really thought!

I think $10 billion a year is a small price to pay for getting your Free Speech rights back, don't you?

A Reminder of What Happens When You Privatize Public Services

Kentucky's a long way from Rick's Scott's Everything's Got to Go! No Offer Too Low! firesale of Florida state government, but its attempt to save money on Medicare by letting a private contractor handle it offers more proof that privatizing government always fails.

Tom Loftus at the Courier-Journal:

As the state auditor's office zeroed in on what it described as extravagant spending by Passport Health Plan officials last August, the organization's two top administrators were still running up the tab — attending a convention of conservative state legislators at a luxury resort on the San Diego waterfront.

The cost of the trip for Shannon Turner, who was then Passport's executive vice president, and Nici Gaines, an associate vice president, exceeded $6,300, according to documents released to The Courier-Journal under the Kentucky Open Records Act.

State Auditor Crit Luallen's scathing report last November criticized Passport, which delivers Medicaid services to about 165,000 residents in the Louisville area, for lavish spending on such things as travel, meals and gifts during the 2007-09 period.

The report said such spending had an “uncertain benefit to Passport.”

Yet the documents obtained by the newspaper, after a court ruling that Passport must comply with the state open records act, show that such spending continued in 2010 — right up to the release of the auditor's report in November.

In all, Passport's spending on travel, meals and other entertainment totaled $27,728 in the first 11 months of 2010, according to the records.

Here's the thing about public services run by public servants: when they fuck up, you figure out who is the closest elected official to those public employees, and you run her out of office.

When those public services are contracted out to a private company, however, that separates the service from the elected official, and makes her far less vulnerable to the wrath of voters unhappy with poor service.

Who is more responsive to your complaining calls - the county road department or ATT? You really think a call center in Bangalore gives a shit about the snow blocking your driveway?