If I Believed in Magic ...

I still wouldn't pray for anything David "I can't get elected Governor without an illiterate roundball player on the ticket" Williams wants.

Senate President David Williams called Saturday for Kentuckians to pray that lawmakers reach a consensus this week after a fight over how to balance the state's financially troubled Medicaid program.

“I ask that you keep the members of the Kentucky state Senate in your prayers, and keep all the people in the General Assembly in your prayers, and, yes, keep our governor in your prayers,” Williams, R-Burkesville, one of three GOP gubernatorial candidates, told some 400 people at the 5th District Lincoln Day dinner in Corbin.

Williams' remarks come amid an acrimonious debate in Frankfort over how to shore up the state’s Medicaid program — a debate that has become politically charged amid this year’s gubernatorial campaign.

Want to help Kentucky legislators solve the budget problem? Call or email them here.

Al Jazeera - Not Just for Middle East News Anymore

The great broadcast networks of our childhood aren't dead; they're just operating under another name.

Wonder whatever happened with the BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, the one that spread heavy oil and toxic dispersants over thousands of square miles of sea floor, water and beaches?

One global news organization covers it, in an 8-part series on the BP oil spill.

David Dayen at Firedoglake:

I’ve heard the American media described accurately at a bunch of 7 year-olds at a youth soccer game. There’s nothing strategic about the game; all the kids chase the soccer ball in a pack. I thought of that when I read a story about enduring sickness in the Gulf of Mexico. It didn’t come from ABC, or NBC, or CBS, or Fox News, or CNN, or any local outlet. It came from Al Jazeera.

“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn’t know how I even got there.”

Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

“I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me,” Aguinaga said. “At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”

BP’s oil disaster last summer gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in history – and the largest environmental disaster in US history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK.

According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.

If you read the article, you realize that the dispersants are causing the sickness as much as the oil. And, because they are mixing around in the water, they then participate in evaporation and precipitation, with the dispersant chemicals reaching more of the population through rainfall. Merrick Vallian, the friend of Steven Aguinaga, has already died from chemical exposure.

This is why Hillary Clinton said that Al Jazeera is real news, and by implication what passes for real news in this country isn’t. Merely touching the Gulf of Mexico is causing a host of serious medical problems. That’s happening right in our country. And if it weren’t for Al Jazeera, there would be a near-total media blackout. At least in the national media; from what I can tell, the Times-Picayune has had decent coverage.

Read AJE's 8-part series on the BP oil spill here.

And demand Al Jazeera on your local cable or satellite system here.

"Tackle the Debt"? Easy - Soak the Rich and Hire 10 Million Unemployed

UPDATE Below

It's amazing, the straight lines the rethuglicans keep handing Obama.

Senate Republicans will not support an increase to the federal debt limit unless the president vows to tackle the nation's debt, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday.

But not as amazing as the way Obama keeps letting them clunk to the ground without even trying to respond.

You know what he's going to do: offer to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Because total capitulation is how our president negotiates with rethuglicans.

Here's what he should say:

"Tackle the debt? GREAT. The fastest and easiest way to get our debt down to where it was when Bill Clinton left office is to ... wait for it ... raise revenue.

"And the two fastest and easiest ways to raise revenue are, first: to restore the top tax rate that President Eisenhower maintained during the Golden Era of the 1950s that Speaker Boehner misses so much. That's 90 percent on all income over $1 million.

"Second, get our 10 million unemployed citizens paying taxes again. Their new jobs will be rebuilding the nation's infrastructure and creating the infrastructure of the future. They will be getting paid by the federal government while working for the nation, both through their own labor and through the multiplier effect of spending their incomes throughout the economy.

"I wish to thank Minority Leader McConnell for making our choice so stark: either we raise revenue through high taxes on the rich and a new Works Progress Administration, or we default on our national debt.

"I pledge to Senator McConnell, to members of Congress, and to every American: I will do everything in my power to hike taxes on the rich and put Americans back to work, thus slashing our debt and restoring our national credit."

Let the rethuglicans shut down the government. Let them take the blame. Make your offer and stand firm on it.

Cave yet again, and you may very well win re-election. But you'll do it at the price of turning the United States of America into Haiti.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

UPDATE, 3:25 p.m.: Senator Bernie Sanders is already there.

Well, at least one member of the United States Senate is listening to the people on where this "shared sacrifice" should be coming from to reduce the deficit and it's not the working class.

Release: Sanders Introduces Emergency Deficit Reduction Act:

March 10, 2011

Bill to Create a Millionaires Surtax and End Tax Breaks for Big Oil

WASHINGTON, March 10 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced The Emergency Deficit Reduction Act that would establish a surtax on millionaires and eliminate tax breaks for big oil and gas companies.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

I Don't "Believe" in Evolution

I also don't "believe" in heliocentrism, the atomic theory of matter, or gravity.

I know that evolution, heliocentrism, the atomic theory of matter and gravity are factual elements of our world.

But I don't "believe" in them, because facts are not subject to belief.

So it makes me nuts when people try to expose the ridiculousness of conservative non-thinking by asking people if they "believe" in evolution.

Wrong question. The question is: "Do you accept that evolution is true?"

If the answer is anything other than: "Of course, only morons don't," then we can safely label that person as a gravity-denier.

I think the ubiquitous reality-denial of the teabaggers, repugs, Villagers and fellow-travelers rests on a linguistic foundation.

That is, the substitution of the verb "to believe" for the verb "to think."

People used to reserve "believe" for matters of superstition. "Do you believe in astrology?" Statements of fact employed "think." "No, I think astrology is a crock."

Now you hear nonsense like "I believe it's going to rain."

Belief replaces thought first in language, then in action. Belief brings the mantle of religion with it, cloaking everything it encounters with the armour of untouchable faith.

"I believe global warming is a myth."

"Really? I know global warming is a fact."

"How dare you challenge my faith!"

"Here's another fact for you: anyone who denies reality in the face of the evidence is a moron."

I have been trying lately to expunge the phrase "I believe" from my vocabulary and substitute either "I think" or "I know."

Because I don't "believe" in much. But I think and I know quite a bit.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Eleanor Roosevelt Would Kick Your Ass, Mr. President

Not for failing to promote women's participation in government, but for throwing the working people of this nation to the Wall Street wolves.



Full transcript here.

Republican Deficit Cutting: Give $4 Billion to Oil Companies; Take $75 Million Away from Homeless Veterans

Zandar:

One oil company cleared over $9 billion in profit in one quarter last year. Half a billion a year to a company that earns $40 billion a year is kinda, well, chump change. Even if Exxon Mobil got all $4 billion plus in federal subsidies, and it lost them, the company still would have made more than twice that in just the last three months on the year. And Joe Barton wants you to think that if your taxpayer money doesn't go to Exxon, they will go out of business.

Now, I'm not The Donald or anything, but if we ended oil and gas subsidies tomorrow, I think every oil company in America would be 100% fine. Joe Barton on the other hand thinks you're too stupid to check his math. He wants you to feel sorry for Exxon Mobil and its fellow oil giants in an industry that made over $100 billion just in profit last year. He says if you don't give them $4 billion, they'll go out of business.

SNIP

Meanwhile, because we're giving $4 billion a year in tax dollars to an industry that doesn't need it, we have to cut $75 million from a program to give homeless veterans a place to live because we can't afford it as a country.

SNIP

To recap, $4 billion in tax money to energy companies earning tens of billions a year in profit, vital national interest. Not wasteful at all. Putting Afghanistan and Iraq veterans out on the street because we can't afford to help them as a result? We can't afford to help them, sorry. Got to cut waste.

Joe Barton got $1.5 million from oil companies and he's got to earn it. And many rethuglicans are plain stupid enough to think that cutting all spending to non-corporations and cancelling all taxes for the obscenely wealthy really will lead to a Randian utopia.

But whatever the personal excuse, the bottom line is that all rethuglican budget plans, arguments, policies, bills and amendments accomplish the same single goal:

Taking money away from everyone who is not filthy rich and giving to everyone who already is filthy rich.

That's their one measuring stick, their two-branched decision tree: Does it make rich people richer? If yes, do it. If no, don't do it.

Here are two people who explain it much better than I can:

Hypothetically, let's say Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) is a goat-fucking child molester

Because given that he is a republican congress critter from the home ground of Michelle Crazy Eyes Bachman, Rep. Cravaack being a goat-fucking child molester is far more likely than the hypothetical he vomited up at Rep. Peter King's Let's Give Loyal American Muslims Good Reasons to Stop Helping Us Catch Real Terrorists hearings today.

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) continued on the theme that Reps. Peter King (R-NY) Frank Wolf (R-VA) started on earlier today at King's hearings on the "Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response" by attacking the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

But Cravaack upped the rhetorical ante a bit, referring to CAIR as "basically... a terrorist organization" and asking Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca -- hypothetically -- if he would continue to work with CAIR if he "knew that CAIR was a terrorist organization sponsored by Hamas."

"Let me answer this way," Baca said in response to the accusations, "if the FBI has something to charge CAIR with, bring those charges forward and try them in court and deal with it that way."

"There is a reality that in my culture as a police officer that you have facts and you have a crime, deal with it," said Baca, who was called as a witness by Democrats on the committee.

"We don't play around with criminals in my world," Baca said. "If CAIR is an organization that's a, quote, 'criminal organization,' prosecute them, hold them accountable, and bring them to trial."

Watch the anti-American moron here.

For a beautiful corrective, watch Rep. Keith Ellison's emotional testimony about a Muslim-American first responder who gave his life trying to save others on 9-11.

The $19-an-Hour Bastards Who Are Destroying the Nation

Digby:

Here's another one of those greedy bastards who's trying to destroy America:

He is worried, he says, about a lot: the future of the bankrupt supermarket chain he works for, the midcareer colleagues who feel trapped and hopeless, and anyone, really, who strives for a middle-class life anymore.

He's been stocking shelves and moving groceries through the checkout line for the same Philadelphia-area chain since the Vietnam War. It's how he put a child through college, bought a $28,000 rowhouse, and pays for the occasional movie when he and his wife go out for a treat.

He is reluctant to have his name published in The Inquirer, even though he belongs to a union. Partly, it seems, because he belongs to a union. And partly because it feels like a scary time to be a worker in this country at all - union or not.

"I'm afraid I'd be retaliated against," he says, in a tone so evenhanded, so unassuming, that during the first, the second, and even the third time we talked, it was hard to resist wanting to hear more from him.

When reader and reporter finally met after two years of occasional phone chats, the blogosphere, and the so-called cable-news pundits were bloviating about assaults by Republican governors against public-sector unions in Wisconsin, New Jersey, and elsewhere. (Time will tell whether this remains an exclusively Republican pursuit.)

Against all the raucous blah-blah-blahs, his middle-of-the-road wisdom was humbling.

Yes it is. But it's the voice of many millions of Americans who are under attack by their fellows who have been brainwashed into believing that the problem in their lives isn't the John Galts who are gobbling up ever more of the nation's wealth but their middle class neighbors who've been able to live a decent middle class life working at a decent middle class job.

These are the people that the well-heeled Andrea Mitchells and Gloria Borgers of the world are saying must be willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

Read the whole thing.

"Everyone Knows" the DCCC is Killing the Democratic Party

From Steve Benen, evidence that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is trying to exploit the attempt by House repugs to destroy the country with catastrophic budget cuts:

Indeed, here's a press release the DCCC sent out yesterday in a key North Carolina district: "Everyone knows that the government needs to cut spending, but Rep. Renee Ellmers and House Republicans voted to put North Carolina families at risk by dangerously slashing funding for port security and transit security. Instead of cutting their own office budgets, Ellmers voted to gut port and transit security by two-thirds which even the Republican Homeland Security Chairman says is dangerous."

Trying, and failing miserably.

"Everyone knows that the government needs to cut spending"? Are you fucking kidding me?

Everyone with a brain knows that the government needs to ramp up spending - immediately and massively - in order to prevent the economy from tanking - spectacularly and permanently.

The only people who say "the government needs to cut spending" are Koch-sucking repugs trying to destroy the economy in advance of the 2012 elections, and cowardly Blue Dogs so delusional they think jumping on that bandwagon will get them repug votes.

Here's how a press release attacking House repugs for their budget vote should read:

"Everyone knows the most important thing members of Congress need to do right now is create jobs. But instead of creating jobs, Rep. Brett Guthrie is killing 975,000 jobs and gutting the very programs that support a healthy economy."

Do NOT give a fucking dime to the DCCC. Ever. Instead, talk to your Democratic neighbors.

Repugs Never Apologize for Lying; Democrats Have to Stop Apologizing for Telling the Truth

Steve M. described this inanity perfectly:

GUY WHO THINKS ALL TEABAGGERS ARE RACISTS UPSETS PEOPLE WHO THINK ALL MUSLIMS ARE TERRORISTS

Ron Schiller, NPR's former senior vice president of fundraising (he quit last week), was filmed by James O'Keefe's crew discussing a possible $5 million contribution to NPR with two guys who identified their (fictional) organization as "founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood." Schiller didn't take the money, but he said some embarrassing stuff.

Later, he wrote that the problem is the dems forgot how to punk. I agree, but now that we're the punkees, the problem is that we're surrendering instead of fighting back.

The man was recorded telling the truth about proven facts that can be backed up with miles of videotape.

When you are accused of repeating facts, especially by people who lie for a living, you never, NEVER, NEVER apologize.

Here's what you do:

Accusation from the right:

"Oh lawdy, that NPR man called our brave tea patriots ... oh! I can't even say the word!"

Correct response from the left:

"Damn fucking straight we call them racists. That's because they are motherfuckering racists. I'd show you all the proof, including video, but facts can't penetrate that armor of illusion you wear. Facts don't matter to you, so chew on this: Fuck off and die."

If It Doesn't Make Rich People Richer, It Has to Go

Rich people can afford to hire private security and firefighting, so don't be surprised when cops and firefighters are the next to get the repub budget ax.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

From the Cap Times (via First Draft, a blog that's done an amazing job cover the Madison movement). This insurance plan is something that doesn't cost the state government anything -- but doesn't profit any of Walker's friends, so it has to go:

If you need a prima facie example of how this extremist Republican governor is taking the side of the big guys against the little guys, I've got one for you.

Hidden in the 1,300 or so pages of his 2011-13 budget is the dismantling of Wisconsin's little-known State Life Fund, a small state-operated life insurance plan that was enacted 100 years ago this year by progressive Republican legislators in the wake of insurance scandals that rocked the state back then.

The fund costs Wisconsin government nothing, but operates off investing the premiums paid by the 30,000-plus state residents who hold policies with face values ranging from a minimum of $1,000 to a maximum of $10,000. The fund, which isn't well-known because it is forbidden from doing any advertising, nevertheless earns dividends that substantially reduce the insureds' premium costs plus build cash values that policyholders can cash in if events in their lives make it prudent to do so.

In 2010, the State Life Fund sold 146 new policies with $69,000 in new premiums. The plan is totally self-supporting and continually runs a surplus. It requires no extra workers in the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. It's a good deal for young families who want to have at least a little life insurance protection. Some cash in their policies and use the cash value to help pay for their children's college. Older folks are known to purchase a policy to cover funeral expenses.

Yet Walker wants to freeze it in place come July 1 and close it to further purchases.

It's a blatant giveaway to the private insurance industry, which has long bristled at the existence of the fund, insisting that it is "socialized insurance." It has tried without success for several decades to get it killed. The most recent attack on it came from dishonored former state Rep. Scott Jensen of Waukesha, himself an insurance industry shill. Even Tommy Thompson's Republican administration wouldn't go along with Jensen's scheme to close it down.

But now comes Walker, who received substantial campaign contributions from insurance interests in his race last fall. And because of the acquiescence to his machinations by the Republican majority in the Legislature, the threat to the fund is much more serious. Walker will get his wish unless the proposal is removed from the budget bill before it passes.

Also hidden behind all the coverage of Walker and the repugs taking worker rights away from kindergarten teachers is the plan to sell off public infrastructure to the first mobster to present the cash - no bids required.

Down with Tyranny reminds us that this is how the dying Soviet empire created its billionaire mobster class.

Your Photo of the Day

Taken in Hazelton, British Columbia:

America Is Not Broke. We've Been Robbed

The indispensable Michael Moore:

America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

Read the whole thing.

Here he is in Wisconsin on Saturday:



Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

"The Consequences of GOP Success"

I've neglected to post a thorough description of just what the rethuglicans are doing with their budget destruction, mostly because it's both too massive and too depressing.

But Steven D. at Booman tribune has done it, and brilliantly:

The Republicans in Congress, and in states across the country are making no bones about their agenda: they desire to kill unions and worker's rights. They desire to kill the EPA, and kill any regulation regarding worker safety, drug safety, food safety, environmental safety -- you name it. They want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare reform with a thousand cuts until nothing is left but private accounts managed by by their buddies at Wall Street to which you are forced to contribute. They want to privatize prisons and schools.

They want an end to financial assistance to college students and their families (except football and basketball players, of course). They want to kill any investment in alternative fuels and public transportation. They desire the awarding of no-bid contracts to their "friends," i.e., the people who contributed the most to their political campaigns. Oh, and they want to make it ever more difficult, if not impossible, for innovative small businesses to compete with the corporate behemoths that dominate our political landscape. Indeed, without a middle class how can small businesses not dedicated to serving the desires of the rich survive?

In short, the goal of the New and Improved Tea Party Republican Governors and Legislators is to drive a stake through the heart of anyone who still believes he or she is a member of the middle class. As one of their own recently remarked those of us "slobs" in the middle class are a "different breed" the implication being that we are parasites on the body of corporate wealth and power rather than the collective engine of human labor and productivity that made that wealth and power possible.

Let us stop for a moment, now that the Republican "game plan" to dismantle the government and protect their wealthy benefactors at all costs has been exposed in all its naked infamy, and consider what type of country the realization of their goals would create. Imagine a world where there is no safety net. Imagine a country where wages and salaries are steadily decreased. Imagine a country where financial panics and "great recessions" are a regular occurrence every few years. Imagine a country where the water and the food are not fit to drink and eat, and the air isn't fit to breath. To take the lyrics from a popular John Lennon song lyrics out of context, "It isn't hard to do."

Read the whole incredible thing.

Civil Speech vs Knee-Jerk Violence

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

No One Deserves Inhumane Treatment - Not Even Bradley Manning

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, something that I'm sure is false: that Bradley Manning did deliberately and with malice aforethought seek to undermine the government of the United States of America by leaking highly classified and potentially disastrous military documents to Wikileaks.

That, assuming conclusive evidence collected legally by authorized law enforcement officials and determination by a jury of his peers that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, would certainly justify the U.S. government executing him.

It would not, however - and nothing ever could - justify the torture being inflicted on Manning by a U.S. government that loves pointing the "torturer!" finger at every nation but itself.

Firedoglake has the latest:

Bradley Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, writes about the true reason Bradley Manning is being stripped each night and forced to report naked each morning in the same way prisoners were tortured at Abu Graib:

On Wednesday March 2, 2011, PFC Manning was told that his Article 138 complaint requesting that he be removed from Maximum custody and Prevention of Injury (POI) Watch had been denied by the Quantico commander, Colonel Daniel J. Choike. Understandably frustrated by this decision after enduring over seven months of unduly harsh confinement conditions, PFC Manning inquired of the Brig operations officer what he needed to do in order to be downgraded from Maximum custody and POI. As even Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell has stated, PFC Manning has been nothing short of “exemplary” as a detainee. Additionally, Brig forensic psychiatrists have consistently maintained that there is no mental health justification for the POI Watch imposed on PFC Manning. In response to PFC Manning’s question, he was told that there was nothing he could do to downgrade his detainee status and that the Brig simply considered him a risk of self-harm. PFC Manning then remarked that the POI restrictions were “absurd” and sarcastically stated that if he wanted to harm himself, he could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops.

Without consulting any Brig mental health provider, Chief Warrant Officer Denise Barnes used PFC’s Manning’s sarcastic quip as justification to increase the restrictions imposed upon him under the guise of being concerned that PFC Manning was a suicide risk. PFC Manning was not, however, placed under the designation of Suicide Risk Watch. This is because Suicide Risk Watch would have required a Brig mental health provider’s recommendation, which the Brig commander did not have. In response to this specific incident, the Brig psychiatrist assessed PFC Manning as “low risk and requiring only routine outpatient followup [with] no need for … closer clinical observation.” In particular, he indicated that PFC Manning’s statement about the waist band of his underwear was in no way prompted by “a psychiatric condition.”

While the commander needed the Brig psychiatrist’s recommendation to place PFC Manning on Suicide Risk Watch, no such recommendation was needed in order to increase his restrictions under POI Watch. The conditions of POI Watch require only psychiatric input, but ultimately remain the decision of the commander.

Given these circumstances, the decision to strip PFC Manning of his clothing every night for an indefinite period of time is clearly punitive in nature. There is no mental health justification for the decision. There is no basis in logic for this decision. PFC Manning is under 24 hour surveillance, with guards never being more than a few feet away from his cell. PFC Manning is permitted to have his underwear and clothing during the day, with no apparent concern that he will harm himself during this time period. Moreover, if Brig officials were genuinely concerned about PFC Manning using either his underwear or flip-flops to harm himself (despite the recommendation of the Brig’s psychiatrist) they could undoubtedly provide him with clothing that would not, in their view, present a risk of self-harm. Indeed, Brig officials have provided him other items such as tear-resistant blankets and a mattress with a built-in pillow due to their purported concerns.

This is just vile. The former brig commander, James Averhart, violated military rules by putting Manning on suicide watch as punishment, and was subsequently replaced by Denise Barnes. Now she’s stripping him naked to punish him for a sarcastic quip. Who is she, Nurse Ratched? Abusing someone’s mental health classification in order to subject them to torture “for their own good” is sick and sadistic, reminiscent of Soviet gulags.

There is far, far more at the link, which connects to the whole Manning archive at one of the only two websites than give a damn (the other being Glenn Greenwald.)

Makes me wonder if Michelle Obama is still proud of her country.

The Democratic Budget That Will Kill the Democratic Party

While Beltway "Democrats" are chuckling like Bond villains about how the rethuglicans' plans to gut the budget and destroy a million jobs amounts to political suicide, the Obama administration's back-room negotiations to gut Social Security and destroy a million voters are achieving actual political suicide.

Digby:

I hope that Heilman is wrong and that the White House is not thinking along these lines. They may win re-election simply by default, considering the GOP field. But they will almost definitely lose the Senate as well as the House and American liberalism will be an empty shell going forward. But the if the Democrats can't keep Social Security off the chopping block in the middle of an economic crisis -- with 75% of the people behind them -- then I suppose that ship has already sailed.

Yes, there are voices in opposition, but they are not getting through:

Greg Sargent:

Senator Jeff Merkley opens fire on the House GOP plan for budget cuts in some of the harshest terms I've heard yet:

The GOP budget plan will destroy 700,000 jobs. The last thing our nation can afford right now is further job losses. We need to be creating jobs, not destroying jobs.

There are common-sense budget cuts that could reduce our deficits without wrecking the economy or attacking working families. We can start by cutting back on the bonus tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that Republican leaders insisted on just ten weeks ago. We could end tax subsidies for oil companies and save tens of billions of dollars in the process.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner summarized his perspective on the Republican budget as follows: if people might lose their jobs, "so be it." You might think the House Republican leaders would show some humility after their failed agenda turned record surpluses into massive deficits in 2001, or after their policies reduced the wages of working Americans during the modest expansion in the middle of the decade, or after they burned down the economy with unregulated derivatives and predatory mortgage securities in 2008.

Apparently not. Their proposals are exactly the same: give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, shred the safety net, and eliminate investments that would help restore American economic leadership.

Thank you Senator Merkley. That has such a ring of truth that like Sargent, I can imagine how powerful it would be if the Democratic Party would adopt this as their new rallying cry:

It's tempting to imagine what would happen if Dems were united behind a hard hitting message emphasizing the charges Merkley leveled here: GOP budget cuts will destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs. Republicans are hacking away at programs that benefit working and middle-class Americans even as they preserve tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. And Republicans have no business lecturing America with pieties about the deficit, given that their policies played a major role in creating it.

But Dems are not united behind such a message.

No they aren't. But this shows that such a message is possible.

SNIP

So I'm frankly rooting for gridlock at this point. And if that's what we have, then it's necessary to use it wisely. Merkley's speech is a great starting point.

Unfortunately, it's not looking good. As Sargent concludes:

Merkley's strong stand reminds us that by and large Dems are not really united behind a powerful, coherent, and consistent critique of the GOP's fiscal policies. And Republicans are rubbing their hands together in glee about it.

Rethuglicans aren't really united either, as Steve Benen explains. But in that case, the principled determination of the rethuglicans' crazy wing actually helps the GOP destroy the Democrats.

It's likely Republican leaders can reach a budget deal with the White House, only to find they'd need significant Democratic support to get it through Congress.

Benen writes that like he thinks it's unlikely. He should know better.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

The Atheism of Joy

Via PZ Myers, the latest campaign from the Center for Inquiry.

Everything They Do and Say Just Provides More Proof

It would be a lot easier to deal with both the teabaggers and their groupies in the Village if more people acknowledged who and what they really are.

Digby:

I'm wondering when people are going to recognize that not only is the Tea Party socially conservative and uhm ... racially uncomfortable, their antipathy to taxes and government actually stems from those attitudes. It's not a coincidence or even a sympathetic constellation of various positions on the issues. They don't like government because they believe that government should not protect and support people they don't like.

It's not even a matter of not liking the constitutional principle of "majority rule, but protect the minority" because they think it's undemocratic. When they are in the majority, they resent the protection of the minority, to be sure. But when they are in the minority they equally resent majority rule. The "principle" is simply that they believe they are superior and more deserving and that people they don't like, whether they are in the majority or the minority, do not deserve to have any say in how the world is organized. They just do not believe their opposition is legitimate in any way. It's not really any more complicated than that.

Later, Digby makes the same point on teabagger demands for forced birth:

I think it's adorable that so many of our Village scribes continue to insist that the "new conservatives" are just a bunch of fiscal hawks trying to cut the fat, but it's wishful thinking. they are the same old same old, and as I wrote in the previous post, the reason they are fiscal hawks is the same reason they are social conservatives: to stop people they don't like (in this case pregnant women who want to exercise their constitutional right to abortion) from doing things they don't like.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

Our Un-Natural World

National Geographic's Age of Man:

It’s a new name for a new geologic epoch—one defined by our own massive impact on the planet. That mark will endure in the geologic record long after our cities have crumbled.

Incredible photographs. So un-natural you have to read the description to make sense of them.

h/t Page One Kentucky.