A recent Facebook post by The Christian Left (image courtesy of that post), sparked some interesting discussion. Some people apparently saw this as a metaphor for Obama acting as a messiah while simultaneously dividing the country with his "class warfare" against the rich.
This whole idea of "class warfare" strikes me as being mostly an issue for wealthy conservatives. Even more curious is that it's become a rallying cry for middle class conservatives who feel compelled to rise to the defense of the wealthy and the threat they face from onerous government intervention and taxation.
Why is that?
Well, it seem to me that there's no denying that conservative (and GOP) media spokespersons like O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, and that whole crowd are intent on convincing us of the evils of government. Their rhetoric seems focused on protecting their benefactors while simultaneously serving their own greedy self interests by attracting as many eyeballs (and devotees) as possible. Nothing seems to work like some good old hyperbole (devoid to the degree possible of any facts) for riling up the uninformed and for driving wedges between all kinds of people. If it's not the fake (and worn out) War on Christmas, it's the new (and just as fake) Battle Royale between Takers and Makers.
(And before conservatives accuse me of bias, let me at least come clean and admit to mine. I am proud to call myself a progressive and a liberal. Yes, similar accusations can be made about the hyperbole from left wing personalities, too. However, and to my experience, at least they seem to be defending us little guys with their rhetoric. They don't try to scare us into siding with the wealthy in the hopes that someday the wealthy will shower us with generosity in the form of....what?....jobs at Walmart? Oh, and the so-called "liberal media" actually seem to care about and cite real science and actual facts. Bonus points in my book for that sort of behavior.)
Conservative spokespeople from Boehner and McConnell on down through Faux (sorry, Fox) News, The Drudge Report, and tea partiers everywhere would have us all believe that if we don't stop hating the wealthy and don't start supporting even more and more concessions - Boehner is actually proposing lowering the tax rates?!? - we're doomed. They seem to actually think - or more likely, want us to believe - that we in the middle class will actually witness a physical manifestation of the disappearance of "job creators" a la John Galt if the middle class comes on top in this so-called war of the classes.
In other words, if the middle class triumphs and taxes go up on the wealthy, the wealthy will retreat to points unknown while the rest of us are left standing around wondering from where our next hand out will appear. [MORE]
[Curator's Note: I guess there's always a conspiracy theory in TeaParty land...]
House Republican leaders used a secret criteria list to decide which conservatives to purge from powerful House committees, Breitbart News has learned. As this time, it appears they will keep the criteria list hidden from the public, too. Spokespeople for members of House GOP leadership have refused to discuss details about the list on the record with press. Because GOP Leadership won't discuss the list, it’s unclear what specific criteria the list contained and how much of a role it played in the conservative purge. It’s also unclear which member of House Republican leadership initiated this process.
In remarks to the Heritage Foundation’s Bloggers Briefing on Tuesday, Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp confirmed the existence of such a list.
“We’ve heard from multiple sources that someone walked in with a list of votes and said if you didn’t reach a particular scorecard of what was considered the right vote – which by the way, in most cases, was not the conservative position – then [they said] ‘we’re going to have to remove you from the committee,’” Huelskamp said.
“All that took place behind closed doors, which is again a problem with Washington, D.C. – whether it’s the budget negotiations, whether it’s everything else, it’s usually done behind closed doors," he explained. "I think, as conservatives, this is where we can win: We’ve got to be willing and able to talk about things in public instead of being afraid of actual public scrutiny.”
Huelskamp later told Breitbart News he thinks House Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Whip Kevin McCarthy owe it to the American people to be transparent about this decision making process – and that they should publicly release the list.
“In the name of transparency and openness, they most certainly should release the criteria,” Huelskamp said in an email. “Republican leadership promised America a new era of transparency – they should deliver on it.”
Huelskamp was one of four conservative Republicans that GOP leadership removed from committees on which they’d have the ability to affect fiscal policy. He and Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash were pulled from the House Budget Committee and Reps. David Schweikert of Arizona and Walter Jones of North Carolina got yanked off the House Financial Services Committee.
The conventional wisdom on fiscal cliff negotiations is that President Barack Obama holds most, if not all, of the leverage. If Republicans refuse to budge, the government automatically imposes policies that Republicans fear—higher tax rates and sharp cuts to military spending.
Insofar that the GOP has any leverage, it comes from the fact that the White House wants to protect the recovery, which is threatened by the fiscal cliff’s combination of large spending cuts and tax increases. But since refusing to cooperate leads to outcomes they want to avoid as well, they have a strong incentive to work with Obama.
Fred Barnes, writing at The Weekly Standard, begs to disagree. By his lights, it’s Republicans who have the leverage in this fight, and they should use it to force concessions from the president:
Republicans are in a stronger position than in 2009. Obama isn’t. He won reelection thanks to a negative campaign of historic proportions. He has no mandate. And now he’s made the mistake of thinking he’s more popular and powerful than he really is. This is how second terms crumble.
Barnes advises Republicans to adopt the Simpson-Bowles framework, make several key concessions on taxes and spending, embrace Medicare reform, and force Obama to choose between their preferences or get nothing. It’s an odd list, considering that Simpson-Bowles calls for full expiration of the Bush tax cuts—which Republicans, including Barnes,
oppose—and the fact that Obama can harm GOP priorities by declining these proposals—which include substituting military cuts for cuts to the social safety net—and allowing the United States to go “over the cliff.”
Republicans could follow the Barnes approach, but it wouldn’t get them any closer to accomplishing their goals, insofar that they even have them.
Indeed, as a general rule, conservatives should just avoid advice from Fred Barnes, who spent most of the year intoning about Mitt Romney’s inevitability and Obama’s pending rendezvous with the ash-heap of history. His cheerleading almost certainly led some conservatives to dismiss the possibility that Obama could win re-election.
Which gets to a somewhat broader point. You would think that after the past year—when conservative media failed its readers, listeners, and viewers—there would be a new push to better inform the people it serves. But this requires some sort of mechanism for accountability. In the absence of that, there’s no incentive for conservative pundits—such as Barnes—to re-evaluate their assumptions about the political landscape and try to give their readers a more accurate depiction of the political landscape.
In other words, a repeat of this year’s failure is far more likely than not.
South Korean pop sensation Gangnam Style is obviously the most popular viral video of 2012–if not ever. Recently, PSY has finally dethroned Justin Bieber as the artist with the #1 most viewed video YouTube.
The song has seeped so deep into the American culture that even Bill O’Reilly, famous for acting as America’s cranky old grandpa, has heard of the song. In a recent segment, he talked with Keith Ablow, and attempted to ‘dissect‘ the pop music video.
Americans for Tax Reform Chief Grover Norquist predicts Republicans will win the game of fiscal chicken with the President and foresees a huge new wave of the Tea Party.
In my interview, I asked Norquist about his being the latest Obama and Obama Media diversion in what is supposed to be a serious discussion about the future of taxation and spending. He brushed it off saying he’s used to it. He also said the President is the least serious player in the legislative scrum. He was heartened by the way Republican Senators were demanding today that any ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations be on C-Span and any bill forthcoming should be on the web for at least a week was a “big break through; good stuff.” In fact, he said, “I think we have a shot at [getting transparency] it; I think this is breaking well.”
Thinking about what Annabel Park wrote last night (on the Coffee Party FB page) reminds me of the power we give language and the ways in which language is used by those in power: to distract us (at best), or adjust our thinking (at worst).
Orwell captured the idea best with his notion of doublespeak and today it seems frighteningly prescient... particularly the idea that so many find strength through ignorance. We all owe it to ourselves to educate and be educated, to know history (and not only our own), and to engage in thoughtful discussion. Only through truth and knowledge does the future brighten. -- M. Charney
From the Occupy movement to top GOP strategists, forces from both sides of the aisle are uniting to combat the corrupting influence of money in politics. The result? The American Anti-Corruption Act.
To read the act, sign your name, and learn more. www.Represent.Us
Republican shock jock Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday that he accepts responsibility for Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2012 presidential election.
“Just as I predicted, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “This election was lost because of your host, Rush Limbaugh. I am the primary reason.”
While that’s not exactly correct, Limbaugh was in fact the first big target of one of President Barack Obama’s principle reelection strategies: winning with women.
Bill O'Reilly took aim at "far left" critics of his election night comment that the "white establishment is now the minority" and that "there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things.
"Stephen colbert's lawyer helps him find a solution for $800,000 in leftover super pac money."
If this doesn't convince us that Citizens United is the worst Supreme Court decision of the modern era, then I suspect that nothing ever will. Some serious overhaul of the tax code is absolutely required but should have nothing to do with mortgage interest deductions and other codes which benefit middle class and poor citizens. Those are not tax expenditures that ought to even be part of the discussion about "tax loop holes." The only loop holes that need closing are the loopholes that benefit rich corporations and individuals earning $250,000.00 or more in taxable income.
Big money has completely corrupted our electoral process, our elected officials, and even appointed officials like Supreme Court Justices who were once thought to be above such influences. Unless and until big money is taken out of politics, those of us outside the 1% will continue to be just chattel. - Greg Russak
Controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter was invited -- and then disinvited -- to speak at Fordham University in New York last week.
Fordham President Joseph M. McShane, S.J., chastised his campus' chapter of the College Republicans for inviting Coulter -- who recently referred to President Obama as a "retard" -- to speak on campus, paying her with student fees. He addressed the entire university with his decision in a campuswide email.
"To say that I am disappointed with the judgment and maturity of the College Republicans, however, would be a tremendous understatement," McShane wrote. "There are many people who can speak to the conservative point of view with integrity and conviction, but Ms. Coulter is not among them. Her rhetoric is often hateful and needlessly provocative—more heat than light—and her message is aimed squarely at the darker side of our nature."
It’s either the political theater equivalent of a hissy fit or the start of more than a dozen new countries: Citizens in 15 states have filed petitions to secede from the United States after Tuesday’s election.
Macy's popularity plummets for failing to dump the Trump Collection...
"According to figures just released by YouGov BrandIndex, Macy’s loyalty rating among female consumers tumbled 45 percent—hardly tidings of comfort and joy as the holiday shopping season moves into high gear."
Mitt Romney was channeling former Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis when he gushed, at the first presidential debate in Denver, that "states are the laboratory of democracy."
Perhaps he meant meth labs.
Still under the influence of the 2010 conservative landslide, state lawmakers over the last 12 months alternatively sought to ban abstract concepts, combat invisible threats, and generally strip away rights from the constituents who sent them to their respective chambers. In a year in which Washington was synonymous with inaction, America's state legislatures offered the best possible argument for gridlock. After all, sometimes getting things done can be a lot worse than the alternative.
No statehouse was immune from crazy. But a few stood out above the rest. Here's a quick look at the worst of the worst. Rankings are purely scientific:
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1) Tennessee: MoJo's cutting-edge algorithm awards a 500-point bonus to any state legislature that inspires a news story with the phrase "gateway body parts" and "governor signs" in the same paragraph.
NEW YORK (AP) - Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham is off the air - at least temporarily.
She said Tuesday that she's leaving her distributor, Talk Radio Network, after more than nine years because her contract is up. Ingraham said she is in discussions with other distributors about her show, which currently airs on 325 stations nationally.
Talkers magazine says the conservative Ingraham is the most-listened to woman on radio, with an estimated 5.75 million listeners a week. Talkers said that ranks her among the top eight radio hosts overall.
In the meantime, she said she'll keep her opinions flowing on her website, on Twitter and during Fox News Channel appearances.
Our Kenyan-born, secret Muslim president has apparently cooked up a sneaky plot to subvert the 22nd Amendment.
Among the main proponents of this theory—which comes in several different flavors—is Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a publishing firm that hawks financial advice—and has a history of promoting dubious claims. Even before the president won reelection, the company began blasting out emails to subscribers of various conservative newsletters, warning of the coming third term of Obama. The emails went out as paid advertisements through the right-leaning Townhall.com, Newsmax, Human Events, and Gingrich Marketplace (a spokesman for Newt Gingrich and the vice president of Human Events both claimed this email blast was a mistake).
[Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.... -MC]
In the weeks since President Obama’s re-election, Republicans around the country have been wondering how to proceed. Some conservatives in Texas have been asking a far more pointed question: how to secede.
Secession fever has struck parts of Texas, which Mitt Romney won by nearly 1.3 million votes.
Sales of bumper stickers reading “Secede” — one for $2, or three for $5 — have increased at TexasSecede.com. In East Texas, a Republican official sent out an e-mail newsletter saying it was time for Texas and Vermont to each “go her own way in peace” and sign a free-trade agreement among the states....
I wish I had an answer for you, Bob, but it's only speculation, since I can't count myself among the same sub-genre of Republicans who would consider such a thing. It feels like lashing out, but I do think it deserves a response, primarily because the WH set that expectation. We'll just have to wait and see....
A day before a Friday deadline, Gov. Rick Perry announced Texas would not set up a key component of the Affordable Care Act, a health-insurance exchange that would allow individuals and small businesses to find coverage online at the most favorable price.
The governor reiterated his opposition in a letter released Thursday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
"As long as the federal government has the ability to force unknown mandates and costs upon our citizens, while retaining the sole power in approving what an exchange looks like, the notion of a state exchange is merely an illusion," Perry said in the letter. "It would not be fiscally responsible to put hard-working Texans on the financial hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not even been written."
Proponents of the exchange contend it will allow the state to significantly reduce the size of its uninsured population, the largest in the United States.
In the wake of last week's election results, a few Republican governors have had second thoughts about their opposition to the program.
They include Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who has been, along with Perry, one of the most vociferous opponents of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare.
"The election is over and President Obama won," Scott told the Associated Press this week. "I'm responsible for the families of Florida. … If I can get to yes, I want to get to yes."
Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, both Republicans, also declined to participate.
North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, said her state would pursue a partnership model with the federal government.
Every state is supposed to have an exchange by Jan. 1, 2014, when the Affordable Care Act will require most Americans to have insurance.
For Texas and other states that refuse to set up exchanges, the federal government will do it for them.
Georgia state Senators held a meeting last month to discuss Agenda 21, a supposed UN conspiracy to deny private property rights, which Obama will help accomplish through a mind-control technique known as Delphi.
The meeting was to discuss Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement aimed at promoting sustainable development. It is also the target of conservatives who believe that it is part of a conspiracy to forcibly move suburbanites to cities.
Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the meeting, which was called by the Republican Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, took place at the Capitol and was led by a former member of the Georgia Tea Party (who was forced out because of various conspiracy theories, including birtherism), Field Searcy. A 90-minute screening of the documentary Agenda: Grinding America Down was also shown, as was a video from conservative pundit Dick Morris, who warns of Obama’s “War on Suburbs” and plan to relocate everyone to urban areas.
For roughly half of the country, or at least those who strongly following both politics and history, the 2012 election serves as a harbinger of the fundamental transformation expedited by Barack Obama that will, ultimately, cause the sun to set on...
You have to hand it to those Fox Newsies for partisan gumption. They didn’t let any lack of actual evidence of Obama administration wrongdoing in the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal stop them from theorizing and suggesting that there was.
On a personal note, I believe that science is a treasure that we have. Thank you all the genius that has helped us to understand, and continue to learn about, the phenomenons of the universe.
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