WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHEATERS

Robert Reich in REASON relates an anecdote about one of his former law school classmates who now works for a big DC law firm that has offices in several other countries. The lawyer brags about how the firm fiddles the accounting to put all the losses in the U.S. and all the profit overseas and that drastically lowers the taxes the firm pays.

I posted before a passage from Acts of the Apostles that shows the earliest Christians were socialists and just after those passages, there's a description of what happened to a couple who tried to hide some of their money.

Acts of the Apostles
Chapter 5

1 But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; 2 with his wife's knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles' feet. 3 "Ananias," Peter asked, "why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us F41 but to God!" 5 Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it. 6 The young men came and wrapped up his body, F42 then carried him out and buried him. 7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price." And she said, "Yes, that was the price." 9 Then Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

MARTIN FELDSTEIN: STILL AN IDIOT

Supply-side idiotarian Prof. Feldstein doesn't understand that to increase consumer spending, we need to get money in the hands of people who will SPEND the money. There's no sense giving any to the top 1%.

As economy lags, what levers to pull?
Pressure is mounting for the US government to act soon to prevent a recession.

By Mark Trumbull Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the January 7, 2008 edition

Another idea, floated by Harvard University's Mr. Feldstein, is a uniform rebate for each US taxpayer.

THIS IS A BETTER IDEA:

Chad Stone, chief economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says any stimulus package should be carefully targeted to bolster consumer spending and help households most in need. Extending unemployment insurance and expanding food-stamp aid are two examples, he says.

RON PAUL FANS PUSH BACK AGAINST FAUX NEWS

First, they confront Frank Luntz, the whore who sucked up to Sean Hannity, and then they gave the Great Sean a piece of their mind. This wasn't a case of pure partisanship on the part of Paul fans; even the NH GOP was upset that FAUX decided to cut Paul from the debate:


New Hampshire G.O.P. Backs Out of Fox Forum
By Michael Falcone
January 5, 2008, 6:58 pm

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Ron Paul raised nearly $20 million in the last quarter, likely more than any of his rivals. He garnered 10 percent of the Republican vote in the Iowa Caucuses, surpassing Rudolph W. Giuliani. And he’s in New Hampshire this weekend on the airwaves and the campaign trail before the Jan. 8 primary.

But the Texas congressman and presidential contender won’t be getting a seat and the table at Sunday’s Fox News Republican candidate forum.

On Saturday the New Hampshire Republican party expressed its disappointment with the decision to exclude Mr. Paul and Representative Duncan Hunter of California by severing its partnership with Fox.

“We believe that it is inconsistent with the first in the nation primary tradition to be excluding candidates in a pre-primary setting,” said Fergus Cullen, chair of the state G.O.P. party. “All candidates regardless of how well known they are or how much money they’ve raised should be treated equally here.”

WHY FATS LIMBAUGH IS IMPORTANT

It's not because he's amusing and certainly not because he tells the truth, it's because he's the major spokesperson for the wingnuts.

Human Events made Fats "Man of the Year" and Mark Levin notes that:

What is it about Rush that drives the left crazy (that is, crazier than they already are)? The answer is actually quite simple: Rush is the most important voice in the conservative movement. Others want to be, some claim to be, but he is. More than any conservative politician, columnist or pundit, Rush speaks for us.

Erick at RedState participated in the selection process at Human Events and writes:

Rush Limbaugh has been the one honest broker this year for conservatives. He is the guy who has been fair, balanced, unafraid, and willing to speak tough truths with love.

IS REDSTATE THE PREMIER WINGNUT BLOG?

By premier I don't mean page views, I mean connections to the GOP Noise Machine. I noted below the RS seems to have at least a semi-official status and today I learned that it's also the recipient of wingnut welfare:

First, a number of you want to know why we need money if we're connected to
Eagle Publishing. That one, to me, is easy -- Eagle contributed $55,000.00 to
the redesign process already. RedState earns Eagle exactly zero dollars.

From SOURCEWATCH:

Eagle Publishing is a conservative publishing company that was run by Thomas L. Phillips until 1999.

On its website it states that it is "considered by many America's leading conservative publishing company ... Our full range of products and services provide independent thinkers with perspective and solutions favoring the traditional American values of free enterprise, limited government, and individual liberty." [1]

It is a parent company of conservative book publisher Regnery Publishing. It also publishes the magazine Human Events.

EARMARKS FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE

That's another example of GOP hypocrisy. Now that the Democrats control the House and the Senate, earmarks are suddenly TERRIBLE and Presidential action is needed ASAP!!!


Dear RedState Reader,
Tomorrow the President will decide whether or not the Constitution is still a legally binding document.
Seriously.
After Congress passed the omnibus spending bill, members of Congress inserted into the conference report that accompanied the legislation more than 9,000 earmarks worth several billion dollars.
The earmarks were not voted on by the House and Senate. Yet, Congress maintains that the earmarks are legally binding. This violates the process for passing legislation in the Constitution of the United States.
Tomorrow, the President will decide whether he should issue an executive order telling government agencies to ignore the earmarks. If the President issues the executive order, he will be enforcing the legislative process the Constitution says we must follow. If the President does not issue the executive order, he will be rewarding Congress for ignoring the Constitution.
Please call the President at 202-456-1111 and tell him to issue the Executive Order on Earmarks.
You can also email comments@whitehouse.gov.
Also, please call Senator Mitch McConnell who is pushing the President to ignore the Constitution. Tell Mitch McConnell to stop ignoring the Constitution and support the executive order. You can call him at 202-224-2541.
All the best,
Erick Erickson Editor, RedState.com

THE NOT-SO-FAIR TAX

Contrary to AEI's pessimism, the Huckster backs the Fair Tax and that would be great for the top 1%. From the NY Times:

“Even with the rebate counted the way FairTax supporters want it calculated,” said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative tax analyst and policy maker in the Reagan administration who has emerged as one of the proposal’s most powerful critics, “there would be an enormous shift in the tax burden from the wealthy to those with lower and middle incomes.”

REAL SUCCESS IN THE WAR ON TERROR

Yemen, Saudi Arabia and even the U.S. have had success "deprogramming" Islamic extremists and this op-ed in the LA Times claims that the same tactic has worked in Indonesia:

Fighting terrorism with terrorists
Using former radicals to turn around militants
in the making is showing remarkable success.

By Joshua Kurlantzick January 6, 2008

To win militants' hearts and minds, Indonesia instituted a program called deradicalization. Realizing that hard-core militants will not listen to prominent Muslim moderates, whom they view as soft, as irreligious or as tools of the government, the deradicalization initiative employs other militants -- former terrorist fighters or trainers. These are men like Nasir Abas, once a Jemaah Islamiah leader, who have sworn off most types of violence. Former fighters who agree to help the deradicalization program often receive incentives, such as reduced sentences or assistance for their families. The co-opted radicals are sent as advocates into Indonesian prisons, major breeding grounds of militants. In the jails and other sites, they work to convince would-be terrorists that attacking civilians is not acceptable in Islam, to show that terror actually alienates average people from their religion, to suggest that the police are not anti-Islam and to exploit internal antagonisms within terror networks to turn militants against each other. These intense debates, which rely partly on Koranic scholarship, can last for months. Meanwhile, other former militants appear on Indonesian television to express remorse for having killed their countrymen and women.

Other countries have created variants on the program. Egypt has established a deradicalization initiative in which former jihadist thinkers argue that the Islamic concepts that militants use to justify violence are wrong. Singapore, Malaysia, Jordan and Yemen have enacted reeducation strategies, often focusing on prison populations. Drawing on Jakarta's experience, nations such as Pakistan have launched deradicalization cooperation with Indonesia. Even Western nations facing radical threats seem to be learning. The Netherlands this summer announced it would spend the equivalent of $40 million to launch deradicalization programs, train imams and other religious leaders and promote intercultural dialogue. In perhaps the most sweeping Western initiative, Britain, stunned by a wave of terror attacks committed by British citizens, has attempted to build far deeper relationships with domestic Muslim groups, relying on them to help deradicalize potential young militants who could be transformed into suicide bombers. "Our strategy of funding and engagement must shift significantly toward those organizations that are taking a proactive leadership role in tackling extremism," declared British Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly last year. In other words, Britain has finally learned what Indonesia already knew.

AEI'S TAKE ON THE HUCKSTER

Short version: Huck is just like a European Christian Social Democrat. Implicit version: Huck will be bad for the top 1%.

THE BEST HILLARY CLIP I'VE SEEN SO FAR

Some people, not all of them wingnuts, think Hillary is "shrill," an epithet that I don't get. The standard I would use is Tammy Bruce, who definitely has a shrill voice. Sure, you can find an audio clip here and there where Hillary's voice is a little rough but that's because of all the talking she does. Jeralyn at TalkLeft linked to this clip that shows Hillary has a decent sense of humor:

ROMNEY ATTACKS FREDO, AGAIN!

Romney has been trying to put some distance between himself and Pres. Fredo. The Swamp has his latest attempt:

Romney: No more 'my way or highway' diplomacy

Posted at 2:46 PM

by Rick Pearson

"We have too much of a 'it's our way or the highway' attitude as we go around the world. When you're working with people in other nations, foreign policy is no longer the way it was last century. We got a lot of people really good at foreign policy in the 20th century—which was more like checkerboards, our side versus their side. And we jump them and they jump us back," he said.

”Now it's more like three-dimensional chess. We have to have the capacity to build relationships of very differing nations across a wide array of populations and that capacity I have and will bring with me people of great skill and experience to help advise so I can listen to their perspectives," Romney said.

So far, the wingnuts haven't responded, perhaps wisely because this is a lose-lose issue for the GOP.

STUNNING INCOMPETENCE

Nicholas William Leeson was rogue derivatives trader at Barings Bank. In INFECTIOUS GREED, page 241, Frank Partnoy lets us know managerial incompetence contributed to the fiasco:

Leeson hid his losses by entering losing trades into an error account, labeled #88888, which was not connected to the rest of the Barings computer network.

Now, Barings collapsed and was eventually sold for £1. How many of Leeson's supervisors were charged with criminal neglect?

MORE ON "REAL AMERICANS" & THE GOP

Internment Camp Malkin found this quote:

Rep. Duncan Hunter’s wife is in Wyoming and gave Westerners a boost:

Lynne Hunter spent Thursday in Rock Springs and was headed through Rawlins and Laramie on her way to Cheyenne for convention day.

“I think Wyoming’s very important because this is where real America is,” she said. “I don’t think real America is Iowa. I don’t mean that in a mean way, but this is where the real people are, in the Western states.”

MORE WINGNUT STUPIDITY

Mark Steyn, a major wingnut idiot, writes this:

It's not the economy, stupid. The economy's fine. It's gangbusters.

This is the same line that Sean Insannity pushes on his radio show and you've got to wonder how many are finally going to see that the wingnuts aren't talking about reality:

U.S. Stocks Fall After Job Growth Misses Forecast

By Elizabeth Stanton

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. stock market got off to its worst start since 2000 after government reports on jobs and manufacturing added to concern the economy will sink into recession.

``The economy's clearly downshifting rapidly,'' said James Swanson, chief investment strategist at MFS Investment Management in Boston, which oversees $204 billion.

BOR: UNFIT TO REPORT

Falafel-boy O'Reilly goes to an Obama rally and acts out. He pushes an Obama staffer and swears at him, then claims innocence. Even the Secret Service got involved:

Secret Service agents who were nearby flanked O 'Reilly after he pushed Nicholson. They told O'Reilly he needed to calm down and get behind the fence-like barricade that contained the press.

Crooks & Liars has a clip of the FAUX News coverage and HuffPo had this pic of The Loudmouth:

SOMEBODY SHOULD SUE THE RATINGS AGENCIES

After all, they are the ones who handed out the AAA and AA ratings to a large part of the Big ShitPile.

$6.5bn of CDOs face ratings downgrades

By Paul J Davies in London

Published: January 4 2008 19:08 | Last updated: January 4 2008 19:08

The potential CDO downgrades announced Friday come as a direct result of downgrades given to nearly 800 mortgage-backed bond deals by S&P in late December. About two-thirds of the deals put on review Friday are so-called high-grade structured finance CDOs, which means they invested mostly in the safest AAA- and AA-rated slices of mortgage-backed bonds and similar securities.

FEDERAL SPENDING & RECEIPTS SINCE WW II

From National Priorities Project

RED SCARE: THE SEQUEL

Bill Gertz of the Wshington Times is very worried that the Jihadists have taken over the Pentagon. Apparently, Stephen Coughlin's contract won't be renewed and Gertz attributes that to "pro-Muslim officials within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England." Coughlin was supposed to help "develop a war of ideas against extremism." but what's he done so far?

THE HUCKSTER GETS SOME SUPPORT

From surprising places!

Mark "Foamer" Levin writes in The Corner:

I am informed that Dick Morris and Newt Gingrich are helping Huckabee behind the scenes. Morris has been everywhere today promoting Huckabee.

Huge Ego Hewitt drops this tidbit:

A couple of weeks ago, there was a press release that indicated Rick Tyler, long time communications director for Gingrich, was taking a leave of absence from his day job, and helping out the communications effort for Mike Huckabee.

FEEL THE HATE!

The Huckster wins and the other parts of the GOP go nuts and even attack their very own. Remember when the GOP told us that people like Iowans were "the Real Americansm" as opposed to the liberal wackos on the Coasts? Well, it turns out that the GOP wackos have had a change of mind:

Frank J. at IMAO:

If you shoved a monkey in a paint can and put that in a paint shaker for twenty minutes, what would eventually emerge from the can would be a more rational decision maker than your average Iowan.

Stephen Green at VodkaPundit:

Dear Iowa Republicans,

I’ll put this in language even your tiny little Iowa brains can understand: What the f*** is wrong with you people?

MORE ON THE DONNER PARTY (GOP)

The striking disparity in turnout in Iowa between the Dems and the GOP should be encouraging for those of us who realize all the harm the GOP has done to America. For the others,not so much

...some Republicans were already fretting over Iowa caucus returns that showed 239,000 Democrats turned out and only about 116,000 Republicans.
"November could be dark," said GOP strategist Scott Reed, voicing a concern that others in his party expressed privately.

Chris Bowers has an analysis of the exit polls and it does look really bleak for the GOP:

Which caucus each group attended

Moderates: Democratic 88%--12% Republican
Independents: Democratic 75%--25% Republican

SPRING 07 TALK RADIO RATINGS

Only 6 liberals made it into the top 20. :-(

From Talkers Magazine:

A LITTLE MORE BILL KRISTOL IDIOCY

(h/t Glenn Greenwald)

In an interesting article that looks at the wingnut nepotism involved in the Kristol hiring by the NYT, author Charles Kaiser provides another example of Kristol's ignorance and naivete:

April 28, 2003:
The United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably. But these are only two battles.

STILL A CHEERLEADER

Despite plenty of evidence that our economy is going in the tank, Pres. Fredo sticks to his "Iraq Strategy" and says things are basically OK.

Bush says economy sound; mum on stimulus plan
Fri Jan 4, 2008 5:48pm EST

By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Friday that the U.S. economy was on solid footing despite a weak employment report, and gave no hint of what his administration may have in store to bolster growth.

"This economy of ours is on a solid foundation, but we can't take economic growth for granted," Bush told reporters after meeting with his so-called Working Group on Financial Markets. "If the foundation is strong, yet indicators are mixed, the worst thing that Congress can do is raise taxes."

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCE ON EVOLUTION

Science, Evolution, and Creationism

(EXCERPTS)

The discovery and understanding of the processes of evolution represent one of the most powerful achievements in the history of science. Evolution successfully explains the diversity of life on Earth and has been confirmed repeatedly through observation and experiment in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines.

Evolutionary science provides the foundation for modern biology. It has opened the door to entirely new types of medical, agricultural, and environmental research, and has led to the development of technologies that can help prevent and combat disease. Regrettably, effective science education in our schools is being undermined by efforts to introduce non-scientific concepts about evolution into science classrooms.

Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a process. The concept has withstood extensive testing by tens of thousands of specialists in biology, medicine, anthropology, geology, chemistry, and other fields. Discoveries in different fields have reinforced one another,and evidence for evolution has continued to accumulate for 150 years.

HUCK WINS, FATS LOSES

Despite Fats Limbaugh trashing the Huckster right before the Iowa caucus, Huck still won! According to Fats' own count, he's on 9 stations in Iowa, so it's not like he wasn't heard.

GOOD FOR THE HUCKSTER!!!!

Slick Mitt got his butt handed to him in Iowa! Via CNN:

With 85 percent of Republican precincts reporting, Huckabee had the support of 34 percent of voters, compared to 25 percent for Mitt Romney. Fred Thompson had 14 percent, John McCain had 13 percent and Ron Paul had 10 percent. ... Rudy Giuliani, who has turned the focus of his campaign to the February 5 "Super Tuesday" primaries, trailed with 4 percent.

The Fundies were a big part of Huck's win:

Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee was the big winner in Iowa's GOP caucuses Thursday thanks to big support from two groups of voters: Women and evangelical Christians.

The latter made up the majority of Republican caucus goers, and CNN's entrance polling showed Huckabee -- a former Baptist pastor -- won 46 percent of that group.

Rival Mitt Romney, who has heavily courted social conservatives, only drew 19 percent of those voters.

Huckabee also overwhelmingly won the female vote, picking up support from about 40 percent of women compared to only 24 percent for Romney.

ANY REASON WILL DO...

as long was we cut taxes for the very wealthiest. Jonathan Chait in The Big Con (pp. 121-24) reminds us of the many rationales put forward by the criminal Bush regime for cutting taxes.

The first was to eliminate the overpayments, otherwise known as budget surplus. The second was to stimulate the economy. The third and most preposterous was to make the tax code fairer to the poor!

PRICED OUT OF THE MARKET?

Another sign that the middle class has lost ground during the Bush regime, from the Christian Science Monitor:

The typical home cost about three times the average annual household income in 1990. Today, it costs more than four times household income, which is currently about $48,000 a year, according to the Census Bureau.

THE GOP == PARTY OF THE TOP 0.1%

I recall hearing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell say something like he and his GOP colleagues would never vote to raise taxes. This was in the context of altering the AMT so middle-class families wouldn't fell the bite and making up for the corresponding loss of revenue by raising taxes on the extremely wealthy who currently only pay 15%.

Paying for Tax Fix Divides Dems, GOP

By JIM ABRAMS – Dec 12, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans say it's OK not to cover the $50 billion in revenue losses from Congress' annual alternative minimum tax fix to save millions of families from higher taxes — even as the GOP president counts on revenues from that higher levy to reduce the red ink in his budget.

Senate Republicans, however, are using their filibuster powers to force the Senate into maintaining low rates for investment fund managers and accepting an unpaid-for AMT fix.

Republicans, said GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, "will not raise taxes in exchange for blocking a tax that was not meant to be."

Congress enacted "paygo" into law during the first President Bush's administration. But that law, which fostered the balanced budgets during the late Clinton years, was allowed to lapse in 2002, when Republicans were working on the Bush tax cuts.

SUB-PRIME HITS ART BELL

Well, Art rarely hosts these days but Coast to Coast AM is still on the air. Tonight, Mish Shedlock was the guest who laid out the problems caused by Wall Street Greed. This is a bad sign for the Clap Louder Crowd, like Hannity and Limbaugh, because there's some overlap between the listeners.

A PERFECT PAIRING!!!

(h/t Memeo)

20 minutes ago
The Corner:
Fred Thompson, Reagan Conservative Find

5 minutes ago
The Politico:
Fred Thompson may drop out Find

THE MARKETS ARE ALSO HEADED DOWN

DJI == Dow Jones Industrial Average

GSPC == S & P 500

IXIC == NASDAQ


SOURCE: YAHOO

MORE ON RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE

(h/t Memeo)

Scaife is one of the major wingnut benefactors and this article in Vanity Fair goes into some detail about his messy divorce. Here's a little more info about the wingnut underworld:

It is this contradictory bundle of a human being who arrives on a rainy November evening at the mahogany-paneled Duquesne Club, in downtown Pittsburgh, the sanctuary of that city’s upper crust, to be honored with the Speaker Franklin Award at a fund-raising dinner for the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania think tank affiliated with the Heritage Foundation. An invocation praises Scaife as a selfless “servant-leader” who, like Joseph in the book of Genesis, “could have just worried about himself. But like Joseph,” he worried about his country. In a video tribute, former attorney general Edwin Meese calls Richard Mellon Scaife “the unseen hand behind so many important causes,” the man who brought “balance and sound principles back to the public arena” and “quietly helped to lay the brick and mortar for an entire movement.”

STILL A LONG WAY TO GO IN IRAQ

According to Iraq Body Count, the civilian death toll in 2007 was still horrendous:


Year Civilians Killed
2003 10,077 – 12,010
2004 9,741 – 10,573
2005 13,071 – 14,324
2006 25,699 – 27,519
2007 22,586 – 24,159

MORE NEO-CON FAILURE

Here's another reason war whore Bill Kristol shouldn't have been given a column at the NYT.

US General Predicts Record Poppy Haul
By JASON STRAZIUSO – 7 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. general in charge of NATO's Afghanistan mission said Wednesday he expects another year of "explosive growth" in the country's poppy fields, a harvest militants will turn into weapons for use against Afghan and NATO troops.

After a record haul in 2006, Afghan farmers increased opium production some 34 percent in 2007. Afghanistan last year produced 93 percent of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin. Its export value was estimated at $4 billion.

Links between drug growers and insurgents have been suspected to be growing in recent years.

Proof of that was made clear when Afghan and NATO forces last month recaptured from militants the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province, the world's largest poppy-growing region.
When Afghan and NATO forces moved into the town, they discovered dozens of heroin labs and stockpiles of drugs worth $500 million in street value, according to U.S. Ambassador William Wood.

McNeill estimated that insurgents get 20 percent to 40 percent of their income from drugs, but he said some U.N. officials have told him the number could be as high as 60 percent.

FATS VS. THE HUCKSTER

I'm glad a major spokesperson for conservatives - Rush Limbaugh - admitted this, according to Politico:

"Ladies and gentlemen, Gov. Huckabee, mighty fine man and is a great Christian, is not a conservative, he’s just not,"

This effectively breaks the tie between the Fundies and the GOP.

SO MUCH FOR STATES' RIGHTS

An insistence on states' rights has been part of the GOP mantra since Raygun but doesn't apply when it may offend important sections of the GOP's base, as we saw in the Schiavo case. I'm glad to see Arizona is fighting this.

Arizona joins California suit against EPA over emissions
Associated Press - January 2, 2008 3:44 PM ET

PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona is joining with California and 14 other states to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency for denying its right to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and SUVs.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard says the state is joining the suit because "reducing greenhouse gases is vital to address state climate change."

LIBERALISM APPEALS TO THE MAJORITY

(h/t Jonathan Chait, The Big Con, p. 120)

Prof. James Stimson created this graph of public support for an activist, liberal Federal Government.

1993 NAFTA VOTES

Some wingnuts are lying about NAFTA so I thought I'd set the record straight.

The House Vote:

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Democratic	102	156
Republican	132	43
Independent		1
TOTALS	234	200

The Senate Vote:

NAYs ---38
Akaka (D-HI) Boxer (D-CA) Bryan (D-NV) Burns (R-MT) Byrd (D-WV) Campbell (D-CO) Cohen (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Craig (R-ID) D'Amato (R-NY) Exon (D-NE) Faircloth (R-NC) Feingold (D-WI)	Feinstein (D-CA) Ford (D-KY) Glenn (D-OH) Heflin (D-AL) Helms (R-NC) Hollings (D-SC) Inouye (D-HI) Kempthorne (R-ID) Kohl (D-WI) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Levin (D-MI) Metzenbaum (D-OH) Mikulski (D-MD)	Moynihan (D-NY) Reid (D-NV) Riegle (D-MI) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sarbanes (D-MD) Sasser (D-TN) Shelby (D-AL) Smith (R-NH) Stevens (R-AK) Thurmond (R-SC) Wellstone (D-MN) Wofford (D-PA)

ROMNEY TURNS TRUTH-TELLER ABOUT IRAQ

The Mittster admits what almost all rational & informed Americans know: Fredo fucked up in Iraq.

Romney says Bush mismanaged Iraq war
Tue Jan 1, 2008 3:37pm EST

By Andy Sullivan

JOHNSTON, Iowa (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Tuesday the Bush administration mismanaged the Iraq war, distancing himself from his party's unpopular president two days before Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential contest.

"I think we did a less than effective job in managing the conflict following the collapse of Saddam Hussein," the former Massachusetts governor said at a news conference. "I think we were under prepared for what occurred, understaffed, under planned, and, in some respects, under managed."

How will the BushBots react to this stunning indictment of not only the "War President" but also the GOP's undeserved reputation as the Party of National Security?