SAME OLD RIGHTWING BLOG TACTIC

Robert Ringer claimed that there is no right to collective bargaining and on his blog, I posted the 1982 Reagan quote.   My comment was "awaiting moderation" and now has been erased.

SPREADING LIES

You may know that Frank Buckles was the last surviving WW I veteran and some have wanted to give him the honor of  lying in state in the rotunda.   So far, Speaker Boehner has denied permission but you wouldn't know that if you listened to Mark Levin's sub for today, Michael Barry of KTRH in Housto.  Barry blamed the refusal on Pres. Obama and claimed that Obama did this because he hates the military.

Here's my evidence:

Boehner blocks move to honor Frank Buckles in Capitol Rotunda; West Virginia senators furious

By Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, March 4th 2011, 4:46 PM
Two West Virginia senators and a documentary filmmaker are expressing their dismay after House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blocked a movement to allow Frank Buckles' body to lay repose in the Capitol Rotunda.

The Buckles' family spokesperson, David DeJonge, told The State Journal of Charleston, W.V. that he wasn't contacted for any of the decisions surrounding Buckles' last honors.

He said he was extremely disappointed that Boehner had blocked the move to honor Buckles.

"This is an error made by the leadership of our country that not only affects the U.S. but the perception of the U.S. by the entire world," DeJonge told the newspaper.

COME TO THINK OF IT...

(h/t  Bob Somerby)

I've haven't heard or read a simple explanation of Keynesian economics but I've heard supply-side drivel for decades.  Michael Lind in Salon makes a very good point:

The center-left needs its own village explainers, with their own charts and their own blackboards. In the plain language used by FDR for his Fireside Chats, they could show how liberalism is rooted in American values and history, instead of being an alien transplant from socialist Europe. They could sketch the relations between today’s radical right, with its loony theories about a Muslim-leftist world revolution, and the similar conspiracy theories of the Liberty Lobby in the 1930s and the John Birch Society in the 1950s. They could put up diagrams on the screen to explain elementary Keynesian concepts and show the need for public spending, or exports, or both to make up for depressed private consumption in a near-depression like the present.

JOHN QUIGGIN NAILS IT!!!

(h/t mistermix at Balloon Juice)

In a post about the causes of conservative craziness, he makes outlines four possible reasons for absurd beliefs and the first one is priceless:

A conspiracy-theoretic view of the world in which liberal elites (a term encompassing Democrats, unions, schoolteachers, scientists, academics and many others) are plotting to undermine the American way of life and replace it with some unspecified, but awful alternative. In this case, answers to these questions reflect actual beliefs.

This called to mind statements made by Rush Limbaugh last November:

You know, folks, the two universes here -- The Universe of Lies, The Universe of Reality -- they don't overlap anymore. And this is even bigger than global warming, which was my point yesterday. It's about everything that the left is involved in. What this fraud, what the uncovering of this hoax exposes, is the corruption that exists between government and academia and science and the media. Science has been corrupted. We know the media has been corrupted for a long time. Academia has been corrupted. None of what they do is real. It's all lies! It is all oriented toward a political outcome. It's bigger than global warming. And of course science has been corrupted here. Science is being used for political purposes.

So we have now the Four Corners of Deceit, and the two universes in which we live. The Universe of Lies, the Universe of Reality, and The Four Corners of Deceit: Government, academia, science, and media. Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit. That's how they promulgate themselves; it is how they prosper.

HELP RECALL 8 GOP WISCONSIN SENATORS

Go here.

ARE THESE TWO PEOPLE THAT FAR APART?

Margie Phillips represented the hateful Westboro Baptist Church in the SC 1st Amendment case.  She was on FOX News Sunday and had this to say about Pres. Obama:

QUESTION: So the justices are going to Hell? The President is going to Hell?

PHELPS: Absolutely on the President. That’s a big ten-four. I already answered on the justices. The President is going to be king of the world before this is all said and done and he is most likely the Beast spoken of in the Revelation.

On Meet the Press, Rep. Michele Bachmann defended an earlier claim she had made:

"I don't take back my statement on gangster government," she said. "I think that there have been actions that have been taken by this government that I think are corrupt, thoroughly corrupt." 

If you think in terms of a logical argument, then Bachmann's statement could easily be thought of as a presupposition for Phillips' statement.

ROBERT RINGER, RIGHTWING WACKO

He was a guest on tonight's Billy Cunningham Show and is another Glibertarian/Beckster who wants to return America to the 19th Century. He also doesn't seem to know much about St. Reagan, who declared that joining a union was a elemental human right back in 1982 because Ringer made this claim on his blog:

But I stop short of giving him an A+ because he has not made it clear that there is no such thing as a right to collectively bargain.

THE GASOLINE AGIT-PROP WARS

The conservatives are often misinformed about the basic facts of oil drilling and that causes them to adopt extreme positions. On this POLITICO thread about off-shore drilling permits, these rubes apparently believe the following false claims:

-There is a COMPLETE ban on off-shore drilling, not just deep-water drilling
-There was an injunction issued by a Federal judge prohibiting the implementation of HCR
-Lifting the ban will have an immediate effect on gasoline prices

JENNIFER RUBIN IS ANOTHER LYING WHORE

(video clip at Mediate)

Jennifer Rubin has been critical of rodeo clown Beck for several good reasons but her defense of two other purveyors of rightwing agit-prop is unacceptable.  Here's the transcript from CNN's Reliable Sources for 3/6/2011:

RUBIN: Well, frankly, if you aren't willing to listen to bad things being said about you, you probably need another profession.

I disagree though very strongly with something that David said. And that is that there are other people whoa re doing the same thing as Beck. And I think we have to be careful not to overgeneralize and put Glenn Beck in the same category as Laura Ingraham and in the same category as Sean Hannity. These are all individuals, and I think they have to be assessed on their --

(CROSSTALK)

KURTZ: You see them as responsible conservatives.

RUBIN: I do.

KURTZ: You might agree with every single thing they say.

RUBIN: Correct. Exactly. But they don't engage in this sort of thing. A the telltale sign is you don't see this outcry either on the left or the right directed at them, because, although people may disagree with their views, they're not so outlandish and insulting and beyond the pale.

ANOTHER LARRY KUDLOW LIE

I'm listening to his radio show on WMAL and he just said that AS SOON AS Pres. Bush called for an end to the ban on drilling offshore, oil prices came down.  Bush said that on June 18, 2008 and it wasn't passed by  Congress  until September 29, 2008.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency has the historical prices for a barrel of oil, which I reproduce below. The different columns represent Domestic First Price, Average FOB, Average Landed Cost, Domestic, Imported, Composite.


June.......... 127.47 123.34 125.65 129.45 126.22 127.32
July........... 128.08 122.12 124.20 131.47 127.77 129.03
August...... 112.83 108.10 109.64 118.42 111.19 113.74
September. 98.50  90.85    91.83 103.73   96.38   98.91

It's clear that Pres. Bush's announcement in June had no immediate effect.

THIS IS BELIEVABLE

(h/t Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars)

I've monitored rightwing talk radio shows since 2001 and I have sometimes wondered if some of the callers were plants, mostly because they sounded too damn slick to be ordinary folks.  It turns out that my hunch may have been correct, according to Tablet Magazine.

This week’s parasha introduces a medium for distinguishing truth from falsehood. On the radio, where actors are hired to read scripts and pretend to be real people, things aren’t so simple.

By Liel Leibovitz | Feb 11, 2011 7:00 AM

The question popped up during the audition and was explained, the actor said, clearly and simply: If he passed the audition, he would be invited periodically to call in to various talk shows and recite various scenarios that made for interesting radio. He would never be identified as an actor, and his scenarios would never be identified as fabricated—which they always were.

Curious, the actor did some snooping and learned that Premiere On Call was a service offered by Premiere Radio Networks, the largest syndication company in the United States and a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, the entertainment and advertising giant. Premiere syndicates some of the more sterling names in radio, including Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity.

Michael Harrison, the editor of Talkers Magazine, the talk-radio world’s leading trade publication, said he knew nothing of this particular service but was not altogether surprised to hear that it was in place. There was, he said, a tradition of “creating fake phone calls for the sake of entertainment on some of the funny shows, shock jocks shows, the kind of shows you hear on FM music stations in the morning, they would regularly have scenarios, crazy scenarios of people calling up and doing pranks.”

Rachel Nelson, a Premiere Radio Networks spokesperson, defended the Premiere on Call service and said that responsibility for how it is employed falls ultimately to those who use it.


“Premiere provides a wide variety of audio services for radio stations across the country, one of which is connecting local stations in major markets with great voice talent to supplement their programming needs,” Nelson wrote in an email. “Voice actors know this service as Premiere On Call. Premiere, like many other content providers, facilitates casting—while character and script development, and how the talent’s contribution is integrated into programs, are handled by the varied stations.”

Tablet reports that the Premier On Call website has been scrubbed but offers a link to a cached version. I made these screen shots from that version:

MITT ROMNEY == PATHOLOGICAL LIAR

Mike Allen at POLITICO covered Miittens speech in NH and Miittens made these outright LIES:

- Instead of lowering taxes, he raised them.

- He created a deeper recession, and delayed the recovery.

- He wrapped businesses in red tape, he grew government,

A REMINDER OF THE BAD OLD DAYS FROM AN UNLIKELY SOURCE

I recently read John Maynard Keynes paper "The End of Laissez-Faire" (1926) and came across this line:

"The time may arrive a little later when the community as a whole must pay attention to the innate quality as well as to the mere numbers of its future members."

I immediately thought that Keynes believed in the main tenet of the eugenics movement and I thought that if a mind as powerful as his were vulnerable to this claptrap, there must have been many others. This snippet from the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on "Eugenics" gives some indication of how widespread eugenics became:

In the United States, the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was opened at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N.Y., in 1910 with financial support from the legacy of railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman. Whereas ERO efforts were officially overseen by Charles B. Davenport, director of the Station for Experimental Study of Evolution (one of the biology research stations at Cold Spring Harbor), ERO activities were directly superintended by Harry H. Laughlin, a professor from Kirksville, Mo. The ERO was organized around a series of missions. These missions included serving as the national repository and clearinghouse for eugenics information, compiling an index of traits in American families, training field-workers to gather data throughout the United States, supporting investigations into the inheritance patterns of particular human traits and diseases, advising on the eugenic fitness of proposed marriages, and communicating all eugenic findings through a series of publications. To accomplish these goals, further funding was secured from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Battle Creek Race Betterment Foundation, and the Human Betterment Foundation.

Prior to the founding of the ERO, eugenics work in the United States was overseen by a standing committee of the American Breeder’s Association (eugenics section established in 1906), chaired by ichthyologist and Stanford University president David Starr Jordan.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS ONE?

(h/t John Hellegers at Informed Comment)

Helleger links to a review of "The Spirit Level" (2009) in the London Review of Books. You may be aware of how often the wingnuts tell us that the poorest American is still better off than most of the rest of the world in order to justify obscene wealth in America. Well, like most wingnut narratives, it isn't true:

The argument of this fascinating and deeply provoking book is easy to summarise: among rich countries, the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator you can imagine. They do worse even if they are richer overall, so that per capita GDP turns out to be much less significant for general wellbeing than the size of the gap between the richest and poorest 20 per cent of the population (the basic measure of inequality the authors use). The evidence that Wilkinson and Pickett supply to make their case is overwhelming. Whether the test is life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity levels, crime rates, literacy scores, even the amount of rubbish that gets recycled, the more equal the society the better the performance invariably is.

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

I know this is mean-spirited in the same way that Mark Levin is mean-spirited but it's my way of striking back at all the Nancy Pelosi-Botox jokes.

WHAT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL DIDN'T MENTION

(h/t George Zornick at Think Progress)

The WSJ/NBC poll I mentioned below has some results that so far the WSJ hasn't  mentioned but MSNBC did:

The survey — which was conducted Feb. 24-28 of 1,000 adults (200 reached by cell phone), and which has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — also listed 26 different ways to reduce the federal budget deficit.

The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable), eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent), eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren’t necessary (76 percent) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).

Phasing out the Bush tax cuts for families making over $250,000 was acceptable to "only" 68%.

WHO ARE OUR CREATIONISTS/ID FOLKS LIKE?

As far as evolution is concerned, they are no better than the barbarians in Saudi Arabia. From Scientific American,"Evolution Abroad" by Katherine Harmon:

Nevertheless, evolution is included in the textbooks of most high school students in the Islamic world (with the notable exception of Saudi Arabia, where the national curriculum includes explicit statements rejecting evolution in favor of a creationist worldview).

WHERE IS PRES. OBAMA?

I'm not pulling a Ruth Marcus here because this is a very serious issue that implicitly involves the rights of all Americans: the treatment of Pvt. Bradley Manning.  First, the Army has announced 22 additional charges against him, including the preposterous one of "aiding the enemy."   Second, he has been held in solitary confinement for months and was recently humiliated by being forced to stay outside his cell naked for 7 hours.

Glenn Greenwald has more on this travesty.

MARK "FOAMER" LEVIN WAS WRONG AGAIN

Levin told his listeners that Judge Vinson's January 31st ruling meant that implementation of HCR must halt immediately and by not doing so, Pres. Obama was in contempt of court.

Health Overhaul Is Given Reprieve
MARCH 4, 2011
By BRENT KENDALL
WALL STREET JOURNAL

U.S. District Court Judge Roger Vinson in Florida granted a stay to his January ruling, agreeing with the Obama administration that it would be "extremely disruptive" to block implementation of the law while appellate courts weigh its constitutionality.

A LIAR AND A WACKO

When will we liberals, especially the ones in the House, Senate and White House, ever learn that you can't make deals with conservativemad dogs?  A great example of a mad dog is Mike Hucakbee, who is not only a liar but also just as wacko as Joseph Farah or David Horowitz?

Huckabee again attacks Obama worldview, evokes madrassas
March 3, 2011 11:02 AM
Posted by Brian Montopoli
CBS News

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that President Obama has "a different worldview" that is in part "molded out of a very different experience."

"Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas," Huckabee added.

Huckabee, who is promoting a book, made the comments on the talk radio program "Focal Point," hosted by American Family Radio's Bryan Fischer.

When Fischer said Huckabee seems to believe "there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president," Huckabee replied, "that's exactly the point that I make in the book."

Unlike Farah or Horowitz, Huckabee can't be dismissed as merely someone on the fringe:

Poll: Southern Republicans prefer Huckabee for 2012
By Jim Morrill | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, March 2, 2011

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Less than a year before the South's first presidential primary, a new poll shows former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee leading a field of prospective Republican candidates among Southern voters.

Huckabee easily led former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, 21.9 percent to 12.9 percent. Former Govs. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts scored 8.7 percent and 6.9 percent in the poll of 11 Southern states by Winthrop University of Rock Hill, S.C. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

UH OH...MORE VOTER FRAUD

Nope, it's not one of the Marxists from ACORN, it's the GOP Secretary of State in Indiana!!!

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White indicted, faces 7 felony counts
Written by Robert Annis
3:24 PM, Mar. 3, 2011
INDYSTAR

The state’s top election official will face seven felony counts, including voter fraud, perjury and theft, a special prosecutor said today.

Secretary of State Charlie White was accused of intentionally voting in the wrong precinct during the May 2010 primary, a potential felony.

White turned himself in at the Hamilton County Jail Thursday afternoon and was released after posting $10,000 bond.


If ultimately convicted of a felony, White would have to give up the position that he won by a wide margin over Democrat Vop Osili in November’s election.

THE WORTH OF BUSTING UNIONS?

Iowahawk shows that Texas, a state that prohibits teaches unions, has students that perform somewhat better than the students in Wisconsin.  The dependent measure was NAEP in math, reading and science in both the 4th and 8th grades.   Here are his  numbers for JUST the white students:

2009 4th Grade Math
White students: Texas 254, Wisconsin 250 (national average 248)

2009 8th Grade Math
White students: Texas 301, Wisconsin 294 (national 294)

2009 4th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 232, Wisconsin 227 (national 229)

2009 8th Grade Reading
White students: Texas 273, Wisconsin 271 (national 271)

2009 4th Grade Science
White students: Texas 168, Wisconsin 164 (national 162)

2009 8th Grade Science
White students: Texas 167, Wisconsin 165 (national 161)

These numerical differences seemed small, possibly statistically non-significant. I went to the NAEP data analysis site and ran a statistical analyis on some of the numbers. For the 4th grade math scores, there was a significant difference between the scores of the white students of Wisconsin and Texas, p < 0.0103. The 8th grade science scores were not significantly different, p < 0.2020. and neither are the differences in the 8th grade reading scores, p < 0.1600. However, there is a significant difference in the 8th grade math scores, p < 0.0012.

So, by the 8th grade, Texas only has a statistically significant advantage in math which itself isn't very big considering the scores go from 0 to 500.

EVEN RASMUSSEN FINDS THAT CHEESEHEADS BACK THE UNIONS

I wonder if Hannity will mention this?

Wisconsin Poll: Support for Budget Cutting, Not for Weakening Collective Bargaining Rights
Thursday, March 03, 2011
RASMUSSEN

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Wisconsin voters shows that just 39% favor weakening collective bargaining rights and 52% are opposed.

BIG SURPISE - MONEY TALKS!

(h/t Christopher Hayes)


Prof. Martin Gilens studied the influence of income groups on political decisions and found that the affluent have more political influence than either the middle classes or the lower classes.  Larry Bartels has a succinct description of Gilens' research:

...the separate findings of my Princeton colleague Martin Gilens, who has analyzed almost 2,000 survey questions measuring Americans' preferences regarding a wide variety of national policy issues. For each issue, Gilens examined whether a policy change supported or opposed by various segments of the public was subsequently adopted. He found a strong statistical relationship between the views of affluent citizens and the subsequent course of public policy, but a much weaker relationship for less affluent citizens. When he limited his analysis to issues on which rich people and poor people had divergent preferences, he found that the well-off were vastly more likely to see their views reflected in subsequent policy changes. Gilens concluded that "influence over actual policy outcomes appears to be reserved almost exclusively for those at the top of the income distribution."

Kevin Drum provided two graphs that clearly illustrate Gilens' findngs:

We can disagree about the underlying causes for the difference in influence and I am little partial to Matt Yglesias' s socialization hypothesis but the results are clear: We are not much of a democracy on many issues.

WHY BOTHER?

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill was on Hannity's radio show today and took part in a "debate" with Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson.  It was a complete waste of his time because neither Hannity nor Peterson are willing or able to engage in an honest debate.  I think we all need to avoid these agit-prop shows, with the possible exception of Bob Beckel, and let the wingnuts suffocate on their own bad memes.

I provisionally exclude Beckel because he seems to know how to talk to the wingnuts.  He gets his points across without stooping to their level.

MAYBE THEY CAN'T STRIKE BUT THERE ARE FEDERAL UNIONS

One of the newer winger memes is that Federal employees can't unionize and that means Pres. Obama is a hypocrite because he defended the Wisconsin public unions without promoting the same rights to Federal employees.

Well, there are Federal unions!

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union representing 600,000 federal and D.C. government workers nationwide and overseas.

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) has 150,000 working members in 30 departments and agencies.

I DIDN'T LIKE THIS THE FIRST TIME I READ IT

I thought Paul Krugman had gone over to The Dark Side in this 12/17/2008 NYT blog post:

There’s no obvious reason why consumer demand can’t be sustained by the spending of the upper class — $200 dinners and luxury hotels create jobs, the same way that fast food dinners and Motel 6s do. In fact, the prosperity of New York City in the last decade — largely supported off of super-salaried Wall Street types — is a demonstration that you can have an economy sustained by the big spending of the few rather than the modest spending of large numbers of people.

But NYC also has LOTS of union workers and they earn pretty good money.

Here are a few examples:

Subway trains and public buses. 38,000 working, 26,000 retired

Other public employees. 125,000 working, 55,000 retired

Hotel workers. 28,000 working

PLAYING THE CHINA CARD

Several years ago Bill "Slots" Bennett and others tried to drum up some fear about the growth of China.  It didn't catch on with the general public back then but now that there may be some real cuts to the DoD budget, Mark Halprin gets some oped space in the WSJ to give it another try.
This is perhaps Halprin's most absurd point:

The United Sates Navy need not follow the Royal Navy into near oblivion.

As I noted below, we have about twice as many aircraft carriers as the rest of the world COMBINED.

WINGNUT LOGIC

During the last 24 hours, I've heard several radio gasbags hammer U. S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee because she supposedly treats her staff terribly.  Now, isn't this inadvertently making the case that at least some Federal workers should be allowed to unionize?

I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW MANY POLLS...

...show that a healthy majority of Americans support unionized government workers retaining their rights to collectively bargain. The latest one is from WSJ/NBC:

WSJ/NBC Poll: Strong Support for Bargaining Rights
By Patrick O'Connor
WALL STREET JOURNAL
March 2, 2011, 1:00 PM ET

Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain, even as they want public employees to contribute more money to their retirement and health-care benefits, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll show.

Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits.

77% of the 1,000 adults interviewed for the poll think unionized state and municipal employees should have the same rights as those union members who work for private companies.

These results agree with the results of earlier nationwide polls by the NYT/CBS and USATODAY/Gallup.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

Well, it's really despicable work but it often pays very well: Rightwing Gasbag

Fox News pulls Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum off the air because of their interest in running for president
By Matea Gold, Washington Bureau
March 2, 2011, 9:30 a.m.
LA Times

Santorum was making a little under $100,000 a year at Fox News in a three-year deal set to expire in 2013. Gingrich, who has worked as a contributor for the network since 1999, was getting nearly $1 million a year as part of his latest two-year contract, which would have expired in 2013. Huckabee earns around $500,000 a year in a deal that goes through 2012, while Palin is making $1 million annually in a three-year agreement that goes through the end of 2012.

WE IN ARIZONA TAKE A STEP BACK FROM SECESSION

I was wondering if we were going to cross the line into real political madness as several other states came close to doing.

Arizona Senate rejects bill on nullifying US laws

Posted: Mar 2, 2011 3:53 PM
PHOENIX (AP) - The Arizona Senate has rejected a states' rights measure to create a nullification process for the state to declare a federal law unconstitutional.

The Senate's vote on the bill on Wednesday was 12-18, with the bill's sponsor voting against it at the last minute to set the stage for a possible second vote on a future date.

The bill would have created a legislative commission to review federal laws, mandates and executive orders and make recommendations for nullification of those deemed to violate state sovereignty.

The Senate's majority Republicans were split on the bill. All nine Democrats voted against it.

The Senate sponsors is this bill, SB 1433, were all Republicans:

Lori Klein District 6
Sylvia Allen District 5
Judy Burges District 4
Jack W. Harper District 4
Russell Pearce District 18
Steve B. Montenegro District 12

OF COURSE, SECRETARY BECK AND FIELD MARSHAL HANNITY KNOW BETTER

Those two and other wingnut gasbags have been scaring the rubes by claiming that Al Qaida and Iran are going to end up controlling the entire Middle East.  Not so fast, say others who might be expected to know better.

Gates and Mullen: Iran And Al Qaeda Biggest Losers in Middle East Fallout
Susan Crabtree | March 1, 2011, 4:39PM
TPM

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are optimistic about results of anti-government movements in the Middle East and called Iran and al Qaeda the "biggest losers" in the ongoing fallout.

"Iran is the real loser here whether they want to admit it or not," Mullen told reporters during a briefing Tuesday at the Pentagon. "They had no hand in the change ... except the one they used to slap back their own people."

Adding to Mullen's comments about Iran, Gates said al Qaeda is experiencing a major setback in the region as citizens rise up against oppressive regimes and demand more civil rights.

MORE FROM F. A. HAYEK

I noted below that Hayek thought State intervention in health care was compatible with individual freedom and Matt Yglesias has found that he also would approve in some cases, such as controlling pollution, of regulation by the EPA. (p. 87) As I looked up the latter quote, I found another one just as interesting:

Nor is the preservation of competition incompatible with an extensive system of social services - so long as the organization of these services is not designed in such a way as to make competition ineffective over wide fields.

That's from Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, also from page 87.  We know that the Becksters have purchased this book, so why haven't any of them pointed out these passages?

DEFENDING EUROPE FROM IRAN'S MISSILES...

Facts about this ship:

Modern U.S. Navy guided missile cruisers perform primarily in a Battle Force role. These ships are multi-mission [Air Warfare (AW), Undersea Warfare (USW), Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS) and Surface Warfare (SUW)] surface combatants capable of supporting carrier battle groups, amphibious forces, or of operating independently and as flagships of surface action groups. Cruisers are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles giving them additional long range Strike Warfare (STRW) capability. Some Aegis Cruisers have been outfitted with a Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) capability.

Why this is important:

US launches new missile defense program for Europe

(AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending a special radar-equipped warship to the Mediterranean Sea next week, the first step in the development of a broad anti-ballistic missile system to protect Europe against a potential Iranian nuclear threat, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The move marks the first of the Obama administration's four-phase plan to put land- and sea-based radars and interceptors in several European locations over the next decade.

Endorsed by NATO during a summit in Lisbon last Fall, the missile shield has triggered opposition from Russia and set off lengthy negotiations over the future expanded ability to shoot down ballistic missiles in the region.

ANOTHER FAUX NEWS LIE

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars has caught Stuart Varney lying about Pres. Obama and the Churchill bust "issue."  Varney claims (1) that the Obama Administration was asked about the bust; (2) that there was an official reply; (3) that reply stated that Pres. Obama returned the bust because of his dislike of British imperialism in Kenya.  Here's the relevant part of the transcript:

KELLY: But the thing about the bust -- has the White House ever come out publicly to explain why they sent that bust back?

VARNEY: It was apparently because President Obama's father, who was a native Kenyan --

KELLY: Have they admitted that?


VARNEY: I believe that is out there. I've not read the formal statement. But an explanation was requested. And the explanation was that Obama's father, being a native Kenyan, disliked the British colonial rule in Kenya, which ended in 1963.

I searched both the White House site and the State Dept. site for "Churchill bust" and there's NOTHING at either site.

CBS News relayed an AP report that the decision to return the loaned Churchill bust was made before Pres. Obama took office:

Obama Has Made the Oval Office His Own
Each Change Obama Makes to His Workspace Is Closely Watched for Symbolism
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2010

White House curator William Allman ...

Some Britons took offense when Winston Churchill's bust was replaced with King's. But the decision to return the Churchill bust to the British - it had been presented by former Prime Minister Tony Blair to Bush on loan - had been made before Obama even arrived.

"It was already scheduled to go back," Allman said.

ANOTHER FUNDIE FREAKSHOW

Billy James Hargis set the pattern in the '60s and this clown is just another in a fairly long line of hypocrites.

Pastor Who Protested Gay Festival Accused of Obscenity
Mar 1, 2011 – 8:58 AM
AOL News

A Christian fundamentalist pastor known for protesting a gay festival in New Orleans was arrested on an obscenity charge after two women said he was masturbating in his van while parked near a playground, according to news reports.

The Rev. Grant Storms, 53, was taken into custody Friday at a park in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, The Times-Picayune reports. While bond was set at $5,000, he was released from jail on Sunday because of overcrowding, according to the newspaper, which was unable to reach him for comment Monday.

MIKE HUCKABEE IS A LIAR

First, Huckabee goes on and on about the Kenyan connection of the President, echoing the absurd claims of Dinesh D'Souza:

Speaking on WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee -- a Fox News host and potential presidential candidate -- said that "one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Second, his spokesman tries to minimize the absurdity of Huckabee's claims by saying he merely misspoke:

“Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya.’ The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia.”

But there were no Mau Mau in Indonesia and it never was a British colony!

HOLD ON THERE, MR. WILL

(h/t Atrios & Paul Krugman)

In another one of his hack attacks, George Will makes this criticism of progressivism:

Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Don't the social and fiscal conservatives try to do the same thing?  Haven't we been lectured again and again about what the Bible or Free Market Fairy says we should do?

I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED

I thought the Citizens United decision found that corporations were persons?

Supreme Court rejects AT&T corporate privacy rights
By James Vicini

WASHINGTON | Tue Mar 1, 2011 11:02am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AT&T Inc and other corporations do not have personal privacy rights to prevent disclosure of federal government records about them, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

The justices unanimously overturned a ruling by a U.S. appeals court for the telecommunications company that corporations can assert personal privacy in claiming the records should be exempt from disclosure.

The high court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, agreed with the Obama administration's argument that the personal privacy exemption under the Freedom of Information law applied only to individuals, not to corporations. He said the word personal ordinarily referred to individuals and dictionary definitions also suggested that it does not usually relate to corporations. Roberts said AT&T provided scant support that personal denoted corporations.

The Supreme Court case is FCC v. AT&T, No. 09-1279.

ANOTHER MOTU GETS CAUGHT

It's only one but maybe there will be some "trickle up".

SEC charges ex-Goldman director in insider case
By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK | Tue Mar 1, 2011 5:03pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director leaked secret details to Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam about Warren Buffett's plan to invest $5 billion in the Wall Street bank at the height of the financial crisis, a U.S. securities regulator charged.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the director, Rajat Gupta, tipped Rajaratnam by phone just minutes before the public learned of the investment by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, which helped ensure Goldman's stability.

The SEC said Rajaratnam, who faces a March 8 criminal insider trading trial, used the tips to trade at his firm, Galleon Group, reaping more than $18 million of illegal gains. It said Gupta invested in at least some Galleon hedge funds.

I was glad to see that most of the comments on the Yahoo News thread about this story were mostly like this:

Contrarian 5 hours ago
21 users liked this comment
0 users disliked this comment
"Forgive me, I must start by pointing out that three years after our horrific financial crisis caused by financial fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that's wrong."
Charles Ferguson's statement prior to accepting the Oscar award says it all!

ANOTHER NARRATIVE CONTRADICTION

Fiscal conservatives, and conservatives generally, endorse the simple hedonistic view of humans that was developed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill.   This view roughly holds that humans seek pleasure (reward) and avoid both lack pain and lack of pleasure.. This reward/non-reward paradigm is similar to behaviorist psychology in which the consequences of actions determine future behavior, where the consequences may be divided into two exclusive categories: reward, no reward.

Just as individual behaviors may be shaped by consequences, so may the development of the species.  In natural selection, those genes which lead to behavior which help propagate themselves are passed on (rewarded) to future generation.  Those genes that do not lead to behavior that propagates them lead to their loss from the species gene pool (non-reward).


Conservatives accept this paradigm in economics and individual behavior but many deny that it applies to biology.

THE LATEST HANNITY LIE

On his radio show, he claimed that the National Debt was heading toward 800% of GDP!

THE FOX NEWS MEME IS STILL ALIVE!

(h/t Mediate)

This should happen every time a FAUX news reporter does a on location broadcast.  The woman behind the male reporter is holding a sign that states "FAKE NEWS".