PAUL RYAN'S INSPIRATION

(h/t John Aravosis)

I guess the Fundies don't know this about Ayn Rand...

 Ayn Rand on God:

Playboy: Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?

Ayn Rand: Qua religion, no - in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points. They may have a good influence or proper principles to inculcate, but in a very contradictory context and, on a very - how should I say it? - dangerous or malevolent base: on the ground of faith. [Playboy interview with Ayn Rand]

Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.

"...if devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.... the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind. [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged]"

THE MITTEN$ GONG SHOW CONTINUES

Picking Paul Ryan is as bad as picking Michele Bachmann or any of the other GOP krazies.   Ryan is still an adolescent with almost no appreciation of the strengths of American society, as I noted before:

"The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." ...

JUST ABOUT PERFECT

(h/t Kyle Mantyla)

Tea party wacko Judson Phillips owes the Venetian Las Vegas Casino Resort $748,000 for the rooms he reserved but did not fill. Even better, the Venetian is owned by a filthy rich wacko, Sheldon Adelson.

I FIND THE PERFECT VP FOR MITTEN$

Paul Waldman and Kevin Drum have observed that Mitten$ Romney is running a spectacularly dishonest campaign so instead of Paul Ryan, Mitten& should have chosen David Barton.

LOCAL RADIO GASBAG FOOD FIGHT

Garret Lewis (KNST) has decided to strike back against Emil Franzi (KVOI) because Franzi did a radio ad for a local pol and called Lewis "bottom feeding talk show host from the Harry Reid school."

Lewis then called Franzi "Some two bit guy that pays to be on the radio."

Lewis is the morning guy (6-9AM) for KNST, the station that also carries Fats, Sean and Glenda. Franzi has long-standing connections to the GOP hierarchy in AZ so this squabble may get pretty interesting.

I WASN'T PAYING ANY ATTENTION SO...

(h/t Kevin Drum)

I just figured Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was toast but it seems the Baggers have come to her rescue.

Steve Benen has the basics on her GOP rival, Todd Akin:

And what is it, exactly, about Akin that makes him so unappealing to the voting mainstream? The congressman believes the very existence of the federal student-loan program is a "stage-three cancer of socialism." He's also eager to eliminate the minimum wage, believes liberalism is based on "a hatred of God," believes the Bible should be a "blueprint" for American government; and wants to impeach President Obama because, in his mind, the president is "a complete menace to our civilization."

Perhaps my favorite Akin moment was the time in which he screwed up the Pledge of Allegiance at a Tea Party rally, because he was a little too eager to, in his words, "drive liberals crazy."

BARTON & BECK DESERVE EACH OTHER

(h/t Weigel)

David Barton is a Fundie propagandist who portrays himself as a serious historian of American history and is one of Glenda Beck's buddies.  On Wednesday, NPR's All Things Considered did a profile of this fraud and even Fundie historians are pointing out that Barton is full of shit:

Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and author with James Robison of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late, spoke alongside Barton at Christian conferences as recently as last month. Richards says in recent months he has grown increasingly troubled about Barton’s writings, so he asked 10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton’s work.

Their response was negative. Some examples: Glenn Moots of Northwood University wrote that Barton in The Jefferson Lies is so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside “orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.” A second professor, Glenn Sunshine of Central Connecticut State University, said that Barton’s characterization of Jefferson’s religious views is “unsupportable.” A third, Gregg Frazer of The Master’s College, evaluated Barton’s video America’s Godly Heritage and found many of its factual claims dubious, such as a statement that “52 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention were ‘orthodox, evangelical Christians.’”

For the first time I can recall, a publisher of fundie/bagger nonsense decided to throw Barton under the Fact Bus:

"When the concerns came in, from multiple people, and that had weight too, we were trying to sort things out," said Thomas Nelson Senior Vice President and Publisher Brian Hampton. "Were these matters of opinion? Were they differences of interpretation? But as we got into it, our conclusion was that the criticisms were correct. There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all."


The book has already been pulled off the Thomas Nelson website, and the publisher is in the process of pulling down its availability as an e-book from retail partners. Publishing rights are being reverted to the author, and the physical copies of the book are in the process of being removed from bookstores.

ROOT, REAGAN & COLUMBIA UPDATE

I sent Wayne Allyn Root Prof. Fuch's reply and he sent me three responses:

REPONSE ONE:

Yes of course she'd conveniently forget. Who'd admit to that?

Sent from my iPhone

RESPONSE TWO:

Did you ask her if she knew me?

Sent from my iPhone

RESPONSE THREE:

i'm betting she remembers both. LOL

By the way...I've had at least a DOZEN Ivy Leaguers report the exact same scenario at Yale, Harvard, Princeton...cheering and celebrating when Reagan was shot. It's not an isolated incident, nor can it be questioned. It happened at liberal colleges all over USA.

Wayne

In response to TWO, I wrote that I has included his name in my original post to Prof. Fuchs. In response to THREE, I sent Root the results of the LexisNexis search I performed. So far, he has not replied.

WHAT THE TOP 1% THINK ABOUT INCREASED TAXES

A large majority are FOR an increase on those as wealthy as they are:

The Rich Are Hoarding Cash -- and That's Not Good
By Robert Frank | CNBC – Wed, Aug 8, 2012 12:54 PM EDT

The 2012 Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America, from American Express Publishing and Harrison Group, finds that One Percenters are hoarding three times as much cash as they were two years ago.

The survey found that 62 percent of One Percenters are in favor of an income-tax increase. More than half say the increase should be imposed on people making $500,000 or more (basically themselves).

Another 31 percent say it should be imposed on filers making more than $250,000 - basically the Obama cut-off.

GOOBER GRAHAM IS LOSING IT...

along with all the other conservative wackos:

S.C. Sen. Graham: Military cuts 'will be death blow' to U.S. defense

THE CONSERVATIVE WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES

Three new examples in the news today:

1) Limbaugh On Planned Parenthood And NARAL Pro-Choice: "If They're Not Death Squads, I Don't Know What Is"

2) Coulter: Sandra Fluke Introduced Obama To Help With "The Base Democratic Voter -- Stupid Single Women"

3) From The Raw Story:
Republican Rep. Todd Akin, who is running for Senate in Missouri, on Wednesday said that emergency contraceptive pills should be outlawed.

“As far as I’m concerned, the morning-after pill is a form of abortion,” he told KCMO’s Greg Knapp, “and I think we shouldn’t have abortion in this country.”
Akin suggested there should be no exceptions for rape or incest.

QUICK, SOMEONE TELL SEAN HANNITY...

Will Hannity claim that FAUX News has a liberal bias?

Fox News poll: Obama's lead grows as Romney's support slips
By Dana Blanton
Published August 09, 2012
FoxNews.com

President Obama has opened his biggest lead since Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee.

The president would take 49 percent of the vote compared to Romney's 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup if the election were held today, the poll found.

UPDATE: CNN also has bad news for Mitten$ -

CNN Poll: Obama holds 7-point lead over Romney
August 9th, 2012

STEP 2: PROF. ESTER FUCHS RESPONDED

I asked her about Wayne Allyn Root's Reagan/Columbia story and this is her reply:

Ester Fuchs ef25@columbia.edu

4:50 AM (14 hours ago)
Dear Steve,
I have no recollection of this happening. Furthermore it seems to me quite
implausible.
Best,
Ester Fuchs

Sent from my iPad

For Step 3, I will send a copy of her email to Root.

PPM IS SHOWING THAT THE RADIO GASBAGS ARE IN DECLINE

Radio-Info.com has a note about gasbag ratings in the big markets:

Only 3 Talk stations are top 10 in the nation's biggest markets. KFI LA is #3, WGN Chicago is #7 and WSB Atlanta is #8. No other Talk station makes the top 10 in a big market.

1. NYC....WABC #15, WOR #19
2. LA....KFI #3, KABC #31
3. Chicago....WGN #7, WLS #11 tie
4. San Francisco....KSFO #20, KKSF #21 tie
5. Dallas....WBAP-AM-FM #17 tie, KLIF #35
6. Houston.....KTRH #15
7. Washington....WMAL-AM-FM #18
8. Philadelphia....WPHT #17
9. Atlanta....WSB/WSBB(FM) #8
10. Boston....WTLK(FM) #15, WRKO #18, WXKS #22

It seems the Talk format is having some problems these days, and it's not just the move away from AM. Putting the Talk format on FM stations in Dallas, Washington and Boston hasn't meant much success.

You might say that stations that use local hosts instead of simply running syndicated shows most of the day might bring more success. WGN is all local 24/7. KFI only runs Limbaugh and Coast to Coast. It's local the rest of the day. And while WSB runs some syndicated programs, Neil Boortz and Clark Howard do their syndicated shows from WSB, so most listeners don't realize it's a national show.

On the other hand, WPHT recently got rid of many of its syndicated shows but that hasn't meant much of a turnaround for this CBS Talk station.



Gregg
nh153@mail.com

THE SEC SHOULD'VE GONE AHEAD

(h/t Ken Hoop)

Losing this case in court would have convinced many Americans that we need new criminal laws to control the banksters.

Goldman Dodges Another Bullet, SEC Drops Subprime Securities Fraud Allegations
By Adam Pasick
Today at 12:27 PM
New York Magazine

Goldman Sachs disclosed in a regulatory statement that the SEC has flip-flopped on a threat it made in February to seek damages against the bank for $1.3 billion worth of subprime mortgage securities that it sold in 2006. The bundled 5,000 mortgages ended up costing investors and taxpayers an estimated $545 million when they went sour.

The SEC had previously said it planned to sue Goldman over the deal, claiming that it knew the mortgages were bad even by the sketchy standards of the housing boom. The agency's about-face highlights the almost complete inability of regulators and law enforcement to hold anyone accountable for the crash. Goldman said it was “notified by the S.E.C. staff that the investigation into this offering has been completed, and that the staff does not intend to recommend any enforcement action.”

MY BRIEF TAKE ON UNCERTAINTY'S EFFECT ON THE ECONOMY

In Forbes, James K. Glassman writes that uncertainty about Federal policies is hurting the economy and I replied thus:

The real uncertainty is whether or not there is a LTCM about to go belly-up OR that some stock analysts are creating another dot.com bubble OR that accounting firms are covering up for another Enrom or Worldcom OR the rating agencies are giving “AAAs” to junk OR banksters are fixing LIBOR, etcetera….

TRYING TO ROOT OUT THE EVIDENCE

Wayne Allyn Root replied to my email about his Columbia/Reagan story and claimed that Prof. Ester Fuchs was the instructor of the class in Root's story.  Prof. Fuchs currently teaches at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs and On July 23rd, I sent her an email (see below) asking for more information about Root's story.

Today I called her and spoke with a male who I guess is her admin asst.  He took down my email address and said she would get back by email this afternoon. So far, nothing.

Email to Prof. Ester Fuchs on July 23, 2012:

Dear Prof. Fuchs,

My name is Steve Jandreau and one of my hobbies is monitoring conservative talk radio.
Last Sunday, Wayne Allyn Root (CC 1983) was a guest on the Billy Cunningham Show and related a story he had told Billy on other occasions:
(from his own blog post of 7/21/2010)

I was a witness to that abnormal hatred on the day Reagan was shot by a mentally ill assassin.  A student burst through the doors to our Political Science class to breathlessly announce that  “Reagan is dead. He’s been assassinated.” The reaction of my class? CELEBRATION. They jumped from their seats to cheer, high five, fist pump, hug each other, and even scream  “Yes! Reagan is dead.”

Mr. Root has also told the same story to Michael Savage.

I contacted Mr. Root to ask him for more information about this incident and this is his reply: yes Professor Esther Fuchs. it was a Political Science class. i believe (after 30 years) it was  given on the premises of Barnard College (across the street from Columbia). It was the biggest class
 i ever took at college- perhaps 200 to 250 students in a giant theatre in the round.

Esther Fuchs by the way is now a top advisor to Mayor Bloomberg of NYC.

Wayne

Wayne Allyn Root

I am writing to you to find out if you can substantiate Mr. Root's story.


Thank you for your time,

Steve Jandreau

SO MUCH FOR MITTEN$ AS AMERICA'S CEO

A good CEO knows it's best to hire "A" people but Mitten$ can't seem to do that for his own campaign, so another Mitten$ "asset" has turned to dust.

MORE SMACKDOWNS FOR MITTEN$

Remeber how Jared Diamond took Mitten$ to the woodshed because Mitten$ didn't understand Diamond's work? Well, that was just an appetizer.

-Ron Haskins, a former GOP welfare reform specialist, said the Mitten$ was absolutely wrong to claim that Pres. Obama is weakening welfare reform.

-Ezra Klein did a little digging into the latest economic agit-prop by Mitten$ and found that the sources for a new Mitten$ paper repudiated the paper's claims:

Each of these sections include supporting documents from independent economists. And so I contacted some of the named economists to ask what they thought of the Romney campaign’s interpretation of their research. In every case, they responded with a polite version of Marshall McLuhan’s famous riposte. The Romney campaign, they said, knows little of their work. Or of their policy proposals.

A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

That's a good description of the people running Mitten$ campaign because it seems that every week we can count on at least one of them saying or doing something really stupid.

This week's bonehead is Andrea Saul:

Romney Campaign Completely Validates Obamacare While Defending Against Controversial Ad
by Tommy Christopher | 12:48 pm, August 8th, 2012
MEDIAITE

In an appearance on Fox News Channel with anchor Bill Hemmer, Mitt Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul turned her defense against a controversial SuperPAC ad (which implies Romney was partially responsible for the death of former steelworker Joe Soptic‘s wife) into a de facto endorsement of President Obama‘s signature legislative accomplishment. While trying to dodge responsibility for Romney’s actions as Bain Capital CEO, Saul noted that “If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care.”

UPDATE: This gaffe got a lot of attention.

ARE YOU SICK & TIRED OF FATS LIMBAUGH WASTING RADIO BANDWIDTH?

Here are some suggestions from Richard Myers of the Facebook group Join the fight to flush Rush Limbaugh!:


Twelve ways to help flush Rush:

 o LIKE http://www.facebook.com/Mediamatters

 o Go to http://stoprush.net and join the maillist.

 o While at http://stoprush.net , donate a small amount to help with data storage costs.

 o If you've never used the database, click on "tracker" and check it out. Click on an email link or a Twitter link. Send a message asking them to stop supporting Rush Limbaugh.

 o If you use Twitter, follow @stoprushnet

 o Page down in this group. Find an advertiser thread that others are responding to. Follow the examples you see: http://www.facebook.com/groups/341981989181110/

 o Publicize this group on your Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/groups/341981989181110/

 o Consider which of your Facebook friends might like to join this effort. Invite them.

 o What Facebook groups do you belong to? Publicize this group in any that seem appropriate.

 o Access our skills query and click on all that apply: http://www.facebook.com/groups/341981989181110/permalink/378325175546791/?comment_id=431785640200744&offset=0

 o See if any radio stations near you host Rush. Ask in this group if that station is being monitored. Volunteer to monitor and record advertisers: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/stations

 o Check out the docs in this group, and read any that are of interest: http://www.facebook.com/groups/341981989181110/files/

I GUESS NO ONE TOLD MILTON OR FRIEDRICH

Along with F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman forms the "Twin Towers" of defenders of conservative neo-classical economics.  Friedman died in 2006 and Hayek in 1992, so they were both alive when Alain Lewis published his demolition of neo-classical economics' choice theories:

On effectively computable realizations of choice functions: Dedicated to Professors Kenneth J. Arrow and Anil Nerode

Alain A. Lewis

Department of Mathematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, U.S.A.

Received 31 August 1984. Revised 26 November 1984.
Mathematical Social Sciences, Volume 10, Issue 1, August 1985, Pages 43–80

Here's Lewis' devastating conclusion:

The point we are trying to make with Theorem 3.1 is simply this. The theorem of representable choice functions in the neoclassical setting, and thus consequently the theory of neoclassical demand correspondences and the theory of SDF-derived social welfare functions, when defined on families of compact subsets of Rⁿ, presumes the possibility of a mathematical correspondence that, even in principle, cannot be performed or realized in effectively computable terms under the weakest, and therefore best, possible circumstances of recursive approximation. As we have mentioned previously, but do not mind stating yet once more, this appears to have serious consequences for the foundations of neoclassical mathematical economics.

And here is Theorem 3.1:

"MARS, BITCHES!"

(I think that phrase is snark from Atrios about Pres. Fredo)

Before we all start shouting "USA, USA, USA" let's remember that this is a classic Big Government project that would not have happened if Ron or Rand Paul had been President. We should also acknowledge that other countries have detection equipment on Curiosity (from the project fact sheet):

- Also on the arm, the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer for Mars Science Laboratory will determine the relative abundances of different elements in rocks and soils. Dr. Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, is principal investigator for this instrument, which will be provided by the Canadian Space Agency.

- Spain’s Ministry of Education and Science is providing the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station to measure atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, winds,plus ultraviolet radiation levels. The principal investigator is Javier Gómez-Elvira of the Center for Astrobiology, Madrid, an international partner of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. The team for this investigation includes the Finnish Meteorological Institute as a partner.

- Russia’s Federal Space Agency is providing the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons instrument to measure subsurface hydrogen up to one meter (three feet) below the surface. Detections of hydrogen may indicate the presence of water in the form of ice or bound in minerals. Igor Mitrofanov of the Space Research Institute, Moscow, is the principal investigator.

IT'S ODD THAT I'VE HEARD OF VON MISES & HAYEK

but not Oskar Lange until very recently.   Lange provided a formal rebuttal to Von Mises' claim that a socialist economy could not in principle mimic a capitalist market system:

The Mises-Hayek argument met its most formidable counterargument in two brilliant articles by Oskar Lange, a young economist who would become Poland’s first ambassador to the United States after World War II. Lange set out to show that the planners would, in fact, have precisely the same information as that which guided a market economy. The information would be revealed as inventories of goods rose and fell, signaling either that supply was greater than demand or demand was greater than supply. Thus, as planners watched inventory levels, they were also learning which of their administered (i.e., state-dictated) prices were too high and which too low. It only remained, therefore, to adjust prices so that supply and demand balanced, exactly as in the marketplace.

You can find the argument in:

Lange, Oskar, and Fred Taylor. On the Economic Theory of Socialism. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938.

MITTEN$ IS LOSING THE TAX RETURN BATTLE

GOP strategist Ed Rollins was on FAUX News today and said Mitten$ needs to provide more returns.  Bill Kristol, Haley Barbour and George Will have also stated that Mitten$ needs to release more returns, so the only question now is "When?".

I KNOW HE'S AN OLD FUNDIE WACKJOB

(h/t Washingtons Blog via Ritholtz)

But Pat Robertson is the only major Fundie I know of who's lambasted the banksters:

Pat Robertson: We Need To Jail The Bankers Who Caused The Financial Crisis
by James Crugnale | 10:38 pm, February 20th, 2012
MEDIAITE

On The 700 Club this week, Pat Robertson discussed the banking crisis and glowingly spoke about how Iceland jailed many of the bankers who devastated their nation’s economy by taking out fraudulent loans. Robertson hailed the Nordic nation for its actions and said that Americans should deal with the financial crisis in the same way.

“Guess what country is getting itself out of a financial problem by some draconian measures?” Robertson asked his co-host Terry Meeuwsen. “Greece?” she asked. “No, not even close. Iceland!” Robertson exclaimed. “They are putting people in jail. Prime ministers are being indicted. They are going after banks. The people said the banks are ripping us off. We don’t like what they did, and they brought our country to ruin. Suddenly, Iceland is turning around and they look like a big success story!”