THIS IS 7 YEARS TOO LATE

The RNC just passed a resolution condemning the NSA's metadata collection practice and David Weigel points out an obvious problem:

So it's taken seven-odd years for the GOP to come fully around and realize the groovy politics of civil liberties, but that should have been obvious even before Snowden.

NOW I'M CURIOUS

Molly Ball wrote that Heritage was once a real think-tank and now Dylan Scott writes in the same vein:

In its first year under former senator and tea party godfather Jim DeMint, there was a growing consensus -- and concern -- that the foundation once renowned for its intellectual rigor might now be more of a political advocacy outlet than a home for scholarly research, albeit of the conservative variety.
[snip]
Conservatives lamented to the New Republic that Heritage had become a political action group "with a research division," burning bridges with the House GOP, something totally foreign to "the gold standard of conservative, forward-looking thought" that it used to be. The foundation's $82 million budget was reportedly being scaled back, with more money flowing to the advocacy efforts that have so chafed Hill Republicans.
That's why Heritage's most recent hire could mark a potential return to normalcy and respectability for the foundation.

As far as I know, Heritage has never been respectable although two other Republican groups from the past, Advance magazine (see Kabaservice, pp. 53-77) and the Ripon Society (also Kabaservice, pp.91-129), seem to have been for real.

CONSERVATIVES AREN'T THE ONLY ONES HURTING AMERICA

Pres. Obama's defense of the NSA's spying is the single biggest threat to American civil liberty and it doesn't seem that anything can change his mind, including independent reviews of the NSA:

Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: January 22
Washington Post

In a strongly worded report to be issued Thursday, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said that the statute upon which the program was based, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.”

“We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

The Administrations response is unacceptable:

White House Rejects Board Urging to Halt Surveillance
By Arlette Saenz & Steven Portnoy
ABC News
Jan 23, 2014 4:47pm

The White House sharply disagreed today with a report from an oversight board that concluded the government’s surveillance program is illegally collecting phone records of Americans and recommended the practice be discontinued.

“We simply disagree with the board’s analysis on the legality of the program,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

ANOTHER FREE MARKET FAILURE

This really is amazing and is more evidence that American-style capitalism is rotten:

January 23, 2014, 11:00 pm

Fined Billions, JPMorgan Chase Will Give Dimon a Raise

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and SUSANNE CRAIG

THE CHAMBER VS. THE BAGGERS

Last October, Mark "Foamer" Levin blasted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for supporting immigration reform and now Michelle Malkin chimes in:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a politically entrenched synod of special interests. These fat cats do not represent the best interests of American entrepreneurs, American workers, American parents and students, or Americans of any race, class or age who believe in low taxes and limited government. The chamber’s business is the big business of the Beltway, not the business of mainstream America.
If you are a business owner who believes your country should strictly and consistently enforce its borders and deport illegal immigrants who violate the terms of their visas, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doesn’t represent you.

How many more groups can the Baggers alienate before they are assigned the the fringe by the news media?

WINGNUT WOES CONTINUE TO INCREASE

Dinesh D'Souza has been indicted for violating U.S. campaign law and I'm not in the least surprised because I've always thought he was a "holier than thou" piece of shit:

Jan 23 (Reuters) - Dinesh D'Souza, a conservative commentator and best-selling author, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for arranging excessive campaign contributions to a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D'Souza around August 2012 reimbursed people who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to the candidate's campaign. The candidate was not named in the indictment.

D'Souza was charged in the indictment with one count of making illegal contributions in the names of others, and one count of causing false statements to be made.

In other news about lying sacks of shit, Prof. Michael Mann had a court victory against his wingnut defamers:

On Wednesday, Judge Frederick Weisberg handed climate scientist Michael Mann a potentially significant victory in his defamation suit against Mark Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In a relatively brief order, Judge Weisberg denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss and lifted the stay on discovery in the suit.

Jonathan Adler (Volokh Conspiracy & WaPo) notes that Mark Steyn in particular made an ass of himself:

On Tuesday Steyn filed a flowery motion on his own behalf assailing Judge Combs-Greene’s handling of the case (what he calls a “procedural fiasco”), seeking to withdraw from motions previously filed on his behalf, and and suggesting that he’s done with any more procedural wrangling in this case.  Steyn apparently wants the judge to dismiss the case or get on with a trial. The filing may have made for a fun blog post, but I doubt it was helpful to his case.  The sort of rhetoric that drives web traffic is not particularly effective in court. 

Mike "Huckster" Huckabee tried to smear the Democrats by falsely claiming they look down upon women but he completely botched the attempt.

SOMETHING LIKE THIS MAKES ME WONDER WHY...

the GOP isn't a standing joke in America:

GOP House Candidate Says God Created Autism, Dementia And Tornadoes To Punish Gays

A congressional candidate in Illinois believes God has unleashed debilitating disorders and destructive natural disasters because he is so upset with the growing support for gay rights.

If you're afflicted with autism or dementia, or if you've lost your worldly possessions due to a tornado, Susanne Atanus thinks you should blame the LGBT community.

"God is angry," Atanus told the Chicago Daily Herald during an endorsement session with the paper earlier this week.

"We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions,” she said. “Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”

Atanus is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) in the Ninth District of Illinois.

h/t Raw Story GOP House Candidate Says God Created Autism, Dementia And Tornadoes To Punish Gays

I DIDN'T THINK NEWSMAX HAD THIS MUCH MONEY

The radio ad I wrote about before is sponsored by mybenefits511.com and going to that site lands you on a Newsmax ad:

BILL MAHER IS PRETTY MUCH CORRECT

(h/t William Rivers Pitt)

It's a shame Elizabeth Warren won't run for the Dem nomination in 2016...

''Over the last 30 odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into the mental hospital. So what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture and the pharmaceutical lobby... That's the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and civil war re-enactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He's not even a liberal.''

- Bill Maher

WINGNUT RADIO AD

I can't recall which organization paid for the ad I'm taking about but I will try to get it in the near future.  The points the a makes are that Social Security benefits have been cut but Food Stamp benefits have risen by 30%.  The ad wants us to conclude that people on Social Security are getting shafted but those on Food Stamps are unfairly doing much, much better.  This fits in with the House GOPs desire to markedly reduce the Food Stamp program.

J. EGAR HOOVER AND THE AMERICAN WAY

The FBI's page on Hoover doesn't mention his unlawful spying on normal Americans despite that fact being public knowledge for decades. Obviously, Hoover used FBI agents to violate the 4th Amendment and just as obviously, these agents were upstanding citizens of their time.  The NSA doesn't seem to have any single person as powerful as Hoover but we do know that it also has violated the 4th Amendment and we can assume that the employees of the NSA are also upstanding citizens of their (and our) time.  The moral I want to end with is that we can't let people have this much power and assume that as Americans they will obey the law.  Without some meaningful oversight, beyond what's in place now, there is no reason to trust the NSA.

I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT LIMBAUGH CAN'T SEEM TO GET...

the difference between Medicare and Medicaid straight. Today he provided another example of this inability:

People in red states refuse to expand Medicare, and both of these refusals are thwarting and foiling Obamacare.

MAYBE THERE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT THIS WEEK

The wingnuts seem to be in mid-season form...

Ted Nugent: ‘Subhuman mongrel’ Obama should get ‘just due punishment’ for treason

By David Edwards
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 9:30 EST

Glenn Beck: Bill Nye’s creationism denial is like the Catholic Church jailing Galileo

By David Edwards
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 12:25 EST

  

GOP rep.: Force women to have babies because abortion ‘robs men’ of fatherhood rights

By David Edwards
Wednesday, January 22, 2014 14:28 EST

GEITHNER SHOULD HAVE SENT IN A FEW SWAT TEAMS

According to POLITICO, then-Treasury Sec. Geithner called up S&P's parent company and bitched:

Harold McGraw III, CEO of S&P parent company McGraw Hill Financial, said that two days after this announcement, Geithner called and warned him that the ratings firm had made an error in its analysis and that “you are accountable for that,” according to a legal document filed Monday.
McGraw said in his deposition that an angry Geithner said on the call that S&P had made previous mistakes and would be “looked at very carefully.” McGraw added that Geithner told him “you have done an enormous disservice to yourselves and to your country” and that the downgrade had caused real damage to the struggling economy.

There is a LOT of evidence that S&P and other ratings agencies fucked up the ratings for mortgage-backed securities, so I don't think Mr. McGraw has much in his favor although some of the Baggers are comparing this to Chris Christie's Bridgegate.

THIS COULD BE ALMOST ANY WEEK IN AMERICA

The decline of America sure isn't due to liberal ideology...

Florida Man Claims Self-Defense After Hopping A Fence To Shoot, Kill 21-Year-Old In A Hoodie

By Nicole Flatow on January 21, 2014 at 2:57 pm
ThinkProgress

Pastor Tells O’Reilly How Obama Is Laying the Groundwork for the Anti-Christ
by Josh Feldman | 9:02 pm, January 20th, 2014
MEDIAITE


Florida GOP House candidate Joshua Black calls for hanging of President Obama
Mark Puente
Monday, January 20, 2014
Tampa Bay Times

UPDATE:

Michigan GOP official: ‘Herd all the Indians’ to Detroit, build a fence and throw in corn
By David Edwards
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 11:44 EST
The Raw Story

ANOTHER GRAPH ALL VOTERS SHOULD KNOW...

Paul Krugman cites a study of the top earners in America and in it we find more evidence of "American Exceptionalism":

SEAN HANNITY IS NOT A MAN OF HIS WORD

For example, back in 2009 Hannity offered to be waterboarded for charity but he still hasn't had the courage to do so.  Today, he promised to move out of New York State in response to Gov. Cuomo's statement last Friday:

“If they are extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York,” Cuomo said in a radio interview Friday.
Cuomo defined “extreme conservatism” as being “anti-gay” by opposing same-sex marriage rights, opposed to abortion rights and favoring legalization of assault weapons. Cuomo officials later said the governor’s remarks were aimed at “extremist” conservative Republican candidates.

Beck and Limbaugh have already left but I don't think Sean can bear to leave Long Island.

THIS COULD BE WORTH A BLANK CHECK

Over the weekend, I read a brief interview with a researcher who described his efforts toward determining "what we can learn from history" and in the course of the interview, he mentioned that pundits are often wrong about what the future will be.  He also mentioned that the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency was soliciting work on this problem and I think Lessons Learned Knowledge Management is the program he was referring to. This might be a way to rid us of neo-conservatives once and for all. :-)

UPDATE: I found my source:

HOW TO WIN AT FORECASTING

A Conversation with Philip Tetlock [12.6.12]

Topic:CULTURE

Introduction By: Daniel Kahneman

THE BANKSTER HAS NO CLOTHES

The comforting & useful American myth of advancing through hard work has lost a lot of believers since the beginning of the new century, according to this Gallup poll:

Even a guy who had been a bankster is questioning the obscene amounts of money the Masters of the Universe have been making.

BOOK SALES & WINGNUTS

I noted below that Robert Welch (John Birch Society) urged his followers to buy multiple copies of his book and according to Nicole Hemmer, Tricky Dick Nixon tried the same tactic with Edith Efron's book that attacked the "liberal media":

The heavy lifting fell to Edith Efron, a writer for TV Guide. In 1968 Efron analyzed network coverage of the last several weeks of the 1968 election. Armed with thousands of hours of videotape and a grant from the Historical Research Fund (of which Buckley was the projects chair), she plucked out 100,000 words on Nixon and Humphrey from each of the Big Three’s nightly newscasts.

Then Efron started counting.

For and against: tick, tick, tick, until she had tallied every favorable and unfavorable word spoken about the candidates. Crunching the numbers, she found about half of all words spoken about Humphrey were positive. For Nixon? A paltry 8.7 percent. Her book The News Twisters concluded network news followed “the elitist-liberal-left line in all controversies.”

So Nixon ordered Special Counsel Charles Colson to get the book on the New York Times bestsellers list. Colson ferreted out which stores’ sales were used to determine the list, and bought up every copy they had. And it worked: Efron’s book became an official New York Times bestseller. (For years, Nixon staffers stumbled upon boxes crammed full of The News Twisters.)

NPR DISAPPOINTS AGAIN...

WESUN interviewed neo-con Danielle Pletka about the Iran nuclear despite the fact that she's been wrong about foreign policy for the entire 21st Century.  Here are some of her blunders:

- Pletka was willing to deny funding to the IAEA just to prevent the Palestinians from getting a seat on it.
- Pletka has defended the American use of torture.
- Pletka falsely accused Chuck Hagel of being an anti-Semite.
- Pletka refuses to acknowledge the implications of not finding WMD in Iraq.
- Pletka refused to acknowledge the success of Operation Desert Fox.
- Pletka denounced the 2007 NIE on Iran as purposely deceptive.
- Pletka denounced the 2006 report by the Iraq Study Group that concluded Iraq was on the verge of disintegrating.

THE "MAKERS" AND THEIR MONEY

David Cay Johnston smacks around pinhead David Brooks with some cold facts about income inequality in America, including this one:

Since 1993 the top 1 percent have enjoyed 68 percent of income growth with the 1 percent of the 1 percent getting almost a quarter of all growth.
And the 90 percent? Down 5 percent.

These figures understate reality. They exclude the many very rich people who legally pay little to no income tax.

Keep these statistics in mind when you hear a gasbag claim that when the "makers" do well, the entire country does well.