AN EXAMPLE OF THE "NEW" CONSERVATIVE THINKING

David Harsanyi writes in The Federalist that Sen. Cruz is a great conservative leader:

Ted Cruz Is Winning
Like it or not, it's his party now
February 14, 2014 By David Harsanyi

Forcing a 60-vote threshold on the debt ceiling wasn’t only about the debt ceiling (which Cruz surely understood would be hiked), and it wasn’t only about his presidential ambitions (which he surely has), but creating the type of problems for the GOP that will help bring a bunch of Matt Bevins into the Senate and solidify his position.

Mr. Harsanyi also thinks democracy is a crock, mostly I suspect because the Bagger policies aren't popular:

The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy Hardcover
by David Harsanyi (Author)

LONG BEFORE THE KOCHS AND THE BAGGERS...

conservatives have been abusing the tax-exempt status given to educational groups for decades.  A good example from the 50s is Clarence Manion:

Where every aspect of life is something to be "politicalized,"
it is not easy to distinguish political organizations from
those that are labeled religious or educational. The Manion
Forum, instituted by Clarence E. Manion, former Dean of the
Notre Dame Law College, is a case in point.

The Forum, which calls itself a "non-partisan, non-profit
organization," was set up in 1954, under the laws of Indiana,
as an "educational trust." Such terms as forum, non-partisan,
and educational incline us to expect that this organization
will stimulate a careful weighing of issues and some all around
consideration of public affairs. Yet the Manion Forum
—which conducts a weekly radio program, publishes a
monthly newsletter, publishes various tracts and pamphlets,
and encourages the formation of "Conservative Clubs"
throughout the country—is as dedicated to implanting the
far-right doctrine as if it frankly declared itself to be engaged
in political propaganda.

An issue of the Wall Street Journal carried the Forum's
statement of purpose: to "wage war" against "(1) the
confiscatory, Marxist income tax; (2) wanton foreign aid
squandering; (3) Socialistic 'public power'; (4) destruction
of states' rights; (5) futile conferences with Kremlin gangsters;
(6) ridiculous budgets; (7) federal aid to education,
and (8) unrestrained labor bossism."

Obviously, the terminology used here would not be found
in an educational brochure. It is the type of terminology that
abounds in the writings of both the Left and the Right extreme;
and it amounts to an announcement that rage, having
parented a "cause," is out to demolish an enemy.

SOURCE:THE STRANGE TACTICS OF EXTREMISM, HARRY and BONARO OVERSTREET (1964) P.226

THE ONCE MONOLITHIC CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT IS...

crumbling.  I never thought I'd hear Mark "Foamer" Levin slam the US Chamber of Commerce, just as I never thought Fats Limbaugh would take on the WSJ and FOX News:

Limbaugh: Fake Conservatives on Fox Happily Trash Me if It Makes Them Look Good
by Josh Feldman | 4:49 pm, February 14th, 2014
MEDIAITE

The Wall Street Journal has been highly critical recently of how the fear of “talk-radio backlash” has prevented Republicans from getting immigration reform done. In other words, people like Rush Limbaugh are getting in the way of Washington progress. When a caller brought this up to Limbaugh Friday, he used the occasion to bash what he said were fake conservatives who gladly bash him so it makes them more appealing and moderate by comparison.

The caller asked Limbaugh why the “so-called conservative media” like the Journal and Bill O’Reilly bash him all the time. Limbaugh didn’t get into many specifics, but he did say that too many conservatives assume that people who appear on Fox News are on their side if, occasionally, they say things conservatives agree with.

There are a lot of people who try to pass themselves off now and then as conservative, but if they’re challenged on it, they’ll deny it ’cause they don’t want to take the heat of being one. They’ll say things like, “Well, I’m not one of those right wingers. I’m not a reactionary. I don’t make up my mind in advance.”

FACTOID: MAJOR US CABLE/INTERNET COMPANIES & HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY

The WSJ provides this graphic:

THIS SITE IS FRIGGING HILARIOUS

(h/t billmon)

Some of it might be Alex Jones-style crazy but other parts are great:

Are Militant Atheists Using Chemtrails to Poison the Angels in Heaven?

Those Who Forget the Lessons of the Grateful Dead May Be Doomed to a New Reign of Terror

Why the Spanish Monarchy Needs American Military Support

Did the Irish Invent Gonorrhea?

Obama’s Water Fluoridation Scheme is Blackmailing the Tea Party Into Communism

Obama’s IRS Using Nazi UFO Technology to Bully the Tea Party

THIS COULD BE JUST THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NYC AND PARIS

(h/t Digby)

but remember that Memorial Sloan Kettering is supposed to be one of America's finest cancer centers.

The French way of cancer treatment

By Anya Schiffrin
February 12, 2014

POINT:My parents were pleasantly surprised by his new routine. In New York, my father, my mother and I would go to Sloan Kettering every Tuesday around 9:30 a.m. and wind up spending the entire day. They’d take my dad’s blood and we’d wait for the results. The doctor always ran late. We never knew how long it would take before my dad’s name would be called, so we’d sit in the waiting room and, well, wait. Around 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. my dad would usually tell me and my mom to go get lunch. (He never seemed to be hungry.) But we were always afraid of having his name called while we were out. So we’d rush across the street, get takeout and come back to the waiting room.

We’d bring books to read. I’d use the Wi-Fi and eat the graham crackers that MSK thoughtfully left out near the coffee maker. We’d talk to each other and to the other patients and families waiting there. Eventually, we’d see the doctor for a few minutes and my dad would get his chemo. Then, after fighting New York crowds for a cab at rush hour, as my dad stood on the corner of Lexington Avenue feeling woozy, we’d get home by about 5:30 p.m.

COUNTERPOINTSo imagine my surprise when my parents reported from Paris that their chemo visits couldn’t be more different. A nurse would come to the house two days before my dad’s treatment day to take his blood. When my dad appeared at the hospital, they were ready for him. The room was a little worn and there was often someone else in the next bed but, most important, there was no waiting. Total time at the Paris hospital each week: 90 minutes.

There were other nice surprises. When my dad needed to see specialists, for example, instead of trekking around the city for appointments, he would stay in one room at Cochin Hospital, a public hospital in the 14th arrondissement where he received his weekly chemo. The specialists would all come to him. The team approach meant the nutritionist, oncologist, general practitioner and pharmacist spoke to each other and coordinated his care. As my dad said, “It turns out there are solutions for the all the things we put up with in New York and accept as normal.”

MARK "FOAMER" LEVIN'S BIG IDEA == FAIL

You may know that Levin called for an Article 5 vote to amend the Constitution and I am unaware of any state legislature that has passed his resolution and I know it won't happen in Virginia:

House defeats bid for convention of the states
Posted: Friday, February 7, 2014 12:00 am | Updated: 12:03 am, Sun Feb 9, 2014.

BY MARKUS SCHMIDT
Richmond Times-Dispatch

By a 67-29 vote, the House of Delegates on Thursday defeated a resolution that would have urged Congress to call for a convention of the states to propose amendments to the Constitution.

Some of the Fundies are also pushing for this so we may get a few states on board but nowhere near the 34 states required.

HERE'S A QUESTION AND A REAL ANSWER

Damon Linker writes that opposing gay marriage isn't really the same as being racist only to have the state legislators in Kansas prove him wrong:

Kansas’ Anti-Gay Segregation Bill Is an Abomination
Feb. 13 2014 8:30 AM
By Mark Joseph Stern
SLATE Magazine

In addition to barring all anti-discrimination lawsuits against private employers, the new law permits government employees to deny service to gays in the name of “religious liberty.” This is nothing new, but the sweep of Kansas’ statute is breathtaking. Any government employee is given explicit permission to discriminate against gay couples—not just county clerks and DMV employees, but literally anyone who works for the state of Kansas. If a gay couple calls the police, an officer may refuse to help them if interacting with a gay couple violates his religious principles. State hospitals can turn away gay couples at the door and deny them treatment with impunity. Gay couples can be banned from public parks, public pools, anything that operates under the aegis of the Kansas state government.

THE WSJ TURNS ON SEN. TED CRUZ

The title of the editorial alone tells you what they think of Teddy: "The Minority Maker" and if it doesn't, the subtitle eliminates all doubt: "Ted Cruz hurts his party by forcing a meaningless debt-ceiling vote."

I expect the radio gasbag grifters will now accuse the WSJ of being part of the vast liberal media campaign to discredit conservatism.

WHAT WILL THE BAGGERS SAY ABOUT THIS?

Comcast and Time-Warner are two of the lowest rated providers of Cable TV and the Internet and now Comcast wants to buy Time-Warner.  Will the Baggers defend this or will they admit that government needs to regulate the free market?

TWO BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

If you want to know more about conservatism in America, these two books will help:

The Liberty Lobby and the American right : race, conspiracy, and culture / Frank P. Mintz.

The conservative press in twentieth-century America / edited by Ronald Lora and William Henry Longton

67 SENATORS VOTE AGAINST THE BAGGERS

Sen. Ted Cruz was told to shut up and sit the fuck down by 67 of his colleagues in the Senate:

So on the key procedural vote, which limited debate, 12 Republicans joined the 53 Democrats and two independents to total more than the needed 60 to limit debate, but only after an hour long vote – three times as long as usual – that involved a lot of intense lobbying on the Senate floor.
The votes in favor included the top two Republicans in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. They, along with the other 10 Republicans, wound up voting against raising the debt limit for a year.
Cruz had threatened the filibuster, but in the end he didn’t even use the limited amount of time he was allowed to publicly debate the bill.
“I intend to object to any effort to raise the debt ceiling on a 50-vote threshold. I will insist instead on a 60-vote threshold, and if Republicans stand together we can demand meaningful spending restraint to help pull our nation back from the fiscal and economic cliff,” Cruz said in a statement.

THE MILLENIALS & RADIO

Nielsen reports that the Millenials listen to over 11 hours of radio a week and Jerry Del Colliano writes that Nielsen is not only wrong, it's lying.  Here's the gist of his argument:

Millennials have iPods, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube (the hit music station for today’s teens) and hard drives programmed with their own music.
And have you listened to a talk station lately?
These kids are not interested in Michael Savage’s personal dislike of his competitors or even politics that emphasize confrontation instead of conciliation.

THE MANUFACTURE OF CONSENT

Noam Chomsky's indictment of US news media has held up over time, as I noted below in the case of the Guatemala murders.  We also need to point the figure at the American elites who don't seem to give a damn, even a sweet middle-aged lady:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

At least one member of Britain's elite could tell the moral truth:

He is Carne Ross, once known in the UN as "Mr. Iraq." He is now a truth-teller. I read to him a statement he had made to a parliamentary selection committee in 2007: "The weight of evidence clearly indicates that sanctions caused massive human suffering among ordinary Iraqis, particularly children. We, the US and UK governments, were the primary engineers and offenders of sanctions and were well aware of the evidence at the time, but we largely ignore it and blamed it on the Saddam government. [We] effectively denied the entire population a means to live."

MAYBE WE DO NEED ANOTHER FORM OF GOVERNMENT

(h/t billmon)

I would really like Holder to attempt to explain this whopper:

"Disclosure that an individual is not a subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation could reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security." -- Eric Holder
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/02/no-fly-coverup/

P M CARPENTER CATCHES A HUGE NARRATIVE CONTRADICTION

I'm fond of these examples of conservative incoherence:

Cue the boys at the WSJ editorial page, who, eliding the delay's actual effects, pounce on the politics: "[Obama's] cavalier notions about law enforcement are especially notable here for their bias for corporations over people."
In other words, the socialist despot of a rabidly diseased anti-business mind, about whom the WSJ has warned us for years, is actually a corporate tool antagonistic to the humble masses. So says Wall Street's People's Daily, which has never met an issue it can't distort.

JUST IN CASE YOU THOUGHT THE "MORANS" PIC WAS A ONE-OFF

William Rivers PItt provided a few more examples...

HOUSE REPUBLICANS, BENGHAZI & THE WINGNUTS

The Wire reports on a new House Armed Services Committee report on Benghazi and one of the main findings refutes a popular Bagger claim:

V. There was no “stand down” order issued to U.S. military personnel in Tripoli who sought to join the fight in Benghazi.

Just to be perfectly clear, the majority concluded that there was no better military response available:

Given the military’s preparations on September 11, 2012, majority members have not yet discerned any response alternatives that could have likely changed the outcome of the Benghazi attack.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO RICK PERRY

He recently said "...about Portugal and the legalization of drugs there. In the five years since that has occurred there, 40 percent increase in the murder rate in that country."

Perry is mostly correct as you can see in this chart from a 2011 study:

The other part of the story is the continued decline in the homicide rate:

THE WAR ON WOMEN IS FAR FROM OVER

(h/t Balloon Juice)
James Taranto is a very highly-place wingnut and he thought it was fine to offer this bit carp after the Aurora massacre back in 2012:

Just a couple of days ago, Taranto beat his old mark for douchery with this claim:

WSJ Editor: Intoxicated Sexual Assault Victims Are Just As Guilty As Their Attackers

I DON'T THINK SCHEIBER GETS THE ENTIRE BAGGER WORLD

Noam Scheiber argues that the Bagger politicians are concerned with political realities more than they are with ideological purity and that explains why they didn't holdout for draconian cuts to Food Stamps and why they are miles from trying their shutdown the government tactic over the debt ceiling.  I'd say there are still purists like Mark Levin or this group in the movement but few of them hold office.  Their main power is trying to knock off a "RINO" in a primary and that doesn't seem as dire as it once did.

SOMETHING ELSE I DIDN'T KNOW

This article about a guaranteed basic income from the government contains this surprise:

According to Steven Pressman, an economist at Monmouth University in New Jersey and the co-editor of a 2005 book on the basic income guarantee, the idea suffered another blow in that period, when it was given a field test: a series of extraordinary social science experiments conducted between 1968 and 1980 in a number of US states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Colorado.

In randomized trials, some households got unconditional cash transfers; others were assigned to “control groups” that did not.

The results confirmed the suspicions of skeptics: People who got the money worked less. Specifically, a small but significant percentage of secondary earners, typically women, reduced their working hours or dropped out of the labor force entirely. On top of that, the results showed that married couples who received cash transfers were more likely to get divorced.

So, the fact that women preferred to spend more time with their children is a bad thing?

WHAT IS AND ISN'T NEWSWORTHY

This event made several news outlets:

Ex-Guatemalan soldier linked to massacre gets 10-year sentence
On U.S. immigration documents, Jorge Sosa failed to mention his part in the 1982 mass slaughter of villagers in Dos Erres, Guatemala.
By Rick Rojas
February 10, 2014, 8:16 p.m
LA Times

Ex-Guatemalan army officer tied to massacre sentenced to US prison
Reuters

Guatemalan ex-commando loses U.S. citizenship, gets jail term for massacre
By Tim Johnson
McClatchy Foreign Staff
Posted on Monday, 02.10.14
Miami Herald

Guatemala ex-soldier sentenced to 10 years by US court
10 February 2014 Last updated at 17:20 ET
BBC News - Latin America & Caribbean

Not one of the above mentioned this:

And Reagan was consistent in his moral backing for Guatemala’s genocidaires. On Dec. 5, 1982, for instance, he met with Rios Montt in Honduras and said he was “a man of great integrity'' and "totally dedicated to democracy.”

Just 10 days before this meeting, one declassified U.S. document reveals that the State Department had been informed of a “well-founded allegation of a large-scale killing of Indian men, women and children in a remote area by the Guatemalan army.”

Other declassified documents reveal that the White House was less concerned with the massacres than with their effectiveness, or with countering the bad publicity stemming from reports of the atrocities.

REALLY, NY TIMES?

The mainstream press's infatuation with the Clinton scandals is still with us, as you can see by this pull quote from a Times article:

And yet, it seems difficult these days to escape the scandal that rocked the late 1990s and led to Mr. Clinton’s impeachment.

It's difficult not to think of Rand Paul as a douchebag for bringing this up.

NOW, THE BAGGERS ARE AGAINST GREATER FREEDOM

The CBO Director admits one of the few realistic claims by the wingnuts:

There is a broader question as to whether the society and the economy will be better off as a result of those choices being made available. Even though the individuals making decisions to work less presumably feel that they will be happier as a result of those decisions, total employment, investment, output, and tax revenue will be smaller. (Those effects are included in CBO’s budget and economic projections under current law.) To be sure, the health insurance system in place prior to the ACA generated its own distortions to people’s work decisions, but many of the decisions to work less under the ACA will be made possible by government-funded subsidies, the burden of which will be borne largely by other people.

The Baggers are screaming that Obamacare reduces the incentive to work but they NEVER talk about the increased personal freedom.

OBAMACARE & THE FUCKUPS

A few hours ago I was talking to one of the residents in my apartment building and he said he wasn't sure if he was on Medicaid or Medicare or some plan from Obamacare.  All he knows is that when he went to purchase a medically-necessary pair of shoes, a receptionist at the office found that he was covered by insurance.  He didn't bother to ask what is the name of the provider. I think there are millions like him so it's no wonder that FAUX News and the radio gasbags will have Obamacare "horror" stories to peddle to the rubes.

PERKINS, ZELL AND NOW ARMSTRONG

(h/t William Rivers Pitt)

Tim Armstrong provides another example of the moral & social indifference of the Ruling Class and I'm glad one of his targets has given us a literate response to his "sick babies" remark:

My Baby and AOL’s Bottom Line

That “distressed baby” who Tim Armstrong blamed for benefit cuts? She’s my daughter.
By Deanna Fei
SALON

This reminded me of this letter by a NYC resident to Bush supporters.

MORE BLOVIATING IN THE NY TIMES

An op-ed by a Columbia professor of International Diplomacy is trying to make some kind of warning/criticism of Pres. Obama's foreign policy but I don't think he succeeds.  He uses stale points like "Uneasy allies worry that Washington has lost interest in them." without naming even one and only pretends to give historical background when he fails to note that “détente” with the Soviets became so controversial that Gerald R. Ford retired the word." because of the rise of the neo-conservatives. Overall, the arguments he makes seem to put Pres. Obama in a lose-lose bind.