GOP: Thwart the Vote

Bob Herbert from the New York Times writes:
It never ends. The Republican Party never gets tired of spraying its poison across the American political landscape.

So there was a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann, telling Chris Matthews on MSNBC that the press should start investigating members of the House and Senate to determine which ones are “pro-America or anti-America.”

Can a rancid Congressional committee be far behind? Leave it to a right-wing Republican to long for those sunny, bygone days of political witch-hunting.

Ms. Bachmann’s demented desire (“I would love to see an exposé like that”) is of a piece with the G.O.P.’s unrelenting effort to demonize its opponents, to characterize them as beyond the pale, different from ordinary patriotic Americans — and not just different, but dangerous, and even evil.

But the party is not content to stop there. Even better than demonizing opponents is the more powerful and direct act of taking the vote away from their opponents’ supporters. The Republican Party has made strenuous efforts in recent years to prevent Democrats from voting, and to prevent their votes from being properly counted once they’ve been cast.

Which brings me to the phony Acorn scandal.

John McCain, who placed his principles in a blind trust once the presidential race heated up, warned the country during the presidential debate last week that Acorn, which has been registering people to vote by the hundreds of thousands, was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history.”

It turns out that a tiny percentage of these new registrations are bogus, with some of them carrying ludicrous names like Mickey Mouse. Republicans have tried to turn this into a mighty oak of a scandal, with Mr. McCain thundering at the debate that it “may be destroying the fabric of democracy.”

Please. The Times put the matter in perspective when it said in an editorial that Acorn needs to be more careful with some aspects of its voter-registration process. It needs to do a better job selecting canvassers, among other things.

“But,” the editorial added, “for all of the McCain campaign’s manufactured fury about vote theft (and similar claims from the Republican Party over the years) there is virtually no evidence — anywhere in the country, going back many elections — of people showing up at the polls and voting when they are not entitled to.”

Two important points need to be made here. First, the reckless attempt by Senator McCain, Sarah Palin and others to fan this into a major scandal has made Acorn the target of vandals and a wave of hate calls and e-mail. Acorn staff members have been threatened and sickening, murderous comments have been made about supporters of Barack Obama. (Senator Obama had nothing to do with Acorn’s voter-registration drives.)

Second, when it comes to voting, the real threat to democracy is the nonstop campaign by the G.O.P. and its supporters to disenfranchise American citizens who have every right to cast a ballot. We saw this in 2000. We saw it in 2004. And we’re seeing it again now.

In Montana, the Republican Party challenged the registrations of thousands of legitimate voters based on change-of-address information available from the Post Office. These specious challenges were made — surprise, surprise — in Democratic districts. Answering the challenges would have been a wholly unnecessary hardship for the voters, many of whom were students or members of the armed forces.

In the face of widespread public criticism (even the Republican lieutenant governor weighed in), the party backed off.

That sort of thing is widespread. In one politically crucial state after another — in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, you name it — the G.O.P. has unleashed foot soldiers whose insidious mission is to make the voting process as difficult as possible — or, better yet, impossible — for citizens who are believed to favor Democrats.

For Senator McCain to flip reality on its head and point to an overwhelmingly legitimate voter-registration effort as a “threat to the fabric of democracy” is a breathtaking exercise in absurdity.

Read the entire New York Times Op-Ed writer Bob Herbert's article "The Real Scandal" here.

Reporter kicked at Palin rally

As reported in Salon by Thomas Schaller: The list of nasty, anger-filled antics that have taken place at John McCain, Sarah Palin or joint McCain-Palin rallies continues to grow, and this time it's another assault on the media.

Just a few days after a black cameraman was told to "sit down, boy," at a Palin rally in North Carolina, some attendee kicked a reporter in the back of the leg.

In any contest between fear and hope, apparently fear will only go down kicking and screaming -- literally, it seems.

GOP's Mob

"Married to the Mob," by Steven Wells, published on October 17, 2008 in the Philadelphia Weekly:

The last weeks of the campaign reveal the GOP's rotting soul.

A new sport hits America—nelly baiting. It involves walking up to a McCain/Palin supporter with a video camera and pressing ”record”. The result is a guaranteed instant real–life horror documentary, several fine examples of which now litter the Internet.

In the future these videos will be prized historical documents. They mark the exact moment the Republican Party ceased being the most powerful, sophisticated and successful political organization in world history—and instead became a batshit insane racist lynch mob.

Recent research indicates that the more impotent a person feels, the more likely they are to believe in ”magical thinking”.

The crowds at McCain/Palin rallies are proof that the utterly impotent—the broke–ass, credit squeezed, mortgage defaulting, 401(k)–raped, Wal–Mart–waged losers desperately searching for reasons to a) believe that George Bush hasn’t totally screwed them over seven ways to Sunday and b) not to vote for the black guy—will believe absolutely anything.

So the news from the rancid guts of the GOP—freshly fed by Palin and McCain’s ooga–booga speeches— is that Obama is a ”scary”, mysterious, black, Arab, communist, Marxist, PLO–supporting, Hamas–backed, secret ”Muslim” ”faggot” ”one man terror cell” who ”supports terrorism” (because ”it’s in his bloodline”) and is single–handedly responsible for the ongoing collapse of Western capitalism. And who will—if elected—”make us speak Muslim.”

And that Democrats need to get jobs, stop being ”Jews” and ”European socialists” and ”commie faggots” and ”socialist swine”, and to get back to Russia and stop murdering babies and die. Pretty much in that order.

For anyone with a brain and/or a soul—by which I mean everybody on the planet hoping for an Obama victory—these YouTube videos are glorious evidence of what lies at the heart of the GOP—nasty, snarling, finger–sniffing, pin–prick pupiled, reptile brain–stem fascism.

Read the entire article here.

McCain and the Republican Reich Wing

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne's aticle "McCain and the Raging Right" states:

Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a "decent person."

Yet McCain's own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain's attacks, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." What other "terrorists" was she thinking about?

Since Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and since even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.
Ayers has been dragged into this campaign because there is a deep frustration on the right with Obama's enthusiasm for shutting down the culture wars of the 1960s.

Precisely because Obama is not a baby boomer, he carries none of that generation's scars. Most Americans (including most boomers) are weary of living in the past and reprising the 1960s every four years.

Yet culture war politics is relatively mild compared with the far-right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s.

What we are witnessing is the mainstreaming of the far right, a phenomenon that began to take shape with some of the earliest attacks on Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Read the entire E.J. Dionne column here.

David Gergen on August 3, 2008:

David Gergen:

The Republican Party is a Mess and a Fraud

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson writes: Since George W. Bush became president, the Republican Party has presided over massive, out-of-control government spending, converted a federal budget surplus into a half-trillion-dollar deficit, and looked the other way while Wall Street's greed and stupidity turned the hallowed free market into scorched earth. Now the party has to watch as a Republican president orchestrates the biggest government intervention in the workings of the private sector since the New Deal.

Can any Republican candidate claim with a straight face to represent the party of small government? For that matter, can any Republican candidate plausibly explain what the party is supposed to stand for these days?

It's pathetic to hear right-wing talk radio blowhards try to associate Barack Obama with "radical" or "socialist" views when a Republican administration is tossing aside "Atlas Shrugged" and speed-reading "Das Kapital."

The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it will make unlimited quantities of dollars available for currency swaps with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, as these institutions scramble to keep major commercial banks from failing -- and potentially taking U.S. banks with them. None of Bush's Cabinet members could be heard sniffing about the irrelevance of effete "Old Europe."

This attitude adjustment is necessary, mind you. The question isn't whether some kind of drastic, frankly socialistic measures are needed to save the American economy but which measures -- buying up toxic mortgage-based investments (as the White House said it would do), buying up the troubled mortgages themselves (as John McCain wants to do), or pouring money into selected banks and taking part ownership (as the White House now says it will do). Sitting back and letting the dire situation correct itself is not an option, because the market's phoenix-like solution begins with self-immolation.

Politically, though, there is at least some justice in the fact that a Republican president has to deal with this Republican-made crisis. That little piece of irony isn't worth $700 billion, but so far it's all we're getting.

After eight years of the Bush administration, the Republican Party -- to put it bluntly -- is a mess and a fraud.

Read the entire column "Time to be Outward Bound," by Eugene Robinson here.

GOP Political Hit on Speaker Pelosi

The Republicans orchestrated a political hit against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking female in the United States of America. The Republicans coordinated an event that would publicly humiliate Speaker Pelosi. In front of the American people as the television newscasts broadcasts the failed vote in the US House for the proposed Republican Bush Administration proposed massive Bailout Bill.

The Republicans had their talking points and mouthpieces in place. Senator John McCain flopped all around the country suspending and un-suspending his campaign. Never once did he go on the record to support the Republican President's Bailout Proposal.

The Republicans played politics with the American economic system. They NEVER had the votes necessary for the Bailout Bill. Once again they just lied through their teeth and tricked Speaker Pelosi into calling for a vote of one of the most unpopular legislations ($700 billion bailout), by the most unpopular president (Bush), for the most unpopular group of people (rich, Wall Street fat-cats). The Republicans lied and cheated, they assumed ABSOLUTELY no responsibility or accountability in the making of this housing bubble and the deregulation of the derivative markets.

The Republicans pretend they are as innocent as newborn babies. The Republicans have held all three branches of government for 6 out of 8 years. The Republican fingerprints are all over the looted US treasury, yet they tarred and feathered Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

They blame Jimmy Carter, they blame President Clinton. They think we're stupid! They think the American people don't know that total Republican Tyrannical control over ever lever of the government caused this unbridled orgy of deregulation and corporate greed.

Now the Emperor Caligula McCain is blaming Senator Obama and Speaker Pelosi for the market meltdown and financial crisis. Speaker Pelosi was hoodwinked and bamboozled by those GOP Crooks and Liars that will do any cheap trick to keep their grubby hands in the government till. Country first my ass.

Pure Madness: Republican Hefalumps

Bob Herbert from the New York Times has an execelent article entitled "When Madmen Reign":

Madness.

I’m not holding my breath, but I would like to see the self-proclaimed conservative, small government, anti-regulation, free-market zealots step up and take responsibility for wrecking the American economy and bringing about the worst financial crisis since the Depression.

Even now, with the house on fire, the most extreme among them won’t pick up the fire hoses and try to put it out.

With the fate of the Bush administration’s desperate $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hanging in the balance, Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, stuck to his political playbook like a man covered in Krazy Glue. He pronounced himself “resolute” in his opposition to the bailout because to be otherwise would amount to a betrayal of party principles.

To deviate from those principles, in Mr. Issa’s view, would be like placing “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”

We are in very strange territory here.

George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket. For much of the time since then, the madmen of the right have carried the day. They were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.

These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.

This was the crowd that cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in myriad other ways gleefully hacked away at the best interests of the United States.

Now we’re looking into the abyss.

Read the entire Bob Herbert "When Madmen Reign" here.

Wall Street Bankers: The Unmerciful Servants

Sunday's Sermon: The Unmerciful Servant
by: Ron Edwards

As lawmakers write legislation to bailout the Wall Street bankers and investment houses, the New Testament Parable of the Unmerciful Servant is strikingly parallel and applicable today. The banks and the financial industrial complex request that the government of the USA bequeath them with a massive bailout, in the ballpark of an unfathomable price tag of $700 billion taxpayer dollars to buttress their bad business decisions and practices.

Meanwhile back on Main Street, Anywhere, USA the taxpayers and their descendants who will pick-up Wall Street's tab are getting foreclosed and harangued by these same financial institutions. The overburdened taxpayers are asked to shoulder this nearly trillion dollar burden. From the exact people that have for years shouted from the mountaintops “free market,” “personal responsibility,” “ownership society,” “the government is the problem, not the solution,” “no welfare checks for the poor,” “no government handouts,” and it goes on and on. The laundry list of rightwing talking points only seem to apply to the poor and downtrodden, God forbid the rich and well connected should actually suffer the same foreclosures, delinquent payments, overdrawn credit cards, and other non-dischargable debt that was legislated and written by these same banking beggars.

In other words, the bankers have been the “unmerciful servants” that Jesus speaks about in Matthew 18:21-35 of the New International Version.

The “Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” begins when Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Then in verse 22, Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Jesus begins to teach through a short story about a a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

18:24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents [of gold] was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

In this story, the “king” is the federal government and the “servant” that owes about $700 billion dollars is the banking and finance industry. Now much like today, the king (feds) are negotiating a deal to bailout the debts of the groveling servants (banks). The rich and powerful bankers will no doubt get the taxpayer money. Their bad business practices and unfettered greed has flipped the whole system of American capitalism into American socialism. In 8 short years, the Bush Administration and their corrupt cronies cratered the national economy.

Back to the parable of the unmerciful servant. The unmerciful servent is like the bankers on Wall Street, who are going to get a trillion dollar bailout, but how will the bankers react to the mercy and debt forgiveness from the taxpayers and the feds. Oh yes, you guessed it. The bankers will continue to foreclose on mortgages and throw the taxpayers out of their homes. The big wigs on Wall Street won't reset the A.R.M (adjustable rate mortgages) to keep the loan repayments at a reasonable rate for strapped consumers. They'll continue business as usual, by selling those demonic derivatives and their skanky cousin the credit swap to each other--all the while blaming the dufass sub-prime market. Certainly the bankers will act like the unmerciful servant from Jesus' parable.

We'll pick-up the text from verse 28: "But when that servant [Wall Street bankers] went out, he found one of his fellow servants [Main Street taxpayers] who owed him a hundred denarii.[silver] He [banker] grabbed him [taxpayer] and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' 30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

This parable explains exactly what is happening across the landscape of America today. The bankers will get debt forgiveness and a bailout, while struggling regular run-of-the-mill Americans will get both the shaft and bill. The bankers wrote the bankruptcy bill, the bankers made big bucks riding this housing bubble, the bankers paid each other millions and billions of dollars for shady deals with swampy swaps and demonic derivatives. It's been their big drunken money orgy and the American people have to clean-up the mess that the elephants made for 8 years, under the bigtop of life.

Wall Street Bailout Game

Let's play the Wall Street bailout game. From the Republican Party that brought the US decades of deregulated markets that shouted from the mountain tops that "government is the problem," "free markets," "privatization," and "personal responsibility" are caterwauling and groveling at the doors of big government for a bailout. The American people are hurting from the poor choices and crappy stewardship of total Republican tyranny. This is the GOP that lead the USA into not one, but two wars abroad. The GOP that looted the national treasury for 7 years. The same repugnant Republican Bush Administration that cried wolf and used scare tactics to rob the American taxpayers of their liberties, freedoms and now they've got their grubby hands in our pocketbooks. ENOUGH!

Rep. Kaptur's (D-OH) Statement on Economic Turmoil:

The American people are extremely concerned about recent turmoil in the nation’s economy, including the dramatic events of last week.

1. Congress must not adjourn until it addresses this situation.

2. Due Diligence: we must protect the hard-earned assets of the American public.

3. Prudence: No reforms = no money for the bailout.

4. Help families fight off foreclosure.

5. Wrongdoers must be held responsible.

I do not believe that the people who helped bring about this situation should be allowed to profit from it. Therefore, I will insist on measures that hold responsible anyone whose actions helped bring us to this extraordinary moment where the American people are being called upon to save the financial system.

When Fascism Comes to America, it will be Wrapped in a Flag and Carrying a Cross

Sinclair Lewis declared, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." Republican fascism is alive an well on Wall Street as the feds continue to reward their corporate cronies with tax-funded bailouts. Republican fascism got new life from the GOP Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Sarah Palin. McCain took the Republican mantle of a socialized financial markets and wrapped his candidacy behind the flag skirt of his bible toting, gun slinging, moose killing, self-proclaimed hockey mom.

As editorialized in the India Daily article by Pijush Lodh:

Hillary Clinton showed for the first time that blatant racism could bring White House within reach of anyone. Republicans learnt and acted fast with their version of Hillary – the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

Sarah Palin is attracting the racists of America who favors color of skin above reality, the bible over common sense, and fascism over the root cause of financial trouble for common Americans.
American democracy faces its biggest challenge. The seeds of a second civil war and perhaps outright secession are in place with racism and nepotism taking center stage of anything.

No democracy can survive without participation of people who understand the best for themselves. America is failing in its biggest challenge – it is a crumbling democracy.

One thing is good – if McCain-Palin ticket wins, they will face the consequence of eight years of totally failed policies of the Republicans. The bad thing is that the Supreme Court will be restructured to protect the racism and Christian right wing agenda for a long time.

Who is responsible for this? Yes, you got it. It is the rural American population that just cannot get over the racism and Christian rights.

Perhaps a much more financial meltdown, perhaps $20 gas price, skyrocketing food prices, and a total collapse is real estate with massive foreclosures will teach Americans a lesson on the after effects of racism.

We have seen this before. Nazi Germany crumbled into ground when Germans chose racism and fascism over common sense. We will see it again in America. The problem lies in the fact not all Germans were racists, not all American have lost common sense, but we all will suffer together as this great super power crumbles into ground because of ignorance and arrogance.

Crony Capitalism 101: Feds Bailout AIG

Socialism takes over the financial sector of the US economy. Bloomberg reports: "The U.S. government took control of American International Group Inc. in an $85 billion bailout to prevent the bankruptcy of the nation's biggest insurer and the worst financial collapse in history. "

The Globe Research in Canada says, "The U.S. Financial System in Serious Trouble": "...this major crisis has to be placed at the very feet of the Washington establishment. This is a politico-financial establishment that has pushed to the limits its ideology of deregulation of financial markets and stretched the working of unregulated corporate market capitalism to the breaking point. Now, the system is imploding under our very eyes and financial institutions are falling like dominos."

John Browne from the The Market Oracle states, "Last week, the U.S. government took the unprecedented step of effectively nationalizing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Together, the two companies hold or guarantee some $5.2 trillion, or about half, of all American residential mortgages. A substantial portion of this debt is tilting toward default. Given the size of the numbers, American tax payers should be very concerned. "

The Business & Media Institute's Jeff Poor wrote: Has America created its own variety of communism with the U.S. Treasury Department’s bailout of two beleaguered government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? According to Rogers Holding CEO Jim Rogers, the answer is yes.

“America is more communist than China is right now,” Rogers told CNBC Europe’s “Squawk Box Europe” September 8. "... you can see that this is welfare for the rich. This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

The Republicans in Washington are "not bailing out the homeowners who are in trouble, by the way,” Rogers said. “It’s not bailing out people who want a mortgage – it’s just bailing out financial institutions. This is not my idea of the way things are supposed to be, but if that’s what America wants, you know, it can elect people who are going to do it. I think it’s a mistake.

According to Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor article from RGE Monitor, The transformation of the USA into the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic of America) continues at full speed with the nationalization of AIG

Last week we argued that, with the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie, comrades Bush, Paulson and Bernanke had started transforming the USA into the USSRA (United Socialist State Republic of America). This transformation of the USA into a country where there is socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall Street (i.e. where profits are privatized and losses are socialized) continues today with the nationalization of AIG.

Meet Phil Gramm, McCain's former Advisor behind the Wall Street Meltdown

The Mojo Blog states, "If McCain wants to hold someone accountable for the failure in transparency and accountability that led to the current calamity, he should turn to his good friend and adviser, Phil Gramm."

Last month David Corn reported in Mother Jones' July/August 2008 issue on "Foreclosure Phil." Mr. Corn writes, "Who's to blame for the biggest financial catastrophe of our time? There are plenty of culprits, but one candidate for lead perp is former Sen. Phil Gramm. Eight years ago, as part of a decades-long anti-regulatory crusade, Gramm pulled a sly legislative maneuver that greased the way to the multibillion-dollar subprime meltdown. Yet has Gramm been banished from the corridors of power? Reviled as the villain who bankrupted Middle America? Hardly. Now a well-paid executive at a Swiss bank, Gramm cochairs Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and advises the Republican candidate on economic matters. He's been mentioned as a possible Treasury secretary should McCain win. That's right: A guy who helped screw up the global financial system could end up in charge of US economic policy. Talk about a market failure."

Click here to read David Corn's entire article on "Forclosure Phi.l" This article is especially useful since it also includes a sidebar by Casey Miner that explains "Subprime 1-2-3."

Click here to read the rest of the MoJo Blog entry "McCain Blasts Wall Street Failure, Neglects To Mention His Adviser Helped Cause It."

Take the Muzzle off the Pitbull

Governor Sarah Palin won't speak with the media. This whole "cone of silence" thing is eerily similar to the Nazi theory of the "big lie". The Republicans have just co-opted the big lie theory into the "big narrative theory". In that the public's engagement with Gov. Palin is all about the narrative, no substance, or no follow-up questions answered by the candidate herself. It's just propaganda ploy to spin the bullspit (to coin former Reagan speech writer, Peggy Noonan's sentiment). The ministers of GOP propaganda are out in full force. The McCain campaign offers the American people NOTHING of substance-- but, haven't we witnessed this populist game played-out before in history and it gets real ugly.

Much like the tyrannical reign of the Republicans, during the reign of the Third Reich the Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, masterfully spun the “big lie” theory. The theory goes something like if a “lie,” or in the Republican's case a “narrative,” no matter how outrageous, is repeated often enough that it will eventually be accepted as the truth.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. . . It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”-- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

Take the muzzle off of the pitbull and let the dog speak to the reporters.