| — | Robert Scheer: “The Gang That Couldn’t Bomb Straight” - Robert Scheer’s Columns - Truthdig 2/23/12 |
(Source: zainyk)
The costs of the dirty deal (done dirt cheap) must be patiently explained by the people whom it affects. These are our children.
Losers from the Debt Deal: Students
Graduate students would be the hardest hit, as the bill proposes an elimination of the interest subsidy on federal student loans for “almost all” of them. This means that beginning July 1, 2012, grad students will be responsible for the interest on their loans while in school and during any subsequent deferment period.
Credit: AP Images
The Senate plan appropriately calls for meaningful cuts in military spending and ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it does not ask the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations to make any sacrifice.
The Reid plan is bad. The constantly shifting plan by House Speaker John Boehner is much worse. His $1.2 trillion plan calls for no cuts in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it requires a congressional committee to come up with another $1.8 trillion in cuts within six months of passage.
Those cuts would mean drastic reductions in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. What’s more, Mr. Boehner’s plan would reopen the debate over the debt ceiling, which is now paralyzing Congress, just six months from now.
While all of this is going on in Washington, the American people have consistently stated, in poll after poll, that they want wealthy individuals and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. They also want bedrock social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to be protected. For example, a July 14-17 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 72% of Americans believe that Americans earning more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes.
In other words, Congress is now on a path to do exactly what the American people don’t want. Americans want shared sacrifice in deficit reduction. Congress is on track to give them the exact opposite: major cuts in the most important programs that the middle class needs and wants, and no sacrifice from the wealthy and the powerful.
Is it any wonder, therefore, that the American people are so angry with what’s going on in Washington? I am too.
| — | U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) ”Why Americans Are So Angry - Newsroom: ” 7/28/11 originally WSJ |
The Sane One throws down big knowledge on the house floor. A true patriot.
Early Bird Special: Here’s a recap of what happened while you were sleeping: Dennis Kucinich fixed everything.
[sirmitchell.]
(Source: sirmitchell)
From one conservative to the others? These are not your parents’ conservatives. I keep saying, to all who will listen, that the fringe is now central to the GOP.
From Goldwater to Bachmann, the meaning of one of the right’s favorite terms has evolved considerably
BY BRIAN GLENN
Michele Bachmann calls herself a “constitutional conservative.” So does Rand Paul, and anyone endorsed by Sarah Palin gets the label as well. As the nation heads towards defaulting on its debt obligations and the state of Minnesota remains closed, it’s worth pondering what constitutional conservatism actually means, and what lessons we can take from it.
For conservative politicians, the name signals that they are identifying as Tea Party members, which means limiting government, balancing the federal budget, lowering taxes, ending redistribution from the wealthier to the poor, assigning a central position for God in the lives of Americans, even in courthouses and public schools, and asserting the right to bear arms. While God will always be given top billing, one gets the sense that lowering taxes and eliminating social programs are actually the most important pillars in the platform — so much so that many elected officials claim to be unwilling to compromise no matter what the short-term consequences.
Yet the term “constitutional conservative” is older than the Tea Party movement, and has a subtle yet important difference to it, since it focuses on moderation. For contemporary conservative political theorists like Harvey Mansfield and Peter Berkowitz, among others, constitutional conservatism requires a proper balance between principle and prudence — that is, between living up to one’s ideology, and living together in a democratic community in which all acknowledge the necessity of compromise. God remains central, for religion provides a source of virtue and a reason to sacrifice for the greater good, and protecting individual liberties still remain the fundamental goal, but being a constitutional conservative for political theorists above all requires an awareness of political realities, and an accommodation to them in order to a allow a range of people in a society to live together peacefully.
[…]
Today’s officeholders who call themselves constitutional conservatives have taken a very different approach. They may do well to revisit their theoretical brethren who acknowledged the necessity of living according to principle while not being ideologues, of being driven by values and not opportunism, of compromising on policy while remaining true to principle, and understanding that as much as one would like to move society in a certain direction, it may not happen overnight.
As the federal government stands on the brink of defaulting on its debt obligations, the question for the moment is whether political constitutional conservatives, too, can find proper balance between principle and prudence, between staying true to their ideology, and living together in a democratic community in which all acknowledge the necessity of compromising with others.
Brian J. Glenn is a political historian who teaches in the Department of Government at Wesleyan University. His book, “Conservatism and American Political Development” (co-edited with Steven M. Teles), was published by Oxford University Press in 2009.
From Salon.com’s War Room there is the story:
If nothing else, Monday’s Republican presidential debate made those commentators who have been touting Michele Bachmann as a serious threat to win the GOP presidential nomination look like prophets.
The Minnesota congresswoman capitalized on a very low bar, turning in a glib and confident performance that defied the popular media caricature of her as an unhinged, bug-eyed lunatic, and stood out enough to convince even some skeptics that she could be a serious player in next year’s race.
But let’s not get carried away here.
Yes, Bachmann demonstrated on Monday that she has the potential to make serious inroads with grass-roots conservatives — particularly Christian conservatives. If the debate was any indication, she’s better at communicating with these voters than any of the other ideological candidates on the GOP side (like Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich). She’s also adept at raising money (she took in $13 million for her 2008 reelection effort).
and from FAIR there is the back story
06/15/2011 by Peter Hart
The emerging storyline after the Republican presidential debate this week was that far-right Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is for real, mostly because she managed to sound, well, a little less crazy than she’s sounded before. (No, they didn’t quite put it like that.)
There are stories about Bachmann’s new Bach-mentum in the New York Times (6/15/11), the Washington Post (6/14/11) and USA Today (6/15/11).
Let’s take the Times‘ lead:
The key question for Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota before the Republican debate on Monday night was whether she could appeal to voters beyond the Tea Party wing that she helped to create, while avoiding the gaffes that have sometimes emerged from her strident, passionate persona.
By most accounts, she did just that. Ms. Bachmann toned her rhetoric down a bit and offered herself as a competent, knowledgeable insider who would nonetheless carry on the fight against big government with the zeal of a Tea Party activist.
She’s hired veteran GOP strategists, the Times‘ Michael Shear notes:Those moves suggest that Ms. Bachmann, who is often mocked by late-night comedians and liberal cable hosts as a nutty right-winger, wants to dispel that caricature as she pursues the nomination.
Well OK. Then turn to the Times editorial about the debates, where you read this:
Michele Bachmann had the strangest, most simplistic economic solution of all: simply close down the Environmental Protection Agency, which she said “should really be renamed the Job-Killing Organization of America.”
I guess if I was writing a piece about how Bachmann toned down the crazy in this debate, I’d leave out that quote too. It kind of makes it sound like she didn’t.
Palin’s “gaffe” matters because debate and discourse—not fixing the facts around the candidate—matter in a democracy.
I really believe that the biggest problem in this country is willful ignorance, particularly on the right. At this site, you can see debate — between those who support Obama and the Congressional Democrats and those who feel neither is doing the best job.
But on the right — if a politician’s statements don’t fit reality, well, then, reality must be wrong.
Palin — who proclaimed that what that led her to her Paul Revere idiocy was a gotcha question — cannot admit error, and instead has doubled down, saying she is right. So, since Palin says she’s right, her legions of followers have determined she is, and are rewriting source material to match what she said.
This has set off a debate between the wiki editors and the loons about what is appropriate. The wiki editors are saying, “you can’t just add stuff in that has no support in sourcing.” And the loons are saying “a prominent politician said it, and a TV station said it too, so it has to be included.”
Of course the “TV station” cited was simply running a report on Palin’s idiocy, but these folks have decided that amounts to support of her argument.
So, how to deal with it when all the sources say one things, and Caribou Barbie says another? You say exactly what they say about evolution versus creationism: you teach the controversy.
That’s right — Palin’s fans are now arguing that the facts of what happened with Paul Revere are now in dispute, since historians say one thing and bubblehead said another.
It is quite astonishing to me. Rather than simply say “uh, Sarah…sorry, but you misspoke there,” the real world has to be changed in the minds of these people. This is what happens when you have people who are encouraged to believe that education is suspect (scientists don’t know what they’re talking about — they’re just libruls, so ignore what they say about climate change and evolution), that anyone with advanced schooling is an elitist ( I don’t, but wish I had that kind of education) and that schools should be teaching all God all the time.
Inviting Glenn Beck to weigh in on civility is like asking Bull Connor to weigh in on racial tolerance, free speech, and peaceable assembly.
01/14/2011 by Peter Hart
Earlier this week (1/10/11) I wrote, given how short corporate media’s memories are, “Let’s hope that when someone convenes a civility in media discussion in 2020, they don’t ask Glenn Beck to weigh in.”
No need to wait that long. Time magazine has convened a panel to talk about civility in our public discourse. And the first contribution is from…well, take a look:
Now in fairness, the list is alphabetical. But seriously— was Michael Savage too busy?
