All posts for the month August, 2011

Schweich Versus Nixon

The Joplin Globe‘s Thursday editorial offered some criticism of Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich’s peevish lawsuit against Governor Jay Nixon. 

The paper said Schweich’s “timing couldn’t be more wrong.”

The Republican Schweich is suing the Democratic governor over Nixon’s methods—”unconstitutional” says the auditor—of making disaster relief funding available to Joplin and other disaster areas in the state, which methods involved withholding $170 million in funds that had already been appropriated for other uses—including an extra $300,000 for Schweich’s state office—and diverting them into disaster relief, a hefty chunk of which is designated for Joplin.

The Globe mentioned the issue of Schweich’s political motives involving the pantless party-troubled Lt. Governor Peter Kinder:

Schweich, in an interview Tuesday with the Globe, brought up Kinder before we did. He said the lawsuit has absolutely nothing to do with Kinder or politics. Asked if he would have filed the lawsuit had he been working with a Republican governor, Schweich was emphatic with his answer.

“Absolutely. I sent Nixon a letter about the audit findings and he’s blown me off. I would have done the same thing if that type of response had come from a Republican governor.”

You see?  Nixon’s real sin, apparently, is that he blew off the sensitive auditor.

The issue is interesting for another reason.  There is a battle of editorial positions of the state’s two largest newspapers over Nixon’s admittedly sneaky end-around.

A Kansas City Star editorial criticized Nixon for acting “at least unwise and arrogant” and for taking his “cutter in chief” reputation “too far“:

The Democratic governor has arbitrarily been altering the 2012 budget sent to him by the Republican-controlled legislature. He’s cut money appropriated for colleges and universities, the Parents as Teachers program, the state transportation department and other functions.

The paper suggests that Nixon’s motive for helping places like Joplin involves some politics:

Nixon can meet emergency expenses without further penalizing universities and people in need of social services. The obvious option is to tap the state’s $527 million rainy day fund. If flooding and tornadoes don’t qualify as a rainy day, why have an emergency account?

Using the fund would require a two-thirds vote of the legislature, and the money would have to be paid back over three years. Key lawmakers from both parties say they would be willing to authorize the spending. Nixon would have to share the credit for helping tornado victims, but at this point some esprit de corps would be a welcome change.

Yes, shame on a politician up for reelection for not wanting to share any credit that might come his way.  Shame, shame, shame.  But the Star does have a point about some of the budget cuts.  Part of the amount will come from general revenue, but the majority of it will come from cutting funding for state agencies and programs, including Medicaid and children’s services.

If a Republican were to do that, I think state Missouri Democrats would be, shall we say, not so supportive.

On the other hand, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialized this way:

On its surface, the action might seem like just another example of a politician who equates governance with campaigning, a typical attempt at blatant partisanship wrapped up in legal arguments weaker than a first-year law student’s paper written after an all-night bender.

Ouch.

There’s more about that $300,000 increase in Schweich’s office budget:

In a nutshell: The governor is wrong to cut the auditor’s budget to pay for rebuilding the devastation caused by the Joplin tornado.

That’s right. Mr. Schweich wants the court and the public to believe that his budget is more important than helping a city rebuild from one of the worst natural disasters in our state’s history.

Mr. Schweich, were he granting interviews, probably would take issue with that characterization, but that’s what his lawsuit does.

And the final touché:

Were Mr. Schweich to win his legal argument, he would get access to his $300,000. The folks in Joplin would have to wait for the Legislature to decide whether they were as worthy.

As for the Joplin Globe, home of the largest disaster in state history, its editorial ended with this:

Now it will be up to the courts to decide if Nixon has overstepped the authority that comes with being governor.

We doubt the people who lived in the 7,000 homes destroyed by the tornado are going to care. We doubt the 545 business owners who are trying to get up and running are going to care.

It may turn out that Schweich is right about the process the governor used to find money to pay for Joplin’s disaster relief.

But his timing couldn’t be more wrong.

2 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 31, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 31, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/schweich-versus-nixon/

Apathy Is Not An Option

I lifted some graphics from My Budget 360 and from MSNBC to encourage folks—scare, really—who may be frustrated with President Obama or Washington politics, and are a little indifferent to next year’s election or who may be thinking about sitting it out and not voting at all.

Bottom line: There’s too much at stake to simply do nothing. The income gap between the rich and everyone else is—for a democratic and capitalist society—dangerouslywide and widening.

The first graphic shows the distribution of household income in 2009:

The next one shows just how much of 2009 income went to the top 1% compared with nearly 50% of the lower-income earners:

Next, let’s look at the inflation-adjusted mean household income since the 1960s and see what’s been happening over time:

As Melissa Harris-Perry pointed out last night on MSNBC, those two flat lines at the bottom of the graphic essentially represent constituents of the Democratic Party. And that’s just it. That’s the source of much of the frustration among Democrats. While those in the upper income brackets have seen their fortunes rise and rise, the working class has pretty much been treading water.

That frustration, however, cannot lead to apathy.  Because look what has happened to the Republican Party:

Notice not only that Rick Perry—who has branded Social Security a Ponzi scheme and badmouthed both Social Security and Medicare as unconstitutional—is leading this frightening pack of politicians, but look at the support for some of the other candidates. Palin? Bachmann? Ron Paul? Cain?

Are you kidding?

As for Mitt Romney, his famous flip-flopping always serves to put him on the side of many of the extremists in his party, so I see little difference between him and them, except that he may be more electable in the general election.

And speaking of more electable, if Romney doesn’t come out swinging soon against Rick Perry and distance himself in some way from the Texan’s tall extremism, instead of a Romney-Obama battle, we may have the following matchup, which should guarantee that every Democrat in the country, disaffected or not, will run not walk into the voting booth in November of 2012:

If that scary, too-close-for-comfort graphic doesn’t scare the apathy and frustration out of Democrats, I don’t know if anything will.

5 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 31, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 31, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/apathy-is-not-an-option/

Ozark Billy Long: The Invisible Man

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Here in Joplin, here in Southwest Missouri, we have voted time and again for right-wing politicians who tell us that government is the problem not the solution, who tell us that government is sucking the life out of the country, making everyone wards of a socialist state, taking our liberty, and killing our spirit.

In short, folks around here have said they are “fed up” with Big Daddy government, which is why Colonel Ozark Billy Long, who was “fed up” before Rick Perry stole his thunder, can belly-up to D.C. bars and rake in the cash on behalf of his constituents here at home.

As everyone around here knows by now, FEMA is running out of dough:

WASHINGTON — After a devastating hurricane swept across several East Coast states this weekend, the federal government has announced it will divert some of the long-term funding promised to rebuild roads, schools and other buildings destroyed by tornadoes in Joplin and other states.

Oh, don’t worry anti-government Joplinites.  FEMA says this only affects long-term funding and the short-term cash will still keep flowing into the area and into the bank accounts of many fed-up anti-government voters.

The Joplin Globe editorialized on the matter this morning:

Both Missouri Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt responded to the announcement with statements of reassurance that the needs of Joplin and other areas of the state would be met.  We’re still not sure where freshman Rep. Billy Long, a Republican from Springfield, stands because his office didn’t return our calls.  That’s troubling because Joplin needs to know the philosophy of all its legislators on funding for disasters.

Way back on May 24—two days after the tornado—I asked Ozark Billy the same question.  That was just after Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, had started all the nonsense about budget offsets for disaster relief and the implication that budget battles over such relief would be part of the mix.

Long refused to answer me even though I looked him right in the eyes and asked him about Cantor’s remarks and about funding for Joplin.  His handler told me, rudely, that they would “look into it.”  Well, I called Long’s office the next day and ask the question again and was told that I would be receiving a response from Long’s press guy via email. 

I’m still waiting for that response, even after repeated attempts at the time to reach him.

It turns out that Long has responded to the recent FEMA announcement, courtesy of a statement released on his normally dormant website:

Rep. Billy Long, a Springfield Republican whose district includes Joplin, said he, too, would work to make sure Joplin gets what was promised.

“My thoughts and prayers go out to those on the East Coast that were affected by this hurricane. Those of us in southwest Missouri know just how devastating a natural disaster can be,” Long said. “My staff and I have been in constant contact with FEMA to ensure that FEMA keeps its promise that they would see the rebuilding of Joplin through.”

That response doesn’t exactly address the problem, does it?  The problem, as the Globe stated it quite accurately this morning is this:

Remember, FEMA isn’t driving the train on long-term funding, but Congress is.  Typically, Congress appropriates more money for FEMA when one disaster piles onto another.

But times are different in Washington, D.C., and we can no longer count on business as usual…

In the end, it will be up to Congress to make sure disaster promises are kept.

Yes, it is up to Congress, and Billy Long, contrary to the Globe‘s suggestion that we don’t know his philosophy on things like federal funding for disasters, obviously is trying to have it both ways. 

Long doesn’t want to cross Eric Cantor and the Tea Party in Congress on budget issues—remember Long’s philosophy: He is “fed up” with all the government spending—but he wants to come across as one who is fighting for his constituents here in Joplin.

Well, honestly, local media have allowed Long to have it both ways.  Colonel Billy, during his month-long hiatus from his demanding work in Congress—passing worthless bills that never become law is hard work, you know—as far as I know hasn’t had any town hall meetings anywhere in the district, except maybe Metropolitan Grill in Springfield, nor has he given any extensive interviews to reporters.

He has been invisible for the most part, and that’s no easy task for our capacious congressman.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if the disaster funding issue comes to a head this fall, we may have local reporters demanding some access to and some answers from Mr. Long, instead of merely accepting—as the Springfield News-Leader did in its story on this issue this morning—a short statement from Long’s website.

6 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 30, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 30, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/ozark-billy-long-the-invisible-man/

Rowan Ford And The Whys Of A Doubter

 
Nine-year-old Rowan Ford of Stella, Mo.—35 miles southeast of Joplin—was raped and murdered in November of 2007.  The two alleged rapists and murderers have yet to come to trial.

Rowan, as the Joplin Globe‘s Derek Spellman reported so movingly almost four years ago, was “a slender, brown-haired” kid “gliding along” the roads of Stella ”on her blue-tinted Blossom Quest bicycle.”  She “read voraciously, worked hard and was well-behaved.” 

She loved Hanna Montana and Jesus.

Judy Innis, who taught Rowan at Stella Baptist Church, where the little girl spent Wednesdays and Sundays, said,

She would take your heart right after she met you.

If, of course, you had a heart.

The unspeakable details of the case have bothered me, as they have most folks around here, for a lot of reasons, including the fact that obtaining justice seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time.

Here is an update on the two men charged with the crime:

David Spears, Rowan Ford’s stepfather, was granted yet another change of venue. This time, though, the jury selection will take place in Clay County (includes North Kansas City) but the actual trial will take place, if it ever does, in Pulaski County (Fort Leonard Wood and Waynesville).  His scheduled trial date is, unbelievably, set for October 30, 2012, almost five years after the crime.

Christopher Collings, at whose home the rape and murder is alleged to have taken place, lived in Barry County (Wheaton). Collings also requested and was granted a change of venue to Phelps County (Rolla), but the judge declared a mistrial due to an insufficient pool of potential jurors qualified to hear the case impartially. The parties have agreed to select a jury from Platte County (think: Kansas City International Airport) and hold the trial in Phelps County.  His scheduled trial date is now set for—again, unbelievably—February 27, 2012. (For more on Collings’ disturbing background, see The Turner Report.)

Besides the delay in justice, besides the gruesome particulars of the crime, something else has bothered me about the Rowan Ford case and others like it.

Spellman’s November 17, 2007, article included these details about Rowan’s beyond-her-years spirituality:

When the pastor or other churchgoers arrived at Stella Baptist Church, she would be waiting, wearing her usual smile as she bounded down the stairs to greet them.

Ford, said Rev. Glenn Ennis, the pastor of the church, cared little for material things or the rat race. He described her as selfless. When she was at the church, she loved to sing, to color, to draw, to worship and, above all, to help, he said.

She set an example that others could follow, he said.

“How often do we overlook the example of a child?” he asked.

For me, I just could not overlook how this and similar cases over the years have made me think about God, prayer, and how much we pretend to know about things we cannot possibly know with certainty.

I wrote and published a piece in May of 2009 on the subject, which I will republish here because I am still asked about how I became a “former” evangelical Christian:

The Whys Of A Doubter

People ask me why I began to doubt my religious convictions, eventuating in a vigorous skepticism. A perfect example appeared in today’s Globe on page 4C. Headlined “Young mom charged with killing son on playground,” the story reports on the murder of a 3-year-old boy, suffocated by his homeless mother in Albuquerque.The sobering account of the act went like this:

The police chief said Toribio told detectives that she suffocated her son in Alvarado Park before dawn on May 13 by putting her hand over his mouth and nose.

She said she had second thoughts and performed CPR on the boy, resuscitating him, but reconsidered and smothered him again. Investigators said she then buried him under the climbing gym’s hanging bridge, where the body was found two days later.

Now, I know there are those who believe that God makes parking spaces at Wal-Mart available to them after a prayer request. And I know there are those who believe that God speaks to them, if not audibly, at least sufficiently understandably to encourage them to do things, like give money to televangelists or write letters to the newspaper.

There are also people who believe that God steers hurricanes toward sinful cities, causes earthquakes in reprobate regions, and brings plagues like AIDS upon hedonistic homosexuals. I know people believe such things because I know many of them.

But I don’t know anyone who can explain why God—who believers contend hears and answers prayers, who they insist is interested in every detail of life, and who they are certain is infinitely knowledgeable and powerful—could not persuade someone to go to Alvarado Park before dawn on May 13 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and stay the hand of that little boy’s mother, who not once, but twice, smothered him to a dreadful death.

I have read and studied more theology than I care to admit, and have listened to every conceivable explanation for the incongruence between believer’s speculations about the attributes of God and the testimony of reality in places like Albuquerque or—lest we forget Rowan Ford—Southwest Missouri.

Nothing in all the words written or spoken in defense of God, who allegedly can but won’t intervene in such horrific acts, serves to assuage my doubts and make me believe that there sits on a throne in heaven an omnipotent and omniscient being, full of Love, watching 3-year-old Tyruss Toribio suffer at the terrible hands of his mother without dispatching help.

Nothing written by earnest Christians on the opinion pages of the Joplin Globe about “the love of God”—or more often “the wrath of God”—or any other such fantasy, serves to explain why 9-year-old Rowan Ford was raped and murdered by (still, “allegedly”) two fellow-citizens, one her slobbish stepfather, the other his six-foot, six-inch ally, while God, who supposedly cares whether homosexuals marry each other, could not so much as whisper to one knee-bent believer that the little girl needed help.

And that is why I doubt.

22 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 29, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/rowan-ford-and-the-whys-of-a-doubter/

Liberals And The Will To Try

Globe blogger and first-class thinker Jim Wheeler wrote an excellent piece on racial colorblindness, tribalism, the Civil Rights movement, and Martin Luther King. Most of the comments on the piece were thoughtful and enlightening, but I felt it necessary to chime in with the liberal view, which I expressed on his blog this way:

Yes, quotas may be abhorrent, but doesn’t Affirmative Action involve more than quotas in hiring? What about before hiring? What about education? Shouldn’t those who have historically not started out “even in life” (your expression) be given certain advantages in order to see that the score is somewhat evened?

Things like slightly lower admissions requirements and on top of that remedial help to get them up to the standards of the particular school they have entered? Wouldn’t that be beneficial in the long run? Sort of like the GI bill for blacks, but with an extra kick?

Now, since I am a liberal and since liberalism in contemporary America has been distorted and mocked and turned into a cartoon by conservative blowhards on radio and television, I am used to folks ignoring the actual arguments one makes and focusing instead on the source of those arguments.  And I think a mild case of that genetic fallacy materialized in the discussion on Jim’s blog.  Here’s my latest response:

To all:

I want to clear up just some things about my position, which has been criticized here.

1. My original point was that lowering standards slightly on admission requirements—on admission requirements—might help.  I did not suggest any lowering of academic standards or reducing the scholastic rigor in any particular school.  That is an important distinction, as PiedType’s slippery-slope argument, based on something I did not claim, demonstrates:

Lowering standards to accommodate poor students compromises the quality of education for everyone. It serves no one — and certainly not the future of the nation — to keep promoting illiterate, failing students from year to year and eventually graduate them.

You see how a simple misunderstanding or misapprehension of what I said led to “promoting illiterate, failing students“?  I was merely proposing,

a) that the way we evaluate students in order to admit them to certain schools might be part of a solution.  The admissions standards are somewhat arbitrary anyway—who’s to say what the correct standards are?—and it is not promoting illiteracy or lower academic standards to so accommodate members of an ethnic group that has been a victim of systemic, historical discrimination.  And I suggested,

b) that when such students are accepted into those schools, provide them with remedial help to get them “up to the standards of the particular school.” “Up to the standards,” I remind you. That’s what I argued, not what some of you seem to have thought I argued.

2.  It seems to me that it doesn’t do much good to acknowledge the existence of cumulative disadvantage among black folks and then not propose doing anything about it.  Say what you want about liberals and liberalism, at least liberals have actually proposed a remedy for fixing a historical problem.  Anson’s remedy is MERIT, MERIT, MERIT, without actually addressing the underlying and lingering problems in the black community, some of which, but not all of which, have historical antecedents.

3. Jim, kindly and delicately (which is his normal mode of argumentation) argues, too, against a position I do not hold, and as far as I know, have never expressed. He said,

Your thoughts on this echo my own, Piedtype, which is why I replied to Duane (below) as I did. I know that disappointed him because he is a strong believer in the power of government to fix society. He is a courageous and tireless campaigner for liberal issues here in a part of the country that largely disagrees with him.

Government was a vital force in the Civil Rights movement, but I agree that to expect it to achieve anything like true fairness, in light of human nature as you so well describe it, is unrealistic.

There is in this reply an idea, a friendly but (apologies, Jim) condescending caricature, really, of liberals. It is suggested that we believe, somewhat naively, that government can “fix” society and that we believe government can “achieve” “true fairness.” 

While I believe, like other liberals have said, that our problems are man-made and thus have man-made solutions, I, as one liberal, do not believe that government, and government alone, can fix all of our problems, nor do I “expect” that government will ever achieve true fairness. 

I do believe that it is incumbent upon us, though, to try, both to fix our problems and to achieve widespread fairness in our system.  And the “us” in that statement, in our democratic society, involves our government, the “we the people” in our preamble.

How can we ask of ourselves—of our government—anything less?

Duane

Leave a Comment
by R. Duane Graham on August 29, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 29, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/liberals-and-the-will-to-try/

Never Fear, Pat Robertson’s Here

Thank God for Pat Robertson. 

Some storm tracks show Hurricane Irene heading for the nutty evangelist’s Magic Kingdom in Virginia Beach, so naturally he has more than a passing interest in the big storm.

Pat already has a couple of victories over hurricanes on his divine résumé.  He prayed away Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and Hurricane Felix in 1995, so Irene should be no match for his imprecatory powers.

Word has it that he petitioned God on Thursday to send the monster out into the ocean, away from his headquarters and by extension the rest of American civilization.

So, I suppose we shouldn’t worry about it anymore.

By the way, no word from the small-v vicar of Christ on just why the Almighty is sending Irene up the east coast.   Let’s see, Robertson suggested Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing America for (I forget which) the sin of abortion or the sin of homosexuality or—worst of all—the sin of being a Democrat.

My money this time is on the fact that GOP Jesus is still a little pissed that North Carolina turned Democratic blue in 2008, helping put The Scary Negro in the White’s House.  Those disobedient folks should prepare for a heavenly beating this weekend, should the Republican Savior turn a deaf ear to his earthly champion in Virginia.

By the way, Tuesdays earthquake in the D.C. area—which reportedly happened while the evangelist was in the middle of yet another “end times” broadcast—apparently cracked the Washington Monument, which, of course, meant it also cracked Pat Robertson’s head:

It seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America’s power. It has been the symbol of our great nation. We look at the symbol and we say ‘this is one nation under God.’ Now there’s a crack in it… Is that sign from the Lord? … You judge. It seems to me symbolic.

Now, I’m not one to question the Almighty’s methods, but it seems to me if God wanted to send the important message that America is in decline, he didn’t need to use that age-old natural disaster trick the Big Showoff always uses.

He’s done enough by telling Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to run for president.

You judge.

5 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 26, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 26, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/never-fear-pat-robertsons-here/

The War On The Poor

Every liberal in America who is mad at President Obama should have watched Bill O’Reilly’s show on Wednesday.  Not only was his opening “Talking Points” segment a shallow, misleading, disgusting look at welfare in America, it was a sad example of how Fox “News” is the prime mastermind of the so-called class war that it accuses Democrats of waging.

The segment began with a lie:

As just about everybody knows, America is broke.

The government owes more than 14 trillion dollars. So, spending has to be cut, possibly including some welfare payments to the poor.

In 2002 the poverty rate in America was about 12%. In 2009 it was about 14%, up two points despite—despite—more than $4 trillion in welfare spending over that period.

O’Reilly then shows this graph:

“That’s the redistribution of income,” O’Reilly says, helpfully.

He then says something remarkably strange, even for him:

Welfare spending is 15%—15%—of the entire federal budget. But that is deceiving because Medicare and Social Security account for 33% of all spending. If you take those mandated expenses out of the equation, then welfare payments account for 22% of the total budget and that’s a big number.

Why would O’Reilly exclude Social Security and Medicare from “the equation”? Obviously to make the welfare number look worse, which he thinks makes his class war offensive more devastating.

But the class warfare was just heating up. He then quoted a Republican Rasmussen poll that purported to show that Americans think there are “too many people” on welfare:

And a graphic that raised, of course, the “illegal immigrant” issue:

Noting that most of those “illegals” were children, he then said,

The democratic party in general does not want to cut government assistance programs to the poor or even to illegal aliens. The basic philosophy of President Obama’s party is to redistribute income, as we said, to those who do not have very much regardless of their status.

A fair system would hold those receiving government assistance accountable. That is, if they turn things around in their lives, they would have to pay back a portion of what they received.  And they would actively have to look for work, if they don’t, the benefits cease.

President Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996, and that slowed the “entitlement industry” down a bit, but over the past few years it has picked up steam again. The feds must—must—impose discipline here and in every other federal spending situation.

No mention of why the “entitlement industry“—notice how he conflated welfare with Social Security and Medicaid?—might have grown or “picked up steam” ”over the past few years.”  No mention, that is, of the Bush years and the Great Recession he bequeathed to America as one of his parting gifts, which caused many Americans to scramble for help from their government.

Now, match that horrific and sickeningly graceless O’Reilly segment with what is going on in Florida.  The governor, Rick Scott, a multi-million dollar Medicare cheat, signed a law that required welfare recipients—who receive a stunningly low $134 in average monthly benefits—to  undergo annual drug tests—which cost $30 each— (we had the same thing proposed in Missouri) in order to collect benefits. (Some claim that Scott benefits from the forced drug testing.)

Scott argued that ,”studies show that people that [sic] are on welfare are higher users of drugs than people not on welfare.” But the preliminary data from the new drug testing contradicts that claim.  From Tampa Bay Online:

 TALLAHASSEE – Since the state began testing welfare applicants for drugs in July, about 2 percent have tested positive, preliminary data shows.

Two percent.  The problem is that, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the number of “illicit drug” users in the entire population of the state of Florida happens to be around 8%.  Whoops.

The ACLU, which is threatening a lawsuit, says that the measly “apparent” savings associated with the program— the benefit cuts for those who test positive minus the cost of drug testing—has yet to be determined because administrative costs have not yet been calculated.

Derek Newton, a spokesman for the ACLU in Florida, said this:

This is just punishing people for being poor, which is one of our main points. We’re not testing the population at-large that receives government money; we’re not testing people on scholarships, or state contractors. So why these people? It’s obvious– because they’re poor.

Yes, it is obvious, but only to those who have eyes that are willing to see.  But Bill O’Reilly, Governor Scott, Fox “News,” and the entire conservative movement’s leadership are blind to the truth—no, actually they are trying to blind others to the truth.

As a final example: On Tuesday morning I watched Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom,” which follows the incomparably dumb Fox and Friends.  “America’s Newsroom” is supposed to be straight news on the Republican News Network.  If you believe that, I have a FEMA trailer to sell ya.

In any case, the guest host, Gregg Jarrett, said near the beginning of a segment on Warren Buffett’s recent argument that the super rich weren’t taxed enough that, “I did a little digging and here’s what I came up with…“  In other words, the news host was about to take on Warren Buffett.

What he came up with were a series of graphics, two of which were quite deceptive:

As you can see, Mr. Jarrett tried to make the point that the very wealthy were paying more than their fair share of taxes and, as he told his sycophantic guest, Stephen Moore, “more Americans are paying nothing [his emphasis].”  The problem was that his chart didn’t let viewers know that he was only talking about federal income taxes. A very different picture develops when all taxes are included.

Thus, we know that Jarrett’s overall claim is grossly false, as Citizens for Tax Justice pointed out and I wrote about a couple of weeks ago:

As the chart demonstrates, the total tax burden—which includes not just income taxes—but payroll taxes and gas taxes and sales taxes and so on, is only slightly progressive, in terms of the tax burden as a percentage of income. 

The truth is that the rich earn most of the income and thus pay a majority of the taxes in America.  But it’s simply not the case, as Mr. Jarrett tried to claim, that “more Americans are paying nothing.”

So, yes, we have a class war in America.  Conservatives started it just after the New Deal was born, and finally succeeded in taking real ground in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan, and have steadily taken a greater share of the country’s wealth ever since.

And now, after gaining so much ground, after decimating the middle class, they are hungry for more and have declared war on the poor.

35 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 25, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 25, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/the-war-on-the-poor/

Fussy Facts

I don’t much care for Paul Greenberg’s opinions, as regular readers of this blog know.  It’s not that he is a horrible writer or undeserving of his Pulitzer Prize. He’s a very fine writer and Columbia University is free to pass out Pulitzers to whomever it wants, especially to one who apparently was willing in the 1960s to defend civil rights in a most uncivil part of the country, the South.

There’ s just something about his tone, call it Arkansas Delta arrogance, a peculiar mix of experience-over-ideas conservatism and Southern sensibility and the kind of condescending charm that a man at war with the modern world passes off as genteel sophistication.

At least that’s how his prose rubs me.

In any case, Greenberg was at it again this morning in the Joplin Globe. After three nice introductory paragraphs about the upcoming campaign season, the editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote:

Some candidates eventually prove great presidents — a Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt– and win eternal honor, or at least deserve to. Others are more like Jimmy Carter and the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Now, let’s take a minute to consider those two sentences, which discredit two alive-and-well Democratic presidents and praise a long-dead one.

First the dead one: FDR is one of those Democratic presidents that even some Republican-minded folks occasionally like to praise.  Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of Tea Party Republicans only because they are ignorant of his many compromises as our president, particularly admired Roosevelt’s leadership:

His strong, gentle, confident voice resonated across the nation with an eloquence that brought comfort and resilience to a nation caught up in a storm and reassured us that we could lick any problem. I will never forget him for that.

Or consider Reagan’s calling Roosevelt, “an American giant, a leader who shaped, inspired, and led our people through perilous times.”

Ah, that must be what Mr. Greenberg means by praising the man who gave us America’s social safety net: Roosevelt was an American giant and inspirational leader. 

Okay. But I’ve never met a conservative Republican who had a good word to say about what Roosevelt’s domestic policies actually accomplished.  In fact, the entire modern conservative movement materialized in opposition to the New Deal and morphed into its current unseemly fanaticism while the New Deal was giving birth to its first child, the Great Society.

So, it’s hard for me, a non-Pulitzer winner, to understand what Greenberg can possibly mean by including Roosevelt in his list of “great presidents,” but I am sure he has his reasons.

And one of those reasons must be to contrast the mythical and historically sainted FDR with two of Mr. Greenberg’s favorite demon-Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.

Carter’s name seems to pop up whenever Greenberg needs to stick a Pulitzer-blessed screwdriver in the eye of Mr. Obama, like last summer, when he wrote:

Surely it’s just my fallible memory, but I can’t recall a presidential address that has fallen as flat as Barack Obama’s last week, at least not since Jimmy Carter gave his (in)famous malaise speech back in the dismal summer of 1979.

Never mind that Greenberg, like all Republicans sympathizers, has it all wrong about Carter’s so-called “malaise speech.” (You can read why here or read the speech yourself here.)

Sure enough, Greenberg once again wielded his Obama-hater weapon, Mr. Carter’s presidency, along with the former president’s sidekick, Mr. Malaise:

The stubborn unemployment rate that refuses to subside, a national debt that grows from alarming to crushing, a Great Recession that won’t go away. No wonder there’s a sense of that old devil Malaise in the air. Again the word stagflation is heard in the land, and some of the leftier economists say a little inflation (which has a way of becoming a lot) would be a fine thing. As in the Carter years? Please.

The not-so-subtle implication here is that unemployment, the national debt, and the Great Recession are Mr. Obama’s doing. Never mind the facts; Mr. Greenberg has a job to do.

Now, this is going to be the strategy to attack Mr. Obama, as we move toward November of 2012.  Just yesterday, Jeb Bush, who received praise for telling GOP presidential candidates to stop “ascribing bad motives” to Obama, nevertheless ascribed bad policies to him:

He’s made a situation that was bad worse. He’s deserving of criticism for that.

But facts are not just stubborn things, they are eternal obstacles to the kind of revisionist nonsense that Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Bush are trying to peddle.

Rather than going from bad to worse, things have gone from worse to, well, not-as-bad.

Jobs were bleeding from the Bush-sized wound in the economy (Greenberg’s “Great Recession that won’t go away”) at an alarming rate when Mr. Obama assumed office.  And it took some time to stop the bleeding and close the wound. But it did stop and the wound is healing, albeit agonizingly slow. 

And what healing is happening has come despite fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers, who have en masse not only refused to help Democrats restore the economy to normalcy, but have steadfastly obstructed any efforts to do so.

And Mr. Greenberg’s “alarming to crushing” national debt is also an inheritance from Mr. Bush and years of Republican governmental malfeasance, based on unfettered free-market theology, which Greenberg enthusiastically endorsed in 2006. 

The recession is responsible for much of the ongoing yearly deficits, but particular and deliberate policies of the previous administration—those famous Bush tax cuts and wars—are also to blame for the shortfall and for the accumulation of massive debt.

Greenberg the war hawk was also an enthusiastic believer at the time in the power of the Bush tax cuts to heal the economy, all without ever mentioning the resulting deficits and debt.  In fact, I searched in vain for a bad Greenbergian word about deficits and debt under the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Even though now, in the Age of Obama, Greenberg clearly sees and writes about ”a national debt that grows from alarming to crushing,“  he apparently didn’t see it as either alarming or crushing when policies that caused most of it were being debated and adopted by his fellow conservatives.

Thankfully, The New York Times, put it in a form that even a conservative columnist with a self-described disdain for the theoretical can understand:

So, Mr. Greenberg and other like-minded Obama-haters can take their shots at the current president via comparisons with Jimmy Carter and FDR, but some of us still have a working-relationship with the evidence, with those obstinate, unyielding, and fussy facts.

12 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 24, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 24, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/fussy-facts/

Cheer Up, Dems

Some nervous Democratic partisans are a little anxious by Gallup’s latest polling regarding President Obama’s chances against four “leading” GOP candidates.

First, here’s the bad news for those who tend to take these kinds of polls seriously this far out:

Now, does anyone believe that Mr. Obama would only beat Michele Bachmann by 4 points? That he and Medicare-is-an-unconstitutional-Ponzi-scheme-failure Rick Perry would split the vote?

How about Mr. Obama only beating Ron Paul (!) by 2 points? Or, God help us, Obama losing to my-3000-square-foot-beach-house-is-too-small-so-I’m-gonna-bulldoze-it-and-build-a-11000-square-foot-mansion Mitt Romney?

Come on peeps, cheer up.

Here’s the good-news skinny, thankfully, on just how inaccurate these types of long-distance Gallup polls can be, thanks to Steven Shepard of the National Journal:

♦ In August 1999, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush led Vice President Al Gore by 14 points. Gore ended up narrowly winning the popular vote.

 ♦ In August 1995, then-Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., had a two-point lead over President Bill Clinton. Dole lost by eight.

 ♦ In August 1983, Ronald Reagan had a slender, one-point lead over former Vice President Walter Mondale. Reagan would be re-elected by 18 points the following November, after economic growth spiked in the second half of Reagan’s first term.

♦ In August 1979, President Jimmy Carter and Reagan were tied at 45 percent. Reagan won by 10 points in 1980.

Look, no one is saying the road to reelection for Mr. Obama is an easy one.  But if Big O takes E. J. Dionne’s recent advice—”Go big, go long, and go global“—he’s got a very good chance of keeping his government housing, despite the angst among pale-faced teapartiers who want to throw him out of the White’s House.

Dionne says:

♦ Keep the current proposals to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, as well as patent reform.

Add to them:

♦ Aid to state and local governments, which are cutting budgets and killing jobs.

♦ Boost spending “on roads, bridges, transit and other building projects,” including rehabilitating “the nation’s dilapidated schools.”

♦ And a biggie: “Do far more to resolve the mortgage mess.”  Amen.

Dionne claims that “big investors and business leaders“—the “heart of capitalism“—are panicking and asking for “the world’s governments to step up to the challenge of avoiding a second recession by spending more money.”  Apparently, drunken overnight flirting with the Tea Party has succumbed to the sobering morning of economic reality, at least for now.

As far as the long-term deficit problem we have, Mr. Dionne has that covered too:

♦ “Obama should not be shy about urging eventual tax increases, particularly on the wealthy. And let’s be clear: these would not be immediate tax hikes; they’d kick in a year or two from now.”

♦ “A carbon tax, partly offset by tax cuts or rebates for middle-income and poorer taxpayers, could provide additional revenue.”

♦ “And we need to do still more to contain health care costs without hurting those who can’t afford insurance, and without voucherizing Medicare.”

Other Democrats, including former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, have even more ideas to help, including Medicare-for-all.

All of this stuff is easier said than done, obviously, but Big O has to think outside the Boehner box and start to channel Mitt Romney: A $12 million 3000-square-foot beach house in La Jolla is simply not good enough, what with all the children and grandchildren to consider.

Think big, Mr. President, think big.

Break ground on an economic-recovery plan that Mitt Romney’s kids and grandkids would be proud of.  Go for that 11,000-square-foot economic-policy.

9 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 22, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 22, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/cheer-up-dems/

The Best They’ve Got

Once upon a time, Jon Huntsman, GOP presidential hopeful, worked for Barack Obama, Democratic presidential hopeful redux.

Mr. Huntsman, obviously seeking what’s left of the reality-based vote in the Republican Party, said this on ABC’s This Week, hosted by Jake Tapper on Sunday:

HUNTSMAN: I think there’s a serious problem. The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party — the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people that would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012.

When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science and, therefore, in a losing position.

Huntsman was also asked about Rick Perry slapping some Texas-ugly on a treasonous Ben Bernanke:

HUNTSMAN: Well, I don’t know if that’s pre-secession Texas or post-secession Texas, but in any event, I’m not sure that the average voter out there is going to hear that treasonous remark and say that sounds like a presidential candidate, that sounds like someone who is serious on the issues.

But it gets to a broader of, you know, the fact that, you know, we’ve had so much hope and hype in politics the last little while. We’ve found ourselves at the extreme ends of the political spectrum. And people are crying out for us to get back to some level of sensibility…

TAPPER: So do you think that Governor Perry is unelectable? Were he to get the Republican nomination, he would lose to President Obama?

HUNTSMAN: I think when you find yourself at an extreme end of the Republican Party, you make yourself unelectable.

And Mr. Huntsman was asked about Michele Bachmann’s “crash-and-burn approach” to the debt ceiling issue:

HUNTSMAN: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily trust any of my opponents right now who were on a recent debate stage with me, when every single one of them would have allowed this country to default…

Wow.  Here’s one Republican who gets it, no?

Well, not exactly.

He was asked about that unfortunate but revealing moment during the Fox “News” debate in which every single Republican–including Jon Huntsman–used his or her raised hand to signal surrender and future obedience to Grover Norquist and his drown-the-government-in-the-bathtup pledge. 

TAPPER: When S&P devalued the U.S. from AAA to AA-plus, one of the reasons, they said, was the dysfunction in Washington. They didn’t have confidence in either side to come together to make a compromise to get the country on the right fiscal path.

But you, along with all of your Republican competitors, raised your hand and said that you would be unwilling to accept a deal of 10-to-1 spending cuts for tax increases. That would be if you just eliminated the Bush tax cuts for those who make more than $1 million a year, by one computation — that would be $6 trillion in spending cuts. Aren’t you buying into the same brinksmanship that you’re criticizing?

HUNTSMAN: Jake, it was a nonsense question. And the fact that you can even ask a question that is that important with such profound implications for the United States, to answer by show of a raised hand, I mean, come on. What have — you know, what have debates gotten to, in terms of how we discuss the truly important issues of the day? I don’t think tax increases are good for this country right now. In fact, I think it’d be the worst thing that we can do.

TAPPER: So are you sorry you raised your hand for the, quote, “nonsense question”?

HUNTSMAN: Well, I’m just sorry that the debate resorted to a raising of hand as opposed to some discussion about where this country needs to go in terms of overall tax policy.

Clearly Huntsman regrets getting caught up in that tribute-to-Grover-Norquist moment, especially since Huntsman has refused to sign Norquist’s tongue-tying pledge.  But the fact remains that he did get caught up in it, and it wasn’t because the question was a “nonsense question.” 

No, the question, like the one on evolution and global warming, revealed something important about the candidates who answered. And Jon Huntsman, however much he wants to be the Republican From Reality, had his moment of truth, a moment when he could have simply kept his hand at his side and thereby demonstrated that he is not a promoter of the collective delusion—shared by all of his GOP colleagues—that our country’s long-term fiscal problems can be solved by spending cuts alone.

He had his chance that night to really prove that he has more than one foot planted in this world, but he failed.  That failure, however, wasn’t exactly the first time.

As we see Libya today on the brink of permanent separation from its long-time dictator, we should remember that not long ago Jon Huntsman, a loud critic of Mr. Obama’s Libya policy (“we just can’t afford it“), had this exchange with a New Hampshire voter:

VOTER: “You mentioned Libya, and you mentioned the Constitution a couple of times. The president has decided to make Congress irrelevant, go around Congress, not — not go to Congress and ask for whether permission to go to war for — with, with Libya. He takes, what he thought, a UN resolution as his mandate to be able to go to war in Libya, do you think that’s unconstitutional in what he’s doing in Libya right now?”

HUNTSMAN: “Well, last I looked the UN was not our Constitution. We ought to recognize who’s responsible for declaring war and giving the approval for these kinds of things, and get back to the basics of who should be driving these decisions.”

VOTER: “What should Congress be doing in the fact that he went around Congress and he’s, he’s not abiding to the War Powers Act?”

HUNTSMAN: “I think, I think Congress is, is in a mild uproar about it.”

VOTER: “It’s very mild.”

HUNTSMAN: “I have a fundamental problem, generally, I mean beyond this decision, just with the decision that has been made to get involved, in Libya, in a tribal country, when we have no definable interest at stake, we have no exit strategy. Look in Afghanistan, you want to get involved in tribal government? How hard it is to extricate yourself once you’ve gotten involved? Let history be your guide. Thank you.”

VOTER: “Do you think it’s impeachable?”

HUNTSMAN: “I’ll let Congress make that decision.”

Another moment in which a man who worked for and wants to be the President of the United States could have firmly grounded himself in the reality of this world, but instead chose to fly with the unbalanced butterflies in his party as they flit from one fanatical flower to another.

What is profoundly sad about all of this is that Jon Huntsman is the best candidate the Republican Party has to offer the country. But that judgment is obviously based on a relative comparison.  As he tries hard now to separate himself from the silliness of the other candidates, we know that somewhere inside of Jon Huntsman is a vexing vein flowing with the same kind of silliness, the same kind of Tea Party tackiness.

7 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 22, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 22, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/the-best-theyve-got/

Another Family-Values Republican Gone Down

David Humphreys, who lives in Joplin and owns Tamko Building Products, has given a lot of money to Republicans over the years.  He and his family are nationally-known donors to conservative candidates and causes, including the Republican aspirant for Missouri governor, Peter Kinder.

According to FiredUp!Missouri, the Humphreys family has given Peter Kinder $766,903 since 2008. Man, what I could do with that kind of money. I bet I could talk and write like a teapartier for that kind of dough.

Anyway, Kinder, in case you forgot, is currently our state’s Lt. Governor.  I have largely avoided writing about him because a) I don’t like him, and b) I never thought he had much chance of defeating Democrat Jay Nixon, for a lot of reasons that pale in comparison to the one that currently has him in deep, family-values doo-doo.

It seems that Mr. Kinder, with his family values in tow, has, shall we say, parked his Winnebago in the wrong campground a time or two or, well, we don’t know how many times, really.  The campground was a bar-place in St. Louis called Verlin’s, a hot spot famous for—I am told—”pantless parties.” 

Now, if you are a family-values Republican, you sort of don’t want your name and “pantless parties” in the same sentence, let alone have a photograph of you and a hottie floating around for all to see.

Anyhow, pantless entertainment is not that prevalent around these parts, but then this part of the country isn’t exactly sexy Las Vegas.  Just about the most exciting pantless time around here for a guy is in the change-rooms at Wal-Mart, just after the latest shipment of Genuine Dickies comes in.

But despite its lack of excitement, this is where David Humphreys lives and this is how Politico reported what the GOP donor had to say about Mr. Kinder:

David Humphreys, a southwest Missouri businessman and major GOP donor who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party, is abandoning his support for Peter Kinder’s gubernatorial bid and calling on him to resign.

Humphreys tells POLITICO in an email that he has asked the lieutenant governor to forego a 2012 campaign, requested his donations be returned and warned he will support Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon if Kinder is the GOP nominee.

Humphreys’ move is a devastating blow to Kinder and the strongest signal to date that the lieutenant governor’s support is beginning to erode in light of a story that detailed his interactions with a former Penthouse Pet.

“If I had known this about him I would not have supported him in the past,” Humphreys told POLITICO.

Humphreys, a deeply conservative and private man, also conveyed he believes Kinder should step down from his current post immediately as a matter of principle and ”so that he is not a liability to other Republicans in the upcoming elections.”

That pretty much ends Mr. Kinder’s political career, but before he goes, if you want all the details of what led up to Mr. Humphrey’s statement, Sean at FiredUp! has thoroughly documented the saga, so start here and ENJOY!

19 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 19, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 19, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/another-family-values-republican-gone-down/

The Most Revealing Question Of All: How Old Is The Earth?

Last year, the Joplin Globe had a pre-election feature it called the 100 Words Project.  It presented questions to the candidates for our 7th District congressional seat—eventually won by Ozark Billy Long—and they were all required to answer with 100 words or less.

I suggested at the time that one of the questions should have been:

How old is the earth?

A nice discussion ensued and I endured some criticism for wanting to ask such a question, but my point was that the answer to it would be quite revealing.

Now comes news that during a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Thursday Governor Rick Perry was actually asked my question by nine-year-old Sam Beane, who was (unfortunately) prodded by his mother:

SAM BEANE: How old do you think the earth is?

PERRY:  How old do I think the earth is? You know what? I don’t have any idea. I know it’s pretty old, so it goes back a long, long way. I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is. I hear your mom was asking about evolution. You know, it’s a theory that’s out there. It’s got some gaps in it, but in Texas we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools, because I figured you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.

Now, there is a lot of ignorance woven into that statement, but the ignorance is willful, not accidental. 

Of course we know how old the earth is, although it would be technically correct to say we don’t know with absolute certainty, that is, to the minute, how old it is.

And of course evolution is a theory, but it is a theory in the scientific sense: it accurately describes and explains a large set of observations of nature and makes falsifiable predictions about future observations.  Such scientific theories can never be ultimately proven, only ultimately disproven. 

Science doesn’t make God-like pronouncements about the nature of the universe; it only offers theories that can be tested over time, and when they have been tested over time and found reliable, they become more probable as reliable explanations of how things work.

Evolution theory is thus the foundation—rock solid—of modern biology.  There simply is no dispute about it among biologists.

Which leads to Perry’s phony claim that “we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools.”  Even in God-crazed Texas they don’t teach creationism in government schools, particularly since the Supreme Court—before it was controlled by conservatives—put the kibosh on such nonsense in 1987.

But  the most dishonest thing Governor Perry said was what he said last, looking nine-year-old Sam Beane in the eye:

I figured you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.

No, Governor, he doesn’t know what’s right at the age of nine.  He needs to be taught what is right. In this case he needs to be taught what science understands about the universe.  And he needs to be taught it no matter how much it conflicts with fundamentalist religion, no matter how much it might shake up Iron Age conceptions of the nature of life.

Sam Beane did ask a damned important question and he got a damned disturbing answer from a damned disturbing presidential candidate.

Which is why the question should be asked of all candidates who want to represent us. It tells us something about each one’s state of mind and the quality of analysis each will bring to the table in order to find solutions to our nation’s problems.

45 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 19, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 19, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/the-most-revealing-question-of-all-how-old-is-the-earth/

Remarks And Asides, Part II

Tom Coburn, our U.S. Senator neighbor, called his congressional colleagues “cowards,” and said:

It’s just a good thing I can’t pack a gun on the Senate floor.

You see?  The conservative solution to nearly every problem in America is to cut spending and kill people.  While it’s not clear what the extremist Mr. Coburn would do with the gun on the Senate floor,  if he’s pining for suggestions on where to start, I have a couple.

__________________________________

Speaking of Tom Coburn, who is supposed to be a great friend of President Obama, the Tulsa World reported that while in Pryor the extremist said this about his friend:

Responding to a man in Langley who asked if Obama “wants to destroy America,” Coburn said the president is “very bright” and loves his country but has a political philosophy that is “goofy and wrong.”

Obama’s “intent is not to destroy, his intent is to create dependency because it worked so well for him,” he said.

“As an African-American male,” Coburn said, Obama received “tremendous advantage from a lot of these programs.”

Man, with friends like that, who needs the Tea Party and the Taliban?

___________________________________

Speaking of African-American males and taking the easy road of dependency, as amnesia-laden conservatives grumble over The Lazy Negro’s vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, we learn from CBS News that President Obama, compared to Republican presidents, actually needs to take more time off:

George W. Bush, after 31 months in office:  180 days of vacation

Ronald Reagan, after 31 months in office: 112 days of vacation

Barack Obama, after 31 months in office: 61 days of vacation

___________________________________

In today’s Jesus Is Weeping section, Huff Po informs us that Rick Perry, who in his book “Fed Up!” attacked Washington types who get their jollies from spending other people’s money, actually hired Washington types to get other Washington types to spend other people’s money in Texas.

___________________________________

Speaking of hypocrisy, a Texas Republican and Ron Paul supporter has taken out the following ad in a weekly newspaper, the Austin Chronicle:

Now, the man who took out the ad, Robert Morrow, is clearly nuts. Among other things, he believes that Bush The Older was involved in killing JFK and tried to kill Ross Perot; he also believes that Barack Obama is CIA and gay. 

Apparently, though, he doesn’t think Obama hates America, which is progress for Tea Party types.

___________________________________

Speaking of Ron Paul and Rick Perry, when Ron Paul thinks you’re an extremist, maybe it’s time to go back to Houston and do some more prayin’. 

This time, Rick, ask for a little modesty.

___________________________________

Speaking of extremists, not only has Congress’ disapproval rating soared to new heights (82%), the Tea Party is finally getting only part of its due. The latest New York Times/CBS News poll shows that :

The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent…

I won’t rest easy until 99.9% of Americans view the Tea Party unfavorably.  I have little hope, however, that Anson Burlingame will ever see the light.

4 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 18, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 18, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/remarks-and-asides-part-ii/

Remarks And Asides

Like President Obama, who cut Rick Perry some slack for ”almost” rhetorically executing Ben Bernanke for treason, I am willing to cut Michelle Bachmann some slack for getting all mixed up about Elvis. 

After all, it’s hard for some folks to tell the difference between being born and being dead, just as it’s hard for some folks to tell the difference between God telling you to run for president and God telling Rick Perry to run for president.

It’s all very confusing sometimes.

 _________________________________

Speaking of Michele Bachmann, she will never, ever be president. Not even in 2102:

__________________________________

Governor Chris Christie has once again found it necessary to beat back rumors that he is considering running for president next year.  Among others, Karl Rove hinted on Monday that Home Depot co-founder and Obama-hater Ken Langone told Christie that he needed “to think seriously” about a run.

I have it on good authority, though, that Christie told Langone this:

Look, I appreciate the nice orange Home Depot apron you gave me, Ken, but I’m not running.  And since I’ve already missed the deep-fried butter on a stick at the Iowa State Fair, nothing could get me to run now.

__________________________________

Fox Bidness Network’s Lou Dobbs—who has a hit-and-miss relationship with reality—learned from Texas congressman Louis Gohmert—who has a miss-and-miss relationship with reality—that President Obama was “out there acting like the evil emperor” in his “Darth Vader bus.”

The evil emperor, of course, was Palpatine, who as a Galactic Republic politician rose to Chancellor and began to reveal his true identity as Darth Sidious, a Dark Lord of the evil Sith.

Now, you can tell by looking at Darth Sidious that Obama is no Darth Sidious. He doesn’t have the complexion or the temperament.  But Louis Gohmert does.  Let’s compare (hint: Gohmert is on the right):

You can see now that Gohmert, in a clear case of deflection, was trying to hide his true identity.

Meanwhile, far from a Dark Lord, Obama has the complexion and temperament of a Jedi Master, perhaps Mace Windu:

By the way, anyone remember how Star Wars ended?

2 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 17, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 17, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/remarks-and-asides-29/

Heads Perry Wins, Tails Obama Loses

Responding to critics of his dumb remarks about a potentially treasonous Ben Bernanke, Republican Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Rick Perry said this today:

Yesterday, the president said I needed to watch what I say. I just want to respond back to say, ‘Mr. President, actions speak louder than words.’  My actions helped create jobs in Texas. The president’s actions are killing jobs in America.

Okay, let me see here.  Rick Perry, whose campaign mantra appears to be,  I’m-the-most-pro-business-politician-in-the-history-of-the-universe, says his actions “helped create jobs in Texas,” while Mr. Obama’s “are killing jobs in America.”

How can this be?  Either the President is responsible for the economy or he isn’t.  Republicans need to make up their minds.  They can’t credit one state’s job creation, however ambiguous the claim, to their economic and political philosophy—as Rick Perry does every day—and then credit unemployment elsewhere to Mr. Obama. 

In other words, if Mr. Obama is “killing jobs in America,” then he is killing jobs in Texas, too.  And if he is not killing jobs in Texas, then he is not killing jobs in America.

The truth, of course, is that under President Obama’s watch, almost two and a half million new private sector jobs have been created—17 straight months of private-sector job growth—a stunning reversal of the hemorrhaging of jobs caused by the other Texas governor’s Great Recession.  And this is not to mention the millions of jobs saved by the stimulus bill and the auto rescue.

So, the fact that Rick Perry has helped Texas, along with Republican Haley Barbour’s Mississippi,  become the minimum-wage job capital of the United States is not all that much to brag about, especially since not too many minimum wage jobs come with benefits.

But it is fair to say that some well-paying jobs have been added in Texas, even some that are not associated with the drain-Americans-of-every-last-cent energy bidness.  But many of those jobs have been added by subtracting them from other states. Is it fair to say you “created” a job when you stole it from another state because of the short-sighted economic ideology of weak government regulation and low or no taxes?  Is it fair to brag about that kind of job creation?

Nope. But if Perry wants to brag, perhaps he can brag about the fact that Texas is NUMBER ONE in the number of folks without health insurance (1 in 4).  It is also NUMBER ONE in the number of children without health insurance (1.5 million kids*).  And if one compares the June unemployment rate in health care-challenged Texas with Massachusetts, where ObamneyCare lives on, one finds this:

MASSACHUSETTS: 7.6%           TEXAS: 8.2%

Hmm.

And by the way, there does seem to be plenty of jobs for executioners in Texas. The state kills more criminals than any other state, and some of them are even guilty of their crimes.

Congratulations, guv’nor.

______________________________

* According to a faith-based Texas group, “Texas Impact,”

About 750,000 Texas children, half of our uninsured youth, are eligible for—but not enrolled in—the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or Children’s Medicaid. Our strained enrollment system cannot support the task of connecting these children with the insurance they need and that the state has promised them.

In other words, stingy Texas government won’t hire enough staff and purchase up-to-date computer systems to process the high number of claims for the uninsured kids.  That is what small government means to some vulnerable folks.

2 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 17, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 17, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/heads-perry-wins-tails-obama-loses/

I’m Rooting For Radical Rick

Republicans are giddy over Rick Perry.

Me, too.

While most liberals and Democrats are upset with the intemperate Texan, I am excited. Remember during the 2008 campaign when that crazy lady in Minnesota stood up at a McCain rally and said, “Obama is an Arab“?

And remember when McCain grabbed the microphone from her and sort of tried to de-Arab Obama?  McCain said,

No ma’am.  He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.

Well, if that same thing happened during the 2012 election with Rick Perry as the nominee, we might have this happen:

WOMAN AT PERRY RALLY: Obama is an Arab.

PERRY: No ma’am. He’s not in love with America, that’s for sure. But an Arab? No ma’am.  Now, he is a socialist the troops don’t respect, and you can count on it when I’m president that the military will respect me, a white guy from the great state of Texas.  There won’t be a black cloud hanging over the country.

You see?  That could happen.  Wait.  It already has happened, sort of.

Perry has already—just a couple days into the primary campaign—questioned Obama’s love for America and his bona fides as Commander-in-chief.  And the underlying, as of yet unspoken, foundation for such things is this:

WE JUST CAN’T TRUST THIS STRANGE NEGRO TO RUN THE COUNTRY

And to top it all off, Perry said this about Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman:

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.

Treasonous?  What could he mean by that?

He told reporters, who ask him if he thought the Fed was playing politics on behalf of Obama:

If they print more money between now and this election I would suggest that’s exactly what’s going on.

Now, think about it.  If Bernanke’s actions help Obama, Bernanke is “almost” committing treason.  That must mean that Obama is an enemy to the country, right?  Helping The Scary Negro remain president is tantamount, or “almost” tantamount, to betraying the country.

Perry is merely saying out loud what a lot of Republicans say among themselves.

Thus, as the truth trickles out about Rick Perry’s dubious job record in Texas (by the way, why is Obama responsible for all the unemployment in the rest of the country, but not responsible for the employment in Texas?);

As the truth trickles out about Rick Perry’s constitutional hostility toward Social Security and Medicare;

As the truth trickles out about Rick Perry’s fondness for trickle-down economics, which has miserably failed Texas and the country;

I am rooting for Radical Rick to become the GOP nominee because he represents an embarrassingly large swath of the Republican Party these days, and the American people will have no clearer choice of visions for our country. 

If Americans want George Bush on Rovian steroids, if they want Sarah Palin with a Texas twang, if they want a pale-faced zealot who is dangerously certain of God’s calling and purpose, Rick Perry is their man.

And if fifty-percent-plus-one of the country want that kind of America, the rest of us will just have to suffer.  But it’s time we find out what kind of country we will have.

12 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 16, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 16, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/im-rooting-for-radical-rick/

Jesus Christ Supersocialist

A commenter on my post, “The Socialist Capital Of Missouri: Joplin,” wrote:

I would submit the idea that Christ would be in favor of socialism!

It so happens that Gregory Paul, who knows a little something about sociological research, wrote a piece for The Washington Post a few days ago that addressed the Jesus-as-socialist idea.

In fact, Paul went further and questioned “a set of profound contradictions” that “have developed within modern conservative Christianity.” If that critique sounds familiar to readers of this blog, it is because I, a former conservative, evangelical Christian, have offered the same criticisms.

Paul wrote:

Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of – and many of whose followers are — the most hard-line anti-Christian atheist/s you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin’s evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism!

He then goes on to discuss chapters 2 and 4 of the book of Acts in the New Testament, especially:

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

Paul comments:

Now folks, that’s outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx—who likely got the general idea from the gospels.

The pro-capitalist Christians who are aware of these passages wave them away even though it is the only explicit description of Christian economics in the Bible.

Mr. Paul also comments on the odd affection that a lot of Bible-toting evangelicals and fundamentalists have for the rabid atheist Ayn Rand:

…many influential conservative Christians have embraced her expressly atheistic theory of Objectivism that in her books such as The Virtue of Selfishness, they propose that government must be shrunk to a bare minimum so socially Darwinist that it dances with anarchy. Only then can entrepreneurial greed have the free run that liberty demands…

In the Randian hyper-materialistic world those who are on the financial make are the exalted makers, the impoverished that accept tax payer assistance are parasitic takers who need to fend for themselves. A radical modernist ideology in greater antithesis to the traditional scriptural favoring of the poor over the rich can hardly be imagined. Yet the economics of the plutocratic Republican Party that embraces the Christian, anti-Darwinist creationist right are essentially those of the uberatheist, anti-creationist, Darwin-adoring Christianity-loathing Ayn Rand. So we have Christian creationists like Jay Richards writing books titled Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. Can a stranger amalgam of opposing opinions be devised?

“Can a stranger amalgam of opposing opinions be devised?” No.  And I experienced that strange amalgam first-hand here in Joplin at the April Tea Party rally.  A state legislator from Springfield, Eric Burlison, spoke to those gathered and mentioned his enthusiasm for Ayn Rand. I wrote at the time:

I can’t be the only one who finds irony in the fact that a man like Eric Burlison—a “pro-life” Christian who advertises that he gives back to the community by “serving” and “volunteering“—is behind a podium at a Tea Party event extolling the philosophy of a godless “baby-killer,” who would openly ridicule and scorn Mr. Burlison’s work on behalf of Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the Ronald McDonald House.

“I can’t be the only one.”  No, as it turns out.

And thank God for that.

13 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/jesus-christ-supersocialist/

Message To A “Billionaire-Friendly Congress”

Warren Buffett, appearing in The New York Times, made his point again that rich folks like him are undertaxed:

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

After pointing out the need to “pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill,” Buffett presented his tax proposal to “a billionaire-friendly Congress“:

I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

And should anyone—and by anyone I mostly mean tax-cut theologians in Congress and on the GOP presidential campaign trail—preach the usual butt-numbing sermon on “Thou Shalt Not Tax The Job Creators,” Buffett points out that his effective tax rate last year was 17.4% of his income—”a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office“—and then countered the right-wing falsehoods on the relationship between jobs and taxes with this:

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

All that coming from a man who paid—who paid!—$6,938,744 in federal taxes last year.

11 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 15, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/message-to-a-billionaire-friendly-congress/

The Socialist Capital Of Missouri: Joplin

As I have mentioned before, the EF-5 tornado that blew through Joplin on May 22, killing 160 people and destroying or damaging more than 7000 homes and businesses, also seems to have destroyed or damaged the anti-government sentiments of a lot of folks around here. 

At least until it’s time to elect more anti-government politicians to office.

In the wake of the deadly storm has come a tsunami of socialism to this notoriously fed-up-with-gubmint part of the country.

Consider just the last two days of reporting in the Joplin Globe.  On Friday, the above-the-fold news was:

In that article we learn:

JOPLIN, Mo. — Gov. Jay Nixon at a news conference Thursday afternoon announced state funding of up to $1.5 million for the Joplin School District to offset a projected drop in property tax revenue as a result of the damage wreaked by the May 22 tornado.

And:

Without the state funding, state and local officials said, the district would have had to contemplate raising the local operating and debt-service levies to meet financial needs for fiscal year 2012.

Think about that, all you anti-government types in Joplin.  In order to keep from raising local property taxes, our school district needs the help of other Missourians.  That’s called democratic socialism, my friends.

Or consider Saturday’s Joplin Globe:

In the first story we learn:

JOPLIN, Mo. — Joplin’s city administration will ask the City Council at its meeting Monday night to allow the city to make application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for individual storm shelter funding.

Assistant City Manager Sam Anselm said that if the council authorized submission of the application and it was eventually approved, residents could build storm shelters or safe rooms and be reimbursed for 75 percent of the cost.

In the second story we learn how eager some other area communities are in getting in on the federal program that would help with storm shelter funding.

Now, you can call this stuff anything you want, but when other Americans are helping Joplinites purchase and install storm shelters, I call it democratic socialism.

Finally, Saturday’s Globe also brought us this headline:

Contracts total $31 million for temporary schools

FEMA to pick up most of the cost.

In that story we find out many details about to whom this particular FEMA money—courtesy of democratic socialism in America—will go.  The money, only part of what FEMA has done for Joplin, is designated for contracts to establish temporary schools to replace those that were destroyed in the tornado. 

Here is a partial list of some of the local direct monetary beneficiaries of democratic socialism around the area:

Crossland Construction of Columbus, Ks.: $9,456,774

R.E. Smith Construction of Joplin: $5,786,104

Intelligent Investments of Neosho: $2,485,498

KIR Joplin, which owns the space in Northpark Mall that will house half of Joplin High School: $1,000,000 per year

Northpark Mall‘s management company: $134,250 per year

Joplin Business and Industrial Corporation for leasing space for East Middle School students: $432,000 per year

Bentley Investments, owned by Joplin resident Gary Hall: $420,000 per year

Joplin Memorial Hall, owned by the city: $400,000 per year

There you have it.  Socialism is alive and well in our fair city, but few dare call it that. 

12 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 13, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 13, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/the-socialist-capital-of-missouri-joplin/

Onward Christian Governor

Mark Halperin, who plays a journalist on TV and off, got a scoop when he interviewed Christian zealot and Texas governor and now GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry.

Now, I don’t know if Halperin’s attendance at Rick Perry’s prayer event in Houston had anything to do with getting the scoop, or whether Governor Perry just couldn’t resist being a part of perhaps the worst example of journalism in the history of pen and paper.

But whatever it was, Time magazine will not win any Pulitzer’s for hard-hitting news reporting this year.

The only softball question left out of the sycophantic interview was,

If you were a Texas tree, what kind of Texas tree would you be?

It really was that bad, and it not only exposed Mark Halperin as a powder-puff interviewer, it exposed him as a Pillsbury Doughboy class of powder-puff interviewer.

In any case, there was something in the interview that confirmed what we already knew about Rick Perry and confirmed just why he should scare the bejesus out of everyone this side of Pat Robertson, himself once a God-told-me-to-run presidential candidate:

HALPERIN: Does any aspect of running for President intimidate you?

PERRY: No.

HALPERIN: Does any aspect of it excite you or enthuse you?

PERRY: Yeah, I’m kind of getting to the all-in point and the idea that, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I mean, this is starting to get to that comfort level and I’ve got the calmness in my heart. I think that was a bit of a hurdle initially but I’m very calm in my heart that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.

Anyone who has spent five minutes with a zealous evangelical knows what the phrases, “this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” and, “calmness in my heart,” mean.  Those are definite claims that the Almighty has endorsed Rick Perry for president because the Almighty has a special job for Rick Perry to do.

All of which seems to confirm what Forrest Wilder, writing for the Texas Observer, suggested, as the header and subheader of his frightening article summarized it:

That little-known movement is called the New Apostolic Reformation, members of which were prominently involved in Perry’s August 6 event in Houston that drew a reported 30,000 folks, including Mark Halperin.

Here’s how Wilder described the movement:

If they simply professed unusual beliefs, movement leaders wouldn’t be remarkable. But what makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government. The new prophets and apostles believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take “dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an “army of God” to commandeer civilian government.

In Rick Perry, they may have found their vessel. And the interest appears to be mutual.

Look, I don’t think Rick Perry can become president of the United States, but the idea that he is being taken seriously by lots of Republicans and lots of journalists is, well, terrifying.

And instead of asking him about this stuff, Mark Halperin—fresh off his MSNBC suspension for calling President Obama a Dick Cheney without the Cheney—asked Governor Perry this faith-question:

HALPERIN: How does your faith inform your interest in being in public office?

PERRY: Yeah, no different than it would a doctor or a lawyer or anyone else who does their job and that is a faithful individual. You know, my faith sustains me. I’m quite comfortable with my faith, but it is very much a foundation of my life and has been since my mid-20s.

Apparently, Halperin is comfortable with Perry’s faith, too, since he asked no follow-up questions about those strange folks in the New Apostolic Reformation movement.

6 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 12, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 12, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/onward-christian-governor/

Mitt Wit

“Corporations are people, my friends.”

—Mitt Romney, August 11, 2011

I have thought all this time that Mitt Romney would win the Republican nomination and had a good chance of beating Barack Obama in 2012.

Then he had to go and commit the anthropomorphic fallacy and ruin it all.  Corporations are people? In case anyone missed the point, he later said they were, “human beings, my friend.”

Barack Obama is one lucky cat.

Romney may still get the GOP nomination because, after all, if you eliminate all the nuts and those who will bolt after a couple of primaries, Romney stands as the one nominee who the establishment believes may have a chance of beating Obama—if Mr. Obama continues to not mention “Republicans” in his speeches.

Even though Romney’s corporations-are-people comment got the most media play on Thursday—as it should have— some of Romney’s other comments at the Iowa State Fair deserve some attention.  Like this one, which he uttered while pointing an angry finger at a member of the audience who dared defend Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid:

Let me tell you what Barack Obama is doing. Barack Obama is killing this economy.  Barack Obama is why 25 million people don’t have jobs and can’t find jobs.

When a man can stand up on a bale of hay in the middle of Iowa and utter such a stupendous lie, in front of God and in front of the Mormon Jesus—which is different from the real Jesus to a lot of Iowa evangelicals—I suppose there isn’t anything that man wouldn’t say in an effort to become president, including turning corporate entities into flesh and blood.

Ironically, Mr. Romney has impeccable credentials to talk about why people don’t have jobs, since he made a nice living putting people out of work.  If you care to know, you can find one example here of why Mr. Romney knows all about real—as opposed to the fantasy he told Iowans on Thursday—job killing:

In 1992, Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, a private equity firm. Bain Capital bought American Pad & Paper Co. (Ampad) for $5 million.

Over the next several years Romney’s firm bled the company dry. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Stockholders were left with worthless shares. Creditors and vendors were paid less than 50 cents on the dollar. While they were exploiting the company, Romney’s firm charged Ampad millions of dollars in “management fees.” In all, Romney and his investors reaped more than $100 million dollars from the deal.

Should Mr. Romney get the nomination, a middle school political strategist could design the campaign against him, what with his flip-flops and affection for a fleshy conception of corporations.  But as I mentioned, that assumes President Obama starts using the word “Republican” or “Tea Party” in his explanation of what is going on and what has gone on since January of 2009.

Last night, I watched a segment on CNN’s John King USA, which featured David Axelrod, who used to be a senior adviser to Obama.  Just look at the caption on the screen:

Even CNN, which sometimes can be Fox-lite, is noticing Obama’s reluctance to pinpoint the problem.  Maybe Axelrod is right and people know who he is talking about when he says “Congress” instead of “Republican,” but why leave it to chance?  Most folks don’t pay attention to the details of politics until much later in the process.

It could be that the President thinks that the various Republican nominees will keep saying dumb but revealing things and the folks will just figure it out for themselves.  After all, he is very lucky to have this current crop of Republicans to run against.

Including now Mitt Romney, who breathed the breath of life into corporations and turned them into living souls.

1 Comment
by R. Duane Graham on August 12, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 12, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/mitt-wit/

The Truth About The Post Office

I have often wanted to counter all the misinformation about the troubles with the Postal Service, which has frequently been portrayed in the popular media—particularly conservative media—unfairly and, well, ignorantly. 

The truth is that conservatives have always hated the Postal Service and have wanted to privatize mail delivery largely because it has been a very successful quasi-government enterprise*, despite conservatives knocking it as an unsuccessful, inefficient, costly example of bloated government.

Well, it is none of those things and last night, on The Ed Show, someone finally exposed the truth (at least some of it) about the Postal Service: 

 _______________________________ 

* Conservatives also know there is also a lot of money to be made by private companies who would skim the cream off the mail business and leave the rest—unprofitable rural delivery, for instance—to the government to worry about.

29 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 11, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/the-truth-about-the-post-office/

“Psycho Talk” From Claire McCaskill?

I like Claire McCaskill.  I really do.

I mean, she’s no flaming lib, but for a senator from mixed-up Missouri, she does okay most of the time.  And she is an effective communicator most of the time, too. 

That’s why it was baffling to see her featured on Ed Schultz’s “Psycho Talk” last night for comments she made to St. Louis’ KMOV-TV regarding an extension of unemployment benefits:

I’m not for extending the unemployment benefits any further. The payroll tax cut, I’m always for tax cuts for working folks, because I think that helps our consuming economy.

Wow.  That would be psycho talk for a Democrat (Schultz called her comments “heartless”).  Except, McCaskill’s office issued a Claire-ification of that statement, which The Huffington Post reported this way:

McCaskill’s office says additional context omitted from KMOV’s report would show that she was responding to a question about giving the unemployed extra weeks of benefits. Her office said she supports preserving the existing extended benefits.

“Claire continues to fully support unemployment benefits for people who have lost their jobs by no fault of their own as a result of the struggling economy. This includes up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, expanding benefits beyond 99 weeks — as some suggest — is unaffordable and unrealistic because of staunch opposition in the House.”

The dispute here is whether the question was “giving the unemployed extra weeks of benefits” or whether, as KMOV claims, she was asked a more general question:

…she was asked if she supported President Obama’s plan to extend unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts….

KMOV’s website does have a link to the “raw video” of the interview which presumably would settle the “context” matter.  What question was McCaskill responding to? Was it a question about the extension beyond 99 weeks or just a question about extending unemployment benefits generally?

Beats me.  The so-called raw video doesn’t include the entire question for some inexplicable reason.  

But since the senator’s office disputes that the question was merely one of extending unemployment benefits and had to do with specifically extending them beyond 99 weeks, then it is incumbent upon the news organization to produce the footage that would back up its account.

I will take McCaskill—presumably she okayed her office’s Claire-ification—at her word until I see proof that she is being disingenuous about the context.  She doesn’t step into these kinds of communication messes very often, so she gets the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, look at what she said again:

The payroll tax cut, I’m always for tax cuts for working folks, because I think that helps our consuming economy.

“Helps our consuming economy.”  Anyone who believes the Keynesian idea that tax cuts stimulate the consuming economy surely believes that unemployment benefits stimulate it much more, since nearly every penny of unemployment benefits get spent in the economy.

Until I’m proven wrong, my money is on Claire.

1 Comment
by R. Duane Graham on August 11, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 11, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/psycho-talk-from-claire-mccaskill/

Are The Rich Taxed Enough?

Anson Burlingame, a right-of-center Joplin Globe blogger and debt-fretter, responded to a piece I wrote yesterday and asked me to consider a 2007 American Enterprise Institute article on taxes, written by Stephen Moore. It was titled, “Guess Who Really Pays the Taxes,” and was essentially a typical conservative pleading that the rich are paying more than their fair share.

In this political climate, it is important for everyone to consider the issue of taxes, so I did. Here is my response:

 

Anson,

I ignored the fact that the article was written by Stephen Moore, a shill for supply-side economics who once wrote a book called, “Bullish on Bush: How George Bush’s Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger.”  That was in 2004, of course, shortly before the Great Recession foreclosed on Bush’s ownership society and made a lot of Republicans homeless.

But Moore did endear himself to Obama-hating conservatives when he published his 2009 epic, “How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy,” a mere nine months after the dangerous socialist became president. Before the ink had barely dried on Obama’s first economic initiatives, Moore pronounced “Obamanomics” a failure.

So, you can see why I had to get past the author of the piece in order to consider the argument, but I managed to continue.

Before I get to the heart of it, I want you to notice something Moore admitted that confirms what I wrote in Freedom Fighter Facts. He wrote:

Since 1980, the share of income earned by the richest 1 percent has more than doubled, from 9 percent to 19 percent. The share of the income going to the poorest income quintile has declined. Income disparities, in absolute dollars, have grown substantially.

Now, that’s not a wild-eyed liberal blogger saying that, my friend, but a silly supply-side ideologue who supported the post-1980 mischief that has caused those income disparities.

I also want you to notice something that may have slipped by you:

On the other hand, for the top 1 percent of earners, progressivity has declined from a ratio of 2.2 in 1980 to 1.9 in 2004.

That also confirms what I wrote.

Now, to the point of the article you cite. Moore does some clever hiding of the truth in his article, but I think you can see it. In #2 he says,

The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per­cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

The bottom 50% pay 3% of INCOME TAXES on 13% of the total income. He admits he is only talking about income tax. Okay? But what about all those other taxes? (And not just Social Security and Medicare, but state taxes, gas taxes, and sales taxes? By the way, as David Cay Johnston points out, there is only one state in the country in which the poor don’t have a greater state and local tax burden than the top 1%. In some states it is twice as much.)

You will notice that Moore does address “other taxes,” but only payroll taxes. Sales taxes (non-rich folks spend nearly all their money, which spending is taxed at the same rate as the rich, who spend a lot less in terms of percentage of income) and state and local taxes (highly regressive) are left out. So, let’s put them in. When we do, we find this (from Citizens for Tax Justice; I highlighted in red what you need to see):


In 2010, the top 1% of total income was 20.3% and their share of total taxes was 21.5%. Now, perhaps you can see that the argument that the rich are paying more than their fair share is preposterous.

The chart also shows that, yes, federal tax rates are modestly progressive, but state and local taxes are regressive. The point is, Anson, that everyone is paying taxes and the overall tax burden is barely progressive. Because of the wide income disparity, we need to make it more progressive, if we have any hope of balancing things going forward. As a deficit hawk, I would think you would support that idea.

Duane

24 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 10, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 10, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/are-the-rich-taxed-enough/

A Tale Of Two Styles

Over the past couple of days, two people I highly respect, Barack Obama and Paul Krugman,  have succinctly and accurately laid out some rather simple solutions to our long-term debt problems. 

First the President:

When it comes to getting a sustainable debt level, if we went back to the rates that existed when Bill Clinton was President and we made some modest adjustments to Medicare that preserved the integrity of the system, our long-term debt and deficit problems would go away. And most people here wouldn’t notice those changes.

Here’s Krugman:

The truth is that as far as the straight economics goes, America’s long-run fiscal problems shouldn’t be all that hard to fix. It’s true that an aging population and rising health care costs will, under current policies, push spending up faster than tax receipts. But the United States has far higher health costs than any other advanced country, and very low taxes by international standards. If we could move even part way toward international norms on both these fronts, our budget problems would be solved.

Very similar, no?

But let’s look at how both men explain why those solutions won’t immediately be forthcoming.  First the President:

But we’ve become so dug in when it comes to sort of ideological purity that we’re not willing to make modest adjustments like that.

Get it? “We’ve become so dug in…” We. We. The implication is that both sides are dug in and thus equally to blame. And keep in mind that Mr. Obama’s remarks came at a DNC event!  If he can’t clearly name names there, where can he?

Now, Krugman’s view:

So why can’t we do that? Because we have a powerful political movement in this country that screamed “death panels” in the face of modest efforts to use Medicare funds more effectively, and preferred to risk financial catastrophe rather than agree to even a penny in additional revenues.

The real question facing America, even in purely fiscal terms, isn’t whether we’ll trim a trillion here or a trillion there from deficits. It is whether the extremists now blocking any kind of responsible policy can be defeated and marginalized.

There is no doubt who Mr. Krugman believes is responsible for the failure to solve the long-term problem.  There isn’t any “we” to blame.

As I said, I respect both men a great deal.  But until Mr. Obama starts talking like Paul Krugman—no matter what the pundits may say—a majority of the American people may take the “we” seriously in Mr. Obama’s analysis and conclude he is part of the problem.

3 Comments
by R. Duane Graham on August 9, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 9, 2011

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/a-tale-of-two-styles/

« Older Posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 319 other followers

%d bloggers like this: