Tea Party Congresscritters: Living the I Got Mine and Fuck You dream

Remember how Republican politicians talked about those who had lost their jobs, couldn't find new ones, and had run out of unemployment benefits? Imagine the squawking there would be among the newly-minted Tea Party congressmen and women if they were among the government workers whose paychecks will be stopped if there is a government shutdown tomorrow.

Last November, one of the first things that Maryland Republican Teabagger Andy Harris did after his election was scream that he wanted his government-paid health insurance NOW after campaigning against health care reform that would cover everyone. Imagine what he would say if his paycheck were stopped because of a shutdown due to Republican intransigence -- including his own.

Fortunately for Andy Harris and the other Teabaggers who would destroy the economic recovery, anemic as it is, solely in the interests of their own power, their own government paychecks will continue, as Nicholas Kristof notes today in a column about the Hooverites of the Tea Party:

If we careen over a cliff on Friday and the American government shuts down, hard-working federal workers will stop getting paychecks, but the members of Congress responsible for the shutdown are expected to be paid as usual.

That’s partly because Congressional pay is not subject to the regular appropriations process, and partly because of Constitutional concerns. The Senate passed a bill proposed by Barbara Boxer of California that would suspend Congressional paychecks in any government shutdown, but the Republican-controlled House has blocked it. House Republicans approved a similar pay suspension, but it was embedded in legislation that has zero chance of becoming law.

The upshot is that federal workers who do important work for the public — cleaning up toxic waste, enrolling sick people into lifesaving medical trials, answering medical hot lines, running national parks, processing passport applications — risk being sent home and going unpaid. But members of Congress would continue to receive $174,000 a year. As the humorist Andy Borowitz wrote in a Twitter message:  “That’s like eliminating the fire dept & sending checks to the arsonists.”

So the people who hate government so much that they fought like hell to get government paychecks are perfectly willing to shut down the government -- because THEY will get paid regardless, and that's all that matters, right? Just ask Andy Harris.

The Peter Principle is alive and well in Wisconsin

Meet Brian Deschane:

Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.

Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.

How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?

It's all in the family.

His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year's governor's race.

The group's political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor's successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker's campaign over the past two years.

Total donations: $121,652.

That's big-time backing from the homebuilders.

The younger Deschane didn't respond to questions about his job.

(via)

Death Panels are starting to sound awfully good right about now

Think about it: How would you rather check out of this God-forsaken level of reality? Would you rather be in a warm bed somewhere, perhaps lying on sheets nice and warm out of the dryer, with the sun streaming in your window and soft music playing into your room, perhaps with the aroma of peppermint, or fresh bread, or whatever your favorite aroma might be, while a doctor slips a needle into your arm and you wooze into a delightful drowsiness and then unconsciousness, and then another needle containing the drug that stops your heart is administered...or would you prefer to die out in the street, old, sick, and alone, huddling from a bitter wind, because you have no home, no shelter, no food, and no medical care?

I know which one I'd take.

But it's hard to imagine that the GOP will be kind and compassionate enough to offer the elderly the first one, not if the current House majority gets its way:

House Republicans are preparing to introduce a 10-year budget Tuesday that will eliminate Medicare and replace it with a private insurance system that closely resembles the new health care law, and end Medicaid as an entitlement program all together.

This plan, which also will include major restructuring of the tax code and cap discretionary spending, will reduce the deficit by over $4 trillion in 10 years, according to House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan.

Here's what this means if you're elderly, disabled, or poor.

Low-income Medicaid beneficiaries will lose their guaranteed benefits altogether. Currently, Medicaid is jointly financed by the federal government and states, which are required to provide comprehensive health care benefits to people in poverty. Ryan's plan turns the program into block grants for the states -- states get a bunch of cash from the feds and have to make the best of it. For many states, that will mean severe benefit rollbacks.

Seniors, and others on Medicare, would be in a slightly different predicament. Currently seniors 65 and over are guaranteed a defined benefit program: taxpayers finance the system, and the government agrees to pay for seniors' health care services (though seniors have to pitch in too). Ryan's plan would leave that system intact for anybody currently on Medicare, or expecting to be on Medicare within 10 years. For everyone else the program would be radically overhauled. Future beneficiaries would no longer have a single payer system to rely on. Rather, they'd be given a menu of private insurance plans to pick from, and subsidies to help pay their premiums. If those premiums skyrocket, that's on them. If the insurers themselves aren't required to pay for whatever the doctor orders, then the guaranteed benefits will erode.

I'm going to be fifty-six years old this year, so it's possible that I may just sneak in under the wire. But because I'm not a Republican, I don't subscribe to the "I Got Mine And Fuck You" doctrine. I take no comfort or satisfaction in the reality that my friends and colleagues who are in their twenties, thirties, and forties -- or who are fifty-four right now, are going to be consigned to the latter option described above.

It's probably too late to stop this plan -- or something even worse. The executives of major corporations -- the ones whose multimillion dollar annual compensation packages already assure them of that nice warm bed only with no doctor slipping them a needle -- own this country. They own both parties, Democratic and Republican. The Republicans are more expensive whores, because they demand to be paid more to do the billionaires' bidding, whereas the Democrats have long been content to settle for the scraps. But we've already seen what calls for "shared sacrifice" mean -- they mean sacrifice for everyone EXCEPT those who already have more money than they AND their heirs can spend or use in a thousand lifetimes.

I still have a soul. And it grieves me to think of my friends, who simply because of a few short years are going to be left clutching coupons they're supposed to use to buy health insurance that doesn't promise to be there when they need it -- while billionaires continue to rake in ever more cash, because no amount we let them have seems to be enough.

The company they keep

In case you didn't already know what a pair of nasty bastards the Koch brothers are, Rick Ungar at of all places Forbes.com introduces us to Tim Phillips, the face of the Koch-founded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity (sic):

Tim Phillips, the man who heads up the Americans For Prosperity group that serves as a political front for the brothers Koch (David serves as Chairman of the organization), and is leading the effort to support Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to neuter the public employee unions in Wisconsin, is a key cog in the Koch political machine – earning in excess of $250,000 for his services in 2009 (latest tax filing data available.)

Following Mr. Phillips’ career is like tiptoeing through some of the most notable political dirty tricks and lobbying scandals in modern history.

Here is a sampling of some of Phillips’ ‘greatest hits’.

In 1997, Phillips hooked up with Christian Coalition boss, Ralph Reed, to create Century Strategies, a political strategy and direct marketing group. The firm advertised themselves as being dedicated to mounting ‘grassroots lobbying campaigns’ and exploiting their ability to impact on legislation by using their strong connections to the leaders in the Christian community.

The new business got off to a nice start when Karl Rove referred their first major corporate client – Enron. While Century Strategies efforts to pressure Congress to alter energy policy in ways that benefited their client paid off – both in legislative success for Enron and financial success for Phillips and Reed- there is little to suggest that anything they did was unethical.

But many opportunities would lay ahead as the firm entered the big time when Phillips and Reed joined up with notorious lobbyist and future convict, Jack Abramoff.

More of the sordid story here.

I don't know what Rick Ungar is doing over at Forbes, and I sure as hell don't know why Steve Forbes is paying him to write stuff like this (given Forbes' political leanings), so I've approached his column with some skepticism. But Ungar's blog is rapidly becoming one of my must-visits (and is now on the blogroll).

Wednesday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Yesterday's David Brooks column had me so angry I thought the back of my head was going to explode. I was so angry it rendered me speechless. Fortunately, Tom Scocca has more intestinal fortitude than I do, and that makes him today's honoree.

Money quote:

What happens when there is no money to give to the people who have no money? That is the moral question. It's fine to say that the old people should have saved more, they should have worked an extra job, they should have done without cable TV, they should have invested more wisely. Saying that doesn't change the fact that there will be old people who do not have money. These old people will believe that they need food and shelter and medical care.

Will they get it? At the arch-plutocrats' end of things, the Koch brothers' end, the end occupied by the most devout worshippers of Ayn Rand, the answer is: no. That's the goal. It's long since time for the sloppy, implicit, badly supported social contract to go away. Rich people have been trimming their contribution to the general revenue for decades now. They are not interested in paying the premium that keeps old people and ailing people or just backward people out of the streets. If the day comes that they have to travel to and from their various compounds in armored helicopters, they can afford the helicopters. It's not their problem.

David Brooks do not believe they are that kind of person. David Brooks are responsible. David Brooks care about the need to "invest" in "effectiveness" for all.

Alas, living is not effective. Employers have stopped paying people for their post-productive years. They have done this, welfare-capitalistically, with the sense that the cost and responsibility they are shedding will be picked up by...someone, somewhere.

Scumbaggery is discernable in youth

We learned with George W. Bush that what a man does when he is "young and irresponsible" does reflect on the man he becomes later. When a boy gets his kicks by blowing up frogs with firecrackers, it's a pretty good bet that given the opportunity, he'll get his kicks in middle-age by torturing actual human beings. When a boy insists on changing the rules in the middle of a game he isn't winning, it's a pretty good bet that given the opportunity, he'll steal an election.

And when a young man engages in illegal campaigning in college, you can bet that he's going to be equally scumbaggy as a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin:

Walker attended Marquette from 1986 to 1990, but never attained a degree (see page 5). His sophomore year, Walker ran for president of the Associated Students of Marquette University (ASMU, the former title for Marquette Student Government). He was accused of violating campaign guidelines on multiple occasions.

The Tribune reported then that he was found guilty of illegal campaigning two weeks before his candidacy became official. Later, a Walker campaign worker was seen placing brochures under doors at the YMCA. Door-to-door campaigning was strictly prohibited.

Walker initially denied this but later admitted to the violation, which resulted in lost campaign privileges at the YMCA.

In the run-up to election day, the Tribune’s editorial board endorsed Walker’s opponent John Quigley, but said either candidate had the potential to serve effectively.

However, the Tribune revised its editorial the following day, calling Walker “unfit for presidency.” The column cited Walker’s distribution of a mudslinging brochure about Quigley that featured statements such as “constantly shouting about fighting the administration” and “trying to lead several ineffective protests of his own.”

The revision also expressed disappointment in Walker’s campaign workers reportedly throwing away issues of the Tribune after the endorsement was initially made.

Walker dismissed this, saying he had no knowledge of what his supporters did, according to a Tribune article from February 25, 1988.

In a Tribune article dated April 25, 2002, Walker recalled the election, saying he regretted the approach he took to campaigning.

“I didn’t achieve office because I focused on personalities and egos,” Walker said in the article.

He also blamed Quigley for the negative path the race took, saying he made the election into a partisan one.

Walker has said Barrett is responsible for the negative direction the current gubernatorial race has taken, using attack ads to compensate for his trailing position in polls.

Graeme Zielinski, communications director for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said he believes Walker will do anything to win the election.

“He practiced dirty tricks and mudslinging back then,” Zielinski said. “He’s still doing the same thing today … the ‘say anything, do anything’ campaign.”

Zielinski also said Walker “shamed himself by the way he acted at Marquette” and that his campaign was one of the dirtiest in school history.

The Republican broken record

Dave Johnson over at the Campaign for America's future notes that no matter what the problem is, Republicans have a completely bogus "solution" that they say will fix it -- but it never does:

How often do you see the same solutions offered up for any given problem? Tax cuts for the rich, gut government, get rid of unions, privatize Social Security, etc. (And more tax cuts for the rich.) When something shocking happens the right always has ready-to-go, pre-packaged solution waiting in the wings that they offer to fix the problem.

Take Wisconsin for example. They ginned up the appearance of a budget crisis, got everyone worked up, and wham-o, introduce a bill to kill public-employee unions, gutting worker pay and pensions and their ability to do anything about it.

But in fact, like so many of their "solutions" this was something they already wanted to do, and were just waiting for the opportunity to push it through, or creating the crisis to bring about the opportunity to push it through.

These pre-packaged "free-market" "solutions" are not what the public wants, but are always forced through before anyone can react. They don't solve problems, just make the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us.

When the public is worried, stirred up, hopefully to the point of panic you put in your pre-arranged "solution" and start getting them stirred up about the next problem you will "solve." And those conservative solutions never seem to work out.

The deficits get worse, wages don't go up, retirement gets harder... This is because the real purpose of these "solutions" -- cut taxes, cut what government does for regular people, get rid of unions, privatize social security and for good measure cut taxes more -- are not to solve the problem they were offered up to fix. They have another purpose: make deficits worse, make wages stagnate, make retirement harder...

It always, always, always comes down to a simple formula: more (and more) to the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Right now there is a showdown in Wisconsin that as Rachel Maddow notes, has the future of everything we take for granted as workers in this country at stake -- days off in the form of weekends, the right to a safe workplace, a guarantee that at the end of the day we'll actually get paid what we're supposed to(unless we work for Huffington Post, but that's another story for another day):

There was a time when public sector workers were given generous benefits in order to offset the fact that salaries were lower in the public sector than in the private one. For decades, no one objected, because everyone understood that public sector compensation took a different form than that enjoyed by people employed in the private sector. That is because in the aftermath of World War II, a thriving middle class, built and encouraged by the G.I. Bill, flourished in this country, buying houses and cars and those newfangled color TVs and new GE ranges and refrigerators and Schwinn bicycles for the kids they were having. I'm not discussing the entrenched and persistent poverty that existed at the time and still exists today; not because I want to ignore it, but because what we're seeing in Wisconsin isn't about people who have been poor for decades, it's about people who will be poor tomorrow -- and how their own government (in the case of Wisconsin, their governor) will make them that way, because That Is What He Has Been Paid To Do.

I'll get to Scott Walker and the Koch brothers in a minute. But first, let's get back to those generous public sector benefits and the days when there was a middle class that believed in its own future. That middle class was fueled by a number of things, all of which would be derided as "socialist" today: a college education for returning veterans. Low-cost housing bought with VA loans. Defined benefit pension plans. Cost of living increases. A blue-collar component of that middle class could look forward to seeing its children grow up and get the college education they never had, because they were able to go to the plant every day and build cars that Americans bought and make a living wage doing it. The workers of the UAW have always been blamed for the decline of the automobile industry in this country, but it wasn't the guys on the assembly line who are to blame, it was the guys in the suits in Detroit who, when faced with a 200% jump in gasoline prices in 1973 and another jump in conjunction with a fuel shortage in 1977, were caught with their pants down and an inability to make the kind of reliable fuel-efficient cars that recession-conscious buyers wanted. While Honda was importing Civics and Toyota was importing Corollas, General Motors and Ford were putting out crap like the Vega and the Pinto. The UAW didn't cause the auto industry to be caught with its pants down, and neither did the guys who built these cars. It was bad corporate decisions, and over the last three decades we've seen not the guys at the top, but the guys on the assembly line take the blame.

But there's more to this middle class in which I was fortunate enough to grow up. This middle class had optimism about the future. It participated in a consumer-based economy that wasn't about a sense of entitlement to the same trappings of luxury as the rich, but about a country in which there was the opportunity for the children of that middle class to BECOME rich and to be able to afford those trappings. There's a reason why "Doctor Lawyer CPA" was a suburban mantra; those were professions in which one could buy a house with a pool and a luxury car and clothes from Saks.

But then something happened. Over time, the salary advantage enjoyed by private sector workers disappeared, as companies decided that what the American workforce needed was a race to the bottom -- competition from countries where workers made a dollar a day. Cost of living increases disappeared in the private sector, but not the public one. Private sector wages dropped and public sector wages stayed the same or grew. Unions lost their power in the private sector and kept it only in the public one.

And so we now are watching a hideous and sad irony of this spectacle take place in this country. It's one in which middle-class people with only a tenuous hold left on being middle class and those who have already left it due to executive suite decision-making and the wholesale purchasing of government by corporate titans like the Koch brothers, are defending the people who pulled the rug out from under them. They're defending the robber barons while regarding the members of the very unions to whom they owe much of the benefits enjoyed by the middle class while there was one as the enemy. Instead of wanting the kind of benefits still enjoyed by public sector, the kind they and their fathers and mothers USED to have, they want the members of public sector unions to get screwed over just as badly as they are.

Imagine the possibilities of what could happen if everyone who has been hurt by the Republican mantra that if we just shovel enough cash into the pockets of the Koch brothers then happy days would be here again joined together with the public sector workers in Wisconsin. Imagine if the aggrieved Tea Partiers who are driven by the loss of economic opportunity in this country stopped pointing their fingers down the ladder while largely, but not exclusively, Republican politicians and their corporate masters steal the few bucks left in the wallet in their back pocket. Imagine if the worried moms who are believing what they hear on the morning news while they're packing the kids' lunchboxes -- that what's happening in Wisconsin is all about a refusal to accept benefit cuts rather than about the end of collective bargaining by gubernatorial fiat actually listened to what is going on and realized that this is about them too. Imagine if they were joined by people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks despite having education and skills because they're regarded as "overqualified" (read: too old) or because there are too many people chasing too few jobs. Imagine if they were joined by the tech workers and people in other fields whose jobs have been outsourced. Imagine how big the crowds would be in Madison, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

But alas, that's not what's happening. It's not happening because these people are having the message pounded into their heads every day by Republicans and by corporate-owned media that has itself purchased a sizable chunk of government, that it's all about greedy teachers and firemen, that Scott Walker is just a responsible adult who is trying to impose discipline on a bunch of id-driven two-year-olds. The problem is that this is not what Scott Walker is at all. In reality, he's a bought-and-paid-for lackey of the aforementioned Koch brothers, who architected a deficit in Wisconsin for the express purpose of union busting.

Brian Beutler at TPM reported on Thursday that Wisconsin's "budget crisis" was created by, you guessed it, Scott Walker:

Unlike true austerity measures -- service rollbacks, furloughs, and other temporary measures that cause pain but save money -- rolling back worker's bargaining rights by itself saves almost nothing on its own. But Walker's doing it anyhow, to knock down a barrier and allow him to cut state employee benefits immediately.

Furthermore, this broadside comes less than a month after the state's fiscal bureau -- the Wisconsin equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office -- concluded that Wisconsin isn't even in need of austerity measures, and could conclude the fiscal year with a surplus. In fact, they say that the current budget shortfall is a direct result of tax cut policies Walker enacted in his first days in office.

"Walker was not forced into a budget repair bill by circumstances beyond he control," says Jack Norman, research director at the Institute for Wisconsin Future -- a public interest think tank. "He wanted a budget repair bill and forced it by pushing through tax cuts... so he could rush through these other changes."

THAT is why public sector workers in Wisconsin are protesting. It isn't because of a resistance to givebacks, or an unwillingness to make concessions. It's about eliminating in perpetuity the ability to collectively bargain. It's about union-busting.

And at whose behest is Walker working? It isn't for the benefit of "the taxpayers of Wisconsin", no matter what he said yesterday. It's for the benefit if his masters, the Koch brothers:

According to Wisconsin campaign finance filings, Walker's gubernatorial campaign received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC during the 2010 election. That donation was his campaign's second-highest, behind $43,125 in contributions from housing and realtor groups in Wisconsin. The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used politicial maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.

The Kochs also assisted Walker's current GOP allies in the fight against the public-sector unions. Last year, Republicans took control of the both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature, which has made Walker's assault on these unions possible. And according to data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Koch Industries PAC spent $6,500 in support of 16 Wisconsin Republican state legislative candidates, who each won his or her election.

Walker's plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers' playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited (PDF) Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado; Mix said in a recent interview that he supports Governor Walker's collective-bargaining bill. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power.(Walker also opposes the state's Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers' investment in Walker appears to be paying off.

And here, via The Political Carnival, are the Koch brothers' talking points. Scott Walker is a good little lackey, isn't he?

The "I Got Mine And Fuck You" Party

Republicans have been flogging the 9/11 attacks for nearly a decade now, setting themselves up as our only hope against marauding terrorists. It's hard to forget this video of snippets from the 2004 RNC convention, in which 9/11 was invoked with the kind of almost sexual zeal that today Republicans reserve for Sarah Palin:

And they were still doing it four years later:

I remember watching TV on that day, watching a large group of tough-looking, brawny ironworkers marching on foot down to Ground Zero, tears streaming down their faces, while one of them told a reporter that he didn't know how they were going to be able to help, but they just had to help. There were many people like this, along with the police and firefighters who were sent into harm's way by Rudy Giuliani -- the man who fancies himself the Patron Saint of 9/11 -- without adequate equipment. The recognized and unrecognized alike went down there and gave their all to try to save people. These people represent the best of what Americans can be when the chips are down.

Today many of them are sick or dying from respiratory ailments contracted while working at the site, because they trusted the reprehensible Christine Todd Whitman, George Bush's head of the EPA, who assured them at the air quality was safe. Some have died already, like James Zadroga, after whom legislation being blocked by Republicans to help these first responders pay their medical bills is named.

Yes, the Republican Party, which never hesitates to flog the corpses of the 9/11 dead to further their political aims, refuses to help the people they once used as props and called heroes, have some financial peace of mind before they leave this mortal coil. And Mitch McConnell is perhaps the most loathsome of the bunch:

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader from Kentucky, refuses to take a public position on the $7.4 billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, but sources say that in private discussions he has not supported it.

When he was running for reelection two years ago, McConnell touted his support for a law that compensated "patriots" who worked to build America's nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

McConnell said as much in an ad that sounds remarkably like the case for helping Americans who came from all over the country to toil in the toxins of Ground Zero - and got sick after officials said it was safe.

"During the Cold War, America's security depended on nuclear strength. Workers at Paducah's gaseous diffusion plant are patriots who did some of the most dangerous work," the ad says.

"We always knew the job was dangerous," says nuke worker David Fuller in the ad. "What we found out along the way was that it was more dangerous than what we were made aware of."

McConnell's spot crows that he won both a cancer screening program and compensation for people who were ignored and dying because of their service - much like 9/11's neglected responders.

"Really all we're asking for is the same thing that was done for nuclear workers," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.). "I would hope that Mitch McConnell realizes that 9/11 workers were just as victimized as the nuclear workers were, and they all should be protected by the federal government."

Advocates for 9/11 responders argued that McConnell's constituents would be all for him backing the Zadroga bill.

"If he's only going to help the people of Kentucky, he's a homer; he doesn't deserve to be a national leader," said John Feal, founder of the Fealgood Foundation.

"Kentucky people are some of the most patriotic people in the country," Feal said. "They would be embarrassed if they knew Mitch McConnell was not supporting 9/11's patriots."

The Zadroga bill needs two Republican senators to sign on in order to pass. Insiders believe one is ready to join, but if McConnell said yes, many more likely would follow.

And yet McConnell, who refuses to do the right thing on the Zadroga bill (presumably because of the $7.4 billion price tag) insists that those who already have more money than they can spend in a thousand lifetimes, simply cannot survive without extending George W. Bush's irresponsible tax cuts (tax cuts which created not one job, I might add). Here he is on Face the Nation on Sunday:

SCHIEFFER: You have argued that one of the main purposes -- and other Republicans say the same thing -- is to reduce the deficit.

SCHIEFFER: But I have to ask you, Senator McConnell, when you're talking about extending those tax cuts for upper-income Americans, the estimates are that will cost $700 billion over the next 10 years. I mean, if you take all the tax cuts together, you're talking about $4 trillion. How do you intend to pay for those tax cuts?

MCCONNELL: Bob, it only costs $700 billion if you consider it the government's money. This is our money. This has been the tax rate for almost a decade -- almost a decade.

The federal government doesn't have this problem because it taxes too little. It's got it because it spends too much. We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. So the whole nomenclature surrounding this that somehow we're doing people a favor by giving them their own money back, I just don't accept. The government is too big. It needs to be shrunk.

We can do that by targeting the annual discretionary spending, which we, by the way, have already begun to do in this Congress. We're going to be able to do more of it in the next Congress. And then I'm hoping that the president's deficit reduction commission, which is supposed to report on December 1st, is going to have some recommendations with regard to our long-term debt problems, which are quite severe, that people like me and my Republican colleagues can support.

Forget about McConnell's grammar for a minute. Let's hold his feet to the fire about his notion that we "spend too much" and that keeping in place tax cuts that have resulted in an unemployment rate of over 10 percent will somehow magically create jobs now when they haven't in ten years. Howard Gleckman in the Christian Science Monitor takes a look at the folly of Mitch McConnell's economic "plan" and calls bullshit on it.

If Republicans want to stick to their guns about spending, they're more than welcome to do so. But if that's the case, then the almost-certain failure of the Zadroga bill ought to be hung around their necks like an albatross. Because these so-called "pro-life" Republicans who profess to represent "hard-working Americans" are turning their backs on some of the hardest-working, while they continue to shovel cash into the pockets of the wealthy.

Kneel Before Zod!

Cheer up, teachers of New Jersey...it could be worse. Your governor could be John Kasich:

Kasich also had a direct message for the teacher's union, who blasted him during the campaign for his stance on the merit pay and holding teachers accountable.

"I am waiting for the teachers union to take out full page ads in all of the newspapers apologizing for what they had to say about me during this campaign," said Kasich.

And if they do, he'll bitch that they're squandering money.

Oh, and by the way, he's also declared that "creating jobs, halting the statewide passenger rail project and reining in labor unions are his top priorities."

I guess the jobs he wants to create are maid, cook, gardener, and pool boy for himself. Because the statewide passenger rail project he just killed would have generated up to 8000 jobs. He must have a different definition of "jobs" than the rest of us do.

I missed this last week

Rachel Maddow on the demonization of the unemployed:

When you see it all in one place, it underscores just how horrific these people are. These are the people who are the architects of the policies that created this mess. The tragedy is that enough people are frightened and angry that they're going to put these heartless, greedy, evil people back in charge this November.

Don't tell ME "No one could have anticipated a spill of this magnitude"

BP has been nickel-and-diming on safety for years, playing the odds:

A series of internal investigations over the past decade warned senior BP managers that the company repeatedly disregarded safety and environmental rules and risked a serious accident if it did not change its ways.

The confidential inquiries, which have not previously been made public, focused on a rash of problems at BP's Alaska oil-drilling unit that undermined the company’s publicly proclaimed commitment to safe operations. They described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured or harassed employees not to report problems, and cut short or delayed inspections in order to reduce production costs. Executives were not held accountable for the failures, and some were promoted despite them.

Similar themes about BP operations elsewhere were sounded in interviews with former employees, in lawsuits and little-noticed state inquiries, and in e-mails obtained by ProPublica. Taken together, these documents portray a company that systemically ignored its own safety policies across its North American operations - from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to California and Texas.

Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, has committed himself to reform since taking the top job in 2007. Top BP officials would not comment for this story, but spokesman Tony Odone said that in March an independent expert reported that BP has made "significant progress" toward meeting goals set in 2007 in response to a deadly Texas refinery explosion. Odone said the notion that BP has ongoing problems addressing worker concerns is "essentially groundless."

Because of its string of accidents before the recent blowout in the Gulf, BP already faced a possible ban on its federal contracting and on new U.S. drilling leases, several senior former Environmental Protection Agency debarment officials told ProPublica. That inquiry has taken on new significance in light of the Gulf accident. One key question the EPA will consider is whether the company's leadership can be trusted and whether BP's culture can change.

The reports detailing BP's Alaska investigations -- conducted by outside lawyers and an internal BP committee in 2001, 2004 and 2007 -- were provided to ProPublica by a person close to BP who believes the company has not yet done enough to eradicate its shortcomings.

Last Sunday Arianna Huffington attempted to call Liz Cheney on her denial that what we are seeing in the Gulf is a direct outgrowth of the no-regulation corporatist policies that have been embraced by Republicans dating back to Ronald Reagan and reaching fruition during the Bush years. Cheney, demonstrating the family ability to lie with a straight face and without any effort whatsoever, called this a "left-wing talking point." Unfortunately, Huffington let Cheney filibuster her way out of it, rather than mentioning this, from the same source as above:

A 2001 report noted that BP had neglected key equipment needed for emergency shutdown, including safety shutoff valves and gas and fire detectors similar to those that could have helped prevent the fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf.

A 2004 inquiry found a pattern of intimidating workers who raised safety or environmental concerns. It said managers were shaving maintenance costs with the practice of "run to failure," under which aging equipment was used as long as possible. Accidents resulted, including the 200,000-gallon Prudhoe Bay pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever spill on Alaska's North Slope.

During the same period, similar problems surfaced at BP facilities in California and Texas.

In 2002, California officials discovered that BP had falsified inspections of fuel tanks at a Los Angeles-area refinery and that more than 80 percent of the facilities didn't meet requirements to maintain storage tanks without leaks or damage. Inspectors were forced to get a warrant before BP allowed them to check the tanks. The company eventually settled a civil lawsuit brought by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for more than $100 million.

In 2005, an emergency warning system failed before a Texas City refinery exploded in a ball of fire. BP's investigation of that deadly accident -- conducted by a committee of independent experts -- found that "significant process safety issues exist at all five U.S. refineries, not just Texas City." It said "instances of a lack of operating discipline, toleration of serious deviations from safe operating practices, and apparent complacency toward serious process safety risk existed at each refinery." BP spokesman Odone said that after the accident the company adopted a six-point plan to update its safety systems worldwide. But last year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP $87 million for failing to make safety upgrades at that same Texas plant.

BP is the 4th largest corporation in the world. Does anyone actually believe they can be stopped from doing anything they want to? If you want to see the natural outcome of the "We can't hold corporations responsible for anything because they create jobs" doctrine, you're seeing it now in the Gulf of Mexico.

And this guy is supposed to be a potential presidential candidate?

I'd be tempted to say that the people of Mississippi deserve Haley Barbour, because enough of them voted for him to elect him. But I'm not sure ANYONE, even the most willfully ignorant Fox News dittohead deserves THIS much of a nitwit scumbag corporatist oil-engorged whore:

"This is the first significant amount of oil residue to hit Mississippi since the Deepwater Horizon explosion six weeks ago," Gov. Haley Barbour said. "While it's the first, it won't be the last."

During a news conference in Jackson on Tuesday, Barbour said this is no reason for "anybody to panic." The state's beaches and ports remain open, and Barbour said, "We're told that it's not toxic."

"But it is a reason for everybody to remember that there is a likelihood that there is going to be more intrusion of some form of depleted oil, tar balls, tar mats, emulsified oil, that's going to reach the barrier islands," Barbour said.

Barbour said it appears the strand broke off Sunday from a patch of emulsified sheen situated some 11 miles off Mississippi's Horn Island.

The strand that came ashore Petit Bois had sunk slightly below sea level, and it went undetected in flyovers on Monday, he said.

Barbour said state officials have asked the Coast Guard to increase the number of vessels testing for oil sheens below the surface.

"I'm not blaming anybody or criticizing anybody," Barbour said of the fact it was not detected before washing onto Petit Bois, the easternmost of Mississippi's barrier islands, located near the Alabama border.

"We all understand that we should have found that this oil had broken off from the rest before this (Tuesday) morning," the governor said.

Yeah, Haley. Just keep adding more cowbell to drown out reality. That'll do it.

(via)

This is what happens when you let corporations buy the government

Meet Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman of BP. He's also our President, Senator, Representative, and perhaps we should throw in King, Emperor, and Pope while we're at it:

BP's chairman hit back at critics of the company's response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, insisting that they ought to remember that the group was "big and important" for the US.

As BP prepared its latest attempt to halt the flow, Carl-Henric Svanberg told the Financial Times in his first newspaper interview since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that the UK energy company still had a future in the US.

"The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production. So the position goes both ways," he said.

Mr Svanberg accepted BP's reputation had been damaged by the accident but said that should not be long-lasting "if we do the right thing".

"This is not the first time something has gone wrong in this industry, but the industry has moved on. Of course our reputation will be tarnished, but let's wait and see how we do with plugging the well and cleaning up the spill."

BP has been running an advertising campaign in US newspapers explaining the efforts it has been making to control the spill, and it plans to step up that campaign once the leak has been stopped.

Mr Svanberg, who took over as chairman in January, said the company's board felt Tony Hayward, the chief executive, was doing a "great job", in spite of widespread criticism in the US.

Shorter Svanberg: We own your asses, so shut the fuck up.

Why does the Obama Administration allow BP to command the Coast Guard?

If you need further proof that this is now the Corporate States of America, here you go:

Contacts in Louisiana have given me numerous, unconfirmed reports of cameras and cell phones being confiscated, scientists with monitoring equipment being turned away, and local reporters blocked from access to public lands impacted by the oil spill. But today CBS News got it on video, along with a bone-chilling statement by a Coast Guard official:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

"These are BP's rules. These are not our rules."

But wait ... isn't that a public beach? From my viewpoint, it looks as if the Coast Guard* has been given direct orders to protect BP's PR interests above safety concerns over air and water quality, above the outcries of local governments in need of aid, and (worst of all) above the need for the American public to be informed about what is really going on in the Gulf.

That didn't take long

If BP didn't already deserve to be put out of business for negligence in not having a "Plan B", here's an example of just how scummy this company, which the Supreme Court thinks is exactly the same as a person, really is:

Alabama Attorney General Troy King said tonight that he has told representatives of BP Plc. that they should stop circulating settlement agreements among coastal Alabamians.

The agreements, King said, essentially require that people give up the right to sue in exchange for payment of up to $5,000.

King said BP's efforts were particularly strong in Bayou La Batre.

The attorney general said he is prohibited from giving legal advice to private citizens, but added that "people need to proceed with caution and understand the ramifications before signing something like that.

"They should seek appropriate counsel to make sure their rights are protected," King said.

By the end of Sunday, BP aimed to sign up 500 fishing boats in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida to deploy boom.

BP had distributed a contract to fishermen it was hiring that waived their right to sue BP and required confidentiality and other items, sparking protests in Louisiana and elsewhere.

Darren Beaudo, a spokesman for BP, said the waiver requirement had been stripped out, and that ones already signed would not be enforced.

"BP will not enforce any waivers that have been signed in connection with this activity," he wrote in an e-mail.

But King said late Sunday that he was still concerned that people would lose their right to sue by accepting settlements from BP of up to $5,000, as envisioned by the claim process BP has set up. He said BP's push was particularly strong in Bayou La Batre.

Remind me again why anyone is planning to vote for Republicans this fall. After all, these are the people who wanted to see complete deregulation of the oil industry: Drill here drill now.

If your hips are more than 17" wide from hipbone to hipbone, forget about flying Southwest

I guess Southwest doesn't want anyone who isn't anorexic to fly with them, because 17" really isn't all that wide a seat for even a moderately-sized person. As noted in the link, New York City subway seats are wider than that.

But now Southwest's "Fatties Buy Two Seats" rule has snagged a famous person -- one who knows very well how to use the intart00bz to make things go viral:

Filmmaker Kevin Smith, fresh from delivering a speech at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco, unleashed his fury on Southwest Airlines after the pilot on Smith's flight from Oakland to Burbank ejected him for being "too fat to fly" Saturday evening.

"I'm way fat, but I'm not there just yet," Smith wrote on his Twitter.com account after the incident, adding that he was able to lower both arm rests at his seat. "I broke no regulation."

Most of us have sat next to people who "spill over"; and you don't have to be all that big to do that in an airline seat. As airlines pack more seats into their planes, making them ever-smaller in an effort to squeeze in more paying customers, it's ridiculous to make a seat in which only an anorexic fashion model can fit comfortably and then tell everyone else they have to buy two tickets.

It's really a shame, too. I have family in North Carolina, and my non-driving options are dwindling. I won't fly Continental down there anymore because their Newark-to-Raleigh route is run by Colgan Air -- those wonderful people who paid their pilot on that infamous Newark-to-Buffalo plane that crashed last year $25,000 a year and the co-pilot $15,000. No one else flies nonstop. I'd planned to take Southwest out of Philadelphia next time, but now I'll be damned if I give them a nickel of my money. So now the choice has dwindled down to Amtrak, which means I have to be in downtown Newark at 7 AM, or driving either our seven-year-old Corolla or our nine-year-old Civic.

Or just stay home, which is turning into the best option.

More from Kate.

Is this the next phase of the extermination of the middle class?

Now you don't even have to fall behind on your mortgage in order to have the bank take your house. In fact, you don't even have to have a mortgage:

Charlie and Maria Cardoso are among the millions of Americans who have experienced the misery and embarrassment that come with home foreclosure.

Just one problem: The Massachusetts couple paid for their future retirement home in Spring Hill with cash in 2005, five years before agents for Bank of America seized the house, removed belongings and changed the locks on the doors, according to a lawsuit the couple have filed in federal court.

Early last month, Charlie Cardoso had to drive to Florida to get his home back, the complaint filed in Massachusetts on Jan. 20 states.

The bank had an incorrect address on foreclosure documents — the house it meant to seize is across the street and about 10 doors down — but the Cardosos and a Realtor employed by Bank of America were unable to convince the company that it had the wrong house, the suit states.
[snip]

According to the complaint, here is what happened:

Last July, the couple's tenant called the Cardosos in a panic. The single mother of two teenagers accused the couple of lying when they told her she could rent the house as long she wanted. Three men were there to clean out the house and change the locks, she told them.

Charlie Cardoso talked to a real estate agent for Bank of America, who said he would inform the company that it had the wrong house. The couple thought that was the end of the ordeal.

It wasn't. A landscaper Bank of America hired in August to mow the grass on the property broke a fence to bring in his equipment. The tenant got spooked and moved out just before Christmas.

On Jan. 5, a friend of the Cardosos who was helping the tenant pick up belongings found men putting a lock box on the front door. The workers said the house belonged to Bank of America. The friend called the Cardosos.

When Charlie Cardoso called the bank, a representative told him there was a mistake, the problem would be fixed, and he would get a return call. The call never came. The lock box remained.

Four days later, Cardoso and his son drove to Florida, missing the homecoming of another son who was returning from Iraq for a two-week leave.

Cardoso had to prove to police that he owned the house. The next day he broke in through a back door and used bolt cutters to remove the lock box. The water and electricity had been turned off, and pipes had frozen.

The couple filed suit 10 days later.

"Unclear"? I'd put twenty bucks on the table right now that if the Cardosos look at their credit score, it will have dropped a few hundred points.

Now cue the Usual Suspects screaming about "frivolous lawsuits" and "tort reform." If you aren't entitled to damages when a bank can take your house on which they don't even have a mortgage, get rid of all your belongings, and wreck your reputation and credit rating, then I don't know when the hell you are.

Life in this country is every day becoming more of a Terry Gilliam nightmare:

Funny how the Information minister looks a lot like Dick Cheney.

Tom Coburn gets an early start on celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace....

...by praying for Sen. Robert Byrd to die so that the Harry Reid's manager's amendment to health care bill would fail:

Going into Monday morning's crucial Senate vote on health-care legislation, Republican chances for defeating the bill had come down to a last, macabre hope. They needed one Democratic senator to die -- or at least become incapacitated.

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

Nice. But then, Coburn is a C Street House frat boy and "Family" member, and their perversion of Christianity is all about their own wealth and power, and has nothing to do with the teachings of Joshua of Nazareth.

Now I don't much care for this health care bill in its current form. I don't like purchase mandates without industry price regulation. I don't like throwing women's health care under the bus. And I don't like that there's no requirement that insurance companies actually pay claims. But when people who make their reputations on preaching about morality are praying for others to die, I think we have to call them out for the beasts that they are.

If the Republicans keep this up there won't be anyone left to support them

Let's see, they've alienated Black and Latino Americans already, and today they may have just eliminated the women:

“General Pelosi has no problem sacrificing her own credibility as the Obama administration and liberals in Congress attempt to walk back a strategy they strongly advocated just months ago,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “Nancy Pelosi continues to make party politics a higher priority than our national security. Rather than listening to a four-star general’s assessments on Afghanistan, General Pelosi somehow believes she is better suited to craft our country’s military policy.”

If Nancy Pelosi’s failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

Yes, folks, this is the Republicans' new theme song for its female outreach:

Bu..bu...but they told him he was SPECIAL and CHOSEN!

Mark Sanford simply won't go away:

Gov. Mark Sanford said he was a broken man after admitting an extramarital affair in June, a revelation that required him to pick up the pieces of his administration and fend off efforts to remove him from office.

In the 100 days since he returned from his secret trip to Argentina to acknowledge his affair, Sanford's schedule shows - and observers agree - the Republican governor has turned his focus to the state's moribund economy.

But that new focus came only after weeks of vacations and apologies and a campaign to defend Sanford from questions about his use of state planes.

[snip]

What has Sanford done over the last 100 days?

- He has been on out-of-state trips or vacations a fifth of the time.

- He has spent another 16 days traveling the state to speak to civic and community groups, generally opening his speeches with an apology.

- He has toured a handful of state manufacturing plants and small businesses and also visited with job-creation and technical school programs.

- He moved, by an executive order, a program for developmentally challenged infants and toddlers to First Steps, an early education program created by his Democratic predecessor.

Sanford's official schedule typically contains no more than three or four items a week.

The never-ending Mark Sanford saga is interesting not just because it demonstrates a man with one hell of a pathological narcissism monkey on his back, but also one whose very belief system has been shaken to its core. It's easy to understand why pathological narcissists would be attracted to the doctrine put forth by "The Family" (of which Sanford is a member), because it elevates "clean slate Christianity" to an entirely new plane, one where there is an even smaller "elite" than the huge number of worldwide Christians, one that is, according to David Coe, heir apparent to the group's founder Douglas Coe, exempt from the rules of conduct according to which the rest of us are obligated to live.

Jeff Sharlet, in an excerpt from his book:

Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

The article linked above is worth reading in its entirety, because it is a portrait of a man who has yet to believe that his spiritual leaders have lied to him when they said he was part of a special elite for whom the rules don't apply. If you thought Mark Sanford had already had his complete breakdown, you haven't seen anything yet.