Emily Badger - Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?

The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longerthan Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these would-be presidents have warned of looming threats — war with Iran, economic collapse, class warfare, social disintegration, illegal immigration — and have sought to position themselves as the best candidate for the job of protecting America.

Their political advisers must understand a psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now: conservatives appear to be motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body of research suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. A new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups quite literally see the world differently.

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http://www.miller-mccune.com/

Robert Reich - The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.” What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009. They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

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http://www.nationofchange.org/republican-myth-obama-s-entitlement-society-1328199765

Andy Borowitz - A Clarification from Mitt Romney About Poor People

LA JOLLA, CA (The Borowitz Report) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today released the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

Yesterday, comments I made about poor people made me look terrible.  This always seems to happen when I say what I really believe.

The fact is, I do care about poor people.  That’s because I’m poor myself, when you compare me to Mark Zuckerberg.

According to most projections, Facebook’s IPO should net Mr. Zuckerberg a personal fortune of $28 billion.  I couldn’t make a pile of dough-re-mi like that even if I fired people twenty-four hours a day.

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http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/02/02/a-clarification-from-mitt-romney/

Robert Parry - The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich

Most people probably think that scientists working on embryonic stem-cell research are committed to finding new treatments to help fellow human beings suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, paraplegia and other terrible ailments – but not former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

To the Republican presidential hopeful, these researchers are engaged in what amounts to “the use of science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.” Just stop there for a minute. In Gingrich’s world, these researchers are using “science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.”

That comment on Saturday at a Baptist church in Winter Park, Florida, got the applause that he apparently was hoping for and maybe some votes from Christian fundamentalists who object to the experimental use of embryos, even ones destined for destruction at fertility clinics. However, in doing so, Gingrich put on display, again, his casual use of ugly language to demean fellow Americans.

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http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/30/the-ugly-words-of-newt-gingrich/

John Nichols - Wisconsin Recall Drive More Popular Than GOP Presidential Candidates - Combined

America is almost four weeks into the voting stage of the Republican presidential race. The candidates are debating. The media is covering the competition 24/7, and in such minute detail that Rick Perry’s quitting of the contest was treated as news. And Republicans in three states have caucused and voted in numbers that party leaders, pundits and the talk-radio amen corner tell us are significant.

Yet at the same time, those same party leaders, pundits and radio talkers continue to dismiss the movement to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as a false construct with little real hope of prevailing.

Fair enough, let’s compare.

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http://www.nationofchange.org/wisconsin-recall-drive-more-popular-gop-presidential-candidates-combined-1327849443

Robert Reich - Why No Responsible Democrat Should Want Newt Gingrich to Get the GOP Nomination

Republicans are worried sick about Newt Gingrich's ascendance, while Democrats are tickled pink.

Yet no responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.

The Republican worry is understandable. "The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handling the election over to Obama," says former Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty, a leading GOP conservative. "I think that's shared by a lot of folks in the Republican party."

Pawlenty's views are indeed widely shared in Republican circles. "He's not a conservative -- he's an opportunist," says pundit Joe Scarborough, a member of the Republican Class of 1994 who came to Washington under Gingrich's banner. Gingrich doesn't "have the temperament, intellectual discipline or ego control to be either a successful nominee or president," says New York Republican representative Peter King, who hasn't endorsed any candidate. "Basically, Newt can't control himself."

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-No-Responsible-Democra-by-Robert-Reich-120126-841.html

New Polls: Economy Still Bush's Fault, GOP Responsible For Gridlock

What seems obvious to us is news to Washington pundits:

A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.

Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Polls-Economy-Still-B-by-Daily-kos-120118-44.html

Mitt Romney’s TOP FIVE Tax Giveaways to the Rich

While much attention has focused on Mitt Romney’s own shockingly low tax rate — a 15 percent rate far lower than that paid by millions of middle class Americans, less attention has been paid to the details of his tax plan. It’s a plan that would slash taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, while actually increasing taxes on the middle class. What’s more, as the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Michael Linden and Seth Hanlon wrote last week:

Nowhere in Romney’s 59-point economic plan does he identify a single corporate loophole or tax break he’d eliminate. 

Here’s a rundown of some of the most egregious tax loopholes and giveaways Mitt Romney preserves in his tax plan.

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http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/romney-tax-exploiter/?mobile=nc

David Michael Green - Geriatric Obfuscating Pathology: Is The GOP Self-Destructing?

I took a busload of students to New Hampshire last week to observe the Republican primary campaign process up close and personal. 

Alright, alright, I know what you must be thinking:  “Damn, Green, you sure must be a dedicated professor to do that!”  As it happens, you’d be partly right and partly wrong.  In fact, the students are great, the trip is fun and a little unpredictable in nice way, and there really still is a wee bit of genuine candidate accountability remaining in the New Hampshire retail politics process. 

That said, however, it’s absolutely true that the field of GOP candidates is stunning in its sheer capacity for selfishness, dishonesty, and plain old meanness, and that listening to them for too long without wearing noise-cancelling headphones could surely burn off both of your ears.  It’s the political equivalent of staring at the sun, and the cult-like gaga-bots one can observe among these audiences seem to have spent quite some time doing just that.  If you know just a bit about history, just a bit about context, or just a bit about the dark arts of rhetorical legerdemain, listening to a speech by Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney will leave you wanting to pop up just about every half-sentence and loudly disclaim “That’s a lie!”, “That’s wrong!”, or “That’s complete bullshit!”  It’s a truly painful experience in that regard. 

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/17-1

Kurt Nimmo - Ron Paul Moves to Kill Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA

Rep. Ron Paul left the campaign trail on Wednesday to speak on the House floor about the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law on the first day of the new year by Obama.

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http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-moves-to-kill-indefinite-detention-provision-of-ndaa.html