Robert Scheer - Government-Sponsored Sinner

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/government-sponsored_sinner_20111208/

Posted on Dec 8, 2011

By Robert Scheer

Who would have thought that Republican voters would prove so accepting of sin? At least when its committed by a white guy, like the serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, who betrayed not one but two wives while they were enduring serious medical difficulties.

In the latest New York Times/CBS poll of Iowa Republicans, alleged philanderer Herman Cain’s once impressive support shifts to the new front-runner, Gingrich, whose richer history of marital deceit is not a problem even for the self-described evangelical Christian voters who favor him over Mitt Romney by a ratio of 3-1.

It is the first time that I have felt sympathy for a candidate experiencing the prejudice directed at a practicing Mormon. Clearly the ultimate of “squeaky clean” doesn’t cut it for a presidential contender of that faith among Republican Christian “values voters,” even when he is compared with a sexual roué of Gingrich’s considerable magnitude.

Or perhaps it is Newt’s peerless capacity to mask moral hypocrisy with the appearance of religious propriety, first as a Protestant and now as a Roman Catholic, that endears him to other Republicans who wear their religion on their sleeves. Many of those were willing to tear the country apart over the sexual wanderings of a Democrat in the White House, but now they are quite willing to send someone of Gingrich’s reputation to the Oval Office. We are speaking of a politician who was having an extramarital affair with a congressional staff member 27 years his junior, now more appropriately his third wife, during the very years when he was so energetically stoking the Clinton sex scandal.

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Matt Welch - Republican Jewish Coalition Bars Ron Paul From Presidential Debate, Saying He's Too "misguided and extreme"

Matt Welch | December 1, 2011

http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/01/republican-jewish-coalition-bars-ron-pau

On Wednesday, Dec. 7, the Republican Jewish Coalition will host a presidential-candidates forumfeaturing Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Not invited is the GOP candidate currently polling around third in New Hampshire and second in Iowa: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). The explanation:

Paul was not invited to attend the RJC's candidates forum because the organization - as it has stated numerous times in the past - "rejects his misguided and extreme views," said [RJC Executive Director Matt] Brooks.

"He's just so far outside of the mainstream of the Republican party and this organization," Brooks said. Inviting Paul to attend would be "like inviting Barack Obama to speak."

Link via the Twitter feed of an approving Jamie Kirchick.

Brooks gave a more detailed critique of Ron Paul back in May:

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Robert Reich - The Rebirth of Social Darwinism

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Rebirth-of-Social-Darw-by-Robert-Reich-111201-487.html

December 1, 2011 By Robert Reich Social Darwinism offered a moral justification for the wild inequities and social cruelties of the late nineteenth century. If one of the current crop of Republican hopefuls becomes president, and if regressive Republicans take over the House or Senate, or both, Social Darwinism is back. What kind of society, exactly, do modern Republicans want? I've been listening to Republican candidates in an effort to discern an overall philosophy, a broadly-shared vision, an ideal picture of America. They say they want a smaller government but that can't be it. Most seek a larger national defense and more muscular homeland security. Almost all want to widen the government's powers of search and surveillance inside the United States -- eradicating possible terrorists, expunging undocumented immigrants, "securing" the nation's borders. They want stiffer criminal sentences, including broader application of the death penalty. Many also want government to intrude on the most intimate aspects of private life. They call themselves conservatives but that's not it, either. They don't want to conserve what we now have. They'd rather take the country backwards -- before the 1960s and 1970s, and the Environmental Protection Act, Medicare, and Medicaid; before the New Deal, and its provision for Social Security, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, laws against child labor, and official recognition of trade unions; even before the Progressive Era, and the first national income tax, antitrust laws, and Federal Reserve.

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Eric Alterman - The Virus of GOP Ignorance

By Eric Alterman, The Nation

Posted on November 23, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153198/the_virus_of_gop_ignorance%3A_why_don%27t_media_protect_us_from_the_lies_spewed_in_the_republican_primary  

It is a symbol of our current political predicament that anytime anyone tells the truth about anything in the contest for the Republican nomination, a new scandal erupts. Newt Gingrich was briefly drummed out of the Republican Party for accurately terming Paul Ryan’s destructive Medicare plan a “radical” step toward “right-wing social engineering.” Jon Huntsman caused virtually the only stir of his all-but-invisible campaign when he admitted to what the Salt Lake Tribune straight-facedly called the “politically dicey belief that climate change is human-caused and needs to be addressed.” And most recently, CBS’s John Dickerson caused a contretemps when a stray e-mail revealed that Michele Bachmann was “not going to get many questions” in the debate the network was sponsoring because “she’s nearly off the charts.”

Being a member of the MSM in good standing, Dickerson was in all likelihood referring to Bachmann’s poll position rather than her approach to reality, and uncharacteristically for this race, they happen to be pretty much perfectly proportional. Bachmann has long been loony, but it has been her poll standing that has determined the treatment she has received from the press.

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Mike Meyers - Republican Policies Would 'Soak the Poor'

Published on Sunday, November 13, 2011 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/133719503.html

by Mike Meyers

Republicans proudly champion freedom. Freedom from health care. Freedom from clean air and water. Freedom from immigrant potato pickers.

The holiest of holies for Republican true believers, however, is freedom from taxation. Taxes must go down and never, ever go up.

In 2011, however, Republicans have undergone something of a conversion. They are content to see taxes rise.

Indeed, they are pushing for tax increases. Of course, not higher tax bills for multinational corporations or Americans with seven- or eight-figure annual incomes.

Republicans are targeting the sick and unemployed, the indigent and elderly, as well as working-class families struggling to raise children.

These are what Wall Street Journal editorial writers and Fox News talking heads call the "lucky duckies."

The "lucky duckies" may ride the bus, strain to pay the rent and choose between eating and paying the heat bill. Yet one aspect of their lives is ever so enviable: They do not pay federal income taxes.

Nearly half of Americans pay no federal income tax. Let us pause for a moment to let the reader's jealousy seethe.

Yet who would want to change places with this "other half"?

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Bernie Becker - Dems push Wall Street tax despite White House, GOP opposition

By Bernie Becker - 11/06/11 01:00 PM ET

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/192031-dem-lawmakers-push-wall-street-tax-despite-gop-obama-opposition

A group of congressional Democrats is pushing on with their efforts to enact a tax on financial transactions, in the face of what they acknowledge are long odds.

The financial transactions tax has prominent supporters in Europe, including President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

But the Obama administration has decided against embracing the idea, most recently at a meeting of the Group of 20 nations in France. Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill remain opposed to tax increases, and banking and financial advocacy groups are also fiercely against the transaction tax.

Democrats backing the idea are well aware of those roadblocks. But they also say the transaction tax, which has also been endorsed by Bill Gates, would both help raise revenue to tackle deficits and rein in speculation in the financial world.

“The Republican majority will decide whether we take this bill up or it passes,” said Peter Welch (D-Vt.). “But it’s kind of hard to defend some of the conduct.”

Under the proposal introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), trading of stocks, bonds and certain other transactions would be hit with a tax of three basis points – or, essentially, a tax of .03 percent per trade.

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Daniel Denvir - Why the GOP Presidential Hopefuls Desperately Need Sex Ed

By Daniel Denvir, Comment Is Free

Posted on November 3, 2011, Printed on November 4, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152961/why_the_gop_presidential_hopefuls_desperately_need_sex_ed

Though most American youth continue to learn about sex most everywhere but in school, there is some good news:according to a recent report from the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States(SIECUS), the Obama administration and Congress in 2010 eliminated two thirds of federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage education, and, in a historic shift, allocated close to $190m for comprehensivesex education

At the local level, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the implementation of a comprehensive citywide sex ed program this spring. Previously, whether a child received science-based sex ed or nothing at all was an enrollment roll of the dice: some principals ran good programs; others did not.

The proposed curriculum has sparked a rightwing backlash (flames fanned, in part, by the New York Post). Some parents are apparently angry that one approved website discusses pornography, swinger clubs and (dear Jesus) foot fetishes.

Bloomberg, for good policy and for ill, is a steamroller. But other cities lag far behind, including school districts that don't preach abstinence-only.

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Steven Thomma - GOP presidential candidates' tax plans would benefit the rich

Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: October 26, 2011 08:11:26 PM

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/26/128403/gop-presidential-candidates-tax.html

WASHINGTON — The Republican Party is catching flat-tax fever — and setting up an epic election-year fight with Democrats over whether wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes or get tax cuts.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney became the latest to punch the tax button Wednesday, telling a Virginia audience that he'll soon update his economic proposal to spell out ways to flatten the tax code.

His vow came just a day after rival Rick Perry grabbed headlines and talk-show chatter with a proposal for an optional flat 20 percent tax on income. Both followed Herman Cain's pitch for a flat 9 percent income tax as part of his 9-9-9 plan, which helped him jump to the top tier of candidates for their party's 2012 nomination. Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann endorse a flat tax, too.

The flat tax — so called because it offers one flat rate for taxpayers in all income groups while taking away many or all deductions — would simplify taxes. It also would almost certainly give big tax cuts to wealthy Americans. Republicans believe that cutting taxes, especially on the wealthy, helps to spur investment, economic growth and hiring.

At the same time, most of the Republican candidates are proposing other changes that also would mean big tax cuts for high-income Americans, such as eliminating taxes on dividend income or capital gains, and eliminating the estate tax, called the death tax by Republicans.

Their push comes at the same time that Democratic President Barack Obama is pushing to raise taxes on higher-income Americans. He's proposed raising taxes on those making more than $200,000 and has endorsed a push by Senate Democrats to raise taxes on incomes above $1 million.

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"Robert Scheer" - If a Republican Were President

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/if_a_republican_were_president_20111013/

 Posted on Oct 13, 2011

By Robert Scheer

If a Republican were president, there would be millions of properly coiffed middle-class Democrats and independents at those Occupy Wall Street marches, and no questions asked as to what they really want. With 25 million Americans unable to find full-time work, 50 million whose homeownership dream has turned into the nightmare of foreclosure, and an all-time high of 46.2 million, including 22 percent of our children, living in poverty, the call to throw the bums out would be compelling.

But the protest signs in a nation headed by a Republican, though surely gussied up a bit with ad agency savvy, would be the same as they are now: Stop catering to the top 1 percent who get ever wealthier and focus on helping the 99 percent who are hurting. To accomplish that, we need a moratorium on bank-ordered evictions, along with a government-funded program to aid the underemployed that is as robust as the trillions spent to save the Wall Street swindlers who caused all of this trouble.

Instead we are left with a Democratic president who sooths our rage with promises of decent-paying jobs that in actuality are being vigorously exported from our shores by the president’s top corporate backers. That absurdity was marked by Barack Obama’s choice of Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric—a company that has shifted to foreign countries two-thirds of its workforce and 82 percent of its profits—to head the president’s job creation council. 

Obama has failed not because he is a progressive in the mold of Franklin Delano Roosevelt but because he is not. He has blindly followed the lead of George W. Bush in bankrupting the nation by throwing money at Wall Street while continuing to fund wildly expensive and unneeded wars. 

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"JA Myerson" - Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Other Right Wingers Want to Turn Back the Clock to 1900 -- What Was Life Like Back Then?

By J.A. Myerson, AlterNet
Posted on September 22, 2011, Printed on September 23, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152397/ron_paul%2C_rick_perry_and_other_right_wingers_want_to_turn_back_the_clock_to_1900_--_what_was_life_like_back_then

Wednesday's 230-195 vote in the GOP-controlled house against Speaker John Boehner's special funding measure to keep the government running past September 30th showed how far the far-right of the already far-right Republican Party will push a principle. They refuse to pass the bill (containing much-needed disaster relief, which is meager enough that the Democrats largely declined to vote for the bill) without deeper budget cuts written in. Boehner will have to rewrite the thing either to placate recalcitrant Democrats, intent on helping the vulnerable, or recalcitrant Republicans, intent on depriving the government of the means to help the vulnerable. One wonders what the odds are regarding his decision.

Weeks earlier, the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irene had provided an excellent opportunity to examine the real-life implications of arguments over the size of government in relation to the quality of liberty. Conservatives have always held that a government’s growth implies freedom’s decline and vice versa, but disaster relief has historically been an area where that formulation acquires the flavor of angels dancing on pinheads: when Americans are suffering and their local communities are ill-equipped to mitigate their despair, the federal government has routinely stepped in with aid. 

But this time around, the libertarian populism exemplified by the Tea Party took center stage. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) at first insisted the debt situation was so dire that disaster relief funds would have to come from elsewhere in the budget.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) insinuated that the deaths and destruction from North Carolina to Vermont were God’s way of alerting us to his will that America “rein in the spending.”

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