The Progress Report ~~~ 10 Crazy RW things

By  ThinkProgress War Room

10 Crazy Things the Right Did This Week

The right wing rarely rests and this week has been no exception. Here’s ten stories from just this week illustrating just how extreme, out of touch, and just plain offensive that conservatives can be.

1. The incoming NRA president refers to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression.” He also called President Obama a “fake president” and said Attorney General Eric Holder is “rabidly un-American.”
2. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) said she voted against equal pay for women because we already have enough laws. The embattled Granite Stater said the laws we already have are sufficient even though women still only make 77 cents on the dollar.
3. Retired Supreme Court Justice now regrets Bush v. Gore. Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who herself cast the deciding vote to install George W. Bush as president, said this week that she regrets that the High Court even took up the case in the first place.
4. Former Bush press secretary praises the Nazis’ respect for the laws of war. Former Bush flack Ari Fleischer defended keeping the prison at Guantanamo Bay open by praising the Nazis’ respect for the laws of war compared to the terrorists we are fighting today.
5. State legislator attacks hero victim of Boston bombing in order to advance conspiracy theory. New Hampshire State Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-NH) said that Jeff Bauman, who lost both his legs and heroically identified the bombers after he awoke in the hospital, looked too calm to be in shock, which she claims is proof that the government is behind the bombing. You can take a look at this photo of Bauman and see if you think he’s part of a government conspiracy (warning: it’s extremely gruesome).
6. Wisconsin church cancels speech by former NFL  player because he is too supportive of gay people. A Wisconsin church this week canceled a speech by LeRoy Butler, a former Green Bay Packers safety, simply because he tweeted his support  for NBA player Jason Collins, who became the first male major league athlete to come out.
7. Ohio Republicans want to punish colleges for helping students vote. Ohio Republicans floated a plan to punish any state university that helps students register to vote in Ohio (simply by providing a form) by refusing to allow them to charge those students out-of-state tuition. This comes despite the fact that a 1979 Supreme Court case reaffirmed the right of students to register and vote where they attend school.
8. Mysterious conservative group launches dirty tricks in South Carolina special election. A mysterious outside group launched a push poll targeting Elizbeth Colbert Busch, the Democrat running against former Gov. Mark Sanford in next Tuesday’s special election for South Carolina’s first Congressional district. The push poll calls suggested that she had had an abortion, been in jail, and racked up massive debts, among other things.
9. Tea Party Congressman says the Attorney General is on the side of the Boston bombers. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said Attorney General Eric Holder “spent more of his legal career helping terrorists than defending the country” and was thus biased toward the bombers. He also remarked that “political correctness” had stopped the FBI from preventing the bombings.
10. Governor blames unemployment rate on drugs. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R), one of the most unpopular governors in the country, blamed his poor job creation record on drugs by claiming that most unemployed people are on drugs.

BONUS: A group founded and funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used both its left-wing and right-wing subsidiaries to launch ads in favor of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In an introductory column launching the group, Zuckerberg said that the group would be dedicated to “building the knowledge economy,” which he contrasts to “the economy of the last century… primarily based on natural resources.” Zuckerberg added, “there are only so many oil fields, and there is only so much wealth that can be created from them for society.”

The True Cost of Climate Change

 By ThinkProgress War Room

Extreme Weather is Extremely Costly

We’re now six months out from Superstorm Sandy, which should serve as a reminder that we’re experiencing more damaging extreme weather events linked to climate change. And with the mounting frequency and severity of these events will come mounting costs.

A new report from our Center for American Progress colleagues finds a rather dramatic level of federal disaster relief spending – an average of $400 per household annually. You should check out the full report, but here’s an infographic that lays out the key facts:

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

A milestone for LGBT equality in professional sports.

House Republicans want even deeper cuts to food assistance.

GOP senator: lawmakers are powerless to stop terrorists from buying guns.

After casting decisive vote to install George W. Bush as president, now Justice O’Connor regrets Bush v. Gore.

NRA buys ads in defense of senator whose poll numbers plummeted after she voted with the NRA against background checks.

Austerity is literally killing people.

The worst parts of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law are gone forever.

Support for senators plummets after they vote against background checks.

Everything you need to know about the Syrian civil war.

Miss Him Yet?

By ThinkProgress War Room

13 Reasons To Be Glad George W. Bush Is No Longer President

With the opening of the George W. Bush presidential library in Dallas, Texas today, there has been some creative re-telling of history and the Bush legacy — an legacy full of terrible consequences, intended and otherwise, that we’re still having to deal with to this very day.

Here’s a reminder from our ThinkProgress colleagues why you should still be happy that those 8 long Bush years are over:

• Authorized the use of torture

Though the US Code bans torture, Bush personally issued a memorandum six days after the September 11th attacks instructing the CIA that it could use “enhanced interrogation techniques” against suspected terrorists. The methods included waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and “stress positions.” A recently-released bipartisan committee concluded it was “indisputable” that these techniques constituted torture, and that the highest authorities in the country bore responsibility for the creation of a torture programs at Guantanamo Bay and CIA “black sites” around the world

• Politicized climate science

Bush’s “do-nothing” approach to climate change prevented the U.S. from pursuing meaningful action. Though he claimed that global warming was a serious problem that was either a natural phenomenon or caused by humans, the administration routinely edited scientific reports to downplay the threat of climate change, censored CDC testimony that climate change was a public health threat, and promoted climate denying studies financed by ExxonMobil. At the end of the Bush presidency, a top intelligence adviser warned the incoming president that climate change was a massive destabilizing national security threat that would lead to “Dust Bowl” conditions in the Southwest.

• Ignored Afghanistan to launch a war in Iraq

Rather than consolidating gains after the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Bush and his neoconservative allies pushed for removing Saddam Hussein from power, kicking off a war that led to one mistake after another. Ten years later, the war is estimated to have cost cost up to $6 trillion and resulted in the death of more than 100,000 Iraqis, 4,000 Americans and another 31,000 wounded. Meanwhile, Afghanistan saw a resurgence of the Taliban after Bush shifted resources to Iraq.

• Botched the response to Hurricane Katrina

Bush appointed Michael Brown — a man whose only real qualifications were political connections and a sting at the International Arabian Horse Association — to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 2003 and he preceded to undo everything theClinton Administration had done to make FEMA functional, botching the response to 2004′s Hurricane Frances so badly as to prompt calls for his firing. But Bush kept Brown on board and, as a detailed timeline of the response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrates, neither man took the storm seriously until it was too late. Bush, who famously said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” midway through the crisis, thus presided over the most deaths due to a single natural disaster in the United States since 1900.

• Defunded stem cell research

At the turn of the century there was perhaps no greater hope for finding cures to illnesses ranging from Alzheimer’s to diabetes than ongoing stem cell research. But months after taking office, Bush eliminated all federal funding for any new research involving stem cells, citing a religious objection to the use of embryos — even though the embryos in question were byproducts from couples undergoing in vitro fertilization and would have been destroyed by IVF clinics regardless. Twice more during his presidency, Bush vetoed legislation that would have restored funding.

• Required Muslim men to register with the government

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, instituted an anti-terrorism program to register all male immigrants between 18 and 40 years old from 20 Arab and South Asian countries. Thousands of innocent men came forward to register, only to be rounded up for minor visa violations. Roughly 1,000 men and boys in the process of applying for permanent residence were arrested and confined in standing-room-only centers, enduring invasive strip searches and beatings by guards. Many were deported, while others were held for months after their immigration cases were resolved, without a shred of evidence they had any links to terrorism.

• Reinstated the global gag rule

On Bush’s first day in office he reinstated a rule that prevented any non-profit doing work overseas from using any of their own, private money to fund family planning services. This so-called “Global Gag Rule” posed a serious threat to international maternal health, but it also cut off funding for HIV/AIDS initiatives, child health programs, and water and sanitation efforts.

• Supported anti-gay discrimination

In 2004, President Bush endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), which would have banned same-sex couples from marrying in the U.S. Constitution. The Massachusetts Supreme Court had just ruled in favor of marriage equality, and Bush hoped to block the ruling from taking effect because “a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization.” Though the FMA failed numerous times in Congress during Bush’s tenure, he exploited the issue of same-sex marriage to turn out conservative voters for the 2004 election. That year, 11 states added constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage.

• Further deregulated Wall Street

Under Bush, federal agencies eliminated regulations on predatory lending, capital requirements, and other Wall Street practices, allowing banks to engage in riskier and more destructive practices that contributed to the financial crisis that started on his watch. Bush’s Treasury Department also pushed for even further deregulation that would have given Wall Street more oversight over its own practices even after the housing collapse had begun.

• Widened income inequality

The per-person benefits of Bush’s tax cuts accrued to the top one percent of Americans, as therate for capital gains dropped to 15 percent. The CBO found that federal income taxes dropped far more as a percentage of the one percent’s income than for any other group after 2000.

• Undermined worker protections

Under Bush, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, whose mission is to protect safe working conditions, issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations and pulled 22 items from its agenda of proposed safety and health rules. The office’s funding and staff were also consistently reduced. Meanwhile, funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency charged with helping workers who claim discrimination against their employers, was similarly low and staffing fell even as the number of complaints increased, leading to a rising backlog of cases.

• Ideological court appointments

Bush filled the federal bench with ideologues, including two lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court. These conservatives believe that corporations should be able to buy and sell elections, ruled against equal pay for equal work, and have sought to undermine a woman’s right to choose.

• Presided over a dysfunctional executive branch

A 2008 analysis by the Center for Public Integrity documented more than 125 executive branch failures over Bush’s two terms. These included government breakdowns on “education, energy, the environment, justice and security, the military and veterans affairs, health care, transportation, financial management, consumer and worker safety,” and others. “I think we’ll look back on this period as one of the most destructive periods in American public life . . . both in terms of policy and process,” Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution observed, noting “genuine distortion in the constitutional system, an exaggerated sense of presidential power and prerogative and acquiescence by a Republican Congress in the face of the first unified Republican government since Dwight Eisenhower.”

Senators …

By  ThinkProgress War Room

10 Terrible Amendments Offered Today by Senators

The Senate has been debating the Democratic budget for the past few days. One of the quirks of Senate rules means that the amendment process on the budget is completely open, allowing senators to file and request a vote on an unlimited number of amendments. They don’t even have to say what their amendments are in advance, but many still choose to file them in advance. Since the process is so open, a rarity in the gridlocked Senate, senators often use this opportunity to file highly political message amendments. We sifted through the more than 400 amendments filed and found dozens that are terrible, ridiculous,  nonsensical, damaging, or just plain crazy. Here’s a look at ten of those proposals.

1. BOSS IN YOUR BEDROOM: Sens. Fischer (R-NE), Cruz (R-TX), Johanns (R-NE), and Enzi (R-WY) introduced an amendment to put your boss in your bedroom by allowing them to deny you birth control coverage based on their beliefs, not yours. This is just one of numerous anti-Obamacare amendments offered by Republicans. Incidentally, the law turns three tomorrow. 42 GOP senators and 2 Democrats voted for this amendment.
2. NRA-FUELED CONSPIRACY THEORIES: Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) offered an amendment that would prevent the U.S. from signing on to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The NRA and other right-wing groups falsely claim that this is some backdoor gun grab, which led the Senate to fail to ratify the treaty last year. The NRA is currently making a full court press to kill or at least gut the treaty. Sen. Vitter (R-LA) offered a similar amendment that would prohibit the U.N. from registering or taxing Americans’ guns, something the organization obviously has no plans to do.
3. HOUSE GOP BUDGET: While Republicans found time to cook up hundreds of other amendments, it seems no Republican senator wanted to vote on the House GOP budget as a substitute for the Senate Democratic plan. When Democrats offered the draconian Ryan plan that ends Medicare and raises taxes on the middle class in order to slash them on the wealthy, a measly 40 GOP senators voted for the plan from their counterparts in the House. Three GOP senators, however, voted against it because it wasn’t extreme enough.
4. GIVEAWAY TENS OF BILLIONS TO WALL STREET BANKS: In the same so-called “reconciliation” bill that was necessary to finish passing Obamacare was a provision that stopped routing federal student loans through the big banks. Previously, the banks acted as a middleman between the federal government and borrowers, reaping billions in fees each year even though they bore no risk because the government was the one guaranteeing the loans. The banks role was eliminated in 2010 and the money was shifted to Pell grants. Earlier today, Republicans put forward an  amendment to repeal all of the Obamacare bill, including the student loan reforms. This would literally take money away from students and hand it over to the Wall Street banks. 45 Republicans backed this proposal, which also was the third time this week that GOP senators forced a vote on repealing Obamacare.
5. OBAMAPHONE: One of the more racially-charged moments in last year’s presidential campaign came when Republican groups promoted a video of an African-American woman proclaiming her support for Obama because, she said, the government was giving out free cell phones, among other things. The Drudge Report and other right-wing media immediately dubbed this the “Obamaphone” controversy. As it turned out, the FCC’s Lifeline program offering free cell phones to low-income Americans began under President George W. Bush and is based on a Reagan-era program to provide low-income Americans with subsidized telephone service. Sen. Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment to “reform” or, more likely, eliminate, this otherwise obscure program that is important to low-income Americans.
6. MITT ROMNEY’S TAX PLAN:  The Democratic plan raises close to $1 TRILLION in revenue just by closing loopholes that benefit the wealthy and corporate special interests like Big Oil. Republicans wanted to replace this with revenue-neutral tax reform that used the money to pay for huge new tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations instead of using it to reduce the deficit. This is almost identical to the Romney-Ryan tax plan that raised middle class taxes and which voters soundly rejected last year. All 45 GOP senators voted for this recycled Romney plan, which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) also included in this year’s House GOP budget.
7. KILL WIND JOBS, SEND CLEAN ENERGY INDUSTRY TO CHINA: Sen. Alexander (R-TN) wants to repeal the vital tax credits for wind power, just as Mitt Romney proposed last year. This would kill 37,000 jobs more or less immediately and effectively cede the clean energy industry to China and our other foreign competitors.
8. LEAVE THE UN: Sen. Paul (R-KY) proposed one measure to save a very small amount of money: withdraw from the United Nations.
9. RACE-BAITING WELFARE LIES: You may remember that Mitt Romney and other Republicans advanced the outright lie that President Obama “removed the work requirement from welfare.” This was categorically untrue, but that didn’t stop Republicans from airing millions of dollars in ads about it. In any case, the GOP campaign of distortion around the amendment has resulted in no states taking advantage of the flexibility requested by some Republican governors that the Obama administration offered to grant. Nevertheless, Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) is still so concerned that he offered an amendment to address the non-existent problem of the work requirement having been removed from welfare. For good measure, he offered a  second mean-spirited amendment that mandates drug testing for welfare recipients.
10. CREATE A PERMANENT IMMIGRANT UNDERCLASS: Sen. Sessions (R-AR), who has faced charges of racial prejudice in the past and was once denied a seat on the federal bench as a result, put forward a proposal to bar even those immigrants who receive legal status from receiving numerous tax breaks directed at the working poor. This would even prevent immigrants from receiving tax breaks that they are claiming on behalf of their American citizen children.

These are just a few of the dozens of terrible proposals put forward today by Republican senators.

Wreckless

By  ThinkProgress War Room

The Heavy Toll of the Iraq War

Today is one anniversary that is definitely not cause for celebration. Ten years ago today, President George W. Bush made the fateful decision to launch the unnecessary Iraq War.

The consequences of this decision have been overwhelming. A new report estimates that the Iraq War will end up costing American taxpayers at least $2.2 TRILLION, but perhaps as much as $4 TRILLION with interest since Bush put the war on the national credit card at the same he slashed taxes on the wealthy.

(Incidentally, $4 TRILLION is the total amount of deficit reduction that President Obama is seeking, including about $2 TRILLION in the current round of negotiations in order to replace the sequester and stabilize our long-term debt.)

The bill for the war may be large, but the human cost of the Iraq War is even more staggering. It’s estimated that 200,000 people, civilians and soldiers alike, were killed as a result of the war. A million other Iraqis were displaced by the conflict.

These topline figures are just the beginning. Our ThinkProgress colleagues outline five ways the U.S. is worse off because of the Iraq War:

1. The debt

At the start of the war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost around $50-60 billion in total. They were wrong by more than a factor of ten, sending the U.S.’ debt soaring, a condition that has yet to be rectified. According to a recent study, the war is set to have cost the U.S $2.2 trillion, though that number may reach up to $4 trillion thanks to interest payments on the loans taken out to finance the conflict. Of that staggering amount, at least $10 billion of it was completely wasted in rebuilding efforts.

2. The physical and psychological strain on U.S. troops.

The soldiers charged with fighting the war were stretched to their limits, put through multiple tours, with increasing length of time overseas as the war stretched on and shrinking downtime in between each. All-told, over 4,000 U.S. troops died during the country’s time in Iraq, with another 31,000 wounded in action. In the aftermath, the cost of providing medical care to veterans has doubled, adding to the difficulties faced by those who served. Up to 35 percent of Iraq War veterans will suffer from PTSD according to a 2009 study, while the suicide rate among veterans has jumped to 22 per day.

3. The forgotten war in Afghanistan.

Even worse, the war in Iraq caused the U.S. to take its eye off the ball in Afghanistan. Rather than following through, the Bush administration allowed the country to stagnate, prompting a Taliban resurgence beginning in 2004. As the West focused almost exclusively on Iraq, Taliban fighters imported tactics seen in Iraq to great effect, keeping the Afghan government weak and U.S.-led NATO forces on their heels. The result: the United States is still attempting to tamp down on Taliban momentum today.

4. The opportunity costs.

Aside from missed opportunities in Afghanistan, the Iraq War-effort was all-consuming, pulling resources from all other areas of U.S. defense policy. Relationships with key allies were allowed to grow stale and U.S. prestige around the world plummeted. Fighting in Iraq was realized to be a diversion from combating al Qaeda, drawing funding that could have gone towards a litany of other efforts to effectively counter terrorism.

5. The strengthening of Iran and al Qaeda.

The power vacuum left after the fall of Saddam and the lack of adequate U.S. forces left room for U.S. adversaries to fill the void. Counter to what some still believe, Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq prior to 2003. Instead, it was only in the post-Saddam climate that they gained a foothold in the form of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The group continues to carry out attacks against civilians to this day, keeping the Iraqi government on edge.

In the end, it was not the United States that gained the most strategically from invading Iraq, but the Shiite-dominated Islamic Republic of Iran. In removing Saddam Hussein’s predominantly Sunni regime from power, the U.S. opened the door to a greater Iranian influence in the region. That influence has been seen playing out counter to U.S. interests in situations such as allowing Iranian planes bearing weapons for Syria to cross Iraqi airspace.

Given that we know now that the war was launched on false premises and have witnessed what has happened since, you’d think the architects of the war would at least admit they wrong or express some regret. You’d be wrong.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld took to Twitter today to pat himself on back:

“10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis. All who played a role in history deserve our respect & appreciation.”

Richard Perle argued in an opinion piece earlier this week that it was still right to have removed Saddam Hussein, even though he had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Top war architect Paul Wolfowitz acknowledged that things  “spiraled out of control,” but blamed others and argued that things would’ve been different if the war had been prosecuted his way (it was, incidentally).

Astonishingly, the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka even went so far this week as to argue that the mess in Iraq is really President Obama’s fault. This view was echoed yesterday by Fouad Ajami, a conservative intellectual close to Wolfowitz and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also criticized Obama for ending “an honorable war.”

It appears that the American people are smarter, or at least more honest, than the neocons who led us into perhaps the worst foreign policy blunder in American history. Polls out this week show that a majority of Americans believe the Iraq War was not worth fighting.

Check out our complete timeline of the Iraq War. For more on the true costs of the Iraq War, please see our updated Iraq War Ledger.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

How the Iraq War changed everything: the rise of soldiers in popular culture.

How the NRA secretly protects people who commit crimes with guns.

Chipotle pulls out of Boy Scouts of America event due to conflict with its non-discrimination policy.

Four ways the Supreme Court could knock out the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8.

Cypus rejects punitive EU bank bailout.

CEOs kick off campaign to lobby for corporate tax breaks, reforms to make offshoring profits easier.

Paul Ryan rules out any compromise in fiscal standoff.

Bush speechwriter describes the run-up to the Iraq War.

The GOP dilemma on immigration.

Iraq …

On March 19, 2003 then President Bush announces that America has invaded Iraq.

Over nine years have passed and Saddam gone.

Yet, Americans are still asking; where are the WMD , why weren’t our soldiers given state of the art equipment ,was there a real plan, why are Iraqis’ still having trouble with electricity, water, the military spoke little English, some say were improperly trained if at all and while we all know their leadership was difficult to communicate with. There are and will always be questions because the truth has yet to be uncovered and since we are now a full Administration ahead questions like:  why did they build such a humongous building(embassy) only to abandon it will probably go unanswered

As we honor and reflect upon the sacrifices that millions of Men and Women as well as their family’s made for this war, but bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Upon reflection of just what transpired before and since the Iraqis War, it is an important reminder that we all have a stake in our country’s future, and a say in the direction we choose

Early Sunday morning, the last of our troops left Iraq. 12/20/11

Thank you

President Barack Obama

Media Matters for America : Weekly

News networks ignore a report about massive waste in the Iraq War. George Will rewrites the Saturday Night Massacre. Fox News endorses an individual mandate – just not the one you’re thinking of. We’re looking at smear merchants, revisionism, and hypocrisy. John Whitehouse Twitter: @existentialfish News Networks Ignore Iraq Waste Report What if the U.S. wasted $8 billion during the Iraq War and the news media ignored it? The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction issued a report finding massive waste in Iraq, but for the most part the media wholly ignored the story, giving it only 17 seconds coverage across all the news networks. Find out who deserves credit for covering it: http://mm4a.org/10EdRio What To Know About CPAC 2013 Perhaps CPAC once was a place where leading conservative thinkers could come together and engage in vigorous, meaningful conversations. But now, it’s become a place where the most famous names in the conservative movement take the stage in DC and collectively declare their fealty to extremist positions. We’ve put together a guide to the fringe positions of those speaking this year: http://mm4a.org/X7DDFd Related: Media Matters‘ founder David Brock talks about the contrast between his CPAC experience in the early 1990s with the smear merchants that define CPAC today: http://thebea.st/16tu7mx The Genesis Of A Lie, Aggregated A satirical website posted a fake story about Paul Krugman declaring bankruptcy. Everyone had a good laugh when Breitbart News took it seriously, but more interesting is how it ended up on Boston.com with a byline from “The Prudent Investor.” Media Matters investigative reporter Joe Strupp tracked down how an Austrian blogger’s report ended up there. It’s a cautionary tale for mechanized aggregation: http://mm4a.org/13Q3fxB George Will Rewrites Watergate The Washington Post‘s George Will is under fire for a recent column, in which Will rewrote Watergate by making Robert Bork the hero. This prompted the chief of the Watergate task force to personally rebuke Will. Jeremy Holden sets the record straight: http://mm4a.org/W6jLGm FEATURED VIDEO Professor Caroline Heldman discussed her recent appearance on Fox News: “I have never met a group of people who is so upset that the economy is rebounding than the folks over at Fox.” http://mm4a.org/ZGTgFg WHAT CHRIS HAYES BRINGS TO PRIMETIME Chris Hayes is taking over the 8 p.m. timeslot on MSNBC. His weekend show differedfrom major Sunday shows by being a beacon of diversity. See the clear difference in one chart: http://mm4a.org/YsK3RK FOX ENDORSES AN INDIVIDUAL MANDATE Fox News spent endless hours screaming about the health care individual mandate. But when a city proposed the law that would mandate that everyone in the city would have to own a gun, Fox hosts could not contain their enthusiasm. http://mm4a.org/WloQcP 8 TRUTHS ABOUT THE “WAR ON COAL” Conservative media’s “war on coal” is more just the rise of cheaper natural gas combined with huge health care costs of coal. Shauna Theel breaks it down in 8 simple charts: http://mm4a.org/10M4JZ0 IMAGE OF THE WEEK Fox News And Jobs Numbers

From the Middle Class Out

ThinkProgress War Room

Creating an Economy That Works for Everyone

For the last thirty years, we’ve been experiencing one long, failed experiment in so-called trickle-down economics. In practice, this means that the rich have gotten richer (exponentially so) while the middle class has fallen further and further behind. Trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, the one goal that binds the GOP together, utterly failed to trickle down, stifled economic growth, and contributed to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We need a different model — an economy that grows from the middle class out. What does this mean? How does that work? One of our colleagues, Senior Economist Heather Boushey, lays it all out in a new video:

BOTTOM LINE: The wealthy and corporations simply aren’t paying their fair share so in order to reduce our deficit in a smart way and still make investments in the middle class, we need to get rid of hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful loopholes and giveaways in our tax code.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

57 terrible consequences of the sequester cuts that the GOP is allowing to kick in next week.

Bitter pill: why medical bills are killing us.

Oops: GOP senator accidentally gets behind Roe v. Wade.

Laura Bush supports marriage equality, she just doesn’t want anyone to know.

One top senator’s latest racist excuse for opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

The public takes President Obama’s side on major issues we need to deal with.

Anti-spending GOP reps wants taxpayer funds to turn George W. Bush’s boyhood home into a national park.

GOP rep won’t support pathway to citizenship because he wants to keep immigrants in “the dirtiest jobs.”

Austerity: still failing.

Attitudes about Middle/Lower class & the Poor … on Christmas eve

just another rant, but not exactly mine

While annoying attitudes about the Middle/Lower Class and the Poor linger we must all press on … educate motivate and recruit potential voters to put better Representatives for the People in Congress in 2013 – 2014 … not to mention better Governors; all of whom should do the People’s Business not for a small group of benefactors !

HIM:

In January of 2009, Joe Biden said the middle class was left out of the last economic boom in America and now suffer because of it and President Obama supposedly initiated a task force to improve the quality of life for the American Middle Class. ** Many such comments have been made by several administrations over the last several decades.

I think the best advice is not to impose federal programs/regulations that work toward transforming the middle class into the rest of a society that denies itself nothing regardless of the ability to pay for it. To truly help the middle class, start by reducing and limiting federal subsidies for the less fortunate and completely eliminate them for the lazy. At the same time scrap tax & investment programs only the upper crust can take advantage of. Reward fiscal responsibility by leveling the playing field (make the words “equal opportunity” mean something again).

Promote individual responsibility to mortgage only what can be repaid, applaud the ability to recognize the difference and put on a pedestal the integrity to put both in play.

Government cannot create jobs or wealth. You have seen first hand how command economies have run the rest of the planet into the ground while America became the envy of the world. What’s happened to us is corruption. Corruption with the size and scope to turn Freedom and Liberty asunder.

Harry, I am the Middle Class…. but it’s not a measure of my wealth – rather it’s a mind-set and it’s what’s in my heart. I rarely think about being rich because deep down inside I do believe it’s not possible to get that way without at some point wrongfully taking advantage of others and/or breaking the rules BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE POOR EITHER FOR EXACTLY THE SAME REASON. I don’t want to lead… I don’t want to follow…. I don’t want anything to do with politics. All I want is to be left alone to peaceably be responsible for myself and no-one else unless I see fit and I despise the desires of government to treat me otherwise. I am not your enemy nor am I an enemy of anyone… however you Sir, have proven a thousand times over to be mine.

ME:

I read and re-read your comment and while I believe what VP Joe Biden said is true; it is obvious that you do not and if I may take it even farther you sound like a Ron Paul supporter who I feel… let me say that again … whom I feel is an isolationist deep down and some other things that really have no place here.  I believe, the government is there when the People cannot do for themselves and if you have watched listened and heard what happened while George Bush was President you might side with me though he did prove without a doubt, he had absolutely no control of the government.  The idea that “he and his people”  waged 2Wars 2huge Tax cuts without a pay for then decided to wait until the very last-minute as Americans prepared to vote in 2008 Presidential election to let us know quite vaguely that our economy was at risk. I know I was not alone -wondering and sensing something was wrong and while Hank Paulson held several pressers telling everyone that we need $$ because our Countries economic stability was about to collapse or was and that taxpayers had to help the banks etc. because they were too big to fail and we cannot tell you how the money will be used or how much -which really meant that the Private Sector had done something and it wasn’t good.  The damage done need government intervention … maybe not the way Hank Paulson& George Bush handled it but the tangled weave woven of our monetary system is not only a national problem but an international one which is still at risk  … you may not have felt it …I did …my state government started laying off people and while it was not given a lot of PR … I have to say way too many co-workers working for the state lost half if not more of their 401S ….and the climb up was slow . The House of Bush lost its credibility by waging 2Wars and giving his rich friends 2 tax cuts and a lack of regulation by an unqualified 8yr tenure of spending …This could not have been recalibrated by the market or private sector … because they were the problem right they didn’t figure it in … bankers etc. org like country wide did some awful things and that dragged not just the middle class it managed to create ”the new working poor” unable to pay their housing mortgages …and though folks in the know say people should not have gotten into loans they could not afford a lot more to that story than meets the eye… BofA knows and so does country wide … Sir, there are at least 300 million people in the US of A and the Government thank goodness is there to take up where others cannot …I like and want FEMA,FDA regulations regulating food,FAA, the dirty air and water available for ALL Americans because I know I cannot regulate these things.  I am happy our Government takes care of those things and let us not leave out Teachers, Firefighters, EMTS or the Police … all usually government jobs. I am not a States Rights believer. I still cannot believe any state would and should privatize such important jobs …and to know that in this yr. of 2011,people who don’t or cannot pay for the protection of their homes or belongings gets absolutely no service while their house burns down is far beyond my understanding of any libertarian ideology and as far as corruption? I still feel like America got raped by our fellow Americans by the financial system and those JOB Creators the banksters abused their power and while VP Biden is your enemy he and President Obama has been our savior in my eyes. The governing body has had to put aside the status quo for trying something new, pushing, promoting a balanced call to action … Unfortunately, the status quo is far more acceptable than doing the right thing … We can all see that by tuning into the rhetoric from Republicans and the Tea party who just tried to take our economy and our Democracy down again. I am certain that we are our brothers keepers and with the right balance….

Capitalism will live on, hopefully in lower case c; If we have learned anything it is that absolute power can create absolute corruption …like banksters and anyone affiliated should be warned and our future better when the proper amount of regulations are implemented … so that AIG, BP, the Massey mine and disaster like it are regulated …and the keystone pipeline as well. I believe we need a Congress that is concerned about our fiscal issues but who don’t forget the past and the damage done … Republicans seem bent on the status quo and VP Biden and President Obama want ALL Americans to do well- I support that. It is all about balance … just think if in President Obama’s first few months or 2yrs in, Congress had acted for the good of ALL Americans instead of Republicans deciding to take the President down, or those blue dogs and yes some clintonites held grudges …imagine if all these members of Congress had done what we taxpayers actually pay them to do – put People over Profit, Country over Political Party. No task forces no filibusters no personal BS – I wager more regulation but balanced and a respect for the People’s vote in 2008- I do not live in an isolationist country though we all have the right to privacy. I would say that income inequality, racism, the war waged on worker and women’s rights are the enemy of mine

HIM:

Submitted on 2011/12/24 at 3:01 PM

No, quite the contrary…. the middle class has indeed been kicked in the teeth for nearly 5 decades. Year after year, decade after decade the middle class has lost ground to the wealthy and yet forced to pay more for the poor because government tries to feed, clothe and house them yet at the same time turns it’s back on corrupt manipulation of the economy. Both sides of the political aisle in the US have been equally vile and corrupt for a long long time. Until we address this and rid ourselves of it, we will never be able to right ourselves. Arguing Democrat vs Republican nonsense is just the rhetoric used to feed the fire… to keep your focus off all the criminal intent between Washington and business. There’s nothing wrong with honest Democrat/Republican doctrine/values. What’s going on today has little to do with with either and it’s time we grow up… face it…. and do something about it.

There are plenty of laws to provide for a decent and civil society as long as we are willing to enforce them. The problem today with asking our government to capture and punish the bad guys is that many in government ARE the bad guys. USA Today reports that 57 members of Congress are included in the top 1% of the wealthiest Americans. In fact the report says that in all, Congress holds 249 millionaires. Interesting that both Republicans and Democrats pretty evenly make up the list and gee what a surprise to find out that most of them amassed their wealth after taking office. We know these guys are all just astute investors/businessmen because they’ve told us so. There’s no taking advantage of non-public market information going on in Washington. This is America – remember…. the land of equal opportunity for all who are willing to work.

ME:

Submitted on 2011/12/24 at 4:28 PM | In reply to

Well, having read this response means you really did not read mine. I was agreeing that the Middle Class has suffered for quite some time. If I remember, you are against task forces to remedy the issue. I believe we agree on some of the issues but clearly disagree at how those issues can and should be dealt with.

I lean left. I believe that I am my brother’s keeper and as a person of colour it is in my own best interest to make sure that not only are minorities treated like others … with respect, equality and access to all the same opportunities to move up because it makes America an even better place and as far as Democratic or Republican rhetoric? there is a stark difference … getting money out of Washington if that is your main interest means starting on the local level. The status quo pays but it starts in your State where the best or most promising get courted. I have no problem with the idea …”getting money out of Washington” what I do take issue with is how folks act like it just started and blame President Obama for the ills of at least 20yrs of destruction having come to bear on his watch. I am upset Bush was allowed to skate without so much as a question … when did the bs really start ,why didn’t you implement a pay for the 2Wars waged 2Bush Bonus dollars . I read your comment …my question is … did you feel this much about it for the nearly 5 decades you state we have been kicked in the teeth for? I watch various pundits on cable yelling screaming and then blame the Obama Admin …where were they during the House of Bush… and unlike some I have no problem with that 1-2% of self-made million/billionaires who have tried to give back I do take issues with the Cantor, Boehner and McConnell’s clearly having a positive upward agenda for the 1-2% but not for the Mid-lower classes …like I said I have no problem with capitalism with a small c. I agree Congress is sometimes vile, greedy and speaks for the 1% … but that is usually when Republicans are out of control like Bush. I support President Obama but am not very happy with conservadems , conservative members of Congress , Tea Party members or Republican Governors throwing us under the bus – Ask a Republican … what kind of an America are they trying to move us into when they live ,love and push income inequality … class warfare – and just so you know … folks are willing to work yet those JOB Creators keep offshoring jobs making life unequal as more opportunities dry up.

HIM: I have no further comment other than to wish you a Merry Christmas.

ME: Thank You … and A Happy New Year to you …

the Romney Economy … broken down

Let Them Have Microwaves!

| By ThinkProgress War Room

Romney Campaign: Out-of-Touch on the Economy

We already know that Mitt Romney thinks almost half of Americans are lazy moochers with a victim mentality and that he is “not concerned about the very poor.” And that his running mate Paul Ryan also dismissed an even larger swath of Americans as “takers.”

A pair of top economic advisers to Romney — two who are all but guaranteed top jobs if he wins — added to the out-of-touch aura surrounding Mitt Romney and his campaign. Let’s walk through their deeply flawed arguments.

Potential Romney Treasury Secretary: “the Rich Are Taxed Enough”

Glenn Hubbard, the former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush and now a top Romney adviser, argued against asking the wealthiest Americans — even the ultrawealthy like Mitt Romney — to pay their fair share:

“The rich are taxed enough.” [...]

“Raising tax rates on the rich is both counter-productive and unnecessary to fund the government we want,” said Hubbard.

While steering clear of specifics, Hubbard told the audience at the Intelligence Squared Debate that “higher tax rates won’t necessarily produce enhancements in revenue.”

Thanks to the aggressive tax cuts Hubbard oversaw during his time in the Bush administration, there was far from enough money to fund the government Bush wanted — saddling us with huge deficits and trillions in debt. And Mitt Romney’s plans to raise taxes on middle class families, implement draconian spending cuts to domestic programs, end Medicare as we know it, dramatically cut Medicaid and slash Social Security will also leave the government without the revenue its needs thanks to Romney’s plans for $5 TRILLION in tax cuts favoring the wealthiest Americans. We would have endless deficits even as tens of millions of Americans lose access to programs and benefits they depend on each day – all so the wealthy and corporations can get huge new tax cuts.

Lower taxes on the wealthy hasn’t created more economic growth. In fact, under the Bush administration’s economic policies, the country saw tepid job growth, 8.3 million people fell into poverty and child poverty rose by 3 percent. A recent analysis from the Center for American Progress found that “in the past 60 years, job growth has actually been greater in years when the top income tax rate was much higher than it is now.” In fact, “if you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher.”

Inequality Doesn’t Matter Because Poor People Have Appliances?

Not be outdone by Hubbard, Kevin Hassett, another top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign denied the nation’s income inequality gap in a Wall Street Journal editorial on Thursday, brushing off the growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the very wealthy by arguing that lower-income Americans are buying more consumer goods.

Yes, you read that right: a top Romney adviser thinks it’s fine for the wealthiest to keep getting wealthier at the expense of everyone else so long as the poorest Americans have basic necessities like microwaves and fridges. And further, that you aren’t really that bad off if you have these necessities.

You can read a very detailed analysis from some of our colleagues about how wrong this is HERE.  The long and short of it is that appliances and commonly used consumer gadgets like cell phones are necessities in the 21st century and are significantly cheaper today than they were just decades earlier. In fact, were families to sell their appliances in order to help pay for food and other basic necessities, many would still struggle — for while prices on microwaves and air conditioners have fallen, “the real everyday basics such as quality child care and out-of-pocket medical costs” are “squeezing the budgets of the poor and middle-class alike.”

You may have heard Hassett’s argument before — from Rush Limbaugh. It’s one of his favorites.

BOTTOM LINE: Mitt Romney and his advisers are unwilling or unable to understand the lives and struggles of most Americans, especially poor Americans.  The poor and the middle class simply cannot afford the cost of a Romney presidency.