Tea Party exposed!

The authors of the study on Religion in government and published American Grace have found who the tea partiers used to be. The results are somewhat surprising.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Whoever has been advertising (Koch brothers and the FOX News Network) for the tea party has been selling a lie.

The conservatives have declared economic war on the American people

The expected idiocy from Faux "News" is here.



This is objective analysis? Not hardly. The right-wing liars are already repeating the same idiocies that created the current economic mess and which have made it worse. The problem is that after the bankers on unrestrained Wall Street were allowed to steal too much from the Mortgages they handled and crashed the economy the economy has stalled. It has stalled because there is too little consumer demand for businesses to invest in America! The top 100 businesses are sitting on over $2 trillion they cannot spend to hire workers because there are NO GROWING MARKETS TO INVEST IN! Budget cutting and austerity (the Herbert Hoover solution from 1929 and the 30's) did not work then to get the economy back on track and will not work now.

It's time to listent to Paul Krugman.

In case you had any doubts, Thursday’s more than 500-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average and the drop in interest rates to near-record lows confirmed it: The economy isn’t recovering, and Washington has been worrying about the wrong things.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.

For two years, officials at the Federal Reserve, international organizations and, sad to say, within the Obama administration have insisted that the economy was on the mend. Every setback was attributed to temporary factors — It’s the Greeks! It’s the tsunami! — that would soon fade away. And the focus of policy turned from jobs and growth to the supposedly urgent issue of deficit reduction.

But the economy wasn’t on the mend.

Yes, officially the recession ended two years ago, and the economy did indeed pull out of a terrifying tailspin. But at no point has growth looked remotely adequate given the depth of the initial plunge. In particular, when employment falls as much as it did from 2007 to 2009, you need a lot of job growth to make up the lost ground. And that just hasn’t happened.

Consider one crucial measure, the ratio of employment to population. In June 2007, around 63 percent of adults were employed. In June 2009, the official end of the recession, that number was down to 59.4. As of June 2011, two years into the alleged recovery, the number was: 58.2.

These may sound like dry statistics, but they reflect a truly terrible reality. Not only are vast numbers of Americans unemployed or underemployed, for the first time since the Great Depression many American workers are facing the prospect of very-long-term — maybe permanent — unemployment. Among other things, the rise in long-term unemployment will reduce future government revenues, so we’re not even acting sensibly in purely fiscal terms. But, more important, it’s a human catastrophe.

[...]

To turn this disaster around, a lot of people are going to have to admit, to themselves at least, that they’ve been wrong and need to change their priorities, right away.

Of course, some players won’t change. Republicans won’t stop screaming about the deficit because they weren’t sincere in the first place: Their deficit hawkery was a club with which to beat their political opponents, nothing more — as became obvious whenever any rise in taxes on the rich was suggested. And they’re not going to give up that club.

But the policy disaster of the past two years wasn’t just the result of G.O.P. obstructionism, which wouldn’t have been so effective if the policy elite — including at least some senior figures in the Obama administration — hadn’t agreed that deficit reduction, not job creation, should be our main priority. Nor should we let Ben Bernanke and his colleagues off the hook: The Fed has by no means done all it could, partly because it was more concerned with hypothetical inflation than with real unemployment, partly because it let itself be intimidated by the Ron Paul types.

Well, it’s time for all that to stop. Those plunging interest rates and stock prices say that the markets aren’t worried about either U.S. solvency or inflation. They’re worried about U.S. lack of growth. And they’re right, even if on Wednesday the White House press secretary chose, inexplicably, to declare that there’s no threat of a double-dip recession.

Earlier this week, the word was that the Obama administration would “pivot” to jobs now that the debt ceiling has been raised. But what that pivot would mean, as far as I can tell, was proposing some minor measures that would be more symbolic than substantive. And, at this point, that kind of proposal would just make President Obama look ridiculous.

The point is that it’s now time — long past time — to get serious about the real crisis the economy faces. The Fed needs to stop making excuses, while the president needs to come up with real job-creation proposals. And if Republicans block those proposals, he needs to make a Harry Truman-style campaign against the do-nothing G.O.P.

This might or might not work. But we already know what isn’t working: the economic policy of the past two years — and the millions of Americans who should have jobs, but don’t.

We were told last week that there was a 40% chance of a double dip recession. I said then that the real chance was closer to 90%. Unless Krugman's solution is applied then 90% is also too low.

As Krugman said above - there has been no recovery. It should be obvious we were lied to - by everyone including the Obama administration. The austerity idiots - including but not limited to the propaganda idiots of the criminal enterprises run by Rupert Murdoch - are after power for the conservatives, not recovery for America.

The announcement by S&P of the downgrading of US federal debt was a further statement of war against the American people. That war is going to either end in a right-wing dictatorship that pleases Rupert Murdoch and the teabaggers or it is going to end in the kind of revolt in the streets that the people of Wisconsin are now conducting against the right-wing libertarian dictator-governor Scott Walker which the Koch brothers installed in 2010.

It's going to be a long hard slog getting rid of the anti-American conservatives currently working to take over America. Krugman's solution will be a requirement for getting there, but the political wars will be coming first.

The tea bag Republicans have already screwed America over - expensively

The debt ratings determine what interest rate lenders are going to demand before they lend money to a borrower. For years now, America's AAA rating has been so good that financial experts have used the US Treasury Bond interest rate as the so-called risk-free rate in their calculations.

Risk-free has meant that there was no risk of default, so no interest rate penalty was charged when lenders lent money to the United States. That was because of over a century in which the US always has paid the interest payments on time and has never even threatened to default.

Those days are now behind us. The ignorant stupid tea baggers have gotten their hands on the House of Representatives and made a show of not raising the debt ceiling because they cannot convince sane people that their programs of cutting programs and lowering taxes on the wealthy make any sense. John W. Schoen of MSNBC tells us where we are now.

As the stalemate over debt talks dragged on Wednesday, Congress and the White House may have passed the point of no return in avoiding a U.S. government debt downgrade.

If Uncle Sam loses his coveted AAA rating, the cost of borrowing goes up, the economy slows further and jobs get even tougher to find.

With hopes fading for a broad deficit-cutting package of spending cuts and tax increases, the White House Wednesday signaled that President Barack Obama could support a short-term extension of the U.S. borrowing limit as long as it was part of a broader long-term deficit reduction deal.

"We are in the 11th hour," said White House press secretary Jay Carney, repeating what Obama had said Tuesday. "We need to meet, talk, consult and narrow down in fairly short order what train we're riding into the station."

Carney also said the president would be willing to support a short-term extension as a stop-gap measure, but not without "an agreement on a larger deal."
Story: Democrats, Republicans meet with president separately

Though the Treasury has said it has enough cash until August 2 to keep paying the government's bills, including interest payments on $14 trillion in debt, time is rapidly running out for a comprehensive deal. The most promising to date, proposed by the so-called "Gang of Six" senators, would involve painful cuts and controversial tax increases.

Even if a broad agreement could be reached this week, both sides would have to hammer out specific line items and then return to their respective caucuses to sell the deal.

The alternative is a deal that raises the debt limit temporarily to allow the Treasury to pay its bills. But bond rating agencies Standard and Poor's and Moody's have said such stopgap moves would jeopardize the government's top-notch AAA credit rating.

"With the clock ticking, we doubt there is time to reach agreement on a comprehensive plan," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. "Instead, we expect a smaller scale plan to be passed that cuts $1.5 trillion from discretionary spending over the next decade. ... But it may not be enough to satisfy the rating agencies. The federal government is therefore still likely to lose its AAA rating within the next three months."

The deadline that counts is not August 2nd. The deadline that counts has already passed and now the US treasury interest rate will be going up. And every penny extra it costs will be tax money Americans have to pay for absolutely nothing except as a surcharge on the stupidity and greed of the Republican Party and it's tea bagger Republicans!

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Addendum 7/21/11 12:28 PM CDT
Add this from Steve Benen this morning.

" Ezra Klein had a good piece on this the other day.

The first to fall will be “directly linked” debt. These are bonds that rely on payments from the federal government. Naomi Richman, a managing director in Moody’s Public Finance division, puts it bluntly: “There are certain kinds of municipal bonds that are directly reliant on Treasury paying or some other direct payment,” she says. “If those bonds don’t receive their payment, they have no other source of revenue.” So down they go.

Then there’s the “indirectly linked” debt. That’s debt from state government, local governments, hospitals, universities and other institutions that rely, in some way or another, on payments from the federal government. If Medicaid stops paying its bills, all the hospitals that rely on Medicaid’s payments become less creditworthy. If we stop funding Pell grants, then all the universities that enroll students who pay using financial aid become less creditworthy. And since the federal government passes one-fifth of its revenues through to the states, and the states pass those revenues through to cities, if the federal government stops paying its bills, all states and all cities are suddenly in worse financial shape, which will make it harder for them to get loans.

And then there’s everything else. Mortgages. Credit cards. Loans that businesses take out to expand. Much of the debt in the American economy, and in fact globally, is “benchmarked” to Treasury debt.

The entire credit infrastructure is premised on the notion that U.S. Treasuries are the safest possible investment — the full and faith and credit of the United States is impervious, and the nation’s credit rating is the best bet on the planet.

Or it was, right up until Americans thought it was a good idea to give confused Republican extremists control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

As Ezra noted in his piece, “If America’s credit rating falls, it’s taking a lot more than just Treasury securities with it.”

So if the tea baggers and similar Republican Know-nothings in Congress like Michelle Bachmann get what they want and cause the American government to default, what are they going to do afterwards about they disaster they caused? Think they will stand up and admit that they caused the disaster and admit they were warned?

Of course not. These are not people who accept responsibility for what they caused. They will try to blame the Democrats for tanking the economy just to spite them. I'll guarantee the tea baggers causing this mess will not stand up and admit their fault. They'll be looking for someone else to blame.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is Koch Industries' puppet

Scott Walker is not going after the public employee unions in Wisconsin because he doesn't like unions. He is going after them because Koch Industries doesn't like unions and because they spent millions getting him elected governor of Wisconsin. Here is another report from Think Progress:

As ThinkProgress has reported, the global conglomerate Koch Industries not only helped elect Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), but is the leading force orchestrating his union-busting campaign. Koch gave Walker over $43,000 in direct donations and its allies aired millions of dollars worth of attack ads against his Democratic opponent. Then, Koch political operatives pressured Walker to crush labor unions as one of his first priorities. Tim Phillips, a former lobbying partner to Jack Abramoff and current president of
Americans for Prosperity, a front financed by David Koch, told the New York Times that Koch operatives “had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown.” A Koch-financed front group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, has prepped Wisconsin GOP lawmakers with anti-labor legislative ideas.

Koch Industries is the company established by Fred Koch who, together with Robert Welch, went on to found the extremist right-wing organization The John Birch Society in 1958. His sons co-founded the Libertarian think tank, the CATO Institute and have continued his right-wing political crusaded.

Destroying unions has been a long term project for the Koch Brothers and for the CATO Institute. Walker is just one of their more recently purchased tools.

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Addendum 02/23/2011 11:21 AM CST

When I tried to go to the buffalobeast.com I kept getting a "Database connection error" notice. But these are on utube now. This is allegedly a buffalobeast prank call to Scott Walker. Buffalo Beast is (apparently) the online presence of a political comedy operation from Buffalo, New York.

Essentially this is a politician bringing his boss and financial backer up to date.



and continued:



Note: I find it interesting that the comment I have received on this post was posted prior to the time that I posted these utubes.

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Addendum II 02/23/2011 11:45 AM CST
Here is a report confirming that Scott Walker did, in fact, fall for the Buffalo Beast prank call.

UPDATE: Walker's office confirms governor pranked by blogger posing as Koch brother
Posted by scontorno at 2/23/2011 9:36 AM CST on greenbaypressgazette.com

From Spokesperson Cullen Werwie:

"The Governor takes many calls everyday. Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. He continued to say that the budget repair bill is about the budget. The phone call shows that the Governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having."

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Addendum III 12:31 PM CST
Steve Benen has some interesting background on the phone call from Koch to Walker.

First, it's remarkable Ian Murphy, pretending to be Koch, even got through. He talked to Walker's chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, and said he couldn't leave a return number because, "My goddamn maid, Maria, put my phone in the washer. I'd have her deported, but she works for next to nothing." This, oddly enough, led Gilkes to invite "Koch" to call back and speak directly to the governor.

Second, and more important, is the fact that Walker talked about a scheme to bring state Senate Democrats back to the capitol.

"An interesting idea that was brought up to me by my chief of staff, we won't do it until tomorrow, is putting out an appeal to the Democratic leader. I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders -- talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn -- but I'll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly. They can recess it... the reason for that, we're verifying it this afternoon, legally, we believe, once they've gone into session, they don't physically have to be there. If they're actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they'd have quorum because it's turned out that way. So we're double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that's the only reason why."

In other words, Walker's plan was to bring Dems back under false pretenses, set the trap, then screw them over. So much for the notion of acting in good faith

And third, when the Koch impersonator suggested a scheme involving "planting some troublemakers" among the protestors, Walker conceded, "[W]e thought about that," before explaining that he questioned its impact. Perhaps the governor's office can clarify this one -- it's certainly not what the governor has been saying "in public.

This call says a great deal about who Scott Walker is. He is an untrustworthy extremist ideologue who will screw over anyone who tries to deal with him - unless that person is providing money and support as David Koch is. He does not see himself as "public servant" who works for the people. He sees himself as a king or dictator who is there to get government to force others to do things his way.

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Addendum IV 1:03 PM CST
By way of Blue girl here is a copy of the transcript of the converstation:

Walker: Hi; this is Scott Walker.

Koch: Scott! David Koch. How are you?

Walker: Hey, David! I'm good. And yourself?

Koch: I'm very well. I'm a little disheartened by the situation there, but, uh, what's the latest?

Walker: Well, we're actually hanging pretty tough. I mean-you know, amazingly there's a much smaller group of protesters-almost all of whom are in from other states today. The State Assembly is taking the bill up-getting it all the way to the last point it can be at where it's unamendable. But they're waiting to pass it until the Senate's-the Senate Democrats, excuse me, the assembly Democrats have about a hundred amendments they're going through. The state Senate still has the 14 members missing but what they're doing today is bringing up all sorts of other non-fiscal items, many of which are things members in the Democratic side care about. And each day we're going to ratchet it up a little bit.... The Senate majority leader had a great plan he told about this morning-he told the Senate Democrats about and he's going to announce it later today, and that is: The Senate organization committee is going to meet and pass a rule that says if you don't show up for two consecutive days on a session day-in the state Senate, the Senate chief clerk-it's a little procedural thing here, but-can actually have your payroll stopped from being automatically deducted-

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: - into your checking account and instead-you still get a check, but the check has to be personally picked up and he's instructing them - which we just loved - to lock them in their desk on the floor of the state Senate.

Koch: Now you're not talking to any of these Democrat bastards, are you?

Walker: Ah, I - there's one guy that's actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he's worked with us on other things, to tell him I wasn't going to budge.

Koch: Goddamn right!

Walker: ...his name is Tim Cullen-

Koch: All right, I'll have to give that man a call.

Walker: Well, actually, in his case I wouldn't call him and I'll tell you why: he's pretty reasonable but he's not one of us...

Koch: Now who can we get to budge on this collective bargaining?

Walker: ...I think the paycheck will have an impact...secondly, one of the things we're looking at next...we're still waiting on an opinion to see if the unions have been paying to put these guys up out of state. We think there's at minimum an ethics violation if not an outright felony.

Koch: Well, they're probably putting hobos in suits.

Walker: Yeah.

Koch: That's what we do. Sometimes.

Walker: I mean paying for the senators to be put up. I know they're paying for these guy-I mean, people can pay for protesters to come in and that's not an ethics code, but, I mean, literally if the unions are paying the 14 senators-their food, their lodging, anything like that...[*** Important regarding his later acceptance of a Koch offer to "show him a good time." ***]

[I was stunned. I am stunned. In the interest of expediting the release of this story, here are the juiciest bits:]

Walker: ...I've got layoff notices ready...

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. Gotta crush that union.

Walker: [bragging about how he doesn't budge]...I would be willing to sit down and talk to him, the assembly Democrat leader, plus the other two Republican leaders-talk, not negotiate and listen to what they have to say if they will in turn-but I'll only do it if all 14 of them will come back and sit down in the state assembly...legally, we believe, once they've gone into session, they don't physically have to be there. If they're actually in session for that day, and they take a recess, the 19 Senate Republicans could then go into action and they'd have quorum...so we're double checking that. If you heard I was going to talk to them that's the only reason why. We'd only do it if they came back to the capital with all 14 of them...

Koch: Bring a baseball bat. That's what I'd do.

Walker: I have one in my office; you'd be happy with that. I have a slugger with my name on it.

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: [union-bashing...]

Koch: Beautiful.

Walker: So this is ground zero, there's no doubt about it. [Talks about a "great" NYT piece of "objective journalism." Talks about how most private blue-collar workers have turned against public, unionized workers.]...So I went through and called a handful, a dozen or so lawmakers I worry about each day and said, "Everyone, we should get that story printed out and send it to anyone giving you grief."

Koch: Goddamn right! We, uh, we sent, uh, Andrew Breitbart down there.

Walker:Yeah.

Koch: Yeah.

Walker: Good stuff.

Koch: He's our man, you know.

Walker: [blah about his press conferences, attacking Obama, and all the great press he's getting.] Brian [Sadoval], the new Governor of Nevada, called me the last night he said-he was out in the Lincoln Day Circuit in the last two weekends and he was kidding me, he said, "Scott, don't come to Nevada because I'd be afraid you beat me running for governor." That's all they want to talk about is what are you doing to help the governor of Wisconsin. I talk to Kasich every day - John's gotta stand firm in Ohio. I think we could do the same thing with Vic Scott in Florida. I think, uh, Snyder - if he got a little more support - probably could do that in Michigan. You start going down the list there's a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big.

Koch: You're the first domino.

Walker: Yep. This is our moment.

Koch: Now what else could we do for you down there?

Walker: Well the biggest thing would be-and your guy on the ground [Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips] is probably seeing this [stuff about all the people protesting, and some of them flip him off].

[Abrupt end of first recording, and start of second.]

Walker: [Bullshit about doing the right thing and getting flipped off by "union bulls," and the decreasing number of protesters. Or some such.]

Koch: We'll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that - because we thought about that. The problem - the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I've talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this...[explains that planting troublemakers may not work.] My only fear would be if there's a ruckus caused is that maybe the governor has to settle to solve all these problems...[something about '60s liberals.]...Let 'em protest all they want...Sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.

Koch: Well, not the liberal bastards on MSNBC.

Walker: Oh yeah, but who watches that? I went on "Morning Joe" this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they're off the deep end.

Koch: Joe-Joe's a good guy. He's one of us.

Walker: Yeah, he's all right. He was fair to me...[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she's a real piece of ass.

Walker: Oh yeah. [story about when he hung out with human pig Jim Sensenbrenner at some D.C. function and he was sitting next to Brzezinski and her father, and their guest was David Axelrod. He introduced himself.]

Koch: That son of a bitch!

Walker: Yeah no kidding huh?...

Koch: Well, good; good. Good catching up with ya'.

Walker: This is an exciting time [blah, blah, blah, Super Bowl reference followed by an odd story of pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan and explaining to his staff the plan to crush the union the same way Reagan fired the air traffic controllers]...that was the first crack in the Berlin Wall because the Communists then knew Reagan wasn't a pushover. [Blah, blah, blah. He's exactly like Reagan. Won't shut up about how awesome he is.]

Koch: [Laughs] Well, I tell you what, Scott: once you crush these bastards I'll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time.

Walker: All right, that would be outstanding. [*** Ethical violation much? ***] Thanks for all the support...it's all about getting our freedoms back...

Koch: Absolutely. And, you know, we have a little bit of a vested interest as well. [Laughs]

Walker: [Blah] Thanks a million!

Koch: Bye-bye!

Walker: Bye.

OK. So I am offering one-stop-shopping for this news event and commentary on it. Feel free to add comments yourself and even links to other good comments.

If you don't know how to embed a link, here is the trick.

<a href="link goes here">title goes here</a>

The beginnings of an explanation of the tea party as innately American right wing

Rick Perlstein gave the keynote speech at a Berkley conference in October. His subject was the tea party in American political history. Here it is, and it is superb.

I suggest you take notes as you listen.

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Addendum 2:41 PM CST
Also, go read Paul Rosenberg's excellent essay on Oligarchy and party breakdown. Rick Perlstein' talk, above, puts it into an interesting perspective.

What is happening in America politically today may not be an echo or reprise of things that have happened in the past. We may be headed into all new political territory, territory which has previously been explored by nations like Argentina.

Tea Partiers - descendants of the John Birchers

It's difficult to watch the antics of the right-wing idiots who call themselves "The Tea Party" and not worry about the future of America. The thing is, though, that they are not all that new in America.

They essentially spout the same set of idiocies that the John Birch Society made famous in the late 50's and the 1960's. The historian Sean Wilentz offers an excellent essay on the intellectual roots of the Tea Party. Go read it.

But what Wilentz does not do is describe the conditions which have allowed these right-wing idiots to become so prominent, or at least not in depth. He does allude to the fear that the election of the African-American Obama as President has instilled in the American right wing, but that's only part of the story. The threat to America from the economic collapse we today call "The Great Recession" has also added to their fear, and it is built on fear of the many social changes which have included the disruption of the traditional American status where the White Race could be expected to dominate the government and the nation. It's not just the result of the civil rights battles, it includes the fact that within not too many years the so-called White Race will become a minority in America.

The automatic status that White conservatives have felt they had simply by being born White is inevitably disappearing. So they are reacting to both the social and the economic changes that are occurring to America. These factors have been key, in fact, to the political rise of the conservative movement over the last three decades.

The shock of the election of the backwoods President from Arkansas in 1992 was an earlier threat to derail the conservative effort to lock down their domination of American society. But after conservatives failed to impeach Clinton, they were able to recapture the White House with George Bush. Unfortunately, they do not have a governing coalition, only a coalition that can often elect their politicians. Once in office they are not allowed by their base to make the practical decisions required of a modern government. That left the conservatives with nothing else to do except start wars and to corruptly take as much money and as many contracts from government as they could.

Essentially the conservatives sold off the control of the American financial system to the Wall Street Banks, who promptly went about destroying what they had bought as Greenspan and his fellow libertarians watched and sat on their hands. By 2007 it was clear that a financial disaster was coming. (See my previous articles from 2007 and 2008 labeled Finance and economics.) The collapse of Wall Street in Fall of 2008 did more than threaten to destroy the world economy. Great Depression II was barely avoided by the panicky Bush Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, whose belated actions were in fact carried out by the incoming Barack Obama and the bipartisan leadership of Congress. It also totally destroyed the credibility of the Republican party leadership.

It was this vacuum of Republican leadership that this year's Tea Partiers have stepped into. But the libertarian anarchists of the Tea Party could not have become as powerful as they have without the financing of the Libertarian ultra wealthy groups and individuals like the Koch brothers who have been actively financing the groups that funnel money to the tea Partiers to ensure that their rallies are organized and to bus the participants of those rallies to the party.

Then there is the other element - Rupert Murdoch and FOX. Murdoch is another of the uberwealthy who want to destroy American worker political power and recreate America as a nation ruled by the wealthy - a plutocracy. The government in his view should tax the masses and funnel that money to the wealthy who will dominate the society. The tea Partiers are the populist arm of this vision held by people such as the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family, Erik Prince (who created Blackwater/Xe with his inherited wealth and who has used it to milk the government of overpriced security contracts) and so on. The political center of their power nationwide is the club of 100 millionaires called the U.S. Senate. Keep in mind that Glenn Beck is Rupert Murdoch's spokesman spreading the gospel. In the UK Glenn Beck has lost all of his sponsors, yet Murdoch's FOX has kept him on the air for nearly a year without sponsors. That is NOT a money-making action by Rupert Murdoch. It is purely political and quite expensive. (See the Countdown with Olberman that was broadcast Friday October 15th where he shows Murdoch explaining his political motivations.)

The public face of all this is the tea party with its rehashed John Birch Society ideology, but the core is the financial power of the uberwealthy American families and big business executives who were enabled to throw their money into American politics with the Supreme Court five gave them the Citizen's United decision that allowed the money to flow without any public record or reporting into political channels.

So go read Sean Wilentz's excellent article that explains where the Tea Party ideology comes from. But the real political threat to America is not the tea party idiots. It is the on-going effort by the ultra-wealthy to take political control of America and turn America into an out and out plutocracy where we are either members of the plutocracy or we are taxed by them to pay for their support.

The election is in slightly over two more weeks. Go vote. Defeat the corporations and the wealthy families trying to take America over.

[Just to point out how far back the economic crisis was recognized, go read my article Administration has admitted Recession in 2008 which I posted in November 2007. This was the Bush administration admitting that the Recession was coming.]

The Repubs are weak so the angry anarchists - populists are going after them.

Wonder why the teabaggers are going after the Republicans and not the Democrats right now? It's simple. The Repubs are a discredited party coming off a massive series of losses since 2006. The election of 2008 so completely flummoxed them that they could not agree on an acceptable candidate for President so their nomination devolved to McCain, who was and is hated by the Christian right which provides half their votes. After the debacle of 2008 they had so little to run on in 2010 that they famously put up a website asking for suggestions.

But the economy has changed the political calculus this year. Wall Street and the Republicans in partnership gave us the Great Recession, and the low-balled unemployment statistics sit at 9.5%. Foreclosures remain at record levels. So two years ago the voters voted for Hope and elected Barack Obama as President. And what's happened?

Nothing. Nada. Jackshit. the Democrats have Congress and the Presidency and they haven't done anything significant. In fact, the largest trend in the White House is to continue to Bush policies. Have they quit torture and rendition, or have they just quit announcing them?

So look at the Teabaggers. Essentially they are anarchists who refuse to assign a leadership. Their economics is largely the discredited Austrian school Libertarianism. Remembering the failure of the Ross Perot third Party movement, they looked at the two major parties and saw the Democrats in control of the two political branches and they saw the hapless Republicans who could not even decide on what platform to run on this year. So they are going after the Republicans in the primaries with a surprising level of success. So where will they go after this November's election?

The Democrats are not immune to the disaffection the teabaggers display. But they are also not a discredited minority party coming off of a Presidential election in which they were totally discredited as a party the way the Republicans currently are, either. The Republican Party leadership want to keep their jobs, so they are absolutely desperate to find issues they can compete for power on. Without the teabaggers and conservative big business domination of the media this would not be much of an election.

The Dems, however, gained national power in 2008 and so the leadership feels they are in the catbird seat. But I for one think they are as out of touch as the Republicans are. Right now the Dems are not weak enough to attack so that the teabaggers are focusing on the Republicans which is the party in disarray.

The Dems have way too many "leaders" like Rham Emmanuel who know that they are god's gift to the party and to the nation and refuse to accept questioning. They know how elections and politics really work and the Progressives are just fringe piss-ants who need to go away. They know best. Obama fits in the crowd, I think.

This is just the election where the Republicans are so weak they are facing the populists. The turn for the Dems is coming.

The tea baggers got Bob Bennet's scalp - they are on a roll. Or are they?

Three term Utah Senator Bob Bennet lost his bid for renomination to the Senate seat he has occupied for nearly 18 years, and which his father before him also held for three terms. Does that mean the Tea Baggers are growing in power?

Utah is a bad test. As the Christian Science Monitor points out, yesterday's vote for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat was conducted by 3400 delegates to a Republican convention. These are the purest of the pure hardline Republicans in the most conservative state in the union. Those delegates were chosen specifically because they were the most hardline conservatives in the conservative bastion we call the state of Utah.

That suggests that if there is any state in the union that the purist antics of the tea baggers is unlikely to split or even severely weaken the Republican party, that state is Utah. But they are also going to provide an example to the rest of the nation just how right-wing the tea baggers really are.

Here, from the recently adopted Republican Party Platform of the state of Maine, we get an example of just how far out in la-la land these people really are.

How nutty are they? Here's a few of their proposals.

I. To Form a More perfect Union

• a. All legislation must adhere to the restrictions outlined in the Constitution to protect the individual from intrusive government.
• b. Direct the State of Maine to join with other states in asserting our 10th amendment sovereignty rights which protect us from unconstitutional federal government intrusions.
• c. Insist on strict adherence to our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms.
• d. Pass a “Read the Bill” act, to insure clarity, and eliminate the corruption associated with side issues, earmarks, pork or riders.
• e. Oppose “Localism and Diversity”, the Fairness Doctrine or whatever else such attempted restrictions are labeled. Any restriction on speech is by definition NOT free speech.
• f. Reject the Employee free -choice Elimination- act, as an unconscionable affront to the right to a secret vote.
• g. Restore integrity to the electoral process:

• i. Prohibit any public funding of advocacy groups such as ACORN, no matter what it or its affiliate organizations rename themselves; New York Communities for Change, New England United for Justice etc.; Conduct thorough investigation of their activities and voter fraud and prosecute violations.
• ii .Eliminate motor voter and other voter fraud mechanisms; institute secure voter registration and identification systems.
• iii. Reject any effort to give foreign citizens the right to vote in the US in any situation or capacity.

• h.Oppose any and all treaties with the UN or any other organization or country which surrenders US sovereignty. Specifically:
• i. Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.
• ii. Reject “LOST” the Law Of The Sea Treaty.
• iii. Reject any agreement which seeks to confiscate our firearms.
• i. Restore the process of assimilation of immigrants to preserve the benefits of an advanced educated and prosperous society. Rescind Maine’s sanctuary State status. No amnesty, no benefits, no citizenship -ever- for anyone in the country illegally. Arrest and detain, for a specified period of time, anyone here illegally, and then deport, period.
• j. Pass a Congressional reform act which includes the following provisions:
• i. Term Limits: 12 years only, in any capacity.
• 1.Two Six year Senate terms
• 2.Six Two year House terms
• 3.One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms
• ii. No Pension
• iii. Congress participates in Social Security under the same rules as the general public.
• iv. Congress can no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
• v. Congress participates in the same health care plan as the general public. No preferential plans or treatment.
• vi.Congress is subject to and must abide by all the laws they impose on the general public.

II. To Establish Justice:

• a. Restore “Constitutional law” as the basis for the Judiciary.
• b. Reassert the principle that “Freedom of Religion” does not mean “freedom from religion”.

III. To Insure Domestic tranquility:

• a. Promote family values.
• i. Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman.
• ii. Parents, not government, are responsible for making decisions in the best interest of their children, whether disciplinary, educational, or medical.
• iii. We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn.

IV. To Provide for the Common Defense:

• a. Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war (Jihad), made against the US on 23 Feb 1998, and fight the war against the United States by radical Islam to win.
• b. Seal the border and protect US citizens along the border and everywhere, as is the prime directive of the Federal Government.

V. To Promote the General Welfare:

• a. Return to the principles of Austrian Economics, and redirect the economy back to one of incentives to save and invest.
• b. Cut spending, balance the budget, and institute a plan for paying down debt. Proclaim that generational debt shifting is immoral and unconscionable and will not be tolerated!
• c. Pass and implement Fed bill #1207 (Introduced by Ron Paul), to Audit the Federal Reserve, as the first step in Ending the Fed.
• d. Return to transparent and honest reporting of economic statistics free of gimmicks and distortions.
• e. Require the government and all its agencies adhere to the same GAAP accounting rules that businesses must follow.
• f. Restore the provisions of welfare reform removed with the stimulus bill.
• g. Defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion.
• h. Freeze current stimulus funds, prohibit any further stimulus bills, and apply all unspent funds towards the debt they created.
• i. Promote energy independence aggressively by removing the obstacles created by government to allow private development of our resources; natural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power.
• j. Institute Zero based budgeting on all programs.
• k. Espouse and follow the principle: It is immoral to steal the property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits.
• l. Clarify that healthcare is not a right. It is a service. As a compassionate society we will aid those in need. However, the government takeover of healthcare is not only unconstitutional, but detrimental to the entire healthcare system. Only market based solutions will solve the problems.
• i. In the state of Maine:
• 1. Remove the restrictions on health providers, (as was done in New Hampshire), to increase competition, drive down the costs, and increase the options available.
• a. Bring Maine standards in line with national average.
• b. Allow purchase of insurance across state lines. LD 290
• c. Enact tort reform as exemplified by Texas.
• d. Eliminate Dirigo

VI. To Secure the Blessings of Liberty:

• a. Restore a vigorous grounding in the history and precepts of liberty, freedom, and the constitution to the educational process. As Thomas Jefferson said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
• i. Eliminate the Department of Education and restore schools to local control as specified in the constitution.
• b. Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.

The state Republican Party platform in Texas from two years ago matches the current one from Maine in idiocy. Here is a link to the 2008 Texas Republican Party Platform. (In .pdf format.)

I can understand that the conservatives think they should be the government, and if they aren't no one else should be either. This is a combination of the libertarian ideas of no government other than the military and police, with no social or economic regulation at all. That puts the wealthy oligarchs into control since the only effective power in the absence of normal government operations to keep the economy on an even keel and no social regulations at all. That means back to Segregation until some of the wealthy realize that slavery can also be returned with no difficulty under these circumstances. Naturally, women become second-class beings (not citizens, just beings) and homosexuals become an actively despised and oppressed minority.

The end result if these ideas were put into practice and left there for any period of time would be that America would become a non-existent nation just as Somalia has been for the last two decades. Instead of a single nation it would be ruled by a few warlords based in major cities. The economy would of course totally collapse, with the survivors fighting to get accepted into one of the militias that keep the local warlords in power.

Long before the worst of those predictions come to pass there will be another civil war to remove the conservatives from power.

That's not an effort to move back to the better days of the past. That's an effort to create a fantasy land that has never existed and never can.

Drill Baby Drill! - Spill Baby Spill!

The unexplained explosion that destroyed the British Petroleum off-shore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico is much worse that was reported even yesterday. The new leaks that have been learned of make this spill even worse the the Exxon Valdez - already. How much worse is not known yet. Remember, the Exxon Valdez was limited to the amount of oil in one super tanker. This spill comes directly from the geological oil pool underground, so no one can predict how much worse that the Exxon Valdez this is going to get.

Why is this oil spill so bad? Why this spill is it so massive, and more important, so hard to stop? We're told so often that private industry is "always more effective than government is" you'd think this spill was caused by inefficient and ineffective government. But it's not. It's that "inefficient" government organization, the US Coast Guard, that is taking the lead in first saving as many of the crew as possible and later trying to protect the Gulf and the coastal areas.

But back to what caused this to get so bad. Here is some new information from DaveJ at OpenLeft. Dave points out that much of the fault lies in the hands of the private oil drillers.

How many times have you heard, "The private sector does everything more efficiently and effectively than government?" Right. Not this time. Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device,

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

So once again the private sector screwed up and created a disaster that is way, way beyond private capabilities to fix things... and again it is government to the rescue: US military joins Gulf of Mexico oil spill effort. But government coming in after the fact to clean things up after the private sector created a major disaster is a very expensive way to do things. Maybe we ought to revisit that "government is bad" ideology that let's this kind of thing happen over and over again.

Anti-government ideology? Deregulation ideology? I wonder where it comes from? Well, all that Koch money you may have been hearing about, funding the Tea Party movement, funding the climate deniers, funding all that anti-government, anti-regulation crap -- that's oil money. Exxon, Schell and BP are in that mix as well.

This stuff follows a model developed by the tobacco companies to keep their franchise going after it became clear they were profiting from a product that was killing people. The model is to fund a political movement to throw as much smoke as possible in the air -- "doubt is our product" -- get people arguing about "personal responsibility" instead of our community responsibilities to each other, and turn people against government so it can't regulate. It works: tobacco still kills over 400,000 Americans a year and it's still legal -- and still very, very profitable. Revise and extend the model and you have today's conservative movement - a pay for play operation serving the biggest companies.

Let's not forget that of the 129 member crew on board when the (still unexplained) explosion occurred, 11 are missing and presumed dead, while seven others are critically injured. Add this to the cost our hunger for more and more cheap energy on top of the recent deaths of 29 coal miners as a result of Don Massey refusing to act to dig coal safely.

I can't find a song about oil roughnecks, but this was one of my favorites 50 years ago. ("Though I remember the superb Peter, Paul and Mary version.) The key line that has always remained with me is the refrain: "Bone and blood is the price of coal. Bone and blood is the price of coal."



Perhaps we should remember why these working people die in greater numbers than necessary. It's cheaper for them to die than for the companies to spend the money to make their jobs safer! The companies make bigger profits and they sell more energy because it it costs less!

Meanwhile, here is one more reason the big corporations are opposing things like wind energy: Wind's latest problem: it ... makes power too cheap.

The key thing here is that we are beginning to unveil what I've labelled the dirty secret of wind: utilities don't like wind not because it's not competitive, but because it brings prices down for their existing assets, thus lowering their revenues and their profits.

Perhaps this is beginning to sound a bit like class warfare. Well isn't it? This is the wealthy investors in older energy sources like coal and oil spending the lives of workers to build their profits. And are they willing to share their profits? Of course not. Consider the attitude of Pete Peterson and Bob Rubin as they work to reduce the American deficit. The deficit is scary and dangerous, so someone is going to have to sacrifice to reduce the deficit. Think the extremely wealth Peterson and Rubin are offering to sacrifice some of their wealth to the effort? Here is a sample of their attitude:

"Peter Peterson and Robert Rubin are both enormously wealthy men. (They joked about dividing their lunch tab based on their net worth.) They are lecturing the country on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees who have a tiny fraction of their wealth. Many of the victims of the cuts that they would push are people who are already struggling."
[H/t to Digby at Hullabaloo.]

Of course the aristocrats are not going to sacrifice any of the wealth they control. Think Don Massey is going to spend "His" money to make digging coal safer for coal miners. Peterson and Rubin (among others) are working hard to take money from those on Social Security and government operated health care. What they can't get in taxes (such as those that backed the Wall Street bailouts) they will fight to get through the banks by predatory lending. Consider the usury of Pay Day lending, or the sub prime loans required by working people to buy a car from someplace that does not check credit. Since the wealthy prevent building public transportation, the workers have to buy the overpriced crap used cars with overpriced sub prime loans. And the wealthy get richer. See Massey, Rubin and Peterson as examples.

British Petroleum has a similar hesitation to spend money on blow-out protective devices that are only needed if things go badly wrong when drilling. Safety is for the plebeians and cuts into profits. Make them pay for it if they want it.

That's the core reason why the health care public option never had a chance to be adopted, either. The aristocratic wealthy members of the Senate don't want to pay for the working classes. It cuts into profits and makes it harder for them to gather wealth and maintain their exalted social positions.

This is class warfare conducted by the Movement Conservatives on the rest of us. That's the lesson of the growing inequality of wealth and reduced economic class mobility in America. It's also the lesson of the Massey Coal Mine disaster and the current Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

The refrain keeps ringing for me. "Bone and blood is the price of coal. Bone and blood is the price of coal." That's cheap, high-profit coal with the benefits going to the rich and (rarely) a little bit trickling down to the rest of us.

What makes Palin popular with the right?

Palin is a right-wing populist. That's Dave Neiwert's story.

Palin is a right wing populist in the tradition of the Ku Klux Klan of 1915 - 1920 and of the militia movements of the 1990's. One of those movements what the Alaska Independence Party which supported Palin for Governor the first time she ran. The AIP and the militia movements of the 1990's were fringe movements, but the KKK of the early 20th century was a powerful force in American politics in many states for the first half of the century. So why isn't Palin just another fringe right-winger? Here is
Dave Niewert's description of that right-wing fronge movement in the twentieth century:

This Klan crumbled in the late 1920s under the weight of internal political warfare and corruption; many of its field organizers later turned up in William Dudley Pelley’s overtly fascist Silver Shirts organization of the 1930s. After World War II, most of these groups – as well as the renowned anti-Semite radio preacher Father Charles Coughlin, and lingering American fascist groups like George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party – were fully relegated to fringe status. So, too, were subsequent attempts at reviving right-wing populism, embodied by Willis Carto and his Populist Party, as well as other forms of right-wing populism that cropped up in the latter half of the century, from Robert DePugh’s vigilante/domestic terrorist organization The Minutemen in the 1960s, to the Posse Comitatus and “constitutionalist” tax protesters in the 1970s and ‘80s, to the “militia”/Patriot movement of the 1990s. As it had been since at least the 1920s, this brand of populism was riddled with conspiracist paranoia, xenophobic white tribalism, and a propensity for extreme violence.

Yet beginning in the 1990s, as mainstream conservatives built more and more ideological bridges with this sector – reflected in the increasing adoption of far-right rhetoric within the mainstream – the strands of populism became more and more imbedded in mainstream-conservative dogma, particularly the deep, visceral, and often irrational hatred of the federal government. One of the more popular "mainstream" figure among this bloc in the 1990s was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. And so when he created something of a sensation with is campaign for the Republican nomination in 2008, it meant that these ideas and agendas started receiving widespread circulation among the mainstream Right -- and with it, an increasing number of conservatives who called themselves "libertarians", when what they really meant was "populists."

So Niewert points to George W. Bush, to Rep. Ron Paul, and to John McCain as the culprits for creating Sarah Palin as the new face of the modern Republican Party. The Republicans have flirted with the the fringe right-wingers, but they didn't invite them in to take over. But then came the collapse of mainstream and Wall Street Republicanism in the wake of the disaster of the Bush years. Ron Paul had run for President on the mildly sanitized right-wing fringe ideas and had introduced those ideas to mainstream Republicans in 2008 even as those Republicans recognized the disaster that mainstream Republicanism was facing in the next election. When John McCain ran for President he was rather soundly rejected by even most of the Republicans. So he reached out and pulled in the right-wing fringe cult figure from Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Palin probably saved the Republican national campaign from a Goldwater-level disaster. She didn't win the campaign, but she helped it avoid total electoral ignominy. In the process, she became the right-wing celebrity superstar of the moment. She did nothing, however, for mainstream Republicanism or for John McCain. They are down the tubes because the entire Republican - Wall Street message has been discredited. So Sarah Palin has stepped in to fill the vacuum.

The actual takeover of the Republican Party occurred on April 15th, 2009 with the beginning of the tea-Bagger mob actions. Since that time, as though by magic, the mainstream Republican politicians have been dancing to the tune called by the spokespeople for the tea-baggers, and Sarah Palin is the celebrity face of the tea-baggers.

---

What Niewert has not discussed in this article is the association/alliance of the Dominionists with the right-wing extremist groups. These are the extremist fundamentalist christians who are behind the political effort to teach creationism in the public schools. This is one step in their effort to change America into a nation that is governed under their understanding of Biblical law.

A few of the better known Dominionists are "James Dobson and Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, Louis Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition, Don Wildmon and the American Family Association." Pat Robertson is another. There are a number of others, especially TV evangelists.

The Dominionist anti-science anti-Gay religious extremists appear to me to be a separate thread of right-wing fringe group. But it appears that Sarah Palin represents them also, as did Florida's Katherine Harris. Theocracy Watch keeps track of the Dominionists.

The connection of these groups to The Family AKA the Fellowship is also not clear to me. The Fellowship is the secretive fundamentalist organization currently led by Douglas Coe, the owners and sponsor of the C Street house for "Christian" politicians and the reputedly most politically powerful evangelical group in America. This connection is another question that needs to be answered. Sen. Ensign, Sen. Coburn, Sen. Inhofe, Rep. Pitts, Rep. Stupak, and Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford are all members of The Fellowship. There are others.

Anti-government teabaggers complain about lack of government public transportation

This is funny. The protesters want the government services and they want them to work right. They just refuse to plan for or pay for it.

Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady called for a government investigation into whether the government-run subway system adequately prepared for this weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

Seriously.

The Texas Republican on Wednesday released a letter he sent to Washington’s Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.

“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,” Brady wrote. “These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”

A spokesman for Brady says that “there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains.”

Steve Benen points out

Apparently, Brady heard complaints from some of his constituents who traveled to D.C. to protest "big government." They were disappointed to discover, however, that the government had done more to satisfy their public-transportation expectations, and now want other government officials to address the problem.

In some instances, Brady said constituents relied on private enterprise -- taxi cabs -- rather than the (ahem) public option. The conservative lawmaker described this as a bad thing. Local officials, Brady said, should have made "a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit" to the public.

Read that sentence again and replace "transit" with "health care coverage."

Is it any wonder that the Bush administration, which was administered to suit the demands of conservatives like these teabaggers, failed utterly to function even adequately? It's irrationalism in action.

The people behind the teabaggers have appeared!

Here are the wealthy supporting the teabag demonstrators.



Here's some more of the same:



And more:

Where do the rightwing talking points come from?

Jon Stewart masterfully explains the Crank Cycle.

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