tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87354007954615410262024-03-13T06:57:21.429-07:00GOP ExposedThrough the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. ALEC is the heart and soul of the GOP.
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.comBlogger344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-79194148200020299742016-07-14T08:24:00.003-07:002016-07-14T08:24:53.618-07:00 Upholding "Tradition" of Hate: The GOP Platform Draft: The Stuff Nightmares are Made Of<br />
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<span class="date-display-single" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Tuesday, July 12, 2016</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/12/gop-platform-draft-stuff-nightmares-are-made" target="_blank">The GOP Platform Draft: The Stuff Nightmares are Made Of</a></h1>
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Draft platform includes language that disavows the rights of women, same-sex couples, trans people, Palestinians, immigrants, and more.</div>
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<img alt="Set up has begun for the 2016 Republican National Convention which will be held in Cleveland, Ohio on July 18-21. (Screenshot: Fox News)" height="335" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/rnc.jpg?itok=_tFhXapP" width="640" /></div>
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Set up has begun for the 2016 Republican National Convention which will be held in Cleveland, Ohio on July 18-21. (Screenshot: Fox News)</div>
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While negotiations over the Democratic <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/10/pro-fracking-pro-colonialism-anti-single-payer-dem-platform-disappoints" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">platform</a> were riddled with <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/09/we-have-just-written-half-gop-platform-progressives-dismayed-dem-party-platform" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">controversy</a> over how far the party would go in its support of progressive climate and economic issues, the Republican platform, by contrast, takes a sharp rightward tack, particularly on social issues such as LGBTQ equality and reproductive rights.</div>
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Members of the RNC platform committee spent hours debating the draft document in Cleveland on Monday and Tuesday that will be considered by the full body later this week ahead of the GOP convention.</div>
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And while some <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/12/the-5-most-importantly-odd-debates-that-came-up-during-the-gops-platform-debate" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">reporting</a> has <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/07/behold-republican-platform-debate" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">focused</a> on minor infighting, what emerged is a platform widely seen as discriminatory and hateful.</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Upholding "Tradition" of Hate</strong></div>
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The 112 delegates <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-07-12/openness-to-same-sex-marriage-rejected-in-republican-platform" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">voted</a> overwhelmingly against a measure put forth by Washington D.C. delegate Rachel Hoff, the first openly gay member of the RNC platform committee, that would have acknowledged "a diversity of opinion within our party" in regards to same-sex marriage.</div>
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An amendment that sought to modify language that called for children to be raised by a married mother and father to alternately read "stable, loving home" was also rejected.</div>
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Instead, GOP committee members opted to include language, <a href="https://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/07/12/frequent-megyn-kelly-guest-and-hate-group-leader-adds-anti-lgbt-conversion-therapy-gop-platform/211506" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">put forth</a> by Tony Perkins, president of the anti-LGBT <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/tony-perkins" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">hate group</a> Family Research Council, supporting so-called "conversion" or "reparative therapy," which purports to "cure" homosexual inclinations through analysis and, frequently, prayer.</div>
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The approved platform language says parents should be allowed "to determine the proper treatment or therapy" for their children. Such a practice, the Southern Poverty Law Center<a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/07/12/splc-anti-gay-conversion-therapy-plank-should-not-be-part-gop-platform" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">said</a>, has not only "proven to be fraudulent," but "it can cause grave harm, up to and including suicidality. And it tears families apart."</div>
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The latest draft also calls for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2015 <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Obergefell v Hodges</em> decision, which <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/26/supreme-court-delivers-transformative-triumph-marriage-equality" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">ended</a> all state bans on same-sex marriage. According to the <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Guardian</em>, that "represented a notable shift from past years," such as the 2012 platform, which more overtly "called for a constitutional amendment to legally define marriage as 'the union of one man and one woman.'"</div>
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The subcommittee also <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-platform-transgender-school-bathrooms-000000589.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">approved</a> a provision opposing the Obama administration’s recent<a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/05/13/obama-administration-transgender-students-you-are-safe-you-belong" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">guidance document</a> advising schools how to avoid discrimination against transgender students, describing the advisory as "illegal and dangerous" as well as "alien to America’s history and traditions."</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Most Anti-Choice Platform Yet</strong></div>
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Also caught in the Republican cross-hairs are women, particularly those who wish to exercise their right to an abortion.</div>
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According to<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/republicans-abortion-platform-225391" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;"> reporting </a>by <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Politico</em>, attendees said that the subcommittee has advanced language "condemning Planned Parenthood and calling for Supreme Court justices who will reverse decisions in favor of abortion rights." The platform calls for Supreme Court vacancies to be filled with "committed judicial conservatives, like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, so that the Court can begin to reverse the long line of liberal decisions — from <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Roe</em>to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Obergefell</em> to the Obamacare cases."</div>
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Billy Valentine, director of government affairs at the Susan B. Anthony List, said the platform "very well may be the strongest pro-life platform yet."</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">Trump-Style Diplomacy</strong></div>
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As for foreign policy, the draft document also reportedly contained some "wins" for the presumptive nominee, including an amendment that affirms Donald Trump's controversial plan to build an enormous "wall" along the United States' southern border.</div>
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According to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">CNN</em>, quoting Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the latest draft states: "That is why we support building a wall along our southern border and protect if all ports of entry. The border wall must cover the entirety of the southern border and must be sufficient to stop both vehicular and pedestrian traffic."</div>
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This was an adaptation of earlier language, which read: "That is why we have in the past demanded, at our vulnerable borders, construction of a physical barrier and, at all ports of entry, maximum vigilance."</div>
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The platform also adopted some of Trump's <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/06/28/trump-just-drove-truck-through-hole-dnc-platform-panel-left-clintons-tpp-promise" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">rhetoric</a> on trade, calling for "better negotiated trade agreements that put America first."</div>
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"Republicans understand that you can succeed in a negotiation only if you are willing to walk away from it," the draft reads, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/republican-platform-trade-gay-marriage-abortion/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">according</a> to <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">CNN</em>. "A Republican president will insist on parity in trade and will stand willing to implement countervailing duties if other countries don't cooperate."</div>
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<strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">And There's More.</strong></div>
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Unsurprisingly, given Trump's <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/12/if-elected-trump-would-be-only-global-leader-let-world-burn" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">stance</a> on environmental issues, the committee unanimously voted to include language that declares coal "an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource"—which, as <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Grist</em> <a href="http://grist.org/election-2016/republican-platform-declares-coal-is-clean/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">points out</a>, "just happens to reflect the same talking points favored by the lobby group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)."</div>
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The platform also moves the party further right in regards to its stance on Israel, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/gop-platform-republican-convention-israel/index.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">removing</a>language that called for a two-state solution and changing the draft to now read: "We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier, and specifically recognize that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement ('BDS') is anti-Semitic in nature and seeks to destroy Israel."</div>
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The draft also encourages "state legislators to offer The Bible as a literature curriculum and elective" in high schools at the same time that the committee widely backed a new provision that <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/gop-platform-republican-convention-internet-pornography/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">declares</a> Internet pornography a "public health crisis."</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-26844284034352041002016-04-09T07:11:00.000-07:002016-04-09T07:11:00.844-07:00Republicans really fall for this nonsense: The GOP is the party of stupid, but its voters are the deluded ones<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">SALON</span></h2>
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<span class="dateline" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: block; font-family: "bentonsansre" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 0.75rem; line-height: 1.125rem; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="toLocalTime" data-tlt-epoch-time="1460203200" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SATURDAY, APR 9, 2016 08:00 AM EDT</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/04/09/republicans_really_fall_for_this_nonsense_the_gop_is_the_party_of_stupid_but_its_voters_are_the_deluded_ones/" target="_blank">Republicans really fall for this nonsense: The GOP is the party of stupid, but its voters are the deluded ones</a></h1>
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GOP voters eagerly consume lies of party that twist data, welcomes ignorant, racist and happily anti-intellectual</span></h3>
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<span class="byline" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; font-family: "bentonsansbold" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 0.75rem; line-height: 1.5rem; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Andrew Burstein"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/andrew_burstein/" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ANDREW BURSTEIN</a> AND <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Nancy Isenberg"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/nancy_isenberg/" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCY ISENBER</a>g</span><br />
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One wonders how Republican primary voters can listen to the disruptive, yet vague, stump speeches of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and believe that they have any specific plans to govern. A celebrated essayist, roundly criticizing the partisan divide, has written forcefully of “the Mob of Malcontents” who are quick to believe in “absurdity,” who are “daily nourished … by fiction and delusion.” He goes on to assert that the “political faith of a Malcontent” is altogether founded on imagining wishes will come true, and giving credit to what is said that is pleasing to his ear.</div>
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The insightful author of these words is the worldly English opinion writer Joseph Addison, a Latin scholar, playwright, poet and politician writing in 1716 in a journal titled “The Free-Holder.” It was not the Republican Party that troubled his mind; it was the Tory Party. He was complaining about political unreason and the credulity of a majority — even of educated people — precisely 300 years ago.</div>
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Let’s be honest. While the Malcontents of our day tend to be those who follow blindly the exaggerated claims of demagogic self-lovers Trump and Cruz, Addison’s plaint should not be adjudged party-specific. A republic cannot function smoothly if voters accept at face value the impassioned promises of candidates whose record of actual accomplishment is more modest than they claim. Or, to single out the GOP, voters should be properly informed when a presidential candidate’s public actions or votes in Congress do not represent real commitment to improving conditions for ordinary people.</div>
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What can we do about voter gullibility? When the Republican Party insists that President Obama has been bad for the economy, and that lower taxes on everyone is always the best stimulus (no matter what conditions prevail), it is more than a question of “faith” in the leadership of the GOP. When candidates say they believe the science on climate change is uncertain, are they doing anything other than promoting wishful thinking?</div>
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Addison saw the political problem clearly. He wrote in an era when it was easy for people to acknowledge submission to their superiors, when “party” was defined not as a mainstream organization but as an unwholesome faction bent on destabilizing what was good in political society: “Our Children are initiated into Factions, before they know the Right Hand from their Left … They are taught in their infancy to hate one half of the Nation.” In this he could as well have been talking about us. Wait a minute: The United States Constitution was written and enacted at the end of Addison’s century, without any mention of parties but with the purpose of introducing such checks and balances that the resulting spread of liberty would represent a healthy improvement over the British model. A belief in American exceptionalism grew out of the latter assumption. Instead, we have experienced disunion on a grand scale (without even counting the Civil War) and have replicated the worst of former British ills.</div>
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Malcontents, by Addison’s definition, need to be “undeceived” in the interest of advancing civil society. Malcontents, he is saying — and he’s right — do not want honesty. Bernie Sanders, bless his Democratic Socialist heart, is trapped in a very unlikely version of the American Dream if he believes that all students at public colleges and universities will pay no tuition. Even if Wall Street speculators kick in the billions he would exact from them, it wouldn’t be nearly enough; it will never happen until Democrats take over all the stingy Republican-led state legislatures. Who is that gullible? Apparently they number in the millions. So it’s not just Republicans, though their deceptions are obviously more cynical.</div>
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In assessing the candidates in both parties, Politifact finds that Hillary Clinton edges out Sanders as the least dishonest (let us frame it this way rather than say “most honest”). While she underplays her opposition to Wall Street, her falsehoods are, for the most part, on the order of “We have more jobs in solar than we do in oil.” She favors the phrase “empirical evidence,” which Mr. Addison would no doubt approve. Yet in televised punditry, the most often heard critique of Hillary is that she lacks the fundamental honesty of Sanders.</div>
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The real difference in honesty is that which separates the opposing parties. For the two Democratic contenders, Politifact finds that about fifty percent of questioned claims are either true or mostly true; for Trump and Cruz, the percentage is <em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">closer to single digits</em>. Cruz singularly blames Barack Obama for the movement of American jobs overseas, redefines “carpet-bombing” at will, and goes nuts over imaginary federal government conspiracies; Trump’s pants are on fire so often that he will have to spend some of his billions on a new wardrobe. (Politifact need not investigate that figurative statement: some hyperbole is not intended to deceive.)</div>
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The predominantly white Malcontents who have gravitated to the GOP frontrunners in 2015-2016 eagerly consume the junk food of a party that denies or twists data, encouraging its supporters to believe that social programs don’t help them, but instead support the unwholesome lifestyles of people of color and job-killing illegal immigrants. The GOP welcomes to the fold all who are incapable of dissociating economic anxiety from their inherited racist assumptions, those whose anti-intellectualism is ready to be exploited (or who believe Sarah Palin can actually interpret everyday reality for them).</div>
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Proffering fictions, Republican politicians who serve and are served by moneyed interests repackage the facts about poverty in America. They don’t react to empirical evidence, i.e., the majority of our poor are elderly and/or disabled; the married-with-family poverty rate in the U.S. is at least six times that of the Democratic-Socialist nations of northern Europe; and the number of impoverished Americans definitely includes all kinds of white people. Conservative policy is to eradicate the FDR and LBJ reforms that were designed to combat racism and a class-based inequality of access to power and opportunity. Empirically speaking, what years do the GOP cite, when conservatives’ legislative initiatives remedied economic malaise, benefited wages (other than at the top) and improved the overall standard of living? Eisenhower doesn’t count: he kept taxes high, supported labor unions and didn’t try to undo New Deal programs.</div>
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Back to our initial focus, then. What is to be done about all the political lies to which we are subject during campaign season? The clear-headed recognize that overturning Citizens United, making all elections publicly funded and redistricting at the congressional level on the basis of non-partisan factors will help reverse the trend toward institutional corruption of our electoral politics. But, as far away as these legislative priorities appear right now, it’s only a start. You can’t accomplish anything without an informed public. By definition, an informed public is resistant to questionable assertions; an informed public looks not for a savior but for a reasonable reformer.</div>
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Instead, we are overwhelmed by Malcontents who feed on “fiction and delusion” because critical detachment is hard for human beings to muster. It’s why they love the theater and go to action movies and read romances: real life is pressure-filled, contentious and demanding. When offered positive emotional engagement, we take the bait; we get something off our chest; it feels good. Political campaigns, like rooting for sports franchises, tap the universal desire to exhibit strength and emerge victorious, even if it’s vicarious and it’s not nearly as much about us as we imagine. Like the World Series or the Super Bowl, identifying with a team is a way to experience hope; the media enlarge the personalities involved, and for an extended moment we get to identify with a “huge” idea. Exaggeration is good business. Rarely do we share in a collective response on the order of July 1969, when the cause of humanity, as well as the cause of science, was enlarged as humans first walked on the moon. It didn’t matter who was president. A government program, as it happens, demonstrated the possibility of matching the dream with empirical fact. If only there were more such moments of productive joy.</div>
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We all want our candidates to be earnest in their solicitation of our vote but the system seems to require that they “go negative,” thereby awakening the Malcontents whose faces and placards and interruptions in turn delight TV executives. We ask — naïvely, it seems — for statesmen and stateswomen to discuss and debate honestly, to exhibit their judgment on critical issues and not simply calculate their positions on the basis of what sells. That was how our inspired republic was supposed to function. We are learning, instead, how an authoritarian (or an entertainer) can conceivably come to power.</div>
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Joseph Addison, writing in 1716, shows us that we have scarcely improved over the past 300 years. He understood the politics of deception, how easily promises flow in recognition of the credulity of humans. If he saw glorification of kingly virtue as snake oil, we see its modern incarnation in the banal tendency toward idolatry that reality TV competitions aim to draw forth. Addison was celebrated by the founders of the United States for his work as coauthor of the witty, widely read “Spectator” series of essays, which took as its conceit its protagonist’s preference to live in the world as a Spectator, rather than as an active striver. Addison’s Spectator tried to discern the difference between claims to authority and fractured opinion; the American voter is a dumbed-down version of his Spectator, made a disagreeable Malcontent by being led to fear and, in consequence, led to impulsive adulation.</div>
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Addison wrote presciently of our commitment to exaggerated images and managed causes when he noted the flaws of those who enjoy power too much. Unlike a more broadly literate, knowledge-seeking person, one who lives and breathes politics and has little time to take up more refined pursuits is in it for the wrong reasons. “A mere Politician is but a dull Companion,” he said. But here we are. Every few years (or perhaps it’s without pause now), servants of the public put on their makeup, hire pollsters and return to the old playbook of quoting disturbing facts while professing to be the voter’s friend and advocate … if not their saving grace. And we fiction-friendly Malcontents keep arising, coming back for more.</div>
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Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are professors of history at Louisiana State University and coauthors of "Madison and Jefferson" (Random House). Follow them on Twitter @andyandnancy.<div class="social" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px 80px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg are professors of history at Louisiana State University and coauthors of "Madison and Jefferson" (Random House). Follow them on Twitter @andyandnancy.<div class="social" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px 80px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-88319600141836337092016-01-11T07:44:00.001-08:002016-01-11T07:44:56.548-08:00It’s Indisputable – Republicans Hate America’s Democracy And Its Constitution<br />
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<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2016/01/11/its-indisputable-republicans-hate-americas-democracy-constitution.html" target="_blank">It’s Indisputable – Republicans Hate America’s Democracy And Its Constitution</a></div>
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<span class="published-date" style="border: 0px; color: #010a33; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monday, January, 11th, 2016, 9:56 am</span><div>
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It may be time to remind Republicans serving in public office that when they swear an oath to serve, it is to support the United States Constitution that serves all the people and the idea that America is a representative democracy; an idea Republicans despise with religious fervor. Republicans and their various conservative iterations claim that, although they are woefully ignorant of the nation’s founding document as the law of the land, they love the Constitution more than they love Ronald Reagan. However, there is a mountain of evidence that although they love the 2nd and 10th Amendments more than they love their god, bible, and corporations, they have absolutely no use for the rest of the Constitution.</div>
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A few Americans may be aware that Republicans hate the Constitution primarily because it forbids religious and corporate tyranny, but what they really hate is that the Constitution exists in the first place. In fact, since the people elected an African American as President, Republicans have stepped up their calls for a new Republican Constitution contrived by Republicans to serve Republicans and their masters in the religious and corporate world. Now, for the second time in five years, a Republican governor is calling for the United States Constitution, the one conservatives claim to love and cherish, and the conservative Supreme Court, to be nullified according to the whims of Republicans and their religious and corporate masters.</div>
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On Friday past, Texas Governor Greg Abbott decided it was his turn to make a stand against the U.S. Constitution, neuter the Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress, and create a Republican paradise where a minority rules America. Abbott, like all Republicans, truly believes the Founding Fathers and Constitution’s Framers were nasty tyrants because they created a secular representative democracy by including <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/supremacy_clause" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Article VI, Section 2</a> in the founding document; the simple clause that prevents America from fracturing into several separate fiefdoms.</div>
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It is true that Abbott did not actually call the Founding Fathers nasty tyrants or bad men for including the “<em>Supremacy Clause</em>” in the U.S. Constitution, but he proposed a few <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">nullification</a> fixes that 155 years ago precipitated America’s deadliest war. Abbott’s proposals parrot the Confederacy’s deep hatred of the Constitution and America that have become the Republican Party’s defining traits today.</div>
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Mr. Abbott revealed his <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/brianmrosenthal/status/685538980029444096/photo/1" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">nine-point plan</a> to remake the Constitution in the Koch-evangelical image, and along with the typical ‘<em>balanced budget’</em> nonsense were two or three specific items that would spell the end of America’s representative democracy, and the beginning of Republican minority rule over Congress and the Supreme Court. Most of the nine conservative fixes ban federal legislation that Republicans hate, but two are particularly specific in legalizing Republican-state nullification.</div>
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For example, one of the Republican constitutional amendments “<em>allows a two-thirds majority of states to veto any Supreme Court ruling they do not agree with</em>.” Another similar <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/the-gop-s-new-constitutional-amendment-give-states-veto-power-over-federal-laws" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">amendment</a> being reintroduced by Abbott allows “<em>a two-thirds majority of states to abolish any federal law or regulation</em>” they or their corporate or religious supporters don’t like.</div>
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Now, there is a reason Abbott came up with the two-thirds majority and it is because while Democrats, liberals, and progressives are sniping at each other and sitting home on election day because Barack Obama failed to deliver on promises he never ever made, Republicans have easily taken control of two-thirds of state legislatures and governorships. What is even more telling is that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_governors" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">32 states</a> Republicans control make up about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">100 million</a> Americans out of a population eclipsing 320 million.</div>
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For the arithmetic challenged, that means much less than one third of the population would have absolute control of the country and veto power over the President, Congress and the Supreme Court. Worse yet, those 100 million people in 30-something states do not all support Republican policies and would mean that much less than a third of the population would control the direction of the country; it is not what the Founding Fathers intended for America but Republicans could not care any less about the Founders than they do the Constitution or America’s once-renowned representative democracy.</div>
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Over the past seven years, especially the last four, Republicans have expressed great interest in eliminating much of the Constitution that prevents them from ruling like dictators. For example, there is little doubt Republicans, particularly religious Republicans, hate the 14th Amendment that prevents religious Republicans from legally discriminating against the non-compliant and non-believers. They also seriously hate the idea of birthright citizenship and want it abolished as much as they want equal rights under the law eliminated for anyone who is not a white Christian conservative male guaranteed to religiously vote for Republicans.</div>
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Republicans also detest the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">17th Amendment</a> that was arguably the last piece of the Constitution that actually brought America a little closer to being a representative democracy. Since Republicans have demonstrated they oppose democracy out of hand, they want to ban the people from electing representatives to serve in the United States’ Senate; they want Republicans to appoint Republicans to the Senate.</div>
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Their idea is <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/08/16/repeal_the_17th_amendment/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">not novel</a>, but it is another attempt at tyranny because with Republicans controlling two-thirds of the states, eliminating the 17th Amendment would give a minority of the population a veto-proof Senate majority and complete control of the federal government. And, as a bonus for conservatives, it will wipe out any semblance of a representative democracy; something the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) openly support.</div>
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Actually, Republicans know the key to increasing their power over the entire nation is possible if they can just be done with vote-suppression and abolish the 15th Amendment; the<a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">amendment</a> they hate with religious passion because it provides African Americans with the right to vote. Since African Americans are not like ignorant white trash conservatives, they do not vote against their self-interests which means they do not vote for Republicans.</div>
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With their conservative racists making up a majority on the Supreme Court, Republicans in the mostly Southern states have successfully <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">chipped away</a> at African Americans’ right to vote. It is not a stretch to imagine they are unwilling to wait patiently for the next time the conservative Court finds a means of completely banning people of color from voting, so a much-touted Republican constitutional convention would certainly include abolition of the 15th Amendment and the end of America’s fragile representative democracy.</div>
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It is apparent that after seven years with an African American man occupying the Oval Office, Republicans hate the U.S. Constitution as much as they hate the American people. That Texas Governor Greg Abbott is the latest Republican with the audacity to make a stand and call for deconstructing the Constitution is not stunning. Especially if it gives Republican-governed states authority to veto legally-passed federal laws, eliminate several constitutional amendments and clauses, and overrule decisions handed down by the Supreme Court that do not toe the evangelical, oil industry, and gun fanatics’ line.</div>
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This is not the first time since Americans chose an African American man as President that Republicans pursued the end of America by eliminating most of the nation’s founding document and law of the land, and it is certain they will never give up until they restructure America to fit their vision of an evangelical theocracy controlled by conservative ideology. The only thing preventing religious conservatives and corporate-owned Republicans from bringing about the end of America as the Founding Fathers intended is the U.S. Constitution; the founding document that Republicans hate as much as they hate America, its people, and particularly its representative democracy.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-17226515027602066542016-01-07T09:35:00.000-08:002016-01-07T09:38:48.541-08:00Inside ALEC's Powerful, Right-Wing Indoctrination Machine<br />
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/media/inside-alecs-powerful-right-wing-indoctrination-machine" target="_blank">Inside ALEC's Powerful, Right-Wing Indoctrination Machine</a></h1>
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The ultimate return sought by ALEC is nothing less than the rollback of the state and the establishment of unfettered corporate rule.</div>
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<em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/alexander-zaitchik-0" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Alexander Zaitchik</a></em> / <span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://mediamatters.org/" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Media Matters</a></span></span></span></div>
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<em>August 20, 2012</em></div>
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SALT LAKE CITY -- You won't see signs for the country's sweetest travel-club deal in the window of your local travel store. To join the American Legislative Exchange Council, your fellow citizens must first elect you to statewide office. If you win as a Republican or conservative Democrat, your ALEC state chair will approach with terms of membership you'll find generous, if not impossible to resist. A token $100 buys the opportunity to attend all-inclusive events on ALEC's busy calendar of summits, conferences, and academies, where you and your family can enjoy some of the country's finest resorts and destination hotels. Joints like Utah's Grand America, site of ALEC's just concluded national conference and proud bearer of AAA's "Five Diamond" rating.</div>
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It was on the eve of this conference that I first glimpsed the privileges and perks of ALEC membership. I was sitting in the Grand America's Viennese style lobby café, pondering the primrose bush courtyard outside as a young harpist plucked out <em>Fur Elise</em>, when an ALEC staffer appeared and began placing laminated cards on the tables. She was followed by groups of women, the wives and daughters of ALEC state legislators and lobbyists, sitting down to enjoy a British Full Tea of sweets, scones and jams, laid out on an elaborate spread of fine china. I picked up one of the laminated cards and read: "Enjoy your 'ALEC-SNACKS'!" Beneath the text were the logos of Americans for Prosperity and the American Insurance Association, two ALEC sponsors. As ALEC snacks were served, the tables grew atwitter. "This is <em>so</em> <em>nice</em>," said the wide-eyed wife of a Virginia state representative.<br />
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Not long after, the china was taken away and the café grew busy with attendees getting down to business. A hundred or so legislators, corporate representatives, and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Non-Profits" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">think tank staff</a> greeted each other and ordered cocktails, filling the room with an ambient babble of right-leaning schmooze and networking. <em>I've had to deal with those same damn unions.... We've got a few big tort reform bills in the pipe.... I'd love for you to come visit the plant .... Are you with Goldwater or Heritage now?</em><br />
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Before ALEC grew into an influential national force over the last two decades, few state-level politicians ever knew corporate pampering at swank hotels thousands of miles from their home districts, the scope for which all but disappeared with the introduction of post-Watergate ethics rules. Unlike their federal counterparts, state reps have generally tracked closer to the old republican ideal of the citizen-politician -- middle-class, part-time public servants who keep their day jobs as teachers, accountants, lawyers, farmers. Some of them have always been targeted and feted by special interests, but it was ALEC that innovated a private sector mechanism for corralling state representatives en masse to posh locations like the Grand for long weekends of cozy corporate lobbying and blunt-force ideological indoctrination.<br />
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For much of its four decades, the corporations and right wing foundations that provide all but a thin slice of ALEC's current $7 million budget have succeeded in exerting pressure on the direction of the people's business in 50 statehouses. <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10882/comparison-alec-and-ncsl" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Unlike the National Council of State Legislatures</a> and the Council of State Governments, to which it often compares itself, ALEC is driven to an extraordinary degree by its private sector sponsors. It also aggressively hides from the press and the public the proceedings of its closed-door task force meetings, where corporate representatives vote on equal footing with elected legislators on model bills, who rarely identify the origins of ALEC bills when they are later introduced to become law.<br />
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Most Americans live under at least one product of these meetings, as the group has been very effective in turning one state's notorious right-wing bills into model legislation that can be pushed across the country. Arizona's infamous "Show Me Your Papers" law (SB 1070) took this path, with similar model legislation subsequently passed by ALEC's criminal justice task force, which the for-profit prison behemoth Corrections Corporation of America once co-chaired and <a href="http://www.npr.org/2010/10/28/130833741/prison-economics-help-drive-ariz-immigration-law" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">had long been a member</a>. So did the National Rifle Association's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law; ALEC used legislation passed in Florida as a template for a model bill that was eventually passed in two-dozen other states. ALEC's role in pushing reportedly discriminatory voter ID bills has followed a similar pattern.</div>
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ALEC's various Task Forces have altogether produced thousands of pieces of model legislation that have little to do with organic movements inside the states and everything to do with top-down nationwide attacks on workers' rights, environmental and other industry regulations, as well as pushes to accelerate the privatization of public education, federal lands, and the criminal justice system. The group has proven to be an ingenious multi-purpose tool for expanding corporate power. Like any lobby shop, it is pay-to-play. Corporate memberships run between $7,000 and $25,000, which buys full voting rights on Task Forces that function as bill mills for national and multinational corporations, industrial trade associations, and right-wing think tanks. Just as $100 is a steal for legislators, $25,000 is a bargain on the private sector side. As early as 1995, an <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/11-ALEC_legislative_scorecard_1995.PDF" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">article</a> sent to ALEC's private sector members boasted of the group's growing effectiveness. "With our success rate at more than 20 percent [of bills passed] I would say that ALEC is a good investment," then-executive director Samuel Brunelli told corporate backers. "Nowhere else can you get a return that high."</div>
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The ultimate return sought by ALEC is nothing less than the rollback of the state and the establishment of unfettered corporate rule over everything from vast tracts of American wilderness to K through 12 education.<br />
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But ALEC's long-term goals are increasingly threatened by growing public awareness of its work.<strong> </strong> For years it has increased its influence while flying low enough to the ground to avoid public radar. This began to change last summer, when Lisa Graves, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for legal policy at the Justice Department, launched ALECexposed.org after a whistleblower shared with her hundreds of ALEC bills pre-voted on by corporate lobbyists. "The leaks let us connect all of the dots for the first time," says Graves. Among the most important of these dots was the revelation that ALEC had been <a href="http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Castle_Doctrine" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">a driving force</a>, along with its close ally the NRA, behind 24 states' adoption of the gun industry's "Stand Your Ground" law. The law became the subject of fierce national debate when it was applied to Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman, protecting him from arrest and complicating his prosecution.<br />
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"We had a growing amount of press coverage when the Trayvon Martin tragedy captured the media's attention," says Graves. "That, combined with ALEC's role in making it harder for Americans to vote in states across the country, led to the breakthrough in public awareness about this secretive group." A coalition of progressive organizations -- led by Color of Change, Common Cause, Credo, People for the American Way, Progress Now and the Center for Media and Democracy -- resulted in raising the profile on ALEC's work and triggering calls for transparency. Thirty corporations have since broken off from the group, many claiming that they joined because of narrow economic interests and want no part of ALEC's broader agenda touching on guns and voting.<br />
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When the corporate exodus began, ALEC responded by dissolving the Public Safety and Elections Task Force that produced "Stand Your Ground" at the NRA's urging. By all appearances, the scrapping of the task force is <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/04/11479/alec-leader-admits-last-weeks-announcement-was-pr-stunt" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">more cosmetic</a> surgery than organ removal. The NRA bought a large booth in this year's exhibition hall and sponsored a trap shoot on the last day of the conference, as it has for the past several years. Present in Salt Lake City was not only the NRA's state coordinator Chuck Cunningham, but also NRA board member Grover Norquist.<br />
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When asked if he still considers ALEC a useful vehicle of influence without the Task Force, Cunningham muttered something about "going where the legislators are" and turned away. It was understandable that Cunningham wasn't eager to speak to press. Days before the start of the Salt Lake conference, a mentally unbalanced Colorado man killed 12 and wounded dozens in a crowded movie theater. The ALEC gun agenda, crafted over the years with NRA participation, features a variety of bills and resolutions aimed at weakening gun restriction, notably support for <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/05/11512/cmd-special-report-alecs-gun-agenda-flourished-koch-industries-board-other-koch-f" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">assault weapons</a> of the kind used in multiple recent gun massacres.<br />
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Whether the exit of major companies like GM, Walgreens, and Coca-Cola is threatening ALEC's bottom line is unclear. "Some small consultancy pays the same rate to join as a major corporation, so I don't think it's had much impact," says Dennis Bartlett, a 20-year ALEC veteran and chairman emeritus of the corporate board. (ALEC communications staff did not respond to requests for interviews.) But even if its budget has not taken the hit the departure of so many corporate sponsors would <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/07/11679/lot-white-space-firms-drop-alecs-meeting-brochure" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">seem to indicate</a>, the negative publicity of the last year has forced ALEC into a defensive posture. During the breakfast and lunch award ceremonies and keynotes, screens flashed with "ALEC in the news" clips taken from the conservative press. Many were reactive; some were desperate in tone.</div>
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Not even Utah offered haven from ALEC's new post-Trayvon Martin reality. Governor Gary Herbert personally welcomed the conference to the Beehive State, which is the closest thing to a poster child for ALEC's economic policies. Later two Utah Congressmen addressed the group, which included 34 Utah state reps. The welcome committee outside the hotel's valet-guarded door was a different story. Sign-wielding protestors circled and chanted on the sidewalk outside. Two blocks away, a community theater hosted a shadow conference co-produced by the Alliance for a Better Utah, the Center for Media and Democracy, and others in the national coalition to "Expose ALEC."<br />
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The organizers of the well-attended event received a surprising amount of sympathetic local press. The local Fox affiliate ran multiple segments during the conference giving equal time to critical voices. Salt Lake's alternative weekly devoted a cover story to providing an ALEC 101. A <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11689/now-tell-him-he-reminds-you-george-washington" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">crushing comic</a>appeared in the <em>Salt Lake Tribune</em>, which assigned a reporter inside the Grand, one of very few granted a press credential. Local radio stations covered the counter-conference; one sponsored a debate that fizzled at the last minute when the ALEC-affiliated Sutherland Institute backed out. Then there was the guerrilla media. On telephone poles across the city, posters skewered ALEC as "merging capital and state since 1973."<br />
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Despite its claims of fidelity to bottom-up Jeffersonian federalism and local control, ALEC works off of a national game plan that involves all levels of government. It knows state legislators often grow up to become powerful United States Congressmen and Senators. The group stays in touch with its legislative members who have moved on to Washington, a roll call that includes John Boehner and Eric Cantor among <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Alumni_in_Congress" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">dozens of House members</a> and Marco Rubio among nine Senators. ALEC's resolutions, meanwhile, are often designed with national policy in mind, to be sent to Congressional delegations and federal departments. "The resolutions create the illusion in Washington of a groundswell of grassroots support for issues where none exists," says Jennifer Seelig, a Utah Democratic state rep and former ALEC member. "A lot of them also end up being nuisances that eat up valuable time in session when we could be dealing with real problems."<br />
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This year ALEC's International Relations Task Force passed two such resolutions opposing cuts to the Pentagon budget and urging the relaxation of regulations around the export of "dual-use" technology. The IR Task Force, co-chaired by Rep. Harold Brubaker (R-NC) and Brandie Davis of Philip Morris International (a 2012 ALEC private sector "Member of the Year") also adopted resolutions opposing a "global UN tax" and UN control of the Internet. Among the model bills to emerge from the IR Task Force is a "Sound Money Act" that would eliminate taxation on gold and silver coins and allow their use as legal tender alongside currency issued by the U.S. Treasury.<br />
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Defense budgets and illusory UN taxes are tangential to ALEC's main thrust at the moment: the push to privatize public lands and public education.</div>
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Big Energy loves ALEC. It always has. Internal documents show the group has counted on financial support from Koch Industries, Peabody Coal, the American Gas Association, the Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and their numerous subsidiaries (a stealth way to increase ALEC voting power). In line with their long-term investment, the industry enjoys a special status at ALEC events. Last year's ALEC conference in New Orleans <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/NODE/10914" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">featured a workshop</a> called "Warming up to climate change," at which a panel of climate change skeptics touted "the many benefits of increased atmospheric CO2."<br />
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Mark Pocan, a Democratic Wisconsin state representative who <a href="http://progressive.org/inside_alec.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">joined ALEC</a> to investigate the source of so much right-wing legislation he saw bubbling up from nowhere in Madison, attended the forum. He remembers the Texas legislator who introduced the event comparing ALEC legislators to a football team. "He said, 'Okay, everybody, listen up. These guys [corporate lobbyists and industry-funded think tanks] are the coaches, and we're the players," says Pocan. "That really is how they see the relationship."<br />
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The agenda in Salt Lake City was heavy on energy themes. Keynoting one of the luncheons was Robert Bradley, CEO of the free-market and pro-climate change Institute for Energy Research. Bradley informed the legislators packed into the Grand Ballroom that "the human impact on the climate is a probably a net positive," and boasted of America's growing production of oil, coal and gas. His chirpy manner darkened only when he noted China's growing lead in the production and use of coal. "China beats us on coal," lamented Bradley. "If not for China, we'd be number one." His PowerPoint presentation listed ALEC's core energy principles, such as: "oil, gas, and coal are cleaner than renewable," and "environmental regulation only benefits environmental elites." He praised a "powerful" new Shell ad campaign promoting offshore drilling, and spoke of his fear that massacres would soon begin taking place in doctors' offices as a result of The Affordable Care Act, which ALEC has attacked repeatedly.<br />
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In conclusion, Bradley assured his audience, "You have the environmental high ground in supporting dense energy [oil and coal] over [renewable] sources that require so much surface space, is unsightly, is noisy, and all the rest of it."</div>
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Like all ALEC speakers, Bradley spiced his lecture with odes to the free-market and the graceful movement of Invisible Energy Hands. But a central aspect of the classical free-market argument is the free exchange of information, and ALEC's model bills concerning energy and the environment make enemies of transparency. ALEC has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legislators-and-lobbyists.html?pagewanted=all" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">passed bills opposing</a> the mandatory disclosure of energy sources on utility bills and the chemicals used in fracking. Then there is ALEC's support for the nuclear power industry, which is heavily dependent on state subsidy for everything from construction to waste disposal.<br />
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ALEC's energy politics are of a piece with its push to privatize public lands. The afternoon following Bradley's talk, attendees were treated to Rep. Rob Bishop's (R-UT) thoughts on the need for states to assert "local use and control" over millions of acres of protected federal land. He pointed with pride to the passage of Utah's Public Land Transfer Act, an ALEC model bill sponsored by Utah state reps (and ALEC members) Ken Ivory and Wayne Niederhauser. The bill was written in conjunction with energy companies eager to rip up Utah's wild acres and develop "unconventional" carbon fuels like oil from shale rock and tar sands. In arguing for the need to develop Utah's outback, Bishop urged lawmakers to think of the children. "Our kids are hurting because of our land policies," said Bishop. "If we allow states to have a new paradigm, to let federalism be the salvation of this country, we'll have more money for our education budgets."</div>
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It was jarring to hear an ALEC speaker discussing public education as a worthwhile social good. This year ALEC's Education Task Force focused on a bill opposing common national standards that would impede state-level privatization, and another pushing for virtual charter schools. For several years until this summer, ALEC's education task force was co-chaired by a virtual school corporation.<br />
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That very morning over breakfast, former Democratic U.S. representative Artur Davis addressed the conference on the need for radical "educational reform" and the transfer of vast amounts of public education funds into private hands through voucher programs and for-profit digital education. Davis' ALEC speech doubled as a ceremony marking the completion of the former Alabama Democrat's shift to the right. Davis, who nominated Barack Obama at the party's '08 convention, began his conservative turn after losing his primary race for governor in 2010. Soon he was declaring his support for voter ID laws, which ALEC loves, and contributing to <em>National Review</em>. The audience in Salt Lake welcomed Davis into his new political home, where it sounds like he is preparing to stay busy on the growing education privatization circuit. His education reform talk was extremely polished for a newbie to the cause.<br />
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ALEC's efforts to direct important policy shifts on a state level have often received little local news attention, as coverage of state politics has waned due to major budget cutbacks at newspapers around the country. Helping to fill that gap has been the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/11/how-a-right-wing-group-is-infiltrating-state-ne/187059" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Franklin Center</a> for Government and Public Integrity, an ALEC sponsor and <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/12/flashback-franklin-centers-full-throated-defens/187096" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">close ally</a> that oversees 55 news sites covering state governments in 39 states.<br />
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On the last day of the conference, I returned to the café lobby to interview a new ALEC legislative member named Don Shooter. A farmer by profession from Yuma, Arizona, Shooter won his election as a write-in candidate. He says he hates politics but felt the call of duty. After his election he was naturally drawn to ALEC by a philosophical kinship with the group's limited-government principles. When asked about the role of corporations within the organization, he described corporate power as being "the natural order of things."</div>
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"The way that you beat too much corporate or governmental power is to be decentralized," he said. "If the multinationals want to do something crooked, they have to make 50 attempts to be crooked, [instead of] just bribing one outfit. I don't think ALEC is mysterious, or subversive to democracy, the way the Bilderburgers are. ALEC is a way for likeminded people to get together and consolidate approaches to all these problems on a limited-government basis. All we want is to keep the deal in the Constitution. The amazing thing about the founders was that they knew history."<br />
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Which is more than you can say for ALEC. The group's dominant propaganda theme, pummeled into conference attendees from the moment they walk in the door, is the appropriation of Jeffersonian federalism in the defense of policies that concentrate national wealth rather than distribute it. At daily award ceremonies (ALEC gives out a lot of awards) small busts of Jefferson are presented to public and private sector Members of the Year for "advancing Jeffersonian principles" -- which really means advancing legislation that reinforces exactly the kinds of power skews loathed by the egalitarian-republican Jefferson.<br />
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Jefferson's vision was not ALEC's. He spoke for many of his Revolutionary peers when he hoped that "we shall crush... in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Jefferson always held a dim and anxious view of the development of powerful commercial interests. Gordon S. Wood, our greatest living historian of the Revolution and early America, writes in <em>The Radicalism of the American Revolution</em>, "To his dying day Jefferson believed that the state legislatures should grant [corporate charters] only sparingly and should be able to interfere with them or take them back anytime they wished."</div>
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If ALEC has one purpose, it is to make sure their members never dream of doing any such thing.<br />
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Alexander Zaitchik is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist and AlterNet contributing writer. His book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Common-Nonsense-Glenn-Triumph-Ignorance/dp/0470557397" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance</a>, is published by Wiley & Sons.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-41472893910461111522016-01-07T09:20:00.000-08:002016-01-07T09:20:23.537-08:00ALEC's Scary Corporate Agenda: 7 of Its Most Anti-Democratic and Science-Denying Ideas<br />
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/economy/alecs-scary-corporate-agenda-7-their-most-anti-democratic-and-science-denying-ideas" target="_blank">ALEC's Scary Corporate Agenda: 7 of Its Most Anti-Democratic and Science-Denying Ideas</a></h1>
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ALEC's annual gathering revealed how right-wingers will push dangerous legislation across the country.</div>
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<em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/brendan-fischer" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Brendan Fischer</a></em> / <span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">PR Watch</a></span></span></span></div>
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<em><b>July 22, 2015</b></em></div>
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...The right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, or "ALEC," will bring together hundreds of corporate lobbyists with state and local politicians at a posh hotel in San Diego for the group's annual meeting.</div>
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Republican presidential candidate and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/scott-walker-the-first-al_b_7502534.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">ALEC alum Scott Walker</a>, who has signed over 20 ALEC bills into law, will address this month's meeting, as well as 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz, who participated in ALEC meetings before he joined the U.S. Senate.</div>
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Protesters are planning on bringing a little transparency to the proceedings, <a href="http://standuptoalec.org/san-diego/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">by welcoming the candidates and ALEC participants on July 22</a><a href="http://standuptoalec.org/san-diego/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">.</a></div>
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ALEC, which drafts and markets model bills for legislators, has had a mixed year. Over a dozen companies, including tech giants <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-souweine/google-drops-alec-because_b_5865046.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Google and Facebook</a>, stopped funding the group over its role in promoting climate change denial, yet after the 2014 elections gave Republicans control of 68 out of 98 state legislative bodies, some states have had few impediments to the corporate-friendly legislation that ALEC peddles.</div>
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For example, in just the first half of 2015, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/03/12756/koch-owners-cheer-textbook-plays-wisconsin-alec-politicians" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Wisconsin became a "right to work" state</a> and repealed the prevailing wage, another pro-union law; Michigan blocked local control over minimum wage and paid sick days; and Texas banned cities from regulating fracking.</div>
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A look at the San Diego ALEC agenda tells us more about what ALEC has planned for 2015 and beyond. Here are seven major initiatives that the right-wing group seeks to impose on America.</div>
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<strong>1. Attack Federal Efforts to Rein in Carbon Pollution</strong></div>
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Even though California is suffering from a historic drought, the <a href="http://alecclimatechangedenial.org/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">climate change deniers</a> on the Environment and Agriculture Task Force will be working on new ways to stymie action addressing carbon emissions.</div>
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In recent years, ALEC has targeted the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," which is a set of rules <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">limiting carbon dioxide pollution</a>from coal plants. At the behest of its funders like Koch Industries, Peabody Energy, and American Electric Power, ALEC has been organizing a state-level campaign against the rules: the group organized legislators to press their state attorneys general into joining <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">litigation backed by the energy industry</a> that challenges the regulations, adopted a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20150129165240/http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-concerning-epa-proposed-greenhouse-gas-emission-standards-for-new-and-existing-fossil-fueled-power-plants/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">model resolution</a> attacking the plan, and last December adopted a model bill that would create new hurdles for the Plan's implementation.</div>
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At this month's meeting, the Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force--which is chaired by American Electric Power-- will consider a "State Power Accountability and Reliability Charter (SPARC)," which seeks to undermine the Clean Power Plan by declaring that state agencies cannot implement it. And, the task force's "Energy Subcommittee" will hold a discussion on "State Responses to EPA’s Proposed Clean Power Plan."</div>
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Another model bill on the ALEC agenda is the "Environmental Impact Litigation Act," which effectively allows corporate interests to hire a state's Department of Justice as their own private attorneys. The bill creates a corporate-backed fund for states to sue over federal environmental laws--such as the EPA's Clean Power Plan--guided by an "environmental impact litigation advisory committee" made up of political appointees and representatives of "individuals representing agriculture and energy trade commissions."</div>
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<strong>2. Undermining Renewable Energy</strong></div>
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ALEC will also double-down on its attacks on rooftop solar and renewable energy.</div>
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For the last few years, ALEC and funders like Edison Electric Energy have promoted bills to repeal state Renewable Portfolio Standards, which require utilities to provide some power from renewable sources. Despite support from the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity, ALEC has had limited success in pushing these bills into law, so the group is looking for new ways to undermine renewable standards.</div>
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The latest effort is called an "Act Providing Incentives for Carbon Reduction Investments." The industry-friendly bill would free utilities from the requirement that they produce more energy from renewable sources, as long as they claim to make "carbon reduction investments"--which includes controversial programs like carbon sequestration, or campaigns to encourage consumers to reduce energy use. This would undermine the purpose of the renewable standards, which is to promote a shift to renewable energy.</div>
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<strong>3. Thwart Rooftop Solar</strong></div>
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Solar will also be on the agenda. ALEC has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=0" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">tried</a> in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/utilities-sensing-threat-put-squeeze-on-booming-solar-roof-industry/2015/03/07/2d916f88-c1c9-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">variety</a> of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/09/alec_climate_change_a_fight_over_rooftop_solar_panels_could_decide_america.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">ways</a> to reduce incentives for individuals and businesses to build rooftop solar panels by raising the costs. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Over the last few years</a>, ALEC and its utility industry funders have promoted bills to eliminate "net metering," which gives solar users a credit for excess energy they feed back into the grid, and have been behind efforts to impose a surcharge on rooftop solar users. With few exceptions, these efforts have failed, thanks to strong support for solar from conservatives who like the self-sufficiency that rooftop solar provides, and the fact that in many states the solar industry is creating manufacturing and construction jobs.</div>
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In San Diego, ALEC will consider a proposal called a "Resolution Concerning Special Markets for Direct Solar Power Sales" that aims to prop-up the monopolies enjoyed by traditional utilities and oppose direct-to-consumer solar sales. It will be coupled with a presentation called "Consumer Protection Concerns Surround Rooftop Solar Model Policy." In many states, solar developers are allowed to install panels on a customer's home or business for free, then sell the power directly to the consumer, rather than through a monopoly utility provider like Peabody Energy.</div>
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Direct-to-consumer energy sales that bypass heavily-regulated monopoly utilities might be viewed as the sort of "market disruption" that free market adherents claim to support. After all, ALEC has celebrated the emergence of ride-sharing companies like Uber because they disrupt taxi monopolies and allow direct-to-consumer ride sales.</div>
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The key difference is that ALEC is bankrolled by utility companies. ALEC funders like Peabody Energy, Duke Energy, and Murray Energy are not pleased about the threat to profits posed by direct-to-consumer solar, so therefore it must be crushed, free market principles be damned. Incredibly, the "Resolution Concerning Special Markets for Direct Solar Power Sales" declares that direct-to-consumer solar is "antithetical to free markets."</div>
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The proposal <a href="https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-direct-solar-and-renewable-sales" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">appears to come from</a> the climate change deniers at the Heartland Institute.</div>
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<strong>4."Beepocalypse Not"</strong></div>
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At this meeting, ALEC is denying more than climate change. It also is apparently denying the mass die-off of bees, which threatens food supplies--<a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/3a/3/4738/GardenersBewareReport_2014.pdf" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">two-thirds</a> of crops require bee pollination--and which <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/study-strengthens-link-between-neonicotinoids-and-collapse-of-honey-bee-colonies/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">scientists have linked to type of insecticide</a> produced by ALEC member Bayer and other companies. Until recently, Bayer had a representative on ALEC's corporate board and has been listed as the ALEC corporate co-chair in states like Massachusetts, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas.</div>
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Bayer has been actively pushing back on the notion that its products contribute to a bee colony collapse. According to a <a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/f0/f/4656/FollowTheHoneyReport.pdf" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">report</a> from Friends of the Earth, Bayer recently launched a "Bee Care Tour” as well as a children’s book "in which a friendly neighborhood beekeeper tells young Toby that the bees are getting sick, but 'not to worry' it's just a problem with mites, and there is special medicine to make bees healthy"--medicine that Bayer produces, of course.</div>
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At this month's ALEC meeting, bee die-off denialists took a clumsy stab at being clever: in an apparent reference to "Apocalypse Now" (or perhaps Wayne's World), they titled their presentation, "'Beepocalypse Not."</div>
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<strong>5. Preemption Hypocrisy</strong></div>
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ALEC's new offshoot focused on local government, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_City_County_Exchange" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">American City County Exchange</a> (ACCE), will also meet in San Diego.</div>
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Local democracy has led to some significant policy wins in recent years, with cities like Philadelphia guaranteeing workers paid sick days, and places like Denton, Texas banning fracking. ALEC's response to cities and counties acting as laboratories of democracy has traditionally been to crush it, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/the-alec-backed-war-on-lo_b_6961142.html" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">through state "preemption" laws</a> that prohibit local governments from raising the minimum wage, or regulating GMOs, or building municipal broadband.</div>
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With ACCE, ALEC and its corporate backers are taking the fight directly to the local level, urging city and county officials on the one hand to give up their authority to protect the health and economic well-being of their constituents, and on the other to push policy measures to advance corporate interests.</div>
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The biggest proactive ACCE initiative is a push for local right to work laws. In the months following a local right to work workshop at ACCE’s meeting last December, twelve Kentucky counties have enacted the anti-union measures, and similar proposals have been floated in states like Illinois and Pennsylvania. But enacting right to work on the local level likely violates federal law, so groups like the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the state Chamber of Commerce are bankrolling the legal defense of counties that get sued.</div>
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Local right to work is again on the ACCE agenda for this month's meeting, with the group expected to officially adopt a Local Right to Work model bill.</div>
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It will also hold a workshop aimed a propping up another ACCE funder, the payday loan industry: the presentation is titled "Payday Loans; 'Local Free Market Solutions for a Difficult Policy Problem.'”</div>
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Besides pushing policy measures that advance the interests of ACCE's funders, ACCE is also urging local electeds to accept state preemption laws.</div>
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In a workshop titled “Understanding State Preemption Laws," ALEC and ACCE will pitch local officials on why they should let state legislatures steamroll their authority to protect the health and economic well-being of their constituents. The workshop will be moderated by Libby Szabo, a former Colorado state legislator and ALEC state chair who is now a local official: she resigned from the state legislature just two months after winning reelection to take a county commissioner appointment, leading to charges from the editorial board of the conservative <em><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_27337016/colorado-rep-libby-szabo-thumbs-nose-at-voters" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Denver Post</a></em> that she was "thumbing her nose at voters."</div>
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The lesson here is that ALEC supports local control when it advances the interests of its funders, yet actively works to undermine local democracy when it threatens corporate profits.</div>
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ALEC's hypocrisy around the idea "government that is closest to the people governs best" isn't just limited to city-state relations. Even though ALEC has fought federal policies like healthcare reform and the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of carbon emissions under the guise of “state’s rights,” at this month's meeting it will push policies that run contrary even to that notion. Here again, corporate profits trump anything resembling principles.</div>
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ALEC will hold a workshop telling state legislators that they should embrace federal preemption of state chemical regulation, which happens to benefit ALEC funders like the American Chemistry Council. The "Environmental Health and Regulation Subcommittee" will hold a presentation titled "Supporting Chemical Regulation Preemption Supports Manufacturing," where legislators will apparently be told it is just swell that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act will prohibit states from enacting tougher chemical regulations.</div>
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And, the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force will consider a proposed "Resolution Urging Congress to Eliminate Discriminatory State and Local Taxes on Automobile Renters," which calls on Congress to preempt discriminatory state and local taxes on car rentals. It is hard to imagine a more blatant piece of corporate-friendly legislation, yet ALEC continues to insist that only legislators can propose model bills at its meetings.</div>
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<strong>5. Amend the Constitution</strong></div>
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In recent years, one of ALEC's top priorities has been to add a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And it will be a major focus of this month's meeting.</div>
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A balanced budget amendment is an idea that has been bouncing around for decades--even though it would cripple the federal government's ability to spend on earned benefit programs like Social Security, and block Congress from responding to economic downturns or natural disasters--but what is unique about ALEC's push is that they are trying to do it via an Article V Constitutional Convention.</div>
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Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides that thirty-four states (two-thirds) can trigger a convention to propose an amendment, which must then be ratified by 38 states (three-fourths). Although this seems like a tall order, in the past year over a dozen states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention, adding to at least twelve other states that enacted resolutions years ago. The proposal has been supported by Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).</div>
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Key to the Article V push has been the "Jeffersonian Project," the 501(c)(4) group that ALEC <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/03/alec-funding-crisis-big-donors-trayvon-martin" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">formed</a> in 2013 amidst complaints from Common Cause and CMD that ALEC was violating its 501(c)(3) charitable status by engaging in excessive lobbying. In order to deflect allegations of lobbying, the "Jeffersonian Project" is now used to urge legislators to pass ALEC model legislation, an activity that ALEC used to do directly.</div>
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This year, the Article V strategy dominates the <a href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-18-IR-35-Day-Mailing.pdf" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">agenda of ALEC's Task Force on Federalism and International Relations</a>, with five presentations and two pieces of draft legislation. The task force's private sector chair is a representative of Americans for Tax Reform, the anti-tax group founded by Grover Norquist. And, there will be two separate ALEC-wide policy workshops on the Article V effort, as well as a reception and dinner titled "States Constitutionally Saving “The American Dream” Summit Via Balanced Budget Amendment Convention."</div>
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Throughout U.S. history, the Constitution has only been amended through a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress on a specific amendment, which is then ratified by two-thirds of state legislatures. In contrast, the Article V strategy triggers a full constitutional convention, and it is unclear whether the delegates could be confined to only passing one amendment. This fear of a "runaway convention" has led critics on both the right and left to oppose the Article V strategy.</div>
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ALEC has tried to quell these fears through a <a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-for-limitations-on-authority-of-state-delegates-to-a-convention-for-proposing-amendments-under-article-v-of-the-us-constitution/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">companion bill</a> declaring that delegates to a convention may not vote on other issues besides a balanced budget amendment. Yet, at least some amendment supporters want to open up the Article V process and amendment the constitution to address an array of issues, like limiting the Commerce Clause, banning international law in the U.S., and placing term limits on the Supreme Court, among other items from a right-wing wishlist.</div>
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The key driver of the broader Article V amendment effort is Citizens for Self-Governance (CSG), a group led by Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler, and whose board includes Wisconsinite Eric O'Keefe. CSG, which<a href="http://ed.sourcewatch.org/swtest/index.php/Citizens_for_Self-Governance#Funding" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">receives most of its funding</a> through foundations such as DonorsTrust that cloak their donors' identities, has also backed multiple lawsuits related to the "John Doe" investigation into coordination between Governor Walker's campaign and Wisconsin Club for Growth, where O'Keefe is a director.</div>
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CSG's Convention of States effort has been <a href="http://www.conventionofstates.com/huckabee-and-others-endorse-cos-project/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">endorsed</a> by Mike Huckabee (who will be addressing the ALEC conference) and also attracted <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/03/14/the-big-idea-that-glenn-beck-and-david-barton-are-behind/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">support</a> from the likes of Glenn Beck. CSG's "Compact for America" appears on the ALEC agenda with both a presentation and a model bill, and Meckler will also address the conference on July 24.</div>
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Another group pushing an Article V amendment is Compact for America, a Texas-based group advised by Nick Dranias, formerly of the Goldwater Institute, and chaired by former Goldwater chair Thomas C. Patterson. This group also is promoting a model bill at the ALEC meeting, and will hold a full breakout session on July 23.</div>
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Wisconsin State Rep. Chris Taylor attended a session on ALEC's Article V plans at the group's 2013 conference. When she expressed hesitation that the public would support the effort, she was told, "You really don’t need people to do this. You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both."</div>
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<strong>6. Continue Fighting "Obamacare"</strong></div>
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ALEC has long tried to undermine the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act. It produced the "State Legislators' Guide to Repealing Obamacare," and has<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/11354/alec-exposed-sabotaging-healthcare" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">promoted bills</a> to try blocking the individual mandate in states, and to <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12315/ALEC_nuclear" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">prohibit insurers</a> from providing subsidies to low-income residents, and to <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12667/alec-obamacare-king-v-burwell" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">reject the insurance “exchanges”</a> where individuals can buy insurance (which would have had <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12667/alec-obamacare-king-v-burwell" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">serious repercussions</a> if the U.S. Supreme Court ruled differently in <em>King v. Burwell</em>).</div>
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Despite repeated failures to overturn the Affordable Care Act through Congress and the courts, ALEC is continuing to fight the law through the states.</div>
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At this month's meeting, the Health and Human Services Task Force will consider a bill to limit expansion of Medicaid benefits within the state, and the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force will have a resolution on the purported negative impact of Medicaid expansion under the healthcare law. The task force will also consider a resolution opposing federal "maintenance of effort" requirements, like those in Obamacare and also with education funding.</div>
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<strong>7. Fighting to Protect Dark Money</strong></div>
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After spending hundreds of millions of undisclosed funds on state and federal elections, ALEC's corporate members will also demand that state legislators preserve their "right" to anonymously spend money on politics and buy influence in state legislatures.</div>
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A July 23 workshop titled "Dark Money Debate: What Lawmakers Need to Know about the First Amendment and Anonymous Political Speech" will promote the idea that transparency in elections is a bad thing. David Keating of the Center for Competitive Politics and Jon Riches of the Goldwater Institute are listed as presenters.</div>
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It is little surprise that corporate interests would peddle secrecy to the hundreds of Republican state legislators at ALEC.</div>
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ALEC's funders, like the billionaire Koch brothers, have spent millions in "dark money"--electoral spending that evades donor disclosure laws--in recent years, secret spending which has increased exponentially since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 <em>Citizens United</em> decision.</div>
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Disclosure of electoral spending has widespread support among the public, and it still has support among many Republican state lawmakers. ALEC, it seems, is trying to change that.</div>
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This isn't ALEC's first foray into this issue. Its 2010 "Resolution in Support of Citizens United" opposes both the disclosure and shareholder participation endorsed by the majority in Citizens United. In 2011, ALEC lobbied legislators in states like New York urging them to reject a proposal requiring corporations get shareholder approval for political spending. And at ALEC's meeting last December, ALEC held a similarly themed workshop called "Playing the Shame Game: A Campaign that Threatens Corporate Free Speech."</div>
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<em>Editor’s note: CMD's Mary Bottari contributed to this article.</em></div>
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Brendan Fischer is general counsel for the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of PR Watch.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-65621464277677872862015-12-19T08:28:00.001-08:002015-12-19T08:28:30.022-08:00 Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">New York News and Politics</span></h2>
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<a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/whys-gop-only-science-denying-party-on-earth.html?mid=twitter-share-di" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?</a></h1>
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<figcaption itemprop="caption" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #353535; margin: 0.5rem 0px 0px; text-align: center; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; width: 528px;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">President Barack Obama with Chinese president Xi Jinping.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="buffer" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 0.2rem; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"></span><cite style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #888888; font-style: normal; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite></figcaption></figure><span itemprop="articleBody" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">On Tuesday, Jeb Bush<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="https://jeb2016.com/the-regulatory-crisis-in-washington/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">proposed</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to eliminate the Obama administration’s regulation of carbon pollution, and, in keeping with his<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="https://twitter.com/philiprucker/status/571114286149271554" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">self-styled goal</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of “growth at all cost,” proposes to make any further climate regulation essentially impossible. In any other democracy in the world, a Jeb Bush would be an isolated loon, operating outside the major parties, perhaps carrying on at conferences with fellow cranks, but having no prospects of seeing his vision carried out in government. But the United States is different. Here in America, ideas like Bush’s fit comfortably within one of the two major political parties. Indeed, the greatest barrier to Bush claiming his party’s nomination is the quite possibly justified sense that he is too sober and moderate to suit the GOP.</span></div>
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<a class="has-image" data-track="Links" href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/sunniest-climate-change-story-ever-read.html" id="related-side-eb1hxn6b-1" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: url("//pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/03/magazine/04-climate.w47.h47.2x.jpg"); background-position: 0px 1rem; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 4.7rem; border-bottom-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #2881b3; display: block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2rem; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.2; min-height: 6.7rem; padding: 1rem 0px 1rem 5.7rem; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">This Is the Year Humans Finally Got Serious About Saving Themselves From Themselves</a><a class="has-image" data-track="Links" href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/jeb-clinton-was-lucky-my-brother-was-unlucky.html" id="related-side-wl75s02q-2" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: url("//pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/24/24-george-w-jeb-bush.w47.h47.2x.jpg"); background-position: 0px 1rem; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 4.7rem; border-bottom-color: rgb(241, 241, 241); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #2881b3; display: block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2rem; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.2; min-height: 6.7rem; padding: 1rem 0px 1rem 5.7rem; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Jeb Bush: Clinton Was Lucky. My Brother Was Unlucky. Obama Makes Too Many Excuses.</a><a class="has-image" data-track="Links" href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/conservatives-hated-boehner-because-of-obama.html" id="related-side-l3bpdkql-3" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: url("//pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/27/27-john-boehner.w47.h47.2x.jpg"); background-position: 0px 1rem; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 4.7rem; border-bottom-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #2881b3; display: block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.2rem; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.2; min-height: 6.7rem; padding: 1rem 0px 1rem 5.7rem; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Conservatives Hated Boehner Because He Couldn’t Get Rid of Obama</a></aside><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.6rem; line-height: 2.3rem; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international response to climate change is needed. To the extent that the party is divided on the issue, the gap separates candidates who openly dismiss climate science as a hoax, and those who, shying away from the political risks of blatant ignorance, instead couch their stance in the alleged impossibility of international action.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">A<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1111%2Fpolp.12122" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">new paper</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>by Sondre Båtstrand studies the climate-change positions of electoral manifestos for the conservative parties in nine democracies, and finds the GOP truly stands apart. Opposition to any mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions, he finds, “</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">is only the case with the U.S. Republican Party, and hence not representative of conservative parties as a party family.” For instance, the Swedish conservative party “stresses the necessity of international cooperation and binding treaties to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, with the European Union and emissions trading as essentials.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Okay, you might say, that’s just Sweden. But all of the other non-American conservative platforms follow similar themes. Germany’s conservative platform declares, “[C]limate change threatens the very foundations of our existence and the chances of development of the next generations.” Canada’s, writes<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Båtstrand</span>, “presents both past and future measures on climate change. The past measures are regulations on electricity production, research and development on clean energy (including carbon capture and storage), and international cooperation and agreements including support for adaptation in developing countries.” Even coal-rich Australia has a conservative party that endorses action to limit climate change. All of this is to suggest that the influence of the fossil-fuel industry alone cannot explain the right’s brick-wall opposition to any steps to reduce emissions within the United States. Oil in Canada and coal in Australia both account for a far larger share of their countries’ economies (which are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">less than a tenth</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>as large as the U.S. economy) than any fossil-fuel reserves in the United States.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Nor can a fealty to free-market theory alone explain the change, either. Free-market ideology traditionally recognizes a role for government when it comes to “externalities,” or actions that impose costs on others. Pollution is the most classic case of an externality — a factory whose production pollutes the air, or a local stream, should have to pay the cost. Even F.A. Hayek, in the anti-statist polemic<i style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">The Road to Serfdom</i>, conceded, “</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, or of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">” Now, Hayek offered this concession to the role of government in the course of advocating for a pricing mechanism for externalities, rather than a crude ban. But he was recognizing that even the purest libertarians must concede the need for collective action of some kind when it comes to things like pollution.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">It is also worth noting that the Republican Party used to fit in with the pattern of other international conservative parties. The Nixon administration created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air Act. The first Bush administration passed amendments strengthening it. Both of those presidents are considered, correctly, to be aliens to the conservative movement. The conservative movement has always opposed environmental regulation, and Republican leaders since the first President Bush — the GOP Congress since the era of Newt Gingrich, George W. Bush, and the current Republican presidential field — have followed conservative thinking. Indeed, administrators of the EPA from previous Republican administrations have<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/opinion/a-republican-case-for-climate-action.html" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">endorsed</span></a><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Obama’s climate program, but they lack any influence or even legitimacy within the party today.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Rabid opposition is not the only quality that sets the GOP apart from other major conservative parties. The fervent commitment to supply-side economics is also an almost uniquely American idea. The GOP is the only major democratic party in the world that opposes the principle of universal health insurance. The virulence of anti-government ideology in the United States has no parallel anywhere in the world.</span></div>
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And so the “moderate” Republican climate position is that action is pointless, since countries like China will never reduce their own emissions. (No evidence of Chinese behavior seems capable of altering this conviction, which serves the handy function of justifying the desired conservative outcome without leaning too heavily on anti-science kookery.) The more right-wing position within the party — endorsed by the party’s<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/09/24/donald-trump-i-dont-believe-in-climate-change/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">leading presidential candidate</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and the chairmen of the science committees in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/05/07/lamar_smith_more_climate_change_denial.html" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">both houses</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>— is that thousands of climate scientists worldwide have<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Greatest-Hoax-Conspiracy-Threatens/dp/1936488493" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">secretly coordinated a massive hoax</a>. And then the even more conservative position, advocated by the second-leading candidate in the polls, holds not only that climate science is a massive hoax, but so are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-track="Body Text Link: External" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/ben-carson-big-bang-a-fairy-tale-theory-of-evolution-encoura?utm_term=.dlEOjJGKDN#.uum5gga5Y" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #1782a9; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">evolution and the big bang</a>. The “moderate” candidates are still, by international standards, rabid extremists. It is the nature of long-standing arrangements to dull our sense of the peculiar, to make the bizarre seem ordinary. From a global standpoint, the entire Republican Party has lost its collective mind.</div>
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<a data-track="" href="http://nymag.com/tags/the-national-interest/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; display: inline-block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-transform: uppercase;">THE NATIONAL INTEREST</a><a data-track="" href="http://nymag.com/tags/politics/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; display: inline-block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-transform: uppercase;">POLITICS</a><a data-track="" href="http://nymag.com/tags/climate-change/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; color: #111111; display: inline-block; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1rem; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; text-transform: uppercase;">CLIMATE CHANGE</a></nav>NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-60674111913843816872015-10-29T07:29:00.000-07:002015-10-29T07:29:31.699-07:00Six Studies That Show Everything Republicans Believe is Wrong<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-studies-that-show-everything-republicans-believe-is-wrong-20140423" target="_blank">Six Studies That Show Everything Republicans Believe is Wrong</a></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's time for the right wing to stop lying about the minimum wage, taxes, global warming and more</span></h2>
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<span class="author">By <a data-track-action="Tap Byline" data-track-label="/contributor/sean-mcelwee" data-track="" href="http://www.rollingstone.com/contributor/sean-mcelwee" rel="author" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;">Sean McElwee</a></span> <time>April 23, 2014</time></div>
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<figure class="article-img-holder " style="font-family: freight-text-pro, serif; font-size: 17px; margin: 0px 0px 50px;"><img alt="Ted Cruz Five Studies That Prove Republicans Are Wrong About the Economy" class="" src="http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/2014/article/six-studies-that-show-everything-republicans-believe-is-wrong-20140423/19531/_original/1035x711-20140421-tedcruz-x1800-1398099909.jpeg" style="border: 0px; max-width: 100%; width: 2906px;" /><figcaption style="font-size: 0.882353rem; line-height: 1.5; padding-top: 10px;">Senator Ted Cruz <span class="credit" style="color: #868686; font-size: 0.882353rem; line-height: 1.5; margin-left: 5px;">Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call</span></figcaption></figure><div style="font-family: freight-text-pro, serif; font-size: 17px;">
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The great 20th-century economist John Maynard Keynes has been widely quoted as saying, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Sadly, in their quest to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the wealthiest members of society, today's Republicans have held the opposite position – as the evidence has piled up against them, they continue spreading the same myths. Here are six simple facts about the economy that Republicans just can't seem to accept:</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">1. The Minimum Wage Doesn't Kill Jobs.</span></div>
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The Republican story on the minimum wage takes the inordinately complex interactions of the market and makes them absurdly simple. Raise the price of labor through a minimum wage, they claim, and employers will hire fewer workers. But that's not how it works. In the early Nineties, David Card and Alan Krueger found "no evidence that the rise in New Jersey's minimum wage reduced employment at fast-food restaurants in the state." Since then, international, national and state-level studies have replicated these findings – most recently in a study by <a href="http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/157-07.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">three Berkeley economists</a>. Catherine Ruetschlin, a policy analyst at Demos, has <a href="http://www.demos.org/publication/retails-hidden-potential-how-raising-wages-would-benefit-workers-industry-and-overall-ec" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">argued</a> that a higher minimum wage would actually "boost the national economy" by giving workers more money to spend on goods and services. The <a href="http://ideas.repec.org/p/dkn/econwp/eco_2008_14.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">most comprehensive meta-study</a> of the minimum wage examined 64 studies and found "little or no evidence" that a higher minimum wage reduces employment. There is however, <a href="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15038936/Dube_MinimumWagesFamilyIncomes.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">evidence</a> that a higher minimum wage lifts people out of poverty. Raise away!</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">2. The Stimulus Created Millions of Jobs.</span></div>
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In the aftermath of the 2007 recession, President Obama invested in a massive stimulus. The Republican belief that markets are always good and government is always bad led them to argue that diverting resources to the public sector this way would have disastrous results. They were wrong: The stimulus worked, with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/did-the-stimulus-work-a-review-of-the-nine-best-studies-on-the-subject/2011/08/16/gIQAThbibJ_blog.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; letter-spacing: 0.012em; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the most reliable studies</a> finding that it created millions of jobs. The fact that government stimulus works – long denied by Republicans (at least, when Democrats are in office) – is a <a href="http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_cw5O9LNJL1oz4Xi" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; letter-spacing: 0.012em; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">consensus among economists</a>, with only 4 percent arguing that unemployment would have been lower without the stimulus and only 12 percent arguing that the costs outweigh the benefits.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">3. Taxing The Rich Doesn't Hurt Economic Growth.</span></div>
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Republicans believe that the wealthy are the vehicles of economic growth. Starting with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, they tried cutting taxes on the rich in order to unleash latent economic potential. But even the relatively conservative Martin Feldstein has acknowledged that investment is driven by demand, not supply; if there are viable investments to be made, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-tax-rates-affect-investment-and-consumption-a-look-at-the-data-2011-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">they will be made regardless of tax rates</a>, and if there are no investments to be made, cutting taxes is merely pushing on a string. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two of the eminent economists of inequality, <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/article/taxing-1-why-top-tax-rate-could-be-over-80" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">find no correlation</a> between marginal tax rates and economic growth.</div>
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In fact, what hurts economic growth most isn't high taxes – it's inequality. <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Two</a> recent <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">IMF papers </a>confirm what Keynesian economists like Joseph Stiglitz <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Price-Inequality-Divided-Endangers-ebook/dp/B007MKCQ30" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">have long argued</a>: Inequality reduces the incomes of the middle class, <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-06-19/the-capitalist-s-case-for-a-15-minimum-wage" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">and therefore demand</a>, which in turn stunts growth. To understand why, imagine running a car dealership. Would you prefer if 1 person in your time owned 99% of the wealth and the rest of the population had nothing, or if wealth was distributed more equally, so that more people could purchase your cars?</div>
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Every other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has far lower levels of inequality than the United States. Since there are no economic benefits of inequality, why hasn't the right conceded the argument? Because it's based on class interest, not empirical evidence.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">4. Global Warming is Caused by Humans.</span></div>
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Even as global warming is <a href="http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">linked to more and more extreme weather events</a>, more than 56 percent of Republicans in the current congress <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/26/2202141/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">deny man-made global warming</a>. In fact, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the infamous</a> Lutz memo shows that Republicans have actually created a concerted campaign to undermine the science of global warming. In the leaked memo, Frank Lutz, a Republican consultant, argues that, "The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science."</div>
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In truth, the science of global warming is not up for debate. James Powell <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/01/08/why-climate-deniers-have-no-scientific-credibility-only-1-9136-study-authors-rejects-global-warming" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">finds that</a> over a one year period, 2,258 articles on global warming were published by 9,136 authors. Of those, only one, from the <em>Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, </em>rejected man-made global warming. That one article <a href="http://www.jamespowell.org/Avakyan/Avakyan.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">was likely motivated</a> by the Russian government's interest in exploiting arctic shale. Another, <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">even more comprehensive study</a>, examining 11,944 studies over a 10-year period, finds that 97 percent of scientists accepted the scientific consensus that man-made global warming is occurring.</div>
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This is not an abstract academic debate. The effects of climate change will be devastating, <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/19/what-climate-change-means-africa-asia-coastal-poor" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">and poor countries will be hurt the worst.</a> We've already seen the results. Studies have linked global warming to <a href="http://www.ametsoc.org/2012extremeeventsclimate.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Hurricane Sandy</a>, <a href="http://www.wri.org/publication/fact-sheet-connection-between-climate-change-and-recent-extreme-weather-events" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">droughts</a> and other <a href="http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Happening-Now.aspx" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">extreme weather events</a>. More importantly, doing nothing will end up being far more expensive than acting now. One study suggests it could <a href="http://daraint.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CVM_RELEASE_FINAL_ENGLISH.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;">wipe out </a>3.2% of global GDP annually.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">5. The Affordable Care Act is Working</span></div>
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President Obama's centrist healthcare bill was informed by federalism (delegating power to the states) and proven technocratic reforms (like a board to help doctors discern which treatments would be most cost-effective). Republicans, undeterred, decried it as Soviet-style communism based on "death panels" – never mind the fact that the old system, which rationed care based on income, is the one that <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">left tens of thousands of uninsured people to die.</a></div>
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From the beginning, Republicans have predicted disastrous consequences or Obamacare, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/obama-declares-obamacare-victory.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">none of which came true</a>. They predicted that the ACA would add to the deficit; in fact, <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43471" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">it will reduce the deficit</a>. They claimed the exchanges would fail to attract the uninsured; <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/17/3428219/obamacare-enrollment/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">they met their targets</a>. They said only old people would sign up; <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117410/obamacare-enrollment-hits-8-million-age-mix-looks-massachusetts" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the young came out in the same rates as in Massachusetts</a>. They predicted the ACA would drive up healthcare costs; in fact <a href="http://qz.com/183812/yes-obamacare-is-driving-us-health-care-costs-lower/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;">it is likely</a> <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/fact_sheet_implementing_the_affordable_care_act_from_the_erp_2013_final1.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">holding</a> <a href="http://www.pwc.com/us/en/health-industries/behind-the-numbers/#readmore" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;">cost inflation down</a>, although it's still hard to discern how much of the slowdown was due to the recession. In total, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/cbo-obamacare-report_n_5146896.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the ACA will ensure that 26 million people</a> have insurance in 2024 who would have been uninsured otherwise.</div>
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It's worth noting that <a href="http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45231-ACA_Estimates.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">every time the CBO estimates</a> how much Obamacare will cost, the number gets lower. Odd how we've never heard Republicans say that.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: 700;">6. Rich people are no better than the rest of us.</span></div>
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Politicians on the right like to pretend that having money is a sign of hard work and morality – and that not having money is a sign of laziness. This story is contradicted by human experience and many religious traditions (Jesus tells a graphic story about a rich man who refused to help the poor burning in hell). But it's also contradicted by the facts – more and more rich people are getting their money through inheritances, and science shows that they are no more benevolent than others.</div>
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More and more, the wealthy in America are second or third generation. For instance, the Walton family, heirs to the Walmart fortune, <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/31/bernie-s/sanders-says-walmart-heirs-own-more-wealth-bottom-/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">own more wealth</a> than the poorest 40 million Americans. Thomas Philippon and Ariell Reshef have <a href="http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~tphilipp/papers/pr_rev15.pdf" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; letter-spacing: 0.012em; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">found</a> that 30 to 50 percent of the wage difference between the financial sector and the rest of the private sector was due to unearned "rent," or money they gained through manipulating markets. Josh Bivens and Larry Mishel found the same thing for CEOs – <a href="http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.27.3.57" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; letter-spacing: 0.012em; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">their increased pay hasn't been correlated to performance.</a></div>
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If rich people haven't really earned their money, are they at least doing any good with it? Studies find that the wealthy actually <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/why-the-rich-dont-give/309254/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">give less</a> to charity as a proportion of their income than middle-class Americans, even though they can afford more. Worse, they use their supposed philanthropy <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-12/how-wal-mart-s-waltons-maintain-their-billionaire-fortune-taxes.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">to avoid taxes and finance pet projects</a>. Research by Paul Piff <a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/19/0146167213501699" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">finds that</a> the wealthy are far more likely to exhibit narcissistic tendencies. "The rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people," Piff recently told <em><a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #be1e1e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">New York</a> </em>magazine. "It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, assholes."</div>
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-20276090300848904762015-09-29T20:42:00.000-07:002015-09-29T20:42:18.407-07:0021 Truths That Prove Republicans Have Been Wrong About Everything<h2>
<a href="http://hubpages.com/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">HubPages</span></a></h2>
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<a href="http://jeff61b.hubpages.com/hub/21-TruthsThat-Prove-Republicans-Have-Been-Wrong-About-Everything" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">21 Truths That Prove Republicans Have </span></a></h2>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://jeff61b.hubpages.com/hub/21-TruthsThat-Prove-Republicans-Have-Been-Wrong-About-Everything" target="_blank">Been Wrong About Everything</a></span></h2>
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Updated on July 11, 2015</div>
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It's no secret that politicians tend to use exaggerated political rhetoric to get people to vote for them.<br /><br />In recent decades, Republicans in particular have repeatedly made very ominous predictions about the horrors that will result from Democratic policies while painting a very rosy picture of what will result from Republican policies.</div>
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Now that we have the luxury of looking back over the years to examine those predictions and policies, I've listed 21 specific examples. After each item I've included links where you can verify this information and I encourage you to do your own research to verify all of this yourself.</div>
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1. In the 1960s, Republicans wrongly claimed that passage of Medicare would be the end of capitalism.</h2>
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California Governor Ronald Reagan even proclaimed Medicare would lead to the death of freedom in America.</div>
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Of course they were wrong. Since the passage of Medicare, capitalism has thrived in America and millions of elderly Americans have had longer, healthier lives and greater personal freedom. Medicare remains the most popular form of health insurance in the United States.</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs</a></div>
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2. In 1993, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.5%, Republicans predicted a recession, increased unemployment and a growing budget deficit.</h2>
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They weren't just wrong; the results were exactly the opposite of everything they predicted. After that tax increase went into effect, the country experienced the seven best years of economic growth in history.</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">Twenty-two million new jobs were created</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">Unemployment dropped below 4%</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">The poverty rate went down for 7 straight years</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">The budget deficit was eliminated</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">America enjoyed a growing budget surplus which economists projected would pay off our national debt in 20 years.</li>
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3. In 2001, when George W. Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, Republicans predicted record job growth, increased budget surplus and nationwide prosperity.</h2>
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Once again, the prosperity they promised never quite happened. In fact we saw the exact opposite occur.</div>
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After the Bush tax cuts were enacted:</div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">The budget surplus immediately disappeared</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">Less than 3 million net jobs were added during Bush’s 8 years</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">The poverty rate began climbing again</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">We experienced two recessions along with the greatest collapse of our financial system since the Great Depression</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">The budget deficit eventually grew to $1.4 trillion by the time Bush left office</li>
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<img alt="In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun. " class="half lazy" data-original="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/12114207_f260.jpg" height="177" src="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/12114207_f260.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; width: 260px;" title="In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun. " width="260" /></div>
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In 1993, President Clinton signed the Brady Law mandating nationwide background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.</div>
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4. In 1993, when the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were passed, Republicans predicted increasing rates of crime and murder.</h2>
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Thankfully just the opposite happened. From the 1970s, through the early 1990s violent crime had been increasing steadily. After 1993, however, the violent crime and overall murder rates suddenly began to drop. This decline continued for more than ten years.</div>
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What could have precipitated such a sudden and prolonged drop in the crime rate beginning in 1993? That’s the year Congress passed the Assault Weapons Ban and the Brady Law, which mandated background checks and a waiting period to buy a gun.</div>
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Despite Republican predictions to the contrary, the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban were followed by the most dramatic reduction in violent crime since the FBI started keeping statistics.</div>
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The two graphs below show the rates of murder and violent crime in the US over a span of 35 years based on the actual numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports web site. Notice how the crime rate dropped suddenly after the 1993 Brady Law and Assault Weapons Ban were passed .</div>
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<img alt="These charts show the rate of murder and violent crime over 35 years based on numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime reports. " class="full lazy" data-original="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12117030_f520.jpg" height="520" src="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12117030_f520.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 520px;" title="These charts show the rate of murder and violent crime over 35 years based on numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime reports. " width="520" /></div>
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These charts show the rate of murder and violent crime over 35 years based on numbers from the FBI Uniform Crime reports.</div>
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See the video of President Bush discussing the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.</h2>
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5. Republicans predicted that we would find Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction even though UN weapons inspectors said that those weapons didn't exist.</h2>
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The Bush administration continued to insist the WMDs would be found even when the CIA said some of the evidence was questionable.</div>
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As we all know, the WMDs predicted by the Bush administration did not exist and Saddam had not resumed his nuclear weapons program as they claimed. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney ultimately had to admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.</div>
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6. Prior to going to war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld optimistically predicted the Iraq war might last “six days, six weeks, I doubt six months”.</h2>
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What's more, Vice-President Dick Cheney said we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people after we overthrow Saddam.</div>
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They were both horribly wrong. Instead of six weeks or six months, the Iraq war lasted 8 long and bloody years costing thousands of American lives. It led to an Iraqi civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites which took hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Many Iraqi militia groups were formed to fight against the U.S. forces that occupied Iraq. What’s more, Al Qaeda, which did not exist in Iraq before the war, used the turmoil in Iraq to establish a new foothold in that country.</div>
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The Iraq war was arguably the most tragic foreign policy blunder in US history.</div>
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Why Torture Does Not Work</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html?_r=0" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">My Tortured Decision - NYTimes.com</a><br />Former F.B.I. agent who questioned Abu Zubaydah in 2002 says the "enhanced Interrogation" methods did not work.</li>
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7. Republicans said waterboarding and other forms of “enhanced interrogation” are not torture and are necessary in fighting Islamic extremism.</h2>
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In reality, waterboarding and other forms of enhanced interrogation which inflict pain, suffering or fear of death are outlawed by US law, the US Constitution and international treaties. Japanese soldiers after World War II were prosecuted by the United States for war crimes because of their use of waterboarding on American POWs.</div>
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Professional interrogators have known for decades that torture is the most ineffective and unreliable method of getting accurate information. People being tortured say anything to get the torture to end but will not likely tell the truth.</div>
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An FBI interrogator named Ali Soufan was able to get al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to reveal crucial information <em>without the use of torture</em>. When CIA interrogators started using waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation methods, Zubaydah stopped cooperating and gave his interrogators false information.</div>
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Far from being necessary in the fight against terrorism, torture is completely unreliable and counter-productive in obtaining useful information.</div>
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<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secrets-politics-and-torture/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/secrets-politics-and-torture/</a></div>
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8. In 2008, Republicans said that if we elect a Democratic president, we would be hit by Al Qaeda again, perhaps worse than the attack on 9/11.</h2>
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Former Vice-President Dick Cheney stated that electing a Democrat as president would all but guarantee that there would be another major attack on America by Al Qaeda.</div>
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Cheney and other Republicans were, thankfully, completely wrong. Since Obama became president, we have had zero deaths on U.S. soil from Al Qaeda attacks and we succeeded in killing Bin Laden along with dozens of other high ranking Al Qaeda leaders.</div>
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<img alt="Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around. " class="half lazy" data-original="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/12114287_f260.jpg" height="187" src="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/12114287_f260.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; width: 260px;" title="Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around. " width="260" /></div>
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Looking at the rate of job loss and job creation, its easy to see that the stimulus of 2009 was highly successful in stopping the job losses and turning the economy around.</div>
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9. In 2009, Republicans predicted that the economic stimulus package would only make the recession worse and cause more unemployment.</h2>
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The results show they couldn't have been more wrong. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ended the recession after only a few months. Although 750,000 people were losing their jobs each month when Obama took office, after the Recovery Act was passed the rate of job loss immediately decreased each month and within a year the economy showed positive job growth.</div>
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Considering the severity of the 2008 economic collapse and the total opposition by Republicans to do anything at all to stimulate the economy, it is remarkable that the US economy recovered as quickly as it did.</div>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/its-the-lack-of-demand-st_b_754381.html" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/its-the-lack-of-demand-st_b_754381.html</a></div>
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10. Most Republicans said that President Obama should be impeached because of the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.</h2>
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Their own investigations, however, have proved them wrong. Every Congressional inquiry, including those by the Republican led House Intelligence Committee, have concluded the Obama administration did nothing wrong regarding Benghazi, that there was no “stand down” order given and that neither the President nor anyone in his administration lied about it.</div>
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Each and every Republican investigation has reached this same conclusion but Republicans continue to exploit this tragedy for political gain.</div>
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<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/21/politics/benghazi-attack-report/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/21/politics/benghazi-attack-report/</a></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://useconomy.about.com/od/Politics/p/President-Ronald-Reagan-Economic-Policies.htm" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Reagan's Savings and Loan crisis</a><br />Click this link for a summary of the Savings and Loan crisis.</li>
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11. Republicans said we must deregulate businesses so they can be more profitable and we will all enjoy the wealth created by deregulation.</h2>
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This theory failed back in the 1980s when the Reagan administration deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. All the S&Ls collapsed and it cost taxpayers billions of dollars to bail them out.</div>
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They were proven wrong again in 2008 when years of deregulation of the financial industry resulted in the worst financial collapse and recession since the Great Depression. Taxpayers had to spend nearly a trillion dollars to bail out these large corporations.</div>
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Instead of spreading the wealth around, deregulation cost millions of jobs and created economic turmoil that took the country years to recover from.</div>
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<img alt="Senator Mitch McConnell claimed Obamacare would cost the economy 2 million jobs. " class="half lazy" data-original="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12114316_f260.jpg" height="195" src="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12114316_f260.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; width: 260px;" title="Senator Mitch McConnell claimed Obamacare would cost the economy 2 million jobs. " width="260" /></div>
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Senator Mitch McConnell claimed Obamacare would cost the economy 2 million jobs.</div>
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12. Republicans predicted that Obamacare would hurt the economy and kill jobs.</h2>
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As you may have guessed, they were wrong. 2014 was the first full year that Obamacare was in effect. During that year the United States saw the fastest rate of job creation in 14 years and the best rate of economic growth in over ten years. More jobs were created in 2014 than in any year of the Bush presidency.</div>
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Not only did Obamacare not harm the economy, it coincided with the best economic expansion in a dozen years.</div>
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/19/fact-checking-obamas-press-conference-jobs-claims/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/19/fact-checking-obamas-press-conference-jobs-claims/</a></div>
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<img alt="Gas prices have dropped dramatically during 2013 and 2014." class="half lazy" data-original="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12116992_f260.jpg" height="192" src="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12116992_f260.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; width: 260px;" title="Gas prices have dropped dramatically during 2013 and 2014." width="260" /></div>
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Gas prices have dropped dramatically during 2013 and 2014.</div>
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13. Republicans said if President Obama is reelected, the price of gasoline would rise to $5.45 a gallon by January 2015.</h2>
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In fact, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, said if Obama were reelected, the price of gas would reach $6.60 a gallon. Newt Gingrich, who was running for president in 2012, said Obama’s energy policies, EPA regulations, and failure to approve the XL pipeline would result in $10.00 a gallon gasoline.</div>
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Of course these predictions were laughably wrong. Instead of $5.45 per gallon or $10.00 per gallon, the price of gas in January, 2015, was $1.89, less than half of the all-time high of $4.15 a gallon under President Bush.</div>
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Forbes Magazine on the Obama Economy</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth And Investing - Forbes</a><br />Click this link for a detailed look at the economic recovery that occurred under President Obama.</li>
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14. Republicans said President Obama would be terrible for the economy.</h2>
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Although he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, President Obama has presided over the longest continuous period of uninterrupted job growth in American history. More jobs have been created under President Obama than under both Bush Presidents combined. The stock market has repeatedly set new records during Obama's presidency.</div>
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Although he inherited a much worse recession than the one Ronald Reagan dealt with, Obama ended that recession and turned around our economy in half the time it took Reagan.</div>
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During his first 6 full years in office, our economy had a net increase of 6.6 million new jobs. That takes into account over 4 million jobs that were lost during Obama's first year when he was trying to pull us out of the Bush Recession. From January 2010 through summer of 2015 our economy created 12 million new jobs.</div>
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Despite Republican attempts to stop all progress, President Obama has overseen the greatest economic turnaround in over 75 years without any help from Republicans.</div>
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This chart shows the unemployment rate through 2013 and 2014 based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.</div>
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15. Republicans predicted that President Obama’s tax increase on the top 1% in 2013 would kill jobs, increase the deficit and cause another recession.</h2>
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You guessed it. Just the opposite happened. In the two years from January 1, 2013 when that tax increase went into effect, through January, 2015, unemployment dropped from 7.9% to 5.6%, an average of more than 200,000 new jobs were created per month, Wall Street set new record highs and the budget deficit was cut in half.</div>
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Over 5.7 million new jobs were created in that 2 year period. That's more jobs created in two years than were created during the combined 12 years of both Bush presidencies.</div>
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16. Republicans said President Obama would raise taxes sky high.</h2>
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It never happened. For over 95% of Americans, income taxes are the same or lower than they were before Obama was elected. The only people whose income taxes have increased are those who make more than $400,000 per year, and their taxes increased only 3%.</div>
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For most Americans, taxes are still lower now than they were under Reagan.</div>
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individual-Income-Tax-Rates-History-1862-2013" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individual-Income-Tax-Rates-History-1862-2013</a></div>
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Census Bureau Historical Data on Poverty Rates</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/incpovhlth/2013/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Poverty rates in the United States</a><br />Click this link to go to the Census Bureau's web site on poverty rates. You can look up the poverty rate for any year you choose.</li>
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17. Republicans have long promised that “trickle-down economics”, is the best way to stimulate the economy.</h2>
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Trickle-down economics is the practice of giving more money to the very wealthy so they can reinvest it, causing a "trickle-down" effect that creates jobs and stimulates growth. According to this theory, any tax increase on the wealthy will hurt the economy and cause another recession.</div>
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<strong></strong>Again, this theory has been thoroughly disproven. The huge tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans enacted by George W. Bush did not result in great job creation or a robust economy. In fact, our economy took the worst nosedive since the Great Depression.</div>
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Conversely, the tax increases on the wealthiest 1% passed by Presidents Clinton and Obama were followed by strong job growth, shrinking budget deficits and lower unemployment rates. During the 8 years after President Clinton raised taxes on the top 1%, the poverty rate went down. After Bush enacted Trickle-down economic policies, the poverty rate began rising again.</div>
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Long Term Jobs Created By The Keystone Pipeline</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/feb/10/van-jones/cnns-van-jones-says-keystone-pipeline-only-creates/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Politifact:Keystone pipeline only creates 35 permanent jobs</a><br />Click this link to read about the number of jobs created by the Keystone Pipeline.</li>
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18. In 2012, Republicans predicted that failure to approve the Keystone Pipeline would send the price of gasoline sky high and large numbers of jobs would be l</h2>
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Even though the Keystone Pipeline was not approved, the price of gasoline continued to drop below $1.90 per gallon, millions of new jobs were created and unemployment dropped from 8% to 5.4% by early 2015.</div>
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The most optimistic predictions say that the Keystone Pipeline would only create a few dozen long term jobs and would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline.</div>
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19. Republicans insist that their policies create more jobs than Democrats and claim Democratic policies are “job killers”.</h2>
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History, however, has proven them wrong. According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under the last 3 Republican presidents there were a total of 21 million new jobs created during their combined 20 years in office (Reagan - 16 million, George H. W. Bush - 2 million, George W. Bush – 3 million).</div>
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Jobs Created During Each Presidency</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mth" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Bureau of Labor Statistics Data</a><br />Click this link to see the job creation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics</li>
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However, under the last 3 Democratic presidents there were a total of 38 million new jobs created during their combined 18 years in office (Carter – 10 million, Clinton – 22 million, Obama – 6 million).</div>
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So the last three Democratic presidents have seen the creation of nearly twice as many jobs in 18 years as the last three Republican presidents did in 20.</div>
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20. Republicans claim that raising the minimum wage would kill jobs and hurt the economy.</h2>
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There is far more evidence to the contrary. Cities and states that have higher minimum wages tend to have better rates of job creation and economic growth.</div>
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Detailed analyses show that job losses due to increases in the minimum wage are almost negligible compared to the economic benefits of higher wages.</div>
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Previous increases in the minimum wage have never resulted in the dire consequences that Republicans have predicted.</div>
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<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/03/06/286861541/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-kill-jobs" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/03/06/286861541/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-kill-jobs</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/states-that-raised-their-minimumwage-in-2014-had-stronger-job-growth-than-those-that-didnt" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/states-that-raised-their-minimumwage-in-2014-had-stronger-job-growth-than-those-that-didnt</a></div>
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<img alt="Republicans have accused President Obama of "cutting defense spending to the bone". This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument. " class="half lazy" data-original="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12116726_f260.jpg" height="194" src="http://usercontent1.hubimg.com/12116726_f260.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; width: 260px;" title="Republicans have accused President Obama of "cutting defense spending to the bone". This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument. " width="260" /></div>
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Republicans have accused President Obama of "cutting defense spending to the bone". This chart of 2014 discretionary spending firmly disproves that argument.</div>
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21. Republicans routinely accuse Democrats of wanting to cut defense spending to the bone and leave us defenseless against our enemies.</h2>
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History has repeatedly proven them wrong. Under Democratic presidents and Congresses the United States still spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined.</div>
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Republicans frequently insist on spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't even want in order to benefit the multi-billion dollar defense contractors. Democrats who criticize this unnecessary spending, are accused of trying to cut defense spending to the bone.</div>
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These links below give more information about our military spending on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn't want or need.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/u-s-military-spending-dwarfs-rest-world-n37461" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/military-spending-cuts/u-s-military-spending-dwarfs-rest-world-n37461</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-the-tank-the-army-says-it-doesnt-need-it-but-industry-wants-to-keep-building-it/2014/01/31/c11e5ee0-60f0-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-the-tank-the-army-says-it-doesnt-need-it-but-industry-wants-to-keep-building-it/2014/01/31/c11e5ee0-60f0-11e3-94ad-004fefa61ee6_story.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/congress-pushes-for-weapons-pentagon-didnt-want/nRC7w/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/congress-pushes-for-weapons-pentagon-didnt-want/nRC7w/</a></div>
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Just for fun, here's a lightning round of more things Republicans have been wrong about.</h2>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">Republicans said that Obamacare would have “Death Panels” to decide who would live and who would die. Wrong. No such death panels were ever proposed and nothing of the kind ever happened.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">They said the 2009 laws to improve automobile fuel efficiency standards would kill the US auto industry. Wrong. The new standards were followed by a resurgence of the US auto industry enabling them to hire back tens of thousands of workers.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">They said environmental protection laws requiring companies to clean up their pollution would create undue burden and kill businesses. Nope, it never happened.</li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">They said Ebola would spread across the country because President Obama allowed American Ebola patients to be treated in the US. The outbreak never happened. Only 3 people contracted Ebola in the US and all 3 survived the disease.</li>
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/its-the-lack-of-demand-st_b_754381.html" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/united-states-imported-case.html</a></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">They said President Obama would open our borders to illegal immigrants. Wow, were they wrong. Under Obama we set new records for most illegal immigrants stopped at the border and sent home.</li>
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<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reach-record-high-in-2013/" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/02/u-s-deportations-of-immigrants-reach-record-high-in-2013/</a></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px;">They said Obama would drive up the Federal budget deficit. Didn't happen. Obama cut the $1.4 trillion deficit he inherited by two-thirds.</li>
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<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/budget-deficit-shrinks-103092.html" style="color: #551a8b; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/budget-deficit-shrinks-103092.html</a></div>
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Please don’t take my word for any of this. I encourage you to fact-check everything in this article.</h2>
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While someone could no doubt find instances where Democrats engage in over-the-top rhetoric, nothing compares to the consistently false and erroneous claims made by the GOP in recent years.</div>
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When a political party has been so dismally wrong about nearly everything over the past 30 years, that party should lose all credibility.</div>
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My hope is that in the future, when Americans hear Republicans make predictions about Democratic policies that are doomed to failure, we will remember the fact that they have been utterly wrong about virtually everything they've predicted in recent years.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-57256308493933909292015-09-17T06:33:00.000-07:002015-09-17T06:33:35.760-07:00GOP Debate Shows a Party Where Crazy Is the New Normal<img alt="Home" src="http://www.alternet.org/sites/all/themes/custom/alternet/logo.png" /><br />
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ELECTION 2016</div>
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/gop-debate-shows-party-where-crazy-new-normal" target="_blank">GOP Debate Shows a Party Where Crazy Is the New Normal</a></h1>
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It's great theater. But they want to rule the world.</div>
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<em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/steven-rosenfeld" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Steven Rosenfeld</a></em> / <span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://alternet.org/" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">AlterNet</a></span></span></span></div>
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Despite the large number of candidates on the stage at the Ronald Reagan Library, the second debate of Republican presidential candidates was an astounding display of how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become in 2015.</div>
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Beyond the many subplots—such as a red-faced Donald Trump eating crow for his nasty remarks about ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s looks (he told a nationwide audience that she was beautiful) or Jeb Bush telling Trump that he failed to bribe Florida politicans into allowing a casino to be built when he was governor (Trump replied that wasn’t true because he would have gotten it if he wanted) the debaters, as a group, sought to highlight what Republican leadership consisted of and could mean for Americans and the world.</div>
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For most, it was a contest in who could take the hardest line: On cracking down on illegal immigration, on building up the military, on deploying ground troops against ISIS, on how to handle Vladimir Putin’s imperial goals, on rejecting the nuclear disarmament treaty with Iran, on whether continued federal funding of Planned Parenthood was a sufficient reason to shut down the federal government after September 30, and even on whether it was a mistake to appoint John Roberts as the Supreme Court Chief Justice because his court saved Obamacare and sanctioned same-sex marriage.</div>
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As CNN’s moderator noted, the maverick candidates with no elective experience—Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Fiorina—have been collectively getting more than 50 percent in polls. That anti-status quo outsider energy seemed to set the tone for much of what constituted the leadership qualities and agenda that the candidates embraced. But bluster aside, the new leadership was much the same old GOP model: take extreme right-wing positions wherever possible, and implement them with as much muscle as possible, both militarily overseas or domestically. Only Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Carson differentiated between smart ways to do things and muscular ways to do things.</div>
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The debate’s major focus was supposedly foreign policy, but the comments flew all over the map. The candidates all agreed that Obama was a weak international leader, saying the U.S. lost the respect of foreign friends and foes under his watch. Everything each said they’d do differently was predictable and a bit surreal. Trump said he would make deals with Putin, getting out of Syria and the Ukraine. As for details, Trump said those would come later. Fiorina said she’d cut off every contact with Putin and send troops and arms to Russia’s border to make him behave, even listing how many more ships, planes and military divisions were needed. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and a like-minded chorus of other candidates said ISIS, and an enriched and terrorist-friendly Iran, were existential threats to the mainland and ground troops were needed in Syria and Iraq. Everyone rejected Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Only Kasich kept saying it was in the U.S. national interest to act with its allies abroad.</div>
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On a stage filled with would-be Dr. Strangeloves, all eager to rev up the military and turn them loose on the world, one of the oddest moments came after Bush earnestly declared the U.S. “must lead the world” again. That prompted Trump to say that while he loved the military, he was not in favor of using them all the time—such as invading Iraq. (Like a kid in the back row of a classroom, Rand Paul protested that he too opposed George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion). That led to a big clash between Bush and Trump over W’s war of choice, with Jeb jumping to W.’s defense, saying, “my brother kept us safe.”</div>
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Almost all on the stage agreed with that absurd revisionist history, blaming Obama solely for the region’s ongoing civil wars as if nothing happened before he took office. They all said with straight faces that Obama’s reluctance to use force and instead rely on diplomacy had left the U.S. isolated and without allies. Somehow, they seemed to forget that W’s doctrine of pre-emptive war left the U.S. reviled and far more isolated in international circles.</div>
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As CNN’s pre-debate commentators said, the current GOP electorate isn’t interested in governing right now, or policy details. Instead, there was plenty of political theatre that will surely fill the news on Thursday. Such as Sen. Rand Paul calling Trump “sophomoric.” Or Fiorina telling the moderator that women across America heard Trump's comments about her looks and shredding Trump for his failed Atlantic City casinos. Or Bush demanding that Trump apologize to his wife for saying that her Mexican heritage made him a weaker candidate (Trump refused). Or an array of candiates spending 15 minutes saying why Planned Parenthood should lose federal funding, but predicting that congressional Republican leaders would not have the nerve to shut the government over that issue. They probably mentioned their disappointment with the GOP-led Congress as many times as they mentioned Hillary Clinton’s record as Secretary of State.</div>
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The mainstream media will declare the night’s winners and losers, although it’s difficult to imagine that the follow-up polls will reveal shifts of more than a few percentage points in any direction. From that perspective, it seems the field of candidates is split into three tiers. In the top tier are Trump, who held his ground and whose legitimacy as a candidate was affirmed by other debate participants; Fiorina, who emerged as a forceful disciplined presence who suffers no fools; Bush, who stood his ground as he touted his right-wing record; Carson, who stuck the thoughtful but still very conservative tone that’s made him popular; Kasich, who showed that experience in elected office is a political virtue; and Rubio, who managed to project a shrill gravitas at the back of this pack.</div>
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In the second tier are the other candidates who shared the main stage but did not have any breakthroughs—either with their answers or stage presence: Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen Ted Cruz, and ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The third tier were the four candidates in the first debate session—all of whom are polling the lowest levels: North Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, ex-Sen. Rick Santorum and ex-New York Gov. George Pataki.</div>
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The big picture, however, is that despite the large size of the GOP field, it is notable that Republicans aren’t offering many new ideas that have not been heard before. Just being tougher, meaner and more militant is not a new prescription for dealing with a troubled and increasingly interconnected world. That cliché doesn’t address the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, nor does it address climate change. But those issues, like many others, are not on the GOP’s agenda and don’t fit its vision of U.S. leadership. </div>
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Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-14143880942429083562015-09-05T11:17:00.001-07:002015-09-05T11:17:40.776-07:00The Republican Party’s Secret Sauce: A Poisonous Cocktail of Nationalism, Libertarianism & Theocracy<br />
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/republican-partys-secret-sauce-poisonous-cocktail-nationalism-libertarianism-theocracy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Republican Party’s Secret Sauce: A Poisonous Cocktail of Nationalism, Libertarianism & Theocracy</a></h1>
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Pundits have called Trump a populist hero. But the truth of his appeal lies at the core of the GOP philosophy.</div>
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<em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/heather-digby-parton" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Heather Digby Parton</a></em> / <span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.salon.com/" style="color: #f1602c; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Salon</a></span></span></span></div>
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<em>September 5, 2015</em></div>
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A piece by Michael Lind in Politico Magazine this week <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/trump-tea-party-populist-exposed-213111" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">makes the case</a> that the Tea Party isn’t libertarian as was once widely assumed, but populist, which seems to be gelling into current conventional wisdom. And it’s true that the Tea Party was never libertarian in any doctrinaire sense. They certainly claimed to be for low taxes and against big government, particularly if it tried to create a system by which most Americans could buy affordable health insurance; but beyond that it always got a little bit vague. Its members talked a lot about liberty but they referred less to esoteric notions of property rights and individual liberty than to moral values and religion — which are hardly a tenet of Randian libertarianism. They did rail some about bailouts, but they certainly didn’t put the kind of energy into opposing AIG or Fed reform that they put into opposing Obamacare and supporting gun rights.</div>
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Lind further argues that Trump’s rise and his popularity among self-identified Tea Partiers proves that the Tea Party has always been populist in the tradition of William Jennings Bryant and Huey Long. He writes:</div>
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Trump is no libertarian; quite the opposite. He is a classic populist of the right who peddles suspicion of foreigners—it’s no accident that he was the country’s leading “birther” raising questions about Barack Obama’s citizenship—combined with a kind of “producerism.” In populist ideology, society is divided not among rich and poor but among producers and parasites.</div>
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Populists are suspicious of unearned wealth, including the interest charged by bankers who manipulate “other people’s money” (to use the phrase of Louis Brandeis). And populists the world over are hostile to the idle or undeserving poor who allegedly live on welfare at the expense of productive workers and capitalists. Populists tend to attribute the existence of large numbers of the idle rich and the idle poor to government corruption. In the words of the 1892 People’s Party platform: “From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.”</div>
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It may seem odd that populists would choose a bombastic billionaire to express their concerns but it must be noted that unlike any of the rest of the GOP field he has supported tax hikes on the wealthy, gone after hedge funds, and picked a big fight with the Club for Growth.</div>
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Even still, let’s be real: The focus of American right wing populism is generally aimed downward at immigrants and poor people, not upward at the wealthy. The Republican base may have an abstract beef with “bail-outs” for the rich but they are utterly convinced that the government’s primary mission is to take their hard earned money and give it to lazy undeserving people who refuse to work.</div>
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So, by these definitions, Lind is correct: the Tea Party is much more populist than libertarian. But we’ve known who they really are since at least 2010 when <a href="http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-national-survey-of-tea-party-supporters" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the New York Times</a> polled them, and it goes beyond ideology:</div>
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Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.</div>
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The overwhelming majority of supporters say Mr. Obama does not share the values most Americans live by and that he does not understand the problems of people like themselves. More than half say the policies of the administration favor the poor, and 25 percent think that the administration favors blacks over whites — compared with 11 percent of the general public.</div>
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They are more likely than the general public, and Republicans, to say that too much has been made of the problems facing black people…</div>
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They are far more pessimistic than Americans in general about the economy. More than 90 percent of Tea Party supporters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, compared with about 60 percent of the general public. About 6 in 10 say “America’s best years are behind us” when it comes to the availability of good jobs for American workers.</div>
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They also wanted to gut government spending for everyone but themselves, particularly social security and Medicare. Later, sociologists Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson<a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/whose-tea-party-is-it/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> surveyed the beliefs and ideology</a> of the Tea Party for a book called “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism” and validated those results.<a href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/whose-tea-party-is-it/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> They reported this </a>for the NY Times during the presidential primary in 2011:</div>
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[W]e identified as Tea Partiers’ most fundamental concern … their belief that hardworking American taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for undeserving freeloaders, particularly immigrants, the poor and the young. Young people “just feel like they are entitled,” one member of the Massachusetts Tea Party told us. A Virginia interviewee said that today’s youth “have lost the value of work.”</div>
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These views were occasionally tinged with ethnic stereotypes about immigrants “stealing” from tax-funded programs, or minorities with a “plantation mentality.” […]</div>
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Immigration was always a central, and sometimes the central, concern expressed by Tea Party activists, usually as a symbol of a broader national decline. Asked why she was a member of the movement, a woman from Virginia asked rhetorically, “what is going on in this country? What is going on with immigration?” A Tea Party leader in Massachusetts expressed her desire to stand on the border “with a gun” while an activist in Arizona jokingly referred to an immigration plan in the form of a “12 million passenger bus” to send unauthorized immigrants out of the United States. In a survey of Tea Party members in Massachusetts we conducted, immigration was second only to deficits on the list of issues the party should address.</div>
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<a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2011/02/23/tea-party-and-religion/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Other pollsters studied </a>different aspects of the Tea Party:</div>
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A new analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In addition, they are much more likely than registered voters as a whole to say that their religion is the most important factor in determining their opinions on these social issues. And they draw disproportionate support from the ranks of white evangelical Protestants.</div>
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If all this sounds familiar, it should. It’s Donald Trump’s agenda. He is the ultimate Tea Party candidate, with a strong anti-Washington, anti-immigration, nationalist message combined with <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/08/28/evangelicals_love_donald_trump_how_a_thrice_married_new_york_braggart_won_them_over_and_why_its_so_scary/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">his assiduous cultivation of the religious right</a>. And the fact that his followers don’t all identify as members of the Tea Party doesn’t mean anything because the movement itself was never really a discrete political faction but rather a reaction to the loss of the presidency to an African American Democrat, the embarrassment of George W. Bush’s massive failure and the usual sense of grievance that has characterized the right wing of the Republican Party for decades. The Tea Party was simply a re-branding of the conservative movement after a catastrophic market failure.</div>
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Is the conservative movement populist? Yes, in many respects. But it’s also nationalistic, theocratic and libertarian which is exactly how Donald Trump is packaging his campaign as a conservative movement hero. All you have to do verify that is take a look at right wing radio. The hosts aren’t just obsequious. They are fawning fanboys and fangirls. Indeed, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/the-real-media-machine-behind-trump-conservative-talk-radio#.nqnpKloJR2" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Trump is largely a talk radio phenomenon,</a> with rare exceptions the obvious favorite among the biggest start from Limbaugh to Savage to Ingraham. These media stars don’t identify as Tea Partyers or populists or libertarians. They identify as conservatives. The fact that they are supporting him as if he is the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan says everything you need to know about the Trump phenomenon. Trump’s agenda is simply the conservative agenda, circa 2015, nothing more, nothing less.</div>
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Heather Digby Parton, also known as "<a href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/" style="color: #f1602c; text-decoration: none;">Digby</a>," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-91271826033270426592015-09-04T05:33:00.000-07:002015-09-04T05:33:57.266-07:00Donald Trump is Not the Problem, He's a Symptom of GOP Insanity<br />
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<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/09/gop-doesnt-have-donald-trump-problem" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The GOP's Problem Is Not Donald Trump</a></h2>
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It's their voters.</h3>
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—By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/david-corn" rel="author" style="border: none; color: black; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">David Corn</a></div>
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| Thu Sep. 3, 2015 6:00 AM EDT</div>
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Only a few weeks ago, pundits and political observers roundly proclaimed that Donald Trump, the reality-show tycoon who's mounted a takeover of the GOP, would flame out, fade, implode, or whatever. Jeb Bush's campaign aides were telling journalists that they had no concerns about Trump threatening a third Bush regime. "Trump is, frankly, other people's problem," <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-gop-fields-new-strategies-to-ride-out-the-trump-tornado/2015/08/20/0f0c9628-4761-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">said</a>Michael Murphy, the chief strategist for Bush's super-PAC. It's becoming clearer, though, that Trump, still dominating the polls and the headlines as the Republican front-runner, could well pose an existential threat to the Grand Old Party (or at least its establishment, including the Bush campaign). But the fundamental problem for the Rs is not Trump; it's Republican voters.</div>
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Trump is a brash and arrogant celebrity who is well skilled in pushing buttons, belittling foes, uttering outrageous remarks, causing a ruckus, and drawing attention to one thing: himself. He's a smart marketer and a brilliant self-promoter. His name recognition is over 100 percent. He cooked up a wonderful ready-for-swag tagline: "Make America Great Again." He's incredible. He's yooge. But none of this would matter if there was no demand for his bombastic, anger-fueled, anti-immigrant populism—that is, if Republican voters did not crave a leader who equates undocumented immigrants with rapists and who claims that everyone else in political life is a nincompoop selling out the US of A to the Chinese, the Mexicans, and just about every other government.</div>
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The polite way to say this is that Trump's message is resonating with Republicans. And polls show that his support is not ideological. He's winning over GOPers across the spectrum, from conservatives to evangelicals to supposedly moderate Rs. His assault on the GOP powers that be (or powers that were) is not the rebellion of one wing against another. (Political commentators are so programmed to view party conflicts as battles between conflicting factions.) Instead, Trump is tapping into a current that runs throughout the various strains of the GOP. It's a current of frustration, despair, anger, and yearning—a yearning for a time when the United States will not be confronted by difficult economic and national security challenges, and when you will not have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish.</div>
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Republicans are pissed off. (In polls, they express far more dissatisfaction with the nation's present course than Democrats.) And they believe the nation has been hijacked by President Barack Obama, whose legitimacy most Rs still reject. A recent Bloomberg/<em>Des Moines Register</em> <a href="http://ttp//images.businessweek.com/cms/2015-08-31/2125-methodology-document-Tues-1-Sep.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">poll</a> of likely Iowa caucus participants found that 35 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States. A quarter said they were not sure. (Nine out of ten Democrats said the president was born in the United States.) So nearly 60 percent of Rs believe there is cause to suspect Obama has hornswoggled the nation. Meanwhile, according to another <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/54-republicans-think-obama-muslim" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">poll</a>, 54 percent of Republican voters say Obama is a Muslim. A third were not sure. Only 14 percent identified the president as a Christian.</div>
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These findings—which echo a long string of surveys conducted during the Obama years—would seem to indicate that at least half of the GOP is unhinged and living in its own fact-free and perhaps Fox-fed reality. To top it off, many Republican voters have expected the GOPers in control of Congress to kill Obamacare, shut down the government and slash the budget, prevent Obama from issuing executive orders, and impeach the pretender who inhabits the White House. Oh, and there's this: Benghazi! So they are mighty ticked off <em>and</em> seriously disappointed. The Bloomberg/<em>Des Moines Register</em> poll found that half of GOP caucus-goers said they were unsatisfied with the US government and 38 percent were "mad as hell" at it. Slightly more than half were unsatisfied with Republicans in Congress; a fifth were mad as hell at them.</div>
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Given the psychological state of the GOP base, it's not surprising that the fellow expressing the most outrage on the campaign trail—the guy who sounds like he, too, is mad as hell—has taken the express elevator to the penthouse floor of the polls. After all, he's the only one in the pack who has confronted Obama on his birthplace. Trump has not renounced his birther ways. He has already made that point for this audience and can move on. (In the past few days, Trump also came close to endorsing another far-right conspiracy theory. He essentially accused Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's longtime aide, of being a security problem because she is married to disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner and presumably shared classified State Department information with this "<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/31/donald-trump-anthony-weiner-perv-huma-abedin-marri/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">perv</a>." For years, conservative conspiracy theorists have claimed Abedin was a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/312211/huma-abedins-muslim-brotherhood-ties-andrew-c-mccarthy" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Muslim Brotherhood mole</a> within the US government.)</div>
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The anti-immigrant, anti-Obama, anti-establishment sentiment that Trump is tapping runs deep within the Republican electorate. Many Republicans clearly see the president as a foreign-born secret Muslim with a clandestine plan to weaken, if not ruin, the United States—remember the death panels—and they have a dark, nearly apocalyptic view of Obama’s America. (My email box of late is full of fundraising notes from right-wing groups claiming Obama is about to confiscate all guns, suspend the Constitution so he can run for a third term, relinquish American sovereignty to the United Nations, and mount a military operation within the United States to subdue any opposition to him.)</div>
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If this is your perspective when seeking a presidential candidate who will represent your desires and demands, you are unlikely to be drawn to a politician who wants to gain your vote by presenting a 27-point economic plan or by advocating charter schools. Voters this dissatisfied and this detached from reality will be looking for someone who can vent for them. Trump does that. He also promises quick and simple action to address their concerns: a wall (not a fence), great trade deals at a snap of the finger, the end of ISIS, you name it. And you just won't believe how great this country will be after four years of President Trump. A <a href="http://time.com/4009413/donald-trump-focus-group-frank-luntz/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">focus group</a> of Trump backers recently conducted by GOP pollster Frank Luntz found that Trumpites fancied Trump as much for his cut-the-crap manner as for the substance of his remarks.</div>
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As a way to counter Obama, the Republicans eagerly courted the tea partiers and other dissatisfied voters. They rode that tiger into the congressional majority in the low-turnout elections of 2010 and 2014. They whipped up the frenzy. (During the Obamacare fight, House Speaker John Boehner hosted a tea party rally on Capitol Hill, during which <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/tea-partys-takeover-gop" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the crowd shouted, "Nazis, Nazis"</a> when referring to Democrats.) Washington Republicans vowed they would take the country back from Obama for the tea party. They exploited the Obama hatred, but their often effective obstructionism was still not enough to feed the beast that had carried them into power.</div>
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Though Trump may beg to differ, Trumpmania is not about Trump. He's merely supplying the rhetoric and emotion craved by a large chunk of the GOP electorate. That yearning won't go away. Ben Carson, who in the latest Iowa poll tied for first place with Trump, is pushing a similar message—America is going to hell and the nation needs an outraged outsider to clean up the mess. His tone is kinder and gentler (and <a href="http://[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QhVVH_NzE" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">musical</a>!). But like Trump, he is mining profound dissatisfaction and promising a national revival. Combine the Trump and Carson electorates at this point, and it's close to a majority of Republicans.</div>
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A Trump-Carson ticket? Maybe not. (But if so, you heard it here first.) The point is, the GOP is overflowing with voters who long for a candidate who echoes their rage and resentment. Whatever happens with Trump in the months ahead, this bloc of voters won't go away. Neither will their fury. This is the true dilemma for the Republican Party and its pooh-bahs. Trump, the deal-making businessman, is merely responding to market forces. He's just the supplier. Trump is the drug, and the voters need to score. The demand is what counts.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-55986344047005129672015-09-03T06:49:00.000-07:002015-09-03T06:49:43.475-07:00The Republicans Lie – About Everything<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Republicans Lie – About Everything</span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/22/republicans-lie.html/facebook_1405979906057" rel="attachment wp-att-156756" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="facebook_1405979906057" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-156756" height="266" src="http://i0.wp.com/www.politicususa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/facebook_1405979906057.jpg?resize=485%2C266" style="border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); clear: both; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px auto 7px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="485" /></a><br /></div>
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Republican dishonesty, not only about what they do and what they would like to do, but about the world we live in, are endemic. And the situation is getting steadily worse as Republicans daily seem more unhinged, leaving liberals and progressives shaking their heads in dismay.</div>
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Do you remember last year when <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2013/08/28/louisiana-republicans-hurricane-katrina-time-travel.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Public Policy Polling</a> revealed that more Louisiana Republicans blame President Obama for the mishandling of Katrina relief efforts than blame President Bush? It is a matter of public record that Barack Obama was only a freshman senator then, while Bush had been president for half a decade. Almost half of Louisiana Republicans didn’t know who to blame.</div>
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Of course, Republicans have also blamed Obama for the Iraq War and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/eric-bolling-terrorist-attacks-bush_n_898135.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">routinely pretend</a> that there were no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil while Bush was president (9/11 anyone?). Not only that, but <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/17/fox-has-no-memory-of-any-successful-terror-atta/189931" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fox News has excised </a>any subsequent Bush-era terrorist attacks from public memory. Republicans have also conveniently forgotten that Bush presided over the economic collapse of 2008. Obama wasn’t elected <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">until November 4</a> of that year and did not take office until the following January.</div>
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Of course, President Obama is currently <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/21/obama-forced-clean-immigration-mess-caused-republicans.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">being blamed</a> for the immigration crisis at the border that Republicans are responsible for. Bush signed the law; Obama gets blamed.</div>
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Republicans attack President Obama for taking too many vacation days. In reality, as Al Sharpton pointed out on August 9, 2013,</div>
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[Obama] has taken 92 days of vacation since he was sworn in. How many did President (George W.) Bush take by the same point in his presidency? Three hundred and sixty seven. Yes, more than a full year of vacation.</div>
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<a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/12/al-sharpton/al-sharpton-defends-obama-family-vacation-saying-g/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">PolitiFact</a> has rated this statement “mostly true” in that Bush spent some working vacation days at his Texas ranch. I remember Bush being on vacation all the time; Republicans don’t even remember Bush.</div>
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Republicans want to sue and impeach President Obama for signing executive orders, even though he has issued far fewer executive orders than President Bush, whose executive orders were not the object of Republican complaint.</div>
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For example, on September 25, 2012, <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/obamas-executive-orders/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">FactCheck.org</a> pointed out that “Obama has issued 139 executive orders as of Sept. 25 [2012]…Bush issued 160 executive orders through Sept. 20, 2004, a comparable amount of time.”</div>
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As of June 20, 2014, <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Obama had signed 182 executive orders</a>. Bush signed 173 in his first term alone, and 291 during his entire presidency.</div>
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Again, if you want to count executive orders you can do so; it’s a matter of public record and the <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/executive_orders.php?year=2014&Submit=DISPLAY" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">University of California Santa Barbara</a> helpfully tracks them by year and president. Republicans prefer just making stuff up because the facts do not agree with the fantasies they want to push.</div>
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Republicans have claimed Obama is adding to the deficit (while they add to it themselves <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/04/29/republicans-move-add-310-billion-deficit-federal-deficit-year.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">via tax breaks</a> for their rich owners) when in fact he has been steadily reducing the deficit. In fact, last year, Obama <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/13/republicans-threaten-raise-debt-ceiling-deficit-smallest-years.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">shrank the deficit</a> to a 5-year low. And as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/opinion/Paul-Krugman-An-Imaginary-Budget-and-Debt-Crisis.html?hpw&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHedThumbWell&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Paul Krugman points out</a>, there was never a crisis in the first place. As with all their other scandals, it was manufactured by conservatives to advance their anti-Social Security and Medicare agenda.</div>
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Democrats like to believe that when they engage the Right in debate that they do so on more or less equal terms. Both sides are, after all, comprised of sentient human beings. But Republicans have given substance to the old childhood taunt, “I am rubber, you are glue, words bounce off me and stick to you.”</div>
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<br />They are literally impervious to facts.</div>
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And not only is President Obama magically to blame for all Bush’s manifest misdeeds, he is somehow also to blame for every misdeed committed <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/17/rush-limbaugh-floats-conspiracy-plane-crash-happened-distract-border-crisis.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">anywhere in the world</a>.</div>
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Everything that happens is somehow Obama’s fault and John McCain has turned himself into Chuck Norris, able to strangle the butterfly that flapped its wings in Siberia to prevent a typhoon hitting the West Coast. Only John McCain, who voted for the Iraq War, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/18/1314902/-John-McCain-says-if-he-had-been-president-there-might-not-have-been-an-Iraq-War" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">could have stopped</a> the Iraq War.</div>
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This must make sense only to Republicans, who nod their heads sagely.</div>
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If only they could do so in strait jackets, which is arguably where they belong.</div>
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Republicans live in a world where women’s bodies <a href="http://news.discovery.com/human/life/akin-pregnancy-rape-120820.htm" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">magically repel</a> unwanted sperm and where some equally <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/10/mn-republican-bases-economic-agenda-on-theory-that-sprm-enzymes-in-ans-causes-aids/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">mysterious alchemy</a> turns sperm in the anus into the AIDS virus, where such a thing as “<a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/todd-akin-explains-legitimate-rape-controversy-was-all-about-fighting-spiritual-evil" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">legitimate rape</a>” exists and global warming and evolution do not. This is a world where slavery really wasn’t so bad and anyway, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/07/14/arizona_charter_school_history_book_says_whites_envied_freedom_of_slaves/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">whites were the real victims</a>, apparently moping about and wishing they could be slaves too.</div>
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And what do you say to egregious and sustained Republican insistence that racism is a distant memory, or that women have attained equality of pay with men? Of all people, <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/07/20/iraq-war-liar-sen-lindsey-graham-calls-obama-foreign-policy-delusional.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) </a>has no right to call a Democrat delusional, not when the platform and ideology of his party is completely founded on delusion.</div>
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Tough to tell if any of those things are crazier than creationist Ken Ham <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/21/creationist-ken-ham-calls-to-end-space-program-because-aliens-are-going-to-hell-anyway/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">calling for an end to the space program</a> because any aliens we find are going to hell anyway, as though the Space Program was ever a proselytizing effort. In the end, how does one compare and rate samples of excrement? Ham’s real problem is that if the space program continues, we are almost certain to find life on another world – and <a href="http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2014/07/15/NASA-says-its-very-close-to-finding-alien-life/2521405438726/" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">sooner rather than later</a> – thus bringing his creationist fantasy down around his ears.</div>
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This is a world where Kirk Cameron knows more than Stephen Hawking, where <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2012/10/10/kirk-cameron-throws-stones-says-he-is-stoning-victim.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">he </a>and <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2011/09/13/sally-kern-compares-gays-to-terrorists-and-aids-to-violence.html" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(205, 23, 19) !important; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">others </a>can throw stones even while complaining they are being stoned. I could go on, but this article would never end, because, by myself, I can’t keep up with the fast and furious flow of Republican mendacity.</div>
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Far from creating a straw man, Republicans have created a straw country, one where nothing is as it seems, one that has no relationship – not even a passing resemblance – to the actual fact-based world in which we live. In short, Republicans lie. They lie about everything. They even lie about lying.</div>
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The world laughs. The Democrats – and the American people – are left holding the bag.</div>
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-25443248059618853222015-07-24T18:54:00.000-07:002015-07-24T18:54:33.268-07:00ALEC's Scary Corporate Agenda: 7 of Its Most Anti-Democratic and Science-Denying Ideas<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">ALEC's annual gathering revealed how right-wingers will push dangerous legislation across the country. </span></h3>
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<em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/brendan-fischer">Brendan Fischer</a></em>
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<em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2015-07-22T14:30:00-07:00">July 22, 2015</span></span></span></span>
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Starting Wednesday this week, the right-wing American Legislative
Exchange Council, or "ALEC," will bring together hundreds of corporate
lobbyists with state and local politicians at a posh hotel in San Diego
for the group's annual meeting.<br />
<br />
Republican presidential candidate and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/scott-walker-the-first-al_b_7502534.html">ALEC alum Scott Walker</a>,
who has signed over 20 ALEC bills into law, will address this month's
meeting, as well as 2016 GOP presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Ted
Cruz, who participated in ALEC meetings before he joined the U.S.
Senate.<br />
<br />
Protesters are planning on bringing a little transparency to the proceedings, <a href="http://standuptoalec.org/san-diego/">by welcoming the candidates and ALEC participants on July 22</a><a href="http://standuptoalec.org/san-diego/">.</a><br />
<br />
ALEC, which drafts and markets model bills for legislators, has had a mixed year. Over a dozen companies, including tech giants <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-souweine/google-drops-alec-because_b_5865046.html">Google and Facebook</a>,
stopped funding the group over its role in promoting climate change
denial, yet after the 2014 elections gave Republicans control of 68 out
of 98 state legislative bodies, some states have had few impediments to
the corporate-friendly legislation that ALEC peddles.<br />
<br />
For example, in just the first half of 2015, <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/03/12756/koch-owners-cheer-textbook-plays-wisconsin-alec-politicians">Wisconsin became a "right to work" state</a>
and repealed the prevailing wage, another pro-union law; Michigan
blocked local control over minimum wage and paid sick days; and Texas
banned cities from regulating fracking.<br />
<br />
A look at the San Diego
ALEC agenda tells us more about what ALEC has planned for 2015 and
beyond. Here are seven major initiatives that the right-wing group seeks
to impose on America.<br />
<br />
<strong>1. Attack Federal Efforts to Rein in Carbon Pollution</strong><br />
<br />
Even though California is suffering from a historic drought, the <a href="http://alecclimatechangedenial.org/">climate change deniers</a> on the Environment and Agriculture Task Force will be working on new ways to stymie action addressing carbon emissions.<br />
<br />
In recent years, ALEC has targeted the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," which is a set of rules <a href="http://www2.epa.gov/carbon-pollution-standards/clean-power-plan-proposed-rule">limiting carbon dioxide pollution</a>
from coal plants. At the behest of its funders like Koch Industries,
Peabody Energy, and American Electric Power, ALEC has been organizing a
state-level campaign against the rules: the group organized legislators
to press their state attorneys general into joining <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html">litigation backed by the energy industry</a> that challenges the regulations, adopted a <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20150129165240/http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-concerning-epa-proposed-greenhouse-gas-emission-standards-for-new-and-existing-fossil-fueled-power-plants/">model resolution</a> attacking the plan, and last December adopted a model bill that would create new hurdles for the Plan's implementation.<br />
<br />
At
this month's meeting, the Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task
Force--which is chaired by American Electric Power-- will consider a
"State Power Accountability and Reliability Charter (SPARC)," which
seeks to undermine the Clean Power Plan by declaring that state agencies
cannot implement it. And, the task force's "Energy Subcommittee" will
hold a discussion on "State Responses to EPA’s Proposed Clean Power
Plan."<br />
Another model bill on the ALEC agenda is the "Environmental
Impact Litigation Act," which effectively allows corporate interests to
hire a state's Department of Justice as their own private attorneys.
The bill creates a corporate-backed fund for states to sue over federal
environmental laws--such as the EPA's Clean Power Plan--guided by an
"environmental impact litigation advisory committee" made up of
political appointees and representatives of "individuals representing
agriculture and energy trade commissions."<br />
<br />
<strong>2. Undermining Renewable Energy</strong><br />
<br />
ALEC will also double-down on its attacks on rooftop solar and renewable energy.<br />
<br />
For
the last few years, ALEC and funders like Edison Electric Energy have
promoted bills to repeal state Renewable Portfolio Standards, which
require utilities to provide some power from renewable sources. Despite
support from the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity, ALEC has had limited
success in pushing these bills into law, so the group is looking for new
ways to undermine renewable standards.<br />
<br />
The latest effort is
called an "Act Providing Incentives for Carbon Reduction Investments."
The industry-friendly bill would free utilities from the requirement
that they produce more energy from renewable sources, as long as they
claim to make "carbon reduction investments"--which includes
controversial programs like carbon sequestration, or campaigns to
encourage consumers to reduce energy use. This would undermine the
purpose of the renewable standards, which is to promote a shift to
renewable energy.<br />
<br />
<strong>3. Thwart Rooftop Solar</strong><br />
<br />
Solar will also be on the agenda. ALEC has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/the-koch-attack-on-solar-energy.html?_r=0">tried</a> in a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/utilities-sensing-threat-put-squeeze-on-booming-solar-roof-industry/2015/03/07/2d916f88-c1c9-11e4-ad5c-3b8ce89f1b89_story.html">variety</a> of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/09/alec_climate_change_a_fight_over_rooftop_solar_panels_could_decide_america.html">ways</a> to reduce incentives for individuals and businesses to build rooftop solar panels by raising the costs. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/alec-freerider-homeowners-assault-clean-energy">Over the last few years</a>,
ALEC and its utility industry funders have promoted bills to eliminate
"net metering," which gives solar users a credit for excess energy they
feed back into the grid, and have been behind efforts to impose a
surcharge on rooftop solar users. With few exceptions, these efforts
have failed, thanks to strong support for solar from conservatives who
like the self-sufficiency that rooftop solar provides, and the fact that
in many states the solar industry is creating manufacturing and
construction jobs.<br />
In San Diego, ALEC will consider a proposal
called a "Resolution Concerning Special Markets for Direct Solar Power
Sales" that aims to prop-up the monopolies enjoyed by traditional
utilities and oppose direct-to-consumer solar sales. It will be coupled
with a presentation called "Consumer Protection Concerns Surround
Rooftop Solar Model Policy." In many states, solar developers are
allowed to install panels on a customer's home or business for free,
then sell the power directly to the consumer, rather than through a
monopoly utility provider like Peabody Energy.<br />
<br />
Direct-to-consumer
energy sales that bypass heavily-regulated monopoly utilities might be
viewed as the sort of "market disruption" that free market adherents
claim to support. After all, ALEC has celebrated the emergence of
ride-sharing companies like Uber because they disrupt taxi monopolies
and allow direct-to-consumer ride sales.<br />
<br />
The key difference is
that ALEC is bankrolled by utility companies. ALEC funders like Peabody
Energy, Duke Energy, and Murray Energy are not pleased about the threat
to profits posed by direct-to-consumer solar, so therefore it must be
crushed, free market principles be damned. Incredibly, the "Resolution
Concerning Special Markets for Direct Solar Power Sales" declares that
direct-to-consumer solar is "antithetical to free markets."<br />
The proposal <a href="https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/research-commentary-direct-solar-and-renewable-sales">appears to come from</a> the climate change deniers at the Heartland Institute.<br />
<br />
<strong>4."Beepocalypse Not"</strong><br />
<br />
At
this meeting, ALEC is denying more than climate change. It also is
apparently denying the mass die-off of bees, which threatens food
supplies--<a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/3a/3/4738/GardenersBewareReport_2014.pdf">two-thirds</a> of crops require bee pollination--and which <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/study-strengthens-link-between-neonicotinoids-and-collapse-of-honey-bee-colonies/">scientists have linked to type of insecticide</a>
produced by ALEC member Bayer and other companies. Until recently,
Bayer had a representative on ALEC's corporate board and has been listed
as the ALEC corporate co-chair in states like Massachusetts, Nevada,
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Texas.<br />
<br />
Bayer has been actively pushing back on the notion that its products contribute to a bee colony collapse. According to a <a href="http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/93/f0/f/4656/FollowTheHoneyReport.pdf">report</a>
from Friends of the Earth, Bayer recently launched a "Bee Care Tour” as
well as a children’s book "in which a friendly neighborhood beekeeper
tells young Toby that the bees are getting sick, but 'not to worry' it's
just a problem with mites, and there is special medicine to make bees
healthy"--medicine that Bayer produces, of course.<br />
<br />
At this month's
ALEC meeting, bee die-off denialists took a clumsy stab at being
clever: in an apparent reference to "Apocalypse Now" (or perhaps Wayne's
World), they titled their presentation, "'Beepocalypse Not."<br />
<br />
<strong>5. Preemption Hypocrisy</strong><br />
<br />
ALEC's new offshoot focused on local government, the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_City_County_Exchange">American City County Exchange</a> (ACCE), will also meet in San Diego.<br />
<br />
Local
democracy has led to some significant policy wins in recent years, with
cities like Philadelphia guaranteeing workers paid sick days, and
places like Denton, Texas banning fracking. ALEC's response to cities
and counties acting as laboratories of democracy has traditionally been
to crush it, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/the-alec-backed-war-on-lo_b_6961142.html">through state "preemption" laws</a> that prohibit local governments from raising the minimum wage, or regulating GMOs, or building municipal broadband.<br />
<br />
With
ACCE, ALEC and its corporate backers are taking the fight directly to
the local level, urging city and county officials on the one hand to
give up their authority to protect the health and economic well-being of
their constituents, and on the other to push policy measures to advance
corporate interests.<br />
<br />
The biggest proactive ACCE initiative is a
push for local right to work laws. In the months following a local right
to work workshop at ACCE’s meeting last December, twelve Kentucky
counties have enacted the anti-union measures, and similar proposals
have been floated in states like Illinois and Pennsylvania. But enacting
right to work on the local level likely violates federal law, so groups
like the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the state Chamber of
Commerce are bankrolling the legal defense of counties that get sued.<br />
<br />
Local
right to work is again on the ACCE agenda for this month's meeting,
with the group expected to officially adopt a Local Right to Work model
bill.<br />
It will also hold a workshop aimed a propping up another
ACCE funder, the payday loan industry: the presentation is titled
"Payday Loans; 'Local Free Market Solutions for a Difficult Policy
Problem.'”<br />
<br />
Besides pushing policy measures that advance the
interests of ACCE's funders, ACCE is also urging local electeds to
accept state preemption laws.<br />
<br />
In
a workshop titled “Understanding State Preemption Laws," ALEC and ACCE
will pitch local officials on why they should let state legislatures
steamroll their authority to protect the health and economic well-being
of their constituents. The workshop will be moderated by Libby Szabo, a
former Colorado state legislator and ALEC state chair who is now a local
official: she resigned from the state legislature just two months after
winning reelection to take a county commissioner appointment, leading
to charges from the editorial board of the conservative <em><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_27337016/colorado-rep-libby-szabo-thumbs-nose-at-voters">Denver Post</a></em> that she was "thumbing her nose at voters."<br />
<br />
The
lesson here is that ALEC supports local control when it advances the
interests of its funders, yet actively works to undermine local
democracy when it threatens corporate profits.<br />
<br />
ALEC's hypocrisy
around the idea "government that is closest to the people governs best"
isn't just limited to city-state relations. Even though ALEC has fought
federal policies like healthcare reform and the Environmental Protection
Agency’s regulation of carbon emissions under the guise of “state’s
rights,” at this month's meeting it will push policies that run contrary
even to that notion. Here again, corporate profits trump anything
resembling principles.<br />
<br />
ALEC will hold a workshop telling state
legislators that they should embrace federal preemption of state
chemical regulation, which happens to benefit ALEC funders like the
American Chemistry Council. The "Environmental Health and Regulation
Subcommittee" will hold a presentation titled "Supporting Chemical
Regulation Preemption Supports Manufacturing," where legislators will
apparently be told it is just swell that the federal Toxic Substances
Control Act will prohibit states from enacting tougher chemical
regulations.<br />
<br />
And, the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force will
consider a proposed "Resolution Urging Congress to Eliminate
Discriminatory State and Local Taxes on Automobile Renters," which calls
on Congress to preempt discriminatory state and local taxes on car
rentals. It is hard to imagine a more blatant piece of
corporate-friendly legislation, yet ALEC continues to insist that only
legislators can propose model bills at its meetings.<br />
<br />
<strong>5. Amend the Constitution</strong><br />
<br />
In
recent years, one of ALEC's top priorities has been to add a balanced
budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And it will be a major focus
of this month's meeting.<br />
<br />
A balanced budget amendment is an idea
that has been bouncing around for decades--even though it would cripple
the federal government's ability to spend on earned benefit programs
like Social Security, and block Congress from responding to economic
downturns or natural disasters--but what is unique about ALEC's push is
that they are trying to do it via an Article V Constitutional
Convention.<br />
<br />
Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides that
thirty-four states (two-thirds) can trigger a convention to propose an
amendment, which must then be ratified by 38 states (three-fourths).
Although this seems like a tall order, in the past year over a dozen
states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention,
adding to at least twelve other states that enacted resolutions years
ago. The proposal has been supported by Koch-backed groups like
Americans for Prosperity and the National Federation of Independent
Business (NFIB).<br />
<br />
Key to the Article V push has been the "Jeffersonian Project," the 501(c)(4) group that ALEC <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/03/alec-funding-crisis-big-donors-trayvon-martin">formed</a>
in 2013 amidst complaints from Common Cause and CMD that ALEC was
violating its 501(c)(3) charitable status by engaging in excessive
lobbying. In order to deflect allegations of lobbying, the "Jeffersonian
Project" is now used to urge legislators to pass ALEC model
legislation, an activity that ALEC used to do directly.<br />
<br />
This year, the Article V strategy dominates the <a href="http://www.alec.org/wp-content/uploads/2015-06-18-IR-35-Day-Mailing.pdf">agenda of ALEC's Task Force on Federalism and International Relations</a>,
with five presentations and two pieces of draft legislation. The task
force's private sector chair is a representative of Americans for Tax
Reform, the anti-tax group founded by Grover Norquist. And, there will
be two separate ALEC-wide policy workshops on the Article V effort, as
well as a reception and dinner titled "States Constitutionally Saving
“The American Dream” Summit Via Balanced Budget Amendment Convention."<br />
Throughout
U.S. history, the Constitution has only been amended through a
two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress on a specific
amendment, which is then ratified by two-thirds of state legislatures.
In contrast, the Article V strategy triggers a full constitutional
convention, and it is unclear whether the delegates could be confined to
only passing one amendment. This fear of a "runaway convention" has led
critics on both the right and left to oppose the Article V strategy.<br />
<br />
ALEC has tried to quell these fears through a <a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/resolution-for-limitations-on-authority-of-state-delegates-to-a-convention-for-proposing-amendments-under-article-v-of-the-us-constitution/">companion bill</a>
declaring that delegates to a convention may not vote on other issues
besides a balanced budget amendment. Yet, at least some amendment
supporters want to open up the Article V process and amendment the
constitution to address an array of issues, like limiting the Commerce
Clause, banning international law in the U.S., and placing term limits
on the Supreme Court, among other items from a right-wing wishlist.<br />
<br />
The
key driver of the broader Article V amendment effort is Citizens for
Self-Governance (CSG), a group led by Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark
Meckler, and whose board includes Wisconsinite Eric O'Keefe. CSG, which
<a href="http://ed.sourcewatch.org/swtest/index.php/Citizens_for_Self-Governance#Funding">receives most of its funding</a>
through foundations such as DonorsTrust that cloak their donors'
identities, has also backed multiple lawsuits related to the "John Doe"
investigation into coordination between Governor Walker's campaign and
Wisconsin Club for Growth, where O'Keefe is a director.<br />
CSG's Convention of States effort has been <a href="http://www.conventionofstates.com/huckabee-and-others-endorse-cos-project/">endorsed</a> by Mike Huckabee (who will be addressing the ALEC conference) and also attracted <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/03/14/the-big-idea-that-glenn-beck-and-david-barton-are-behind/">support</a>
from the likes of Glenn Beck. CSG's "Compact for America" appears on
the ALEC agenda with both a presentation and a model bill, and Meckler
will also address the conference on July 24.<br />
<br />
Another group pushing
an Article V amendment is Compact for America, a Texas-based group
advised by Nick Dranias, formerly of the Goldwater Institute, and
chaired by former Goldwater chair Thomas C. Patterson. This group also
is promoting a model bill at the ALEC meeting, and will hold a full
breakout session on July 23.<br />
<br />
Wisconsin State Rep. Chris Taylor
attended a session on ALEC's Article V plans at the group's 2013
conference. When she expressed hesitation that the public would support
the effort, she was told, "You really don’t need people to do this. You
just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have
both."<br />
<br />
<strong>6. Continue Fighting "Obamacare"</strong><br />
<br />
ALEC
has long tried to undermine the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act. It
produced the "State Legislators' Guide to Repealing Obamacare," and has <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/11354/alec-exposed-sabotaging-healthcare">promoted bills</a> to try blocking the individual mandate in states, and to <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/11/12315/ALEC_nuclear">prohibit insurers</a> from providing subsidies to low-income residents, and to <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12667/alec-obamacare-king-v-burwell">reject the insurance “exchanges”</a> where individuals can buy insurance (which would have had <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/11/12667/alec-obamacare-king-v-burwell">serious repercussions</a> if the U.S. Supreme Court ruled differently in <em>King v. Burwell</em>).<br />
<br />
Despite
repeated failures to overturn the Affordable Care Act through Congress
and the courts, ALEC is continuing to fight the law through the states.<br />
At
this month's meeting, the Health and Human Services Task Force will
consider a bill to limit expansion of Medicaid benefits within the
state, and the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force will have a resolution
on the purported negative impact of Medicaid expansion under the
healthcare law. The task force will also consider a resolution opposing
federal "maintenance of effort" requirements, like those in Obamacare
and also with education funding.<br />
<br />
<strong>7. Fighting to Protect Dark Money</strong><br />
<br />
After
spending hundreds of millions of undisclosed funds on state and federal
elections, ALEC's corporate members will also demand that state
legislators preserve their "right" to anonymously spend money on
politics and buy influence in state legislatures.<br />
<br />
A July 23
workshop titled "Dark Money Debate: What Lawmakers Need to Know about
the First Amendment and Anonymous Political Speech" will promote the
idea that transparency in elections is a bad thing. David Keating of the
Center for Competitive Politics and Jon Riches of the Goldwater
Institute are listed as presenters.<br />
<br />
It is little surprise that corporate interests would peddle secrecy to the hundreds of Republican state legislators at ALEC.<br />
<br />
ALEC's
funders, like the billionaire Koch brothers, have spent millions in
"dark money"--electoral spending that evades donor disclosure laws--in
recent years, secret spending which has increased exponentially since
the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 <em>Citizens United</em> decision.<br />
<br />
Disclosure
of electoral spending has widespread support among the public, and it
still has support among many Republican state lawmakers. ALEC, it seems,
is trying to change that.<br />
<br />
This isn't ALEC's first foray into this
issue. Its 2010 "Resolution in Support of Citizens United" opposes both
the disclosure and shareholder participation endorsed by the majority
in Citizens United. In 2011, ALEC lobbied legislators in states like New
York urging them to reject a proposal requiring corporations get
shareholder approval for political spending. And at ALEC's meeting last
December, ALEC held a similarly themed workshop called "Playing the
Shame Game: A Campaign that Threatens Corporate Free Speech."<br />
<br />
<em>Editor’s note: CMD's Mary Bottari contributed to this article.</em><br />
<br />
<div class="bio-new body_economy">
<div class="author-bio">
Brendan Fischer is general counsel for the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of PR Watch.<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-71785577503838443462015-07-17T11:05:00.002-07:002015-07-17T11:09:15.536-07:00Trump Is Such A Liar That Politifact Is Worried About Becoming ‘The Trump Channel’<br />
<a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/" title="The Knowledge You Crave">
<img alt="Addicting Info" src="http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/addicting+info+masthead.jpg" height="88" width="640" />
</a><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/16/trump-is-such-a-liar-that-politifact-is-worried-about-becoming-the-trump-channel/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Trump Is Such A Liar That Politifact Is Worried About Becoming ‘The Trump Channel’">Trump Is Such A Liar That Politifact Is Worried About Becoming ‘The Trump Channel’</a></span></h2>
<div class="meta">
<span class="posthilit">Author</span>: <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/author/blair/" rel="author" title="Posts by Charles Topher">Charles Topher</a>
<span class="date">July 16, 2015 1:33 pm</span></div>
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<span class="date"> </span><img alt="Trump Is Such A Liar That Politifact Is Worried About Becoming ‘The Trump Channel’" class="Thumbnail thumbnail loop " src="http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/133-216x160.jpg" height="474" width="640" /></div>
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Donald Trump is the worst America has to offer. He has <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/14/paul-krugman-slams-donald-trump-hes-a-belligerent-loudmouth-racist-video/" target="_blank">zero class</a>
and not a single redeeming quality. Every time he opens his mouth he
embarrasses himself, his party and his country. Extraterrestrials will
surely use him as the last straw in deciding not to make contact with
humans.<br />
<br />
Yet this man, this <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/13/even-fox-news-owner-rupert-murdoch-wants-donald-trump-to-stfu-tweets/" target="_blank">absolute disgrace to humanity</a>,
is somehow polling at the top of the Republican field. It’s really not
that difficult to figure out. Trump’s blowhard style and penchant for
outright lying to his followers will get him far with the modern
conservative base.<br />
<br />
They want to hear all about his phony statistics, his massive wealth and his success as a <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/15/delicious-irony-donald-trump-could-be-replaced-by-george-lopez-on-celebrity-apprentice/" target="_blank">reality TV star</a>.
Of course they do. The modern Republican base are a bunch of Donald
Trump wannabes. They want enough money that they can crap on the poor
all day long. They want enough public exposure that they can say the
dumbest of things and still be taken seriously by other numbskulls.<br />
<br />
Donald Trump is the perfect hero for the “patriots” of the new conservative movement.<br />
<br />
But Trump’s popularity isn’t winning the hearts of the people at
Politifact. A trusted fact-checker, Politifact has been busy since the
start of Trump’s campaign debunking the mound of garbage spewed forth
from his mouth.<br />
Trump’s statements about fellow Republican Jeb Bush, the Obamacare
website, Mexico sending us their rapists, all of those ridiculous things
have rated anywhere from mostly false to “pants on fire.” Here’s a
summary of what Politifact has dealt with from the Donald:<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="courtesy-of-the-resizer zoom-in" data-hi-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/files/2015/07/trumpfcs.png&w=1484" data-low-res-src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/files/2015/07/trumpfcs.png&w=480" height="285" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/files/2015/07/trumpfcs.png&w=1484" width="840" /><br />
Notice the zero next to “true.” Nothing Trump has said that’s been researched by Politifact is true. Nothing.<br />
<br />
PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/07/15/politifact-editor-i-dont-want-to-turn-the-whole-site-into-the-donald-trump-channel/" target="_blank">told</a> the<i> Washington Post</i>:<br />
<blockquote>
“Donald Trump has been making a lot of comments that get
into the headlines and he’s been saying a lot of things that sound
wrong, and that’s a combination that attracts fact-checkers. I don’t
want to turn this whole sit into the Trump Channel.”</blockquote>
Trump’s campaign has apparently officially given up bothering to try
making their candidate sound truthful. Holan noted that in the beginning
of the run, there was some contact with Trump’s campaign when they
tried fact-checking his stupidity, but lately they haven’t responded at
all.<br />
<br />
And still his numbers grow, his popularity increases, and his nose
gets longer. It certainly will be interesting to watch all of this <a href="http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/07/02/heres-a-roundup-of-all-the-companies-that-fired-donald-trump-since-he-came-out-as-racist/" target="_blank">blow up in his face</a> when the real campaigning and debating happens.<br />
<br />
<i>Featured image via <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-DSfvYCKwY" target="_blank">screen capture</a></i><br />
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-14168463907420162862015-05-12T19:23:00.000-07:002015-05-12T19:23:43.162-07:00ALEC’s big lie: Scott Walker’s pseudo-science, austerity without end, and the truth about right-wing governors and the economy <br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">SALON</span></h2>
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>
</b><span class="dateline"><b>
<span class="toLocalTime" data-tlt-epoch-time="1431452100">Tuesday, May 12, 2015 01:35 PM EDT</span></b> </span>
<br />
<h2>
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/12/alecs_big_lie_scott_walkers_pseudo_science_austerity_without_end_and_the_truth_about_right_wing_governors_and_the_economy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">ALEC’s big lie: Scott Walker’s pseudo-science, austerity without end, and the truth about right-wing governors and the economy </span></a></h2>
<h2>
Republicans don't believe in global warming
science, but love unscientific tax "science" that benefits the rich
</h2>
<span class="byline"><a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Paul Rosenberg"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/paul_rosenberg/" rel="author">Paul Rosenberg</a></span><br />
<br />
<div class="topics">
Topics:
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "alec_2"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/alec_2">ALEC</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "elections_2016"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/elections_2016">Elections 2016</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "scott_walker"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/scott_walker">Scott Walker</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/business/" rel="tag">Business News</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/politics/" rel="tag">Politics News</a> </div>
<div class="featuredMedia">
<a class="lightBox" href="http://media.salon.com/2015/04/scott_walker10.jpg" title="ALEC's big lie: Scott Walker's pseudo-science, austerity without end, and the truth about right-wing governors and the economy"><img alt="ALEC's big lie: Scott Walker's pseudo-science, austerity without end, and the truth about right-wing governors and the economy" src="http://media.salon.com/2015/04/scott_walker10.jpg" title="ALEC's big lie: Scott Walker's pseudo-science, austerity without end, and the truth about right-wing governors and the economy" /></a><span class="caption">Scott Walker <span class="photoCredit">(Credit: AP/Lefteris Pitarakis)</span></span></div>
<div class="featuredMedia">
<span class="caption"><span class="photoCredit"> </span></span></div>
Republican governors’ <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/04/23/scott_walker_forever_tarnished_republican_governors_have_tanked_the_gop_brand/">woeful economic records</a> are
crippling what would normally be the strongest chance the party has to
capture the White House. Historically, the statehouse-to-White-House
pathway is far more viable than the route through the Senate, yet GOP
governors’ records offer little to run on in a general election. Healthy
state-level growth is—at least traditionally—a basic resume
requirement.<br />
<br />
I
have argued that the GOP’s perceived advantage on the economy is
entirely a matter of illusion, citing Erik Zuesse’s “They’re Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records,” 1910-2010, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/04/11_economic_facts_about_the_presidency_that_show_how_hillary_clinton_can_win/">a point that Salon’s Sean McElwee has since reinforced,</a>
citing “11 reasons why America does worse under the GOP.” But the
national picture is not the only place to look for such evidence. The
failure of GOP ideology on the state level deserves further scrutiny as
well, particularly with so many governors and ex-governors in the race.
The 2012 study <a href="http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/snakeoiltothestates">“Selling Snake Oil To The States,”</a>
which demolished the tax-slashing prescription package offered by ALEC
(the American Legislative Exchange Council) and right-wing economist
Arthur Laffer, helps to define the parameters of GOP state-level
economic policy.<br />
<br />
But ALEC is only one of several such
organizations, and Peter Fisher, who co-authored the “Snake Oil” study,
has studied their work as a whole, and found it dismally deficient. In
2005, he authored a book published by the Economic Policy Institute,
“Grading Places: What Do the Business Climate Rankings Really Tell
Us?,” then in 2013, Good Jobs First <a href="http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/gradingplaces">published his updated analyis</a>,
which covered four state rankings still being published, as well as two
more sophisticated guides which at least try to simplistically model
actual tax costs—though with severely limited success.<br />
<br />
The
four indexes are the The ALEC-Laffer Economic Competitiveness Index;
the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index; the Beacon Hill
Institute’s State Competitiveness Report; and the Small Business and
Entrepreneurship Council’s U.S. Business Policy Index. The last combines
a broad range of 46 factors—but only 12 dealing with tax progressivity
actually matter in the rankings—just one indication of how much
confusion reigns in this field. Another indication: states ranking high
in one index often rank low in another. Most importantly, there’s no
relation between scoring well and actual economic performance. The
entire “business climate” cottage industry which drives so much of the
GOP’s state-level economic agenda is nothing but baseless
pseudo-science.<br />
<br />
Thus, ironically, at the same time that Republicans are at war with <em>actual</em>
climate science, they are routinely invoking economic articles of
faith, reflected in the bogus field of “business climate” studies which
directly guides their policies on the state level, and defines their
economic outlook more generally. It’s a commonplace for Republicans like
John Boehner to profess ignorance regarding climate science, while
pretending to know that “every proposal that has come out of this
administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy
and killing American jobs.” Not only have recently emerging fossil fuel
industry troubles, coupled with renewable advances, which I wrote about
recently, made Boehner’s job-killing claims look foolish on their face,
the entire background for such economic self-assurance—reflected both in
conservative orthodoxy and far too much of “conventional wisdom”—turns
out to be nothing but hot air.<br />
<br />
In the introduction to “Grading
Places,” Fisher writes, “The six reports we review in detail all purport
to measure the competitiveness of a state for business activity, and
all emphasize the importance of taxes. Three focus exclusively on some
measure of state taxes on business; the others include nontax factors
but state tax policy still plays a prominent role in their
calculations.”<br />
<br />
But as Fisher later notes, the reality is that tax
policy plays a decidedly minor role in most business decision-making,
because taxes themselves are a relatively minor cost: “[A]ll state and
local taxes on businesses combined (including corporate and individual
income taxes, sales taxes, plus local property taxes) represent only
about 1.8 percent of total business costs on average for all states.”
That’s clearly not a dominant consideration, but the <em>kinds</em> of
taxes these groups focus on represent an even smaller share: “Corporate
income taxes, in turn, are only about 9.5 percent of that 1.8 percent,
or 0.17 percent, according to one estimate.”<br />
<br />
There’s even a good
case that these “pro-business” groups are exactly the opposite of what
they purport to be, given how the needs of established big businesses
and the far more numerous small startups diverge. “In fact, a state tax
system that relies heavily on progressive income taxes is probably the
most supportive of new business and innovation,” Fisher writes.
“Start-ups and young firms typically lose money, and owe no income taxes
as a result. By contrast, firms must pay sales and property taxes no
matter what their level of profitability, so states that depend more
heavily on those taxes create a heavier burden on start-ups and young
businesses in those critical formative years.”<br />
Even if the role of
taxes weren’t inflated and misrepresented, profound problems would
still remain with these rating guides. “An examination of the four most
prominent ‘business climate’ ratings of state tax systems finds them to
be deeply flawed and of no value to informing state policy,” Fisher says
in the executive summary, before ticking through a list of glaring
flaws, starting with perhaps the most fundamental: “They produce state
rankings that bear little relation to actual taxes paid in one state
versus another.” Astonishing, perhaps, but when interviewed, Fisher
quickly confirmed it. “These are purporting to measure business climate,
or in some cases, more narrowly, business tax climate. But even when
they’re just narrowly focused on business tax climate, they’re not
measuring what businesses actually pay,” he said. They often total up
“points” for various features of the tax code—number and width of
brackets, for example—rather than looking directly at actual tax bills
paid.<br />
<br />
It’s not rocket science, Fisher pointed out. “There are
fairly simple ways of coming up with a rough average of how much
business tax are in one state for another. You just look at business
taxes collected as a percent of the state GDP for example or personal
income.” But that’s not what the “business climate” indexes do. “They
often bear so little correlation that you really wonder what they are
measuring,” Fisher said. “If their goal is to measure how much
businesses paying what state versus another, why don’t they just rely on
one of these other approaches instead cobbling together this index
number that turns out to not being much?”<br />
<br />
As already mentioned, the <em>U.S. Business Policy Index</em>
combines a broad range of 46 factors, but only 12 dealing with tax
progressivity actually matter in the rankings. This little tidbit
deserves more scrutiny for the insight it provides into how this field
of “study” actually works, and what a real pseudo-science looks like.
More specifically, the report states, “When the 12 measures of
progressive taxes are combined, the state scores range from zero (in
Wyoming, with no individual or corporate income taxes and no estate or
inheritance tax) to 73.4 (in California).” In sharp contrast, “The
ranges between the lowest and highest scores on the other categories is a
fraction of this amount, ranging from just 3.7 points for the labor
policy variables to 11.8 points for government regulation.” Indeed, a
chart showing how states score from lowest to highest shows virtually no
visible trend for any of the other categories.<br />
<br />
In real social
science—like all science—a major goal is to isolate the smallest number
of factors that produce a given outcome. First you eliminate the
extraneous factors, then you can study how the factors that matter
interact with one another. That’s how knowledge gets accumulated over
time. There’s nothing wrong with studying 46 factors in the first place,
as the USBPI does, but there’s a <em>big</em> problem with continuing
to study them when most of them turn out to be irrelevant. Of course, in
this case, nothing real is being measured—only an abstract aggregate
“score”. But the principle remains the same: factors that only
contribute noise to the score should be eliminated from calculating it.
And yet, the USBPI remains overloaded with 34 items and all of three
categories which are minor distractions at best, if not entirely
irrelevant.<br />
<br />
The reason for this should be obvious: the USBPI was created for <em>political</em>
purposes, to serve multiple related, but not identical, agendas. The
one that really matters is promoting regressive taxation, so the rest
turn out not to really matter. But saying so outright would clash with
the political agenda of crafting a broader appeal. So the index
continues to include a large majority of irrelevant items. It goes
without saying that nothing remotely similar happens with climate
science. In climate science, tests of statistical significance are run
all the time, and factors that fail to make the cut are eliminated from
causal accounts—at least until some new evidence for them can be found.<br />
<br />
While
four of the measures are simple indexes, two are a bit more
sophisticated, examples of what are called “represenative firm models,”
prepared by brand-name accounting firms: the Council on State Taxation’s
<em>Competitiveness of State and Local Business Taxes on New Investment</em>, and the Tax Foundation’s <em>Location Matters</em><em>. </em> As
Fisher wrote, “These mathematical models allow for more complexity and
nuance because they acknowledge that different companies and facilities
vary greatly in how they interact with tax codes and they are aimed at
measuring how tax systems impact plant expansions or relocations.” But
he went on to say “Unfortunately, both models have serious flaws and
fail to take full advantage of the methodology,” and elsewhere, he
wrote, “both are weakened by simplifying assumptions that lead to
misleading results.” When I interviewed him, Fisher was even more
critical of what they had done.<br />
<br />
“I probably shouldn’t have used
the term mathematical model, when I think about it,” Fisher said,
“because all they’ve really done in these other studies is reduce the
state corporate income tax form, and property tax law to spreadsheet
formulas…. It’s like tax preparation software to you buy.” Put simply,
the measures “model” the tax bill paid by “representative firms” in each
state—with some glaring omissions (COST ignores tax incentives, for
example)—but <em>not</em> the economic conditions in which they would do
business, as the term “model” would seem to imply. The COST model
“assumes every facility sells five percent of its output in-state,
whether it is located in, say, California or North Dakota,” for example.
Out-of-state sales levels are also set arbitrarily and unrealistically
as well.<br />
<br />
Still, compared to the four index measures, “that is a
much better yardstick of what businesses are actually going to pay,”
Fisher said. While the tax codes may not be completely modeled, and the
business assumptions may be unrealistic in some ways, it still looks
much better than how the index are created.<br />
<br />
As Fisher described
the typical process of analyzing tax features, “You just take each one
by itself and add them up. So you say ‘We’re going to give you five
points for having only two tax brackets. We’re going to give you three
points for having a top rate under 10%. We’re going to give you one
point for not having a state minimum wage.’ Then you add the points up,
and you might have 50, 75, 100 different tax features, and you just add
them all up and you’ve got a number. Well, that’s pretty meaningless
number, and it’s pretty arbitrary how you decide to weight those
different features.” Suddenly, modeling a “representative firm” that
sells as much in state in California as it does in North Dakota starts
to look pretty good—even though it’s still far from being realistic.<br />
These models, though, are still far from the standard form of analysis used in social science.<br />
<br />
This doesn’t mean that indexes are <em>necessarily</em>
misguided. Fisher goes on to say, “To a significant degree, the
legitimacy of an index depends on how well it mimics a more
sophisticated statistical approach.” However, “As we shall see, the
indexes reviewed here fail this test.”<br />
<br />
Another fundamental problem
is the very existence of a “business climate,” as a meaningful concept,
which Fisher also remarks on:<br />
<blockquote>
It is not clear that
the very concept of “business climate” or “competitiveness index” for an
entire state or metro area makes sense to begin with. Charles Skoro has
argued that “the usefulness of the business climate concept depends on
the existence of a set of indicators that are <em>measurable</em>, that have <em>substantial effects </em>on business outcomes, and that are truly <em>generic</em>—they influence business activity in a more or less uniform manner regardless of industry, region, or time period.”</blockquote>
As
with the more limited example of the USBPI, there may be strong
political reasons why talk about a “business climate” has a broad
appeal, but that doesn’t tell us anything about whether such general
“business climates” actually exist. What may be good for one particular
industry—at least in the short run—may not be very helpful for
businesses in general, and could even be <em>dis</em>advantageous for some other industries. There is simply no advance guarantee, one way or the other.<br />
<br />
Fisher continues:<br />
<blockquote>
Others
have made similar arguments: that the factors important to location
and expansion decisions are industry-specific, and that the conditions
conducive to growth can vary tremendously within a state.<br />
They
also argue—and we agree—that metropolitan regions, not states, are
the meaningful unit of competition for business investment decisions.
New York City bears little resemblance to Buffalo; the same is true for
El Paso and Houston and for San Jose and San Bernardino.</blockquote>
In short, the entire enterprise may simply be ill-conceived. On the other hand, there <em>are</em>
some kinds of policies which do make broad-based sense—but they reflect
a much broader mindset than just thinking about “business climate.”
Elsewhere, Fisher writes, “In the long run of economic history, the only
way to achieve broadly shared prosperity is to increase productivity.
Only if more goods and services are produced per capita, can more goods
and services can be <em>consumed</em> per capita (or the work week shortened without reducing the standard of living).”<br />
<br />
He
goes on to identify four ways this can be achieved: First, capital
investments “make the economy more productive,” second, technological
advances “increase the efficiency of production,” create “new uses of
existing resources” or “new products and services,” third, “investments
in ‘human capital’” (education and training) make labor more productive,
and fourth, an economy’s overall productivity is maximized via full
employment and “a labor force that remains healthy and on the job.” Such
are the prescriptions for making an economy as productive as possible.
But what makes sense for society as a whole is not necessarily what
makes sense for individual actors, particularly greedy, selfish,
sociopathic ones. And that’s arguably the whole purpose behind the
“business climate” racket—to bamboozle the public into seeing the world
the way that greedy, selfish corporate sociopaths do.<br />
<br />
One final
point drives home just how bogus “business climate” studies are: their
lack of development in response to criticism over time. Once again, the
contrast with <em>real</em> climate science is instructive. In the
climate modeling field, there has been long-term interaction between
model-building and criticisms, most notably focused on important
elements of the physical climate system which were missing from climate
models at various stages. Over time, more elements were added to
climate models, their integration has improved, and the models have
become more fine-grained, producing specific outputs for smaller and
smaller geographic areas. All these have been clearly recognizable signs
of progress,. Researchers have also undertaken significant studies
relying on the results of a whole suite of models, reflecting the fact
that there are reliable similarities in their results. This is what a
successful model-development process looks like.<br />
In contrast,
Fisher said, “I see very little change in these models over the years….
In fact, the accompanying text in these reports hardly changes
year-to-year. So, for example, the latest Tax Foundation report that
came out in December last year still has exactly the same wording
attacking my 2005 first edition of <em>Grading Places.</em> So they
haven’t even bothered to note the second edition. They haven’t
acknowledged any of the specific criticisms of their model, really.”<br />
<br />
The
indexes themselves aren’t improved, in part because it would interfere
with their propaganda usefulness, Fisher believes. “The measures stay
the same. I think, in part, because when they issue a new one they want
to say, ‘Well look what North Carolina jumped 15 places in the ranking
this year. Why? Because they cut all these taxes.’” That sort of
comparison would be harder to make if the index itself were to change.
“So in part I think it’s because they’re not really serious attempts to
measure something meaningful. They have a policy agenda in mind, and the
way they constructed it serves that policy agenda, and they have no
real incentive to change. Part of it is because they just want to have a
consistent one from year-to-year, they don’t want to admit, probably,
that there’s anything wrong with the earlier ones, and they want to be
able to make year-to-year comparisons.”<br />
<br />
In short, there’s nothing
serious involved in what they do. “They are basically recipes for state
fiscal austerity, for cutting government spending across the board, and
reducing taxes on business, but also on individuals,” Fisher summarized.
That’s what they are designed to advocate for, so why bother with
anything else?<br />
<br />
Speaking specifically about ALEC’s index, he noted,
“They acknowledged no positive role for government whatsoever. There’s
nothing the government does that’s important in promoting economic
growth, it only enters negatively. So, the more government employees you
have, the worse your ranking. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing.
They could be elementary school teachers, firefighters, it doesn’t
matter, the more you have, the worse your economy is going to be
according to these measures.”<br />
<br />
It is, in short, a rationale for
austerity without end—which simply cannot work. “It’s largely states
that are responsible for education at all levels, not the federal
government. It’s largely states they have responsibility—states and
localities—have responsibility for investing in infrastructure. You
can’t have an economy without a transportation system, without public
utilities, water and sewage, high-speed Internet in rural areas,
everybody acknowledges they’re important. And so, when you undercut the
funding source for those kinds of public investment, you’re undercutting
the ability of the state to increase productivity and support economic
growth in the long run.”<br />
<br />
But that’s the playbook that state-level
Republicans have embraced, legislators and governors alike. Which is
just one more reason why today’s crop of presidential wannabes are so
weak on the economy. The political press won’t tell you so, of course.
But it’s a profound vulnerability just waiting to be exploited—and it’s
only likely to get worse as different GOP governors and ex-governors
compete with one another in the GOP primary.<br />
<br />
Fisher leaves us with
one final thought worth stressing—the short-term strategies these
measures push are, in the long-run, ultimately destructive of income
growth and wealth-creation:<br />
<blockquote>
Increase in productivity
is what is required for increase in incomes. And what we see with these
indexes is they’re promoting, almost exclusively, a competitive strategy
of your state capturing a bigger share of investment, this really what
it’s about. How can you, in effect, steal capital investments from your
neighbors? That does nothing for the national economy, to have states
competing for investment that’s going to occur somewhere anyway. What it
does is undercut their ability to fund that traditional state role in
supporting economic growth through investments in education,
infrastructure, and even health.</blockquote>
In short, it’s not a
prescription for growing an economy of the future. But some version of
it or another will be the GOP vision for 2016.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a class="toggle-group toggleOnScroll trigger remember refreshAds gaTrackPageEvent on" data-delay="15" data-toggle-group="story-13961300" href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/12/alecs_big_lie_scott_walkers_pseudo_science_austerity_without_end_and_the_truth_about_right_wing_governors_and_the_economy/" id="yui_3_18_1_12_1431483225659_805">
</a>
Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist,
senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera
English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-56676881849744744052015-01-01T10:41:00.001-08:002015-01-01T10:41:39.680-08:00In 2014 America Abandoned Its Constitution And Devolved Into a Fascist Theocracy <br />
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<span class="author-byline">By: Rmuse</span>
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<span class="published-date">Thursday, January, 1st, 2015, 9:48 am</span> </div>
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<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2013/05/24/house-republicans-unconstitutional-action-hijack-obamas-power-keystone-xl.html/constitution-burning" rel="attachment wp-att-123719"><img alt="constitution-burning" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-123719" height="322" src="http://src2.politicususa.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/constitution-burning-485x322.jpeg" width="485" /></a>
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It is usual at the end of another calendar year to
look hopefully at the New Year, but at this point, and judging by the
events of 2014, there is very little to look forward to in America in
2015. In fact, it is getting extremely difficult to look ahead at the
coming year with anything other than dread and despair as America
devolves into a theocratic, racist, and fascist police state that the
government cannot, and apparently will not, even attempt to stop. It is
not that 2014 was devoid of good news; quite the contrary. But no
amount of jobs, Wall Street profits, economic growth, or falling gas
prices can counterbalance the distress Republicans, racists, and
religious Supreme Court justices have wrought on this sad nation with no
end, or hope, in sight.</div>
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First, it is noteworthy that the only good
developments of 2014 were at the hands of President Obama and his
executive actions; particularly acting on the existential issue of
“global” climate change and his landmark agreement with China. The
President’s action on immigration enforcement was long overdue, but in
his defense he did wait patiently for House Republicans to adopt, or at
least consider, the bipartisan Senate immigration reform bill to no
avail. What his action did was reveal why 2015, like the past six years,
will be depressing for Americans who will watch a Republican-controlled
Congress waste taxpayer time and money in a crusade to undo a valid
executive order the GOP has deemed unconstitutional; despite the
conservative Roberts Court already ruled the President was well within
his constitutional authority like every Republican president since
Dwight D. Eisenhower. But that is the price Americans have to pay for
living in a nation with a party so steeped in racial animus for a Black
President that they have deemed his entire Presidency is
unconstitutional.</div>
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Maybe more than anything, seeing the U.S.
Constitution treated like an afterthought, if not a worthless comic
book, by conservatives, evangelicals, law enforcement, Republicans, and
the Supreme Court is all the proof a reasonable human being needs to
realize America is doomed. Republicans claim anything President Obama
does in unconstitutional at the same time they attempted to pass
legislation authorizing approval to build a foreign corporation’s tar
sand pipeline across America. That decision is the exclusive right of
the Executive Department and yet, one of the first actions a Republican
Congress will undertake to repay their Koch debt will be patently
unconstitutional and no-one will dare utter a complaint any more than
they will over the Republican drive to enforce Vatican rules banning all
forms of birth control with personhood legislation; more on that in
another article.</div>
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Republicans in state after state were hastily
passing legislation abolishing other Americans’ 14th Amendment rights
due to their adherence to bastardized American Christianity and
empowerment by the Vatican contingent on the Supreme Court. History will
show that it was in 2014 that 5 conservative Catholics on the Highest
Court in the land deconstructed the religious clauses in the 1st
Amendment to the Constitution to expedite evangelical Christians and the
United States Council of Catholic Bishops’ ascendance to wield ironclad
authority over the religious freedom of the rest of the population.
Through it all, not one politician had the courage or conviction to
inform the American people that every dirty attempt to deny women the
right to make their own health choices, or gays to marry the person they
love, was founded in an archaic religious text because they were, and
still are, terrified of committing the mortal sin of speaking out
against or opposing theocracy. Speaking of mortal sins, the past six
months have revealed that there is no greater sin than speaking out
against out-of-control and murderous law enforcement officials doing
their due diligence to eviscerate the Constitutional protections
afforded all Americans.</div>
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If racist police officers were not gunning down
unarmed African Americans with impunity ending their Constitutional
right to life with approval of the judicial system, they were
threatening Americans opposed to fascist police tactics complete with
battlefield gear. Instead of supporting and defending the U.S.
Constitution, they took great pleasure in denying Americans their First
Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly. All, by the way, with
approval and support of Republicans and conservatives as blatantly
racist as the police abusing African Americans whether civilians or
fellow police officers. Law enforcement was also complicit in aiding
and abetting, through direct support, a seditious white man and his
well-armed Oath Keeper, Constitutional Sheriffs and Police Officers
Association (CSPOA) militia intent on initiating a second revolution;
with impunity and ardent support of conservative media and Republicans
with no more regard for the Constitution as they do African Americans,
poor people, elderly Americans, Veterans, or children.</div>
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America may have been an exceptional nation at one
time, but the country began its downward spiral thirty years ago when
Republicans and conservatives decided, and convinced many Americans,
their mortal enemy was the federal government; a federal government
created by the U.S. Constitution. Now, that very Constitution has all
but been rendered null-and-void either by government fear of opposing
sedition, or an all-powerful evangelical movement with avid support of
the conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court.</div>
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Throughout history, other peoples have sat idly by
and watched their freedoms eroded, and finally abolished, by fascist
religious, corporate, and military-style enforcers, and America is
rapidly heading in the same direction with the same results. One would
like to say this country is at a crossroads, or nearing a tipping point,
of which there is no return, but according to what this nation has
suffered throughout 2014 at the hands of fascist police, armed militias,
evangelical fanatics, and a theocratic Supreme Court, the scales are
tipped. America is on the same course as 1930s Nazi Germany and the Koch
brothers are more than happy to fund this country into oblivion. If
2014 is any indication, 2015 is not going to be a Happy New Year.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-91201806942910614082015-01-01T06:28:00.002-08:002015-01-01T06:28:38.121-08:00Connection Revealed: Eat Fast Food, Vote Republican <br />
<h1 id="blog-title">
<a href="http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/">
Who Hijacked Our Country
</a>
</h1>
<h3 class="date-header">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></h3>
<h3 class="date-header">
<span style="font-size: small;">Tuesday, December 23, 2014</span></h3>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="4277881895807949989"></a>
<h2 class="post-title">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/2014/12/connection-revealed-eat-fast-food-vote.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Connection Revealed: Eat Fast Food, Vote Republican</a>
</span></h2>
<div class="post-body">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Fast/processed/convenience
“food” not only has the health risks we already know about — obesity,
heart disease, diabetes, et al. In addition, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/fast-food-danger-makes-obesity-look-child-play-204241294.html">too much fast food affects your brain</a>. And not in a good way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">According to a recent study published in <i id="yui_3_16_0_1_1419292061877_1158">Clinical Pediatrics</i>: “Our findings provide evidence that eating fast food is linked to another problem: poorer academic outcomes.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">That's sugarcoating-speak for “It makes you dumb. Upid-stay.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Think
there's a connection between the mass overconsumption of fast food, and
the fact that millions of voters keep getting conned into voting
against their own interests? Let's have a look:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">1.
Tens of millions of Americans have spent years — decades — clogging
their brains with boatloads of high fructose corn syrup, pink slime,
white flour, and hundreds of “additives” your high school chemistry
teacher never heard of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">2. Tens of millions of Americans believe:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A)
Clean air, drinkable water and renewable energy sources are just phony
excuses for Barack Hussein Osama, the U.N. and the Trilateral Commission
to Seize Our Property;</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">B)
The aforementioned villains from the previous sentence are also
planning to take away our guns the minute we let our guard down. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">C)
The economy is being strangled by too many cumbersome regulations. As
soon as we eliminate these intrusive laws that coddle workers, consumers
and the environment, millions of new jobs will be created so fast our
heads will be spinning.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">D)
The Great Crash of 2008 was caused by labor unions, non-profit
organizations, too many Wall Street regulations which straitjacketed the
banks so they couldn't do their jobs, and millions of greedy homeowners
who just couldn't wait to buy a house they couldn't afford so they'd
get foreclosed and lose everything they had. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">E) There's no such thing as global warming; it's just God hugging us closer. Etc.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Connect the dots.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span><div class="blogger-labels">
Labels: <a href="http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/search/label/fast%20food%20affect%20on%20brain" rel="tag">fast food affect on brain</a></div>
</div>
<em>posted by Tom Harper @ <a href="http://whohijackedourcountry.blogspot.com/2014/12/connection-revealed-eat-fast-food-vote.html" title="permanent link">12:49 AM</a></em>NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-88084047643921487352015-01-01T06:15:00.004-08:002015-01-01T06:17:10.217-08:0010 of the Worst GOP Outrages of 2014<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/10-worst-gop-outrages-2014?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10 of the Worst GOP Outrages of 2014</a></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">From rancher Cliven Bundy to the war on voting rights, this list will make you tear your hair out.</span></h3>
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<i><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2014-12-24T11:54:00-08:00">December 24, 2014</span></span></span></span>
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</div>
With 2014 coming to a close, it's worth remembering all the stuff we
want to leave behind as we embrace the new year. Among these things are
a whole host of outrages from the Republican Party. We present 10 of
the worst and most outrageous political acts by the GOP this year:<br />
<br />
<b>1. Exploiting Police Deaths To Attack Democrats:</b> Shortly after the tragic killings of two police officers in New York City, former Republican mayor Rudy Giuliani <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/12/23/giulianis-claim-that-obama-launched-anti-police-propaganda/">used</a> the murders to accuse current mayor Bill de Blasio and President Obama of inciting the murders by criticizing police.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Astroturfing Minority Support:</b> Rather than alter their policies to better the lives of racial minorities, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2014/republican-governors-campaign-photoshops-black-supporter-picture">several Republican candidates</a>decided
to use stock images of African Americans in their campaign
advertisements to create the impression that the party doesn't have a
white Christian male problem of narrowing support from diverse groups.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Promoting Bigotry Under Guise of Religious Freedom:</b> <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/7/wave-of-new-statebillsreligiousfreedomorlicensetodiscriminate.html">Republicans in state legislatures nationwide promoted bills</a>
they claim were designed to advance “religious freedom” but were really
about the right for businesses to use religion as a shield for refusing
services to marginalized groups like gay Americans. In most states,
these bills failed, but <a href="http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/12/mich-legislature-adjourns-without-final-passage-of-license-to-discriminate-bill/">one did pass the Michigan House</a> though it was not signed into law by the Senate.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Waging War On Voting Rights:</b>
As part of their 2014 push, Republicans across the country continued to
push for disenfranchisement-promoting voter ID laws and attacks on
early voting. One Georgia county <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/georgia-county-bizarrely-kills-early-voting-because-it-would-mean-more-people">even killed early voting</a> because officials worried it was “just a way to wring out every last vote.” It wasn't all bad news, though. In Montana <a href="http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/politics/elections/montana-voters-uphold-election-day-registration/article_df293764-64c5-11e4-b71b-1fbb2f15b53e.html">voters chose</a> to keep election-day registration.<br />
<br />
<b>5. Holding Government Hostage to Deregulate Wall Street:</b>
In a last-minute showdown over a government spending bill, the GOP
inserted a provision to deregulate a section of the Dodd-Frank rules on
Wall Street. Despite a defiant stand by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) the
GOP's hostage-taking <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/wall-st-wins-a-round-in-a-dodd-frank-fight/">succeeded</a> as Senate Democrats folded to their demands.<br />
<br />
<b>6. Calling For Crippling Flight Bans to Combat Ebola:</b> <a href="http://time.com/3517197/ebola-frieden-travel-ban/">Despite protests</a>
from virtually the entire medical community, GOP pols exploited panic
about Ebola to call for flight bans to all of West Africa. Rep. Louie
Gohmert (R-TX) <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/louie-gohmerts-ebola-silver-lining-latinos-too-scared-to-cross-border-with-infected-africans/v">even said</a> Obama was trying to import Ebola into the U.S.<br />
<br />
<b>7. Defending An Extremist Who Squatted on Federal Property:</b>Although
much of the right is mum about today's police brutality protests, they
championed the cause of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, whose fans took up
arms to keep the federal government from removing him from federal
property. Leading Republican politicians such as senators Dean Heller
(NV) and Rand Paul (KY) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/rancher-proudly-breaks-the-law-becoming-a-hero-in-the-west.html">defended</a> Bundy's revolt.<br />
<br />
<b>8. Continuing to Deny Climate Change:</b> The GOP continued its long history of resisting any change to climate policy. Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/aug/01/lenar-whitney/republican-congressional-hopeful-says-global-warmi/">said</a> the whole thing was a hoax and “the greatest deception in the history of mankind.” A <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/20/3581897/climate-change-ebola-not-a-scientist/">long string</a>
of Republican pols responded to questions about global warming by
saying “I'm not a scientist,” somehow believing this exempted them from
having to give an opinion on the matter.<br />
<br />
<b>9. Electing the Senate's Newest Right-Wing Extremist:</b> In Iowa, Republicans succeeded in electing Joni Ernst to the Senate. She <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/joni-ernst-bruce-braley-agenda-21-conspiracy-theory">touts</a>
United Nations conspiracies to take Iowan farmland, believes the
president is a dictator, wants the federal minimum wage to be abolished,
and thinks states can just nullify federal laws they dislike.<br />
<br />
<div id="bookmark">
<b>10. Trying Tt Prolong Our 50-Year Embargo on Cuba</b>: While President Obama <a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/cuba-lobbys-right-wing-puppets-attack-obama-historic-shifting-relations">earned broad bipartisan praise and approval</a> from the public and some GOP lawmakers for his Cuba move, some <a href="http://www.alternet.org/world/whats-really-behind-republican-outrage-over-president-obamas-cuba-decision">on the right lined up to pile on him</a>, saying he rewarded tyranny and was practicing appeasement. For these Republicans, 50 years of a bad policy wasn't enough.</div>
<div id="bookmark">
<br /></div>
What were your top GOP outrages of 2014? What do you think we will have to endure next year?<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.666666984558105px;">Zaid Jilani is an <i>AlterNet</i> contributing writer. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/zaidjilani">@zaidjilani</a> on Twitter.</span></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-66840210001152978062014-12-07T10:46:00.000-08:002014-12-07T10:46:16.424-08:00Boehner And Republicans Plan To Reverse Growth Numbers and Kill Jobs<br />
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<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/06/boehner-republicans-plan-reverse-job-growth-numbers.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Boehner And Republicans Plan To Reverse Growth Numbers and Kill Jobs</span></a></h2>
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<span class="author-byline">By: Rmuse</span>
<span class="author-more"><a href="http://www.politicususa.com/author/rmuse-2">more from Rmuse</a></span></div>
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<span class="published-date">Saturday, December, 6th, 2014, 3:58 pm</span> </div>
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<img alt="boehner-jobs-lost" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-171379" height="528" src="http://src2.politicususa.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/boehner-jobs-lost.jpg" width="640" /><br /> </div>
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Americans have had very little good news to celebrate over the past two
years due to declining wages, unpunished racial killings, a rush toward
theocracy, and most recently, the prospect of the most extremist
right-wing Congress in the nation’s history. There has been steady good
news on the economic front in consistent Wall Street gains, record
corporate profits, world-leading oil exports, falling gas prices, and
job growth numbers as a result of the Obama Administration’s rejection
of Republican economic policies. However, now that Republicans will have
control of both houses of Congress, they will start, immediately,
passing legislation to revert back to Bush-era economics and undo the
economic progress of the past six years. </div>
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Republicans campaigned on, and have lied perpetually
about their storied “40 bills” on job creation such as opening up our
world leading oil production for American jobs, building Canadian
corporation TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline, reducing tax rates for the
rich and corporations, balancing the budget, and abolishing
environmental regulations. Boehner and Paul Ryan have complained
bitterly “that all 40 jobs bills are dying over there in the United
States Senate.” </div>
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The problem for Americans is that beginning in January
the 40 jobs bills, all gifts to corporations, will be brought to life
and instead of creating jobs, will create more wealth for the
one-percent at the expense of the poor, the middle class, Americans’
health, and of course jobs; typical Republican economics.</div>
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None of the House jobs bills were designed to create
even one job. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine any American believes
that abolishing overtime pay, giving tax breaks and credits to
corporations outsourcing Americans’ jobs, or providing tax incentives
for the rich and corporations to conceal their wealth offshore will
create jobs; but many are stupid enough to believe lying Republicans and
probably think they did pass 46 jobs bills. But for any American
capable of a 6-year old’s cognitive ability, or noted economic experts,
the GOP’s jobs bills are a joke.</div>
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According to five noted economists who reviewed the
storied jobs bills, three decades of trickle-down economics, current
economic disasters in Republican states, and current economic successes
in blue Democratic states, not one of the Republicans’ so-called “jobs
bills” will have any measurable impact on job growth. In fact, as
history proves, and Republicans intend, the bills serve to kill jobs and
economic growth while promoting the Koch, Wall Street, and Republicans’
agenda; enrich the oil industry and corporations at the middle class
and poor’s expense.</div>
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Some of the more absurd “jobs bills” are worth
noting including four of Boehner’s so-called education bills purported
to be monumental job creators. According to Cecilia Rouse, the dean of
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at
Princeton University, “not one of them would affect job growth like
Republicans claim.” Two of the bills require colleges to offer loan
counseling and push the Department of Education to provide information
for potential college attendees. Rouse said all colleges already have
dedicated loan or financial aid counselors, and like the second bill,
will not create any jobs.</div>
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The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/5">other</a> <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/10">two</a>
education “job creation” bills “seize control of primary education from
the federal government by allowing states to transfer public school
funding to underperforming private and religious charter schools;
something the Obama Education Department champions as part of its (not
so stealthy) anti-union school privatization crusade. Much more on this
in another article.</div>
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Republicans claim that cutting social programs is a
sure-fire job creator, and they cite two special bills they claim boosts
economic growth and creates an explosion of new jobs. One is Paul
Ryan’s Path to Prosperity budget that <a href="http://www.epi.org/blog/ignoring-economic-reality-ryan-budget-slow/">every economist</a>
not with the Heritage Foundation said would “not only harm poor
Americans, but also hinder job creation by depressing demand in the
economy.” The other proposal is a harsh work requirement to qualify for
food stamps that will not create jobs for the majority of recipients
who already work; including active-duty service members.</div>
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An economist at the American Enterprise Institute,
Michael Strain, questioned exactly how imposing work requirements will
create employment opportunities in a slow economy; particularly for the
elderly and children who make up a substantial number of food stamp
recipients. Strain said, “The problem with talking about these things is
in a depressed economy, the jobs need to be there. If the jobs aren’t
there, you can’t impose work requirements.” A Brookings economist, Gary
Burtless, said that “pulling people’s fingernails out in order to get
them to take a job does not add to the total stock of jobs in the
economy.” It is important to note that Republicans are not interested in
adding jobs, just cutting food stamp funding to give the wealthy tax
cuts.</div>
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The largest number of bills are aimed at
deregulating the dirty energy sector (oil, coal, and mining) that
Republicans claim will create jobs by “saving companies a lot of money.”
But according to University of Michigan public policy professor
specializing in environmental policy, Barry Rabe, “It’s sort of a
classic argument” from Republicans to claim that any these bills would
help Americans who are looking for more jobs. Rabe said that the bills
are a response to Obama’s environmental goals that will put a damper on
the Republican goal of “saving energy companies a lot of money.” For
example, <a href="https://beta.congress.gov/113/bills/hr1582/BILLS-113hr1582rfs.pdf">one</a>
“jobs” bill bans the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing
emissions standards, and another “job creation bill” requires the EPA to
give its authority to Republicans in Congress. The total number of
jobs created from both bills is absolutely zero, but the total profit
for the Kochs to decimate the environment, like the other bills
enriching corporations, is immeasurable; but that is the whole point of
every one of the Republicans’ so-called jobs bills.</div>
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The only reason there has been consistent job and
economic growth since Republicans crashed the economy during the Bush
era is because President Obama has rejected their disastrous economic
policies. In fact, the Obama Administration has presided over the best
job creation streak <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/11/10/job-creation-streak-1939-republicans-country-bush.html">since 1939</a>,
and so far 2014 has been the strongest year for job growth since 1999;
all in spite of Republicans’ Herculean attempts to kill jobs, thwart
economic growth, and basically do nothing but bitch and moan about
immigration, Obamacare, Ebola, Benghazi, and something about a WTF war
on religion.</div>
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The President is certainly going to be busy using
his veto over the next two years, because as is their wont, Republicans
will do everything in their power to decimate the economic gains in
jobs, GDP growth, revenue, and <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49450">debt</a>
reduction as a result of a Democrat in the White House. It too bad the
Americans who voted for Republicans according to their promise of
enacting the 46 jobs bills that do not create jobs were too racist, too
religious, and too incredibly stupid to notice that the only reason
there has been record job growth is because Republicans did not control
Congress. Next month that changes and for the next two years they will
do everything in their power to reverse the past few years impressive
job growth numbers, give the rich more tax breaks, kill regulations, and
keep Americans’ wages from growing.</div>
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<strong><em>Boehner And Republicans Plan To Reverse Growth Numbers and Kill Jobs</em></strong> was written by Rmuse for PoliticusUSA.</div>
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© PoliticusUSA, Sat, Dec 6th, 2014 — All Rights Reserved</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-79014645401991850502014-11-25T18:06:00.002-08:002014-11-25T18:06:32.853-08:00Paul Ryan’s stunning hypocrisy: The little-noticed way the GOP proved it’s full of it <h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">SALON</span></h2>
<br />
<br />
<span class="dateline">
<span class="toLocalTime" data-tlt-epoch-time="1416661200">Saturday, Nov 22, 2014 08:00 AM EST</span> </span>
<br />
<h2>
<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/11/22/paul_ryans_stunning_hypocrisy_the_little_noticed_way_the_gop_proved_its_full_of_it/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Paul Ryan’s stunning hypocrisy: The little-noticed way the GOP proved it’s full of it </span></a></h2>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">GOP's still banging the "Grubergate" drum --
but an under-the-radar push from Ryan shows they don't mean a word
</span></h3>
<span class="byline"><a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Elias Isquith"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/elias_isquith/" rel="author">Elias Isquith</a></span><br />
<div class="topics">
Topics:
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "paul_ryan"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/paul_ryan">Paul Ryan</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "jonathan_gruber"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/jonathan_gruber">Jonathan Gruber</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "adam_serwer"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/adam_serwer">Adam Serwer</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "grubergate"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/grubergate">Grubergate</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "cbo"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/cbo">CBO</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "congressional_budget_office"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/congressional_budget_office">Congressional Budget Office</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "peter_orszag"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/peter_orszag">peter orszag</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "mit"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/mit">MIT</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "dynamic_scoring"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/dynamic_scoring">dynamic scoring</a>,
<a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "editors_picks"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/editors_picks">Editor's Picks</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/media/" rel="tag">Media News</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/news/" rel="tag">News</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/politics/" rel="tag">Politics News</a> </div>
<div class="featuredMedia">
<a class="lightBox" href="http://media.salon.com/2014/11/paul_ryan7.jpg" title="Paul Ryan's stunning hypocrisy: The little-noticed way the GOP proved it's full of it"><img alt="Paul Ryan's stunning hypocrisy: The little-noticed way the GOP proved it's full of it" src="http://media.salon.com/2014/11/paul_ryan7.jpg" title="Paul Ryan's stunning hypocrisy: The little-noticed way the GOP proved it's full of it" /></a><span class="caption">Paul Ryan <span class="photoCredit">(Credit: AP/John Minchillo)</span></span></div>
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As a
general rule, I try not to write about hypocrisy in politics. It’s such a
constant, such a fact of life, that it can feel a bit like complaining
about traffic or the weather.<br />
<br />
But just as there’s a difference between waiting an extra 20 minutes during rush hour and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_National_Highway_110_traffic_jam">being stranded in your car for five days</a> — or between a typical snowstorm and what’s <a href="http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/11/21/fdny-sending-out-crews-to-help-with-snow-disaster-in-buffalo/">happening currently in Buffalo</a>
— there’s a difference between the routine hypocrisy of politics and
the kind we saw this week from Republicans in the House. One kind is an
annoyance to be quickly forgotten; the other leaves a mark.<br />
<br />
Before getting into why they’re so egregious, however, let’s pause to recap the Congressional GOP’s recent machinations.<br />
<br />
Aware
no doubt of how President Obama’s announcement this week on immigration
reform would dominate both the media and the public’s attention,
Republicans in the House, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/19/paul-ryan-obama-already-hurting-chances-for-2015-cooperation/?postshare=2661416483616823">led by Rep. Paul Ryan</a>,
have been working to make sure the next head of the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) — which acts as Congress’s honest broker when it
comes to scoring fiscal policy — is not a nonpartisan technocrat, as has
usually been the case, but rather a loyal member of the conservative
movement. And, as former CBO chief <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-11-11/a-party-hack-would-ruin-the-cbo">Peter Orszag recently explained</a>,
because the CBO has no institutional protections from partisan hackery,
and maintains its integrity mostly through tradition, there’s precious
little anyone can do to stop them.<br />
<br />
While there are no doubt many
changes ideologues like Ryan would like to see the CBO make, reports
indicate that the main reason GOPers want to install a right-wing hack
as its chief is in order to make the agency integrate “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_scoring">dynamic scoring</a>”
more fully into its estimations. “Dynamic scoring,” for those who don’t
know, is a phrase conservatives like to use to give a tenet of their
anti-tax religion — lower taxes lead to more revenue! — an intellectual
gloss. More importantly, dynamic scoring is generally the special sauce
right-wing “wonks” put into their projections in order to claim that
massively cutting taxes on the rich won’t lead to fiscal ruin. Remember
the absurd claim that Bush’s tax cuts wouldn’t explode deficits? Thank
dynamic scoring for that.<br />
<br />
<div class="toggle-group target hideOnInit" data-toggle-group="story-13827530" style="opacity: 1;">
So
that’s what’s happening under the radar with the CBO. And if that were
the whole story, it’d probably fall under into the “routine traffic and
weather” category of hypocrisy I mentioned earlier. What makes this more
of a Buffalo snowstorm-level problem is the context — specifically, the
fact that Republicans are destroying yet another norm of American
politics, the nonpartisan CBO, at the very same time that they’re waging
a relentless and disingenuous campaign to persuade the media (and thus
the American people) that the way the Affordable Care Act was written
was a breach of democratic norms without precedent.<br />
<br />
Yes, this is
where “Grubergate,” the most recent of the GOP’s seemingly endless
supply of manufactured outrages, comes in. If you’re not familiar with
this tempest in a teapot, I recommend you catch up by reading my
colleague <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/11/18/gops_real_stupidity_scandal_why_the_right%E2%80%99s_grubergate_dishonesty_is_worse_than_you_think/">Joan Walsh</a>.
But for our purposes here, all you need to know is that Republicans
have been devoting a ton of energy toward making MIT’s Jonathan Gruber’s
admission, that the White House designed Obamacare with the likely
political ramifications of the CBO score in mind, equivalent to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes#The_18.C2.BD_minute_gap">the 18-minute gap</a>
in the Nixon tapes. Because the president knew that calling something
in the bill a “penalty” instead of a “tax” would make it harder for
conservatives to scream that Obamacare was <em>the tax hike to end all tax hikes — </em>as they did (and <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/return-hillarycare">are still doing</a>)
with Hillarycare — that means, conservatives argue, that the bill
itself was only able to pass through the most dastardly lies.<br />
<br />
As BuzzFeed’s <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/532954870731788288">Adam Serwer</a>
noted, the Grubergate politicking is most likely an attempt to lay the
groundwork for defending a possible future Supreme Court gutting of the
ACA. (Although Gruber’s confirming the right’s suspicions of liberal
technocrat elitism and piggishness, by calling voters stupid, is
operational, too.) But when you see it through the lens of Ryan’s
dynamic scoring push, you’re confronted with a level of bullshit that is
flabbergasting — even in the context of partisan politics. According to
Paul Ryan and other Republicans, it is absolutely <em>not</em> OK for a president to design a bill in a way that makes it harder for its opponents to demagogue. It is <em>not</em> OK to write a bill and think of the CBO at all. What <em>is</em> OK, apparently, is corrupting it from within.<br />
</div>
<a class="toggle-group toggleOnScroll trigger remember refreshAds gaTrackPageEvent on" data-delay="15" data-toggle-group="story-13827530" href="http://www.salon.com/2014/11/22/paul_ryans_stunning_hypocrisy_the_little_noticed_way_the_gop_proved_its_full_of_it/" id="yui_3_11_0_11_1416966736264_942">
</a>
<a href="http://www.salon.com/writer/elias_isquith/" title="Elias Isquith">
<img alt="Elias Isquith" class="writerImage" height="65" id="writer-13311126" src="http://media.salon.com/2013/05/elias_isquith_square.jpg" title="Elias Isquith" width="70" /> </a>
Elias Isquith is a staff writer at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/eliasisquith">@eliasisquith</a>, and email him at <a href="mailto:eisquith@salon.com">eisquith@salon.com</a>.
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-92204663208585253992014-11-22T07:58:00.002-08:002014-11-22T07:58:37.247-08:00House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA on their own research<h2>
</h2>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/">
</a>SALON</span></h2>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="dateline">
<span class="toLocalTime" data-tlt-epoch-time="1416435300">Wednesday, Nov 19, 2014 05:15 PM EST</span> </span>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/11/19/house_republicans_just_passed_a_bill_forbidding_scientists_from_advising_the_epa_on_their_own_research/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA <em>on their own research</em></a></span> </h2>
<h2>
The "reform" measure makes room for
industry-funded experts on the EPA's advisory board
</h2>
<span class="byline"><a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Lindsay Abrams"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/lindsay_abrams/" rel="author">Lindsay Abrams</a></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="featuredMedia">
<a class="lightBox" href="http://media.salon.com/2014/08/john_boehner5.jpg" title="House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA <em>on their own research</em>"><img alt="House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA <em>on their own research</em>" src="http://media.salon.com/2014/08/john_boehner5.jpg" title="House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA <em>on their own research</em>" /></a><span class="caption">John Boehner <span class="photoCredit">(Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)</span></span></div>
<div class="featuredMedia">
<span class="caption"><span class="photoCredit"> </span></span></div>
<div class="featuredMedia">
<span class="caption"><span class="photoCredit"> </span></span></div>
<div class="articleContent">
Congressional climate wars were dominated Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, which spent the day debating, and ultimately <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/11/18/keystone_xl_bill_dies_in_the_senate/">failing to pass</a>,
a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While
all that was happening, and largely unnoticed, the House was busy doing
what it does best: attacking science.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/1422">H.R. 1422</a>, which <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/224615-house-passes-bill-to-reform-epa-science-panel">passed 229-191</a>,
would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing
restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts
with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations.<br />
The bill is being framed as <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3593915/grubergate-epa/">a play for transparency</a>: Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3593645/house-epa-science-advisory-board-bill/">argued</a>
that the board’s current structure is problematic because it “excludes
industry experts, but not officials for environmental advocacy groups.”
The inclusion of industry experts, he said, would right this injustice.<br />
But the White House, which threatened to veto the bill, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/224615-house-passes-bill-to-reform-epa-science-panel">said</a> it would “negatively affect the appointment of experts and would weaken the scientific independence and integrity of the SAB.”<br />
<br />
In
what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill
forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities”
that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that
wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from <em>sharing their expertise in their own research — </em>the
bizarre assumption, apparently, being that having conducted
peer-reviewed studies on a topic would constitute a conflict of
interest. “In other words,” wrote Union of Concerned Scientists director
Andrew A. Rosenberg <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress_must_block_these_attacks_on_independent_science_commentary-237993-1.html">in an editorial for RollCall</a>,
“academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in,
but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.”</div>
<br />
<div class="toggle-group target hideOnInit" data-toggle-group="story-13825217" style="opacity: 1;">
Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/18/3593645/house-epa-science-advisory-board-bill/">summed up what was going on</a>: “I
get it, you don’t like science,” he told bill sponsor Rep. Chris
Stewart, R-Utah. “And you don’t like science that interferes with the
interests of your corporate clients. But we need science to protect
public health and the environment.”<br />
<br />
The House, alas, is staying
the course, voting this week on two other bills aimed at impeding the
EPA, including one that prevents the agency from relying on what it
calls “<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/02/11/house_republicans_hold_hearing_to_expose_the_epas_secret_science/">secret science</a>” in crafting its regulations — but which in reality, <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/congress_must_block_these_attacks_on_independent_science_commentary-237993-1.html">opponents argue</a>,
would effectively block the EPA from adopting any new rules to protect
public health. The trio, wrote Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, in
an <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/224412-another-attack-on-the-epa-and-public-health">editorial for the Hill</a>, represents
“the culmination of one of the most anti-science and anti-health
campaigns I’ve witnessed in my 22 years as a member of Congress.”<br />
<br />
The White House has <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/17/white-house-threatens-to-veto-3-house-gop-epa-bills/">threatened to veto</a> all three.<br />
</div>
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Lindsay Abrams is a staff writer at Salon, reporting on
all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email
labrams@salon.com.
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-54855157470954758782014-11-09T15:09:00.003-08:002014-11-09T15:09:56.787-08:00 Republicans Are The Ultimate Takers Who Only Want To Give To The Wealthy That They Serve <div class="logo" style="padding: 8px 0px 0px 0px;">
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<h2 class="entry_title">
<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/11/09/republicans-takers-generous-givers.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Republicans Are The Ultimate Takers Who Only Want To Give To The Wealthy That They Serve </span></a></h2>
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<span class="author-byline">By: Rmuse</span>
<span class="author-more"><a href="http://www.politicususa.com/author/rmuse-2">more from Rmuse</a></span></div>
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<span class="published-date">Sunday, November, 9th, 2014, 5:05 pm</span> </div>
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<img alt="Boehner McConnell" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-168916" src="http://src1.politicususa.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Boehner-McConnell.jpg" height="216" width="400" /><br />
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There are several synonyms to describe the tendency, no habit, of
Republicans’ idea of what it means to govern. Specifically, their habit
of taking everything from the American people they can lay their grimy
paws on. If Americans cannot recall, and it is likely their gross
ignorance has taken what little memory they have left, that over the
course of the past four years Republicans have attempted to seize,
confiscate, rob, deprive, impound, and snatch any and everything from
the people. Regardless if it is their pensions, clean air and water,
decent wages, healthcare, or religious freedom, Republicans have worked
tirelessly to take everything from the people.<br />
<br />
<div class="scalable">
Even if some Americans do grasp the concept of
Republicans as the ultimate takers, they likely fail to comprehend that
the GOP are ultimately monumental givers; it is that spirit of
generosity that drives their habit of robbing the people. Of course,
over the past two decades and leading up to the present, Republicans
have never had any intent to give anything to the people, but it is
important for the population to understand that their only motivation
for taking from the people, besides sheer hatred and contempt, is to
give to the people they serve; the rich.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
It did not take more than a day after the midterm
election results were reported for Republicans to announce in an op-ed
the first things they intend to take from the people. No-one but an
idiot really expected otherwise. However, if the main stream media were
doing their jobs, they would have reported that in their written
admission of stealing from the people, Boehner and McConnell were
actually announcing what they intended to give to the Koch brothers, big
business, and school privatization crusaders; gifts they were promised
as recompense for their undying support and millions of dollars in
campaign contributions. And, gifts they have attempted to hand over to
the filthy fascists since the took control of the House; under the guise
of “jobs bills.”</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
Americans should not focus so much on what
Republicans will take from them, they will have plenty of years to look
back in remorse and regret putting them in charge of the Congress, what
they need to give their undivided attention to is what they are giving
their wealthy masters. The three items Boehner and McConnell listed as
“job creation” measures, <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/11/06/mcconnell-boehner-announce-plan-health-insurance-1-million-americans.html">abolishing</a>
employer-provided healthcare for part-time employees, violating the
Constitution and approving the Keystone XL pipeline, and privatizing
education under the “more charter schools” scam, will provide nothing
for the people and everything for their corporate masters.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
GOP, and some Democratic, supporters are convinced
that gaining an extra ten hours of work each week will lift them out of
poverty and make them rich because giant retailers like Walmart,
McDonalds, and Target are not required to provide basic healthcare
insurance coverage. However, they will still be earning minimum wages
until Republicans get around to abolishing it from the law; which will
likely be relatively soon, and whether their pea-brains have figured it
out yet, they are actually taking a wage cut. Walmart and McDonalds are
not going to increase employees hours, and if they do it means they will
cut their workforce; less jobs. They will also not provide healthcare
that means if a worker wants it, they will pay out of pocket and it
means their compensation is reduced. Oh, and for the trailer-park crowd
in the former Confederacy assuming that because Walmart and McDonalds
pays poverty wages they will still have access to Blue-state-provided
food stamps and healthcare, the GOP has already passed legislation in
the House to eviscerate those government programs with extreme
prejudice. The gift to big corporations is they still get to pay poverty
wages and avoid providing healthcare insurance and pad their bottom
line. There will be no new jobs, over a million poor Americans will lose
their healthcare, and corporations get a gift from Republicans.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
There are many ways the Republican plan to violate
the Constitution’s mandated Presidential authority is a gift to the Koch
brothers, oil export industry, and Speaker of the House John Boehner.
Never mind that unilaterally authorizing the immediate construction of
Canada’s KeystoneXL pipeline is a monumental violation of the
Constitution, as this column has reported for three years, the only
beneficiaries will be <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CDsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Foilprice.com%2FLatest-Energy-News%2FWorld-News%2FKoch-Brothers-Sell-Polluting-Waste-from-Tar-Sands-Refinery-as-Cheap-Fuel.html&ei=XTHwUaGGArCyigKIpICABg&usg=AFQjCNHfRHGCcELPs9Nq65i-zLhkuURsjg">Koch Industries’ refineries</a>,
exporters shipping Canada’s refined tar sand to Europe and China, and
John Boehner’s stock portfolio. Remember, prior to taking control of the
House and promising “hundreds-of-thousands of American jobs” in early
2011, Boehner <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/candlook.php?txtName=boehner">bought stock</a> in seven Canadian tar sand companies in 2010 in anticipation of the windfall from the pipeline’s construction.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
The benefit to Americans is nothing. In fact, it
was refreshing, that except for one sentence buried in an interview with
President Obama, Bernie Sanders is finally telling Americans fuel costs
will rise because the Koch brothers will drain Midwest diesel reserves
to expedite Canada’s tar through the pipeline on its way to the Gulf
Coast and China to profit the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/candlook.php?txtName=boehner">foreign export industry</a>.
Americans will not see one drop of Canada’s oil and according to the
oil industry, at best 1,500 to 2,000 temporary jobs will be created; for
Canadian pipeline specialists and not Americans. Even the steel used in
constructing the pipeline comes from Korea, so there is no benefit to
American industry. What Republicans are taking is any hope of an
environment whether from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/19/tar-sands-exploitation-climate-scientist">exacerbating climate change</a>
to pouring poison in the air and water when the rupture-prone pipeline
begins leaking as every iteration of it has in Canada and America.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
<div class="scalable">
The greatest takeaway from the population, and gift
to corporations, Republicans listed in their op-ed was robbing public
school funding to increase the number of woefully inadequate and
horridly underperforming charter schools to profit the private education
industry. Republicans claim it is a gift to parents who want their
children to be as ignorant, and biblically versed in science, as they
are, but it is a huge gift to the privatization advocates. This is most
troubling because President Obama said he and Republicans <a href="http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/03/right-leaning_governors_are_fi.html">shared a desire</a> for “education reform” that, according to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, privatization advocate Michelle Rhee, and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/02/presidential-proclamation-national-charter-schools-week-2014">President Obama</a>
includes transferring funding for public education to the charter
school industry. More on this grossest of American abominations in
another article.</div>
<div class="scalable">
<br /></div>
Americans will learn that anything the emboldened
Republicans are proposing as helping the people” is not-so-subtle code
for taking something away. However, they should be well-aware that
although Republicans exist to take everything from the people, they are
taking it to give to their money-machine. In the case of the Keystone
pipeline, Boehner is giving his stock portfolio a big boost in worth.
The real travesty is that Republicans are just getting started and if
the people are conscious, they should cringe every time the new
Republican Congress announces they are helping the people. Because the
primary reason they are “helping” by taking something away from the
people is to give it their corporate masters; it is what they tried for
four years in the House and now that they control the Senate, their
largesse to the rich at the people’s expense will be epic.NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-38175792772882725492014-11-06T11:12:00.000-08:002014-11-06T11:14:19.173-08:00Here Are Some Things That Soon-To-Be Iowa Senator Joni Ernst Actually Said<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/politics"><b class="title politics">Huffpost Politics</b></a><br />
<b class="title politics"> </b>
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<h2 class="title">
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/05/joni-ernst-conspiracies_n_6104820.html#660_expect-a-delay-in-results" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Here Are Some Things That Soon-To-Be Iowa Senator Joni Ernst Actually Said</span></a></h2>
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<img alt="Joni Ernst" class="attachment-800x430 wp-post-image" src="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Joni-Ernst-800x430.png" height="344" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<br />
WASHINGTON -- Voters in Iowa elected Republican Joni Ernst to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, making her the state's first woman senator.<br />
<br />
Ernst, a
state senator and lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard,
catapulted to stardom during the GOP primary with ads featuring her
castrating hogs and pulling a handgun from her purse. The spots also
helped Ernst win support from prominent Republicans, including New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. The woman
who branded herself a "mother, soldier, leader” convinced Republicans
she was the party's best chance to turn red a Senate seat held by
retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin.<br />
<br />
While Ernst propelled herself
to victory by painting herself as a Midwestern woman who grew up on a
farm, Democrats pointed to questionable statements to claim she's a
hard-right conservative, if not a conspiracy theorist.<br />
<br />
<b>Agenda 21</b><br />
While campaigning last November, Ernst backed a right-wing theory that
the United Nations' sustainable development plan Agenda 21 is a
conspiracy that would enable the government to strip Americans of their
freedom and eliminate private property rights.<br />
<blockquote>
All of
us agreed that Agenda 21 is a horrible idea. One of those implications
to Americans, again, going back to what did it does do to the individual
family here in the state of Iowa, and what I've seen, the implications
that it has here is moving people off of their agricultural land and
consolidating them into city centers, and then telling them that you
don't have property rights anymore. These are all things that the UN is
behind, and it's bad for the United States and bad for families here in
the state of Iowa.</blockquote>
[<b>Agenda 21</b> is a <b><u>non-binding</u></b>, voluntarily implemented action plan of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations">United Nations</a> with regard to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development" title="Sustainable development">sustainable development</a>.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup> It is a product of the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Conference_on_Environment_and_Development" title="UN Conference on Environment and Development">UN Conference on Environment and Development</a> (UNCED) held in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_de_Janeiro" title="Rio de Janeiro">Rio de Janeiro</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil" title="Brazil">Brazil</a>,
in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral
organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be
executed at local, national, and global levels. The "21" in Agenda 21
refers to the 21st Century. It has been affirmed and modified at
subsequent UN conferences. Agenda 21's goal is to help the environment
and was agreed at Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Local Agenda 21 is Agenda 21
on a local scale, a saying is "think globally act locally" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21</a>] <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>States Can Nullify Federal Laws</b><br />
At a forum held by Iowa's Faith & Freedom Coalition in July, Ernst suggested that states can somehow <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/exclusive-gop-senate-candidate-caught-saying-states-can-nullify-laws.html" target="_hplink">nullify laws</a> passed by the federal government. <br />
<blockquote>
You
know we have talked about this at the state legislature before,
nullification. But, bottom line is, as U.S. senator, why should we be
passing laws that the states are considering nullifying? Bottom line:
our legislators at the federal level should not be passing those laws.
We’re right ... we’ve gone 200-plus years of federal legislators going
against the 10th Amendment’s states’ rights. We are way overstepping
bounds as federal legislators. So, bottom line, no we should not be
passing laws as federal legislators -- as senators or congressman --
that the states would even consider nullifying. Bottom line.</blockquote>
<b>WMDs In Iraq</b><br />
Ernst told the Des Moines Register's editorial board in May that she
believed there were weapons of mass destruction found during the United
States' invasion of Iraq. From the <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/joni-ernst-iowa-senate-iraq-weapons-mass-destruction" target="_hplink">Daily Beast</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
"We
don't know that there were weapons on the ground when we went in," she
said, "however, I do have reason to believe there were weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq." When a Register reporter quizzed her on what
information she has, Ernst said, "My husband served in Saudi Arabia as
the Army Central Command sergeant major for a year and that's a
hot-button topic in that area."</blockquote>
Ernst later <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/elections/2014/05/12/joni-ernst-wmd/9003823/" target="_hplink">clarified those comments</a> in a statement conceding that there were no WMDs in Iraq, although the country had used them before.<br />
<b>47 Percent Mentality</b><br />
Audio recorded by Radio Iowa in 2013 revealed that Ernst, like many
conservatives, holds a "makers vs. takers" view toward social welfare
programs. But as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/10/16/joni-ernsts-hog-castrating-ideology-revealed/" target="_hplink">Greg Sargent reported</a>, her comments went further than former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" video.<br />
<blockquote>
We’re
looking at Obamacare right now. Once we start with those benefits in
January, how are we going to get people off of those? It’s exponentially
harder to remove people once they’ve already been on those programs ...
we rely on government for absolutely everything. And in the years since
I was a small girl up until now into my adulthood with children of my
own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families, but so much
of what our churches and private organizations used to do. They used to
have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those
that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we’re at a
point where the government will just give away anything.</blockquote>
<b>Climate Change Skeptic</b><br />
While hardly unique among Republicans, Ernst has claimed she does not possess the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/29/3573254/joni-ernst-science-climate/" target="_hplink">scientific knowhow</a> to weigh in on whether humans are causing climate change. But she did chalk it up to "cyclic changes in the weather" during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF6xkJB3pMQ" target="_hplink">an interview in May.</a><br />
<blockquote>
Yes,
we do see climates change, but I have not seen proven proof that it is
entirely man-made. I think we do have cyclic changes in weather, and I
think that's been throughout the course of history. What impact is
man-made. ... but I do think we can educate people to make good choices.</blockquote>
<b>She Really Likes Her Gun</b><br />
An ad featuring Ernst shooting at a target that is supposed to represent
the federal government isn't the first time she has used such a stark
metaphor. Speaking at a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/22/joni-ernst-guns_n_6032164.html" target="_hplink">2012 NRA event</a>, Ernst said her firearm would help protect her if the government imposes on her rights.<br />
<blockquote>
I
have a beautiful little Smith & Wesson, 9 millimeter, and it goes
with me virtually everywhere. But I do believe in the right to carry,
and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether
it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they
decide that my rights are no longer important.</blockquote>
Ernst also has suggested that President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/joni-ernst-impeachment_n_5568444.html" target="_hplink">should be impeached</a>, expressed openness to <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/kathie-obradovich/2014/09/03/senate-candidates-playing-hide-and-seek-on-social-security/15029367/" target="_hplink">privatizing Social Security</a>, called for <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/30/joni-ernst/braley-ernst-debate-anti-abortion-legislation-impa/" target="_hplink">abortion providers to be punished</a> if a fetal personhood bill were passed, and opposed a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/20/joni-ernst-minimum-wage_n_5695022.html" target="_hplink">federal minimum wage hike</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">RAWSTORY</span></h3>
<br />
<h2 class="blog-title">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/joni-ernst-hits-a-new-low-for-anti-science-conservatives-waving-off-germ-theory/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Joni Ernst hits a new low for anti-science conservatives: waving off germ theory</a></span></h2>
<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/author/amandam/" rel="author" title="Posts by Amanda Marcotte">Amanda Marcotte</a><br />
<a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/04/">04 Nov 2014 at 09:21 ET</a> <br />
<br />
<br />
As <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/gop-candidate-joni-ernst-to-charles-pierces-factual-ebola-question-thats-your-opinion/">Tom Boggioni here at <i>Raw Story</i> reported yesterday</a>, Joni Ernst, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/when-conspiracy-theories-dont-fit-the-media-narrative-midterm-election-tom-cotton-joni-ernst/382209/">whose bugfuck wingnuttery has managed to fly mostly under the national radar this election season</a>,
hit a shocking new low in terms of conservative science denial:
Claiming that disease transmission is a matter of “opinion”, not
biological fact. <a href="http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Mornings_With_Joni">Charles Pierce of <i>Esquire</i> reported his bizarre encounter</a> with her on this:
<br />
<blockquote>
“With Ebola, we see he’s very hands-off. He’s not leading. He’s not<i> leeeaaading</i>,”
she said, drawing out that last word like a conjurer casting a spell. I
suggested to her that, well, at that moment, one person in America —
Dr. Craig Spencer — had Ebola. Her eyes went hard, like the wheels of a
slot machine fastening on tilt. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“Well, you’re the press. That’s your opinion.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Say what? </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“But that’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. Only one person in America has Ebola.” </blockquote>
<blockquote>
“But he’s not a<i> leeaader</i>,” Ernst said, again. “What he can
do is make sure that all of those agencies are coordinating together and
make sure that he is sharing that information with the American people,
that he cares about their safety.”</blockquote>
It’s worth pointing out that, like with all other aspects of this
ridiculous ebola panic, the racism driving it is fairly obvious. Ernst’s
entire argument against Obama is a variation on ugly stereotypes about
black people being lazy, except she uses a synonym—”apathetic”—and hopes
the rest of us don’t notice. It’s a charge that’s so ridiculous, when
applied to a man like Obama, that giving it a moment’s thought makes the
racism of it screamingly obvious.<br />
<br />
Alas, we live in a society where it’s considered impolite to notice
even blatant racism as long as the racist manages to do a half-assed
effort at coding it, by using a synonym for the racist thing she’s
saying, in this case. But blatantly denying incontrovertible facts, like
what ebola is and whether or not it can be diagnosed by “opinion”?
Needless to say, if Ernst wins, she’s going to be a regular producer of
WTF headlines, giving prior contenders like Louie Gohmert and Michele
Bachmann a run for their money.<br />
<br />
One more observation: One of the oddest things about midterm
elections is how frequently politicians, particularly Republicans, will
run on issues that the office they’re vying for has little to no power
to deal with. Ernst here is running against Obama, not her actual
opponent Bruce Braley. But if she wins, guess what? Obama is still going
to be in office. Now, running against him isn’t necessarily
illegitimate, if the issues were stuff where her vote could sway policy.
But how he’s handling ISIS or whether or not he’s panicking over a
non-epidemic to your satisfaction cannot be moved by a vote for Ernst.
It is utterly irrelevant.NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-58796538509078370892014-10-06T10:54:00.004-07:002014-10-06T10:54:58.308-07:00ALEC is coming to a city block near you<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/american-legislativeexchangecouncillocalmunicipalgovernment.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ALEC is coming to a city block near you</a></span></h2>
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<div class="articleOpinion-inner articleOpinion-inner--bottom">
<h3 class="articleOpinion-standfirst opinion-standfirst">
<span style="font-size: large;">The conservative think tank known for flooding state legislatures with its agenda is starting to think locally</span></h3>
<div class="articleOpinion-standfirst opinion-standfirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="articleOpinion-standfirst opinion-standfirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="articleOpinion-dateByline opinion-dateByline">
<div class="articleOpinion-dateTime opinion-dateTime">
<span class="date">October 6, 2014</span>
<span class="time">6:00PM ET</span></div>
<div class="articleOpinion-dateTime opinion-dateTime">
<span class="time"> </span>
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<div class="articleOpinion-containerByline">
<span class="articleOpinion-byline">
by
<a class="articleOpinion-byline--link" href="http://america.aljazeera.com/profiles/d/amy-b-dean.html" title="Amy B. Dean">Amy B. Dean</a>
<span class="articleOpinion-contact">
<span class="articleOpinion-twitter">
<a class="articleOpinion-twitter--link" href="http://www.twitter.com/amybdean" target="_blank" title="@amybdean">@amybdean</a></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="articleOpinion-byline"><span class="articleOpinion-contact"><span class="articleOpinion-twitter">
</span>
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<div class="parsys mainpar">
<div class="text section">
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has long made
headlines as a conservative policy-sharing network that has pushed an
agenda of voter suppression and dismantling of public education at the
state level. Now the group, backed by conservative billionaires Charles
and David Koch, is <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-11/corporate-lobby-alec-aims-at-u-s-city-councils-with-new-group.html">going local</a> with its new initiative, the <a href="http://www.alec.org/initiatives/acce/">American City County Exchange</a>
(ACCE). Soon, city government or county commission policies could be
generated at the same right-wing think tank that has attacked
environmental protections, attempted to undermine the rights of workers
and made it harder for people to vote.<br />
<br />
At a time of congressional gridlock and partisan rancor, local
policies are easier to come by at the local level, with business and
citizen groups coming together to generate solutions to problems such as
affordable housing, public transit, open space and good-paying jobs. At
the heart of these efforts is the spirit of regional collaboration
among people who will have to live with the consequences of policy.<br />
<br />
ALEC, with its new project, plans to interrupt that collaborative
policymaking process by coming in from the outside with model bills
based on an ideological obsession with privatization rather than on
local knowledge about what works.<br />
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<div class="subHeading section">
<h2 class="subHeading-title">
Progress grows local</h2>
</div>
<div class="text section">
Some of the most successful, life-improving policies in metro regions
involve partnerships among elected officials, private corporations and
grass-roots activists. What has made collaboration successful is the
fact that stakeholders come together. I saw this firsthand during more
than a decade of work in Silicon Valley. There the <a href="http://svlg.org/">Silicon Valley Leadership Group</a>
(a business consortium) worked with organized labor and community
groups to ask for funding for quality public transit and the development
of affordable housing. One result of this collaboration was a
sales-tax-funded <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_Valley_Transportation_Authority">public transit system</a> that is being built to serve all residents of Santa Clara County.<br />
<br />
The business community in Silicon Valley also partnered with
organized labor around the issue of children’s health care. In 2001 the
Santa Clara County government, at the behest of the South Bay Labor
Council and local business leaders, set up a combination of property
taxes, tobacco taxes and outside grants to fund a <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_19501926">universal health care program</a>
for all children in the county. Though its funding was shaky at times,
the program managed to cover 97 percent of the county’s children, until
it became part of California’s Medicaid program in 2013.<br />
<br />
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<div class="pullQuote section">
<div class="pullQuote-box">
<div class="pullQuote-quote">
ALEC
wants to take the same sort of highly ideological agenda that has
stunted progress in Washington and state capitals and impose it at the
metro level.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="text section">
Instead of trying to contribute to locally relevant solutions, ALEC’s
new project hopes to take local stakeholders out of the equation. It
plans to take cookie-cutter bills thought up by corporate lobbyists and
try to push them through local government. From its state-level work,
ALEC is known for its <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/04/12457/revealed-alec%E2%80%99s-2014-attacks-environment">attacks on environmental protections</a>, its opposition to employees’ rights such as <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12551/paid-sick-days-gain-momentum-as-alec-allies-push-back">paid sick days</a> and for promoting “stand your ground” <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/03/21/alec-has-pushed-the-nras-stand-your-ground-law/186459">gun laws</a> that have been used as legal cover for violence against young unarmed African-American men and women.<br />
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<div class="subHeading section">
<h2 class="subHeading-title">
Privatization agenda</h2>
</div>
<div class="text section">
For city and local governments, ALEC’s primary focus is on
privatization. Its new local push through the ACCE wants to “ease the
way for corporations to take over local services,” as Jay Riestenberg,
an analyst at Common Cause, recently <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-11/corporate-lobby-alec-aims-at-u-s-city-councils-with-new-group.html">told</a> Bloomberg News.<br />
<br />
Conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the Cato
Institute have long pushed a smaller-government agenda of privatizing
government services such as <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/fixing-transit-case-privatization">mass transit</a>
and utilities. They argue that instead of being run by elected public
officials using tax dollars, these vital services should be funded and
operated by private corporations in a competitive marketplace.<br />
<br />
The problem with this is that privatization locks local government
into contracts that remove democratic oversight. While city and county
politicians face repercussions at the ballot box if they do not deliver
services for their constituents, corporations can take the money and run
— often leaving voters with few means to reverse bad decisions when
services are compromised.<br />
We have already seen at the state level that the negative
consequences of ideologically driven privatization can be profound. For
example, in Rhode Island, ALEC was successful in persuading state
government to hand over its public employee pension fund to private
hedge fund managers. As Matt Taibbi <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-the-pension-funds-20130926">documented in</a>
Rolling Stone, the regret now runs deep among state lawmakers, who have
seen their state pay out millions in servicing fees to these private
hedge funds, while the pension fund — and city services — continue to
suffer. “They pretty much took the COLA [cost of living pay raises for
public workers] and gave it to a bunch of billionaires,” Providence’s
retired firefighter union chief told Taibbi.<br />
<br />
At the city level, perhaps the most prominent <a href="http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/infrastructure-projects-p3-contracts-chicago-parking">cautionary tale</a>
about privatization is Chicago’s move to sign a 75-year contract with
finance company Morgan Stanley for the management of its parking meters.
A city audit showed that the deal rested on an undervaluing of the
meters and lost the city $1 billion as a result. In addition, Morgan
Stanley recently sued the city over lost profit because of the periodic
shutting down or moving of meters for street cleaning and city events.
Chicago lost that lawsuit, to the tune of another $61 million. This
means the city incurs additional cost when it wants to add protected
bike lanes and bus routes and enact other interventions that could help
reduce carbon emissions. And because the deal with Morgan Stanley is
locked in for another 69 years, voters have little recourse. Future
generations will suffer from this decision, which was made before they
were born. They won’t be able to use their votes to reverse the parking
meter fiasco.<br />
<br />
“Local politics in America is the purest form of democracy,” Pittsburgh city council member Natalia Rudiak said to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/06/conservative-group-alec-city-local-government">The Guardian</a>
about the ACCE. “There is no buffer between me and the public. So why
would I want the involvement of a third party acting on behalf of a few
corporate interests?”<br />
<br />
Rudiak’s comment cuts to the core of the matter: ALEC wants to take
the same sort of highly ideological agenda that has stunted progress in
Washington and state capitals and impose it at the metro level. If
Americans let them succeed, we will lose the most promising frontier in
democratic policymaking today — local government — along with our
communities.<br />
<br />
</div>
</div>
<div class="authorProfileBio">
<div class="authorProfileBio-box">
<a href="http://www.amybdean.com/" target="_blank">Amy B. Dean</a>
is a fellow of the Century Foundation and a principal of ABD Ventures, a
consulting firm that works to develop innovative strategies for
organizations devoted to social change. She is a co-author, with David
Reynolds, of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Deal-Regional-Activism-Foundation-ebook/dp/B004UBWFYY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385532091&sr=8-1&keywords=Amy+B.+Dean" target="_blank">A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement</a>.”<br />
<br />
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The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735400795461541026.post-70427557519878897862014-09-03T19:36:00.002-07:002014-09-03T19:43:09.879-07:00The 7 strangest libertarian ideas<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">SALON</span></h2>
<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/09/03/the_7_strangest_libertarian_ideas_partner/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The 7 strangest libertarian ideas</a></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Parents should be allowed to let their kids starve" and other notions that lay bare the ideology's extremism</span></h3>
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<span class="byline" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; display: inline-block; font-family: BentonSansBold, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["author","click", "Richard (RJ) Eskow"]" href="http://www.salon.com/writer/richard_rj_eskow/" rel="author" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: black; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">RICHARD (RJ) ESKOW</a>, ALTERNET</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
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TOPICS: <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "alternet"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/alternet" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">ALTERNET</a>, <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "ron_paul"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/ron_paul" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">RON PAUL</a>, <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "rand_paul"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/rand_paul" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">RAND PAUL</a>, <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "libertarianism"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/libertarianism" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">LIBERTARIANISM</a>, <a class="gaTrackLinkEvent" data-ga-track-json="["topic", "click", "nsa"]" href="http://www.salon.com/topic/nsa" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">NSA</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/category/politics/" rel="tag" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: BentonSansBook, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">POLITICS NEWS</a></div>
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This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.alternet.org/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; font-weight: bold; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">AlterNet</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://www.alternet.org/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img align="left" alt="AlterNet" src="http://images.salon.com/img/partners/ID_alternetInline.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 580px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></a>Few movements in the United States today harbor stranger political ideas than the self-proclaimed libertarians. The Rand Paul school of libertarianism is at least as far outside the mainstream on the right as, say, a rather doctrinaire old-school form of Marxism/Leninism is on the left. The difference is this: The mainstream media isn’t telling us that we’re in the middle of a “Marxist/Leninist moment.” Leninist politicians aren’t being touted as serious presidential contenders. And all the media chatter we’re hearing about a “Libertarian moment” ignores the very harsh, extreme and sometimes downright ugly ideas that are being disseminated under that banner.</div>
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It’s great to have allies like Rand Paul working alongside other Americans to defend our right to privacy, restrain the NSA and reduce the military/industrial complex’s grip on foreign policy. It’s possible to admire their political courage in these areas while at the same time recognize that we may not care for the environment they inhabit.</div>
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There’s another reason to challenge libertarians on the extreme nature of their ideology: A number of them seem determined to drive competing ideas out of the free market for ideas—which isn’t very libertarian of them. There has been a concerted effort to marginalize mainstream values and ideas about everything from workers’ rights to the role of government in national life. So by all means, let’s have an open debate. Let’s make sure that all ideas, no matter how unusual they may seem, are welcome for debate and consideration. But let’s not allow any political movement to become a Trojan horse, one which is allowed to have a “moment” without ever telling us what it really represents.</div>
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Obviously, not every self-proclaimed libertarian believes these ideas, but libertarianism is a space which nurtures them. Can the Republican Party really succeed by embracing this space? Why does the mainstream media treat libertarian ideas as somehow more legitimate than, say, the social welfare principles which guide Great Britain or Sweden?</div>
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Here are seven of modern libertarianism’s strangest and most extreme notions.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #999999; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Parents should be allowed to let their children starve to death. </strong><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #999999; text-transform: uppercase;"><b>We’re not making this up</b>. From progressive writer </span><a href="http://mattbruenig.com/2014/08/12/the-proper-libertarian-position-on-child-licenses/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">Matt Bruenig</a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #999999; text-transform: uppercase;"> (via </span><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/08/23/the_gops_libertarian_time_bomb_why_going_rand_would_be_an_electoral_disaster/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">Sean McElwee</a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #999999; text-transform: uppercase;"> at Salon) comes this excerpt from libertarian economist Murray Rothbard:</span></span></div>
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“a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also … should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.”</div>
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Note the repetitive use of the word “it” to describe the child. This linguistic dehumanization of helpless individuals is surprisingly common in libertarian literature. (See Ayn Rand and the young Alan Greenspan for further examples.)</div>
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Rothbard is a member of the so-called Austrian School of economics, cofounded the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and is widely admired among libertarians. He continues:</div>
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“The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g., by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a fortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die. (Though, as we shall see below, in a libertarian society the existence of a free baby market will bring such “neglect” down to a minimum.)”</div>
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In other words, society may have moral values, but it may not impose those values on anyone.</div>
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To his credit, Rothbard preaches a form of libertarianism which is internally consistent. That’s a virtue some of his peers in that community lack. But people should understand: this idea isn’t an outlier in the libertarian world. It is, in fact, a logical outgrowth of the philosophy.</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. We must deregulate companies like Uber, even when they cheat. </strong>So-called ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber are actually taxi services using unlicensed contractors. They’re heavily promoted by libertarians who tout them as ideal examples of the free market as a counter to bureaucratized, more traditional taxicab services.</div>
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We now know that Uber is as ruthless in its anticompetitive tactics as it is hypocritical in its public statements. A recent report from the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-playbook-for-sabotaging-lyft" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Verge</a> shows that Uber employees frequently hire drivers from competitor Lyft for short, relatively unprofitable rides in an attempt to recruit them. Uber promised to “tone down” these tactics. Instead, in a related move, its employees made and then canceled 5,493 Lyft reservations, reducing the availability of Lyft drivers and hurting its drivers.</div>
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Yet here’s what Uber CEO <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/index.html" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Travis Kalanick</a> had to say about taxis:</div>
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“The taxi industry [is] trying to protect a monopoly that has been granted them by local officials, so they’re trying to slow down competition.”</div>
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That sounds a lot like what Uber is doing. In a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Heres-How-Uber-CEO-Travis-Kalanick-Is-Defending-His-Tactics-To-Crush-Lyft/articleshow/40962122.cms" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter exchange</a> this week, Kalanick insisted that Lyft drivers were welcome to sign with Uber while keeping their Lyft affiliation. But Uber lied to its own drivers about that recently in New York, when it sent out a text message falsely claiming that New York regulations barred them from signing with Lyft.</div>
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Have libertarians expressed their outrage with Uber for its dirty tricks, or for its assault on the idea of competition? Not at all. In fact, libertarian <a href="http://time.com/31828/the-government-is-a-hitman-uber-tesla-and-airbnb-are-in-its-crosshairs/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Nick Gillespie</a> wrote in Time last March that, “Letting markets work to find new ways of delivering goods and services isn’t just better for customers in the short term, it’s the only way to unleash the innovation that ultimately propels long-term economic growth.”</div>
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Of course, “letting markets work” is precisely what Uber isn’t doing. Gillespie also expresses outrage that California has imposed regulations that include “mandatory criminal-background checks for drivers, licensing via public-utilities commissions, and driver-training programs.”</div>
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Which one of those things don’t you want to have in place when a driver comes to your house at four in the morning for an emergency drive to the hospital? But Gillespie equates regulators to “mobsters.”</div>
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(Update: Gillespie has been silent about these recent Uber revelations. For its part, Uber has hired former Obama aide David Plouffe, which means nothing politically but will help them leverage their market dominance and suppress competition even more. Expect further radio silence from the libertarian front.)</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3. We should eliminate Social Security and Medicare.</strong> Libertarian/Republican icon <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/7-strangest-libertarian-ideas?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rand Paul</a>holds with the libertarian faith in his steadfast opposition to both Medicare and Social Security. “The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed,” says Paul. “Socialism doesn’t work.”</div>
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Except that Medicare isn’t failing. It provides healthcare at lower direct cost, lower administrative cost, and with lower cost inflation than equivalent private-sector insurance. Its biggest efficiency problem stems from the runaway profit motive in the delivery of healthcare. Medicare must purchase goods and services from for-profit medical corporations, hospital chains and pharmaceutical companies. (Conservatives have forbidden it from negotiating prices with Big Pharma.)</div>
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In other words: It’s the private sector, not government, which is causing our country’s healthcare problems.</div>
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Social Security is entirely self-funded through its own contributions. It has far lower costs than any equivalent private program. Medicare and Social Security annoy libertarians, not because they don’t work, but because they do, putting “free enterprise” in the dust.</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Society doesn’t have the right to enforce basic justice in public places of business. </strong>From <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/09/400521/rand-paul-explains-his-familys-opposition-to-civil-rights-act-its-about-controlling-property/" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rep. Ron Paul</a>, Sen. Paul’s father:</div>
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“… the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.”</div>
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This was Rep. Paul’s reasoning in voting against a resolution which praised the Civil Rights Act. The libertarian position, as articulated by the Paul family, appears to be this: a business owner’s rights, even in a public place of business, extend to the ability to discriminate solely on the basis of skin color.</div>
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That is a violation of the United States Constitution, and of federal law. The libertarian position is that some laws cannot be enforced on private property. But which ones? If the government can’t forbid discrimination, can it forbid theft? Assault? Murder?</div>
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As with so many libertarian positions, the reasoning seems murky and the differences appear arbitrary. After all, won’t the free market eventually make a murderer’s business unpopular and force a correction to the killer’s behavior?</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">5. Selflessness is vile. </strong>From libertarian avatar and prophet Ayn Rand: “The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves.”</div>
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Aid workers. Doctors Without Borders. Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. Mother Teresa. In this libertarian view, all of them are “parasites” who make parasites of those they serve—because, of course, the free market would eventually eliminate poverty. (Never mind the millions who would starve in the meantime.)</div>
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Not only are these good people “parasites” in this libertarian view, they are deliberately parasitical (“in motive”). They lack the nobility of character needed to act purely out of self-interest, like the murderer Ayn Rand so admired. As <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mark Ames</a> reported in 2012, Rand,</div>
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“became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of a 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burn… Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation… on him.”</div>
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Rand described the child-killer as a “genuinely beautiful soul.” But that aid worker sweating in the Darfur heat, spooning food into a skeletal child’s mouth? Despicable.</div>
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This is not fringe libertarianism. Ayn Rand is its heart and soul.</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">6. Democracy is unacceptable, especially since we began feeding poor people and allowing women to vote.</strong> This isn’t a fringe idea, but one that was <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">proclaimed in a prominent libertarian outlet</a> by one of the movement’s leading funders:</div>
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Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.</div>
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In the face of these realities, one would despair if one limited one’s horizon to the world of politics. I do not despair because I no longer believe that politics encompasses all possible futures of our world. In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms — from the totalitarian and fundamentalist catastrophes to the unthinking demos that guides so-called “social democracy.</div>
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Translation: Things have gone to hell with all those black and brown poor people around, especially with all those weak-willed women feeling sorry for them and voting to feed them. This isn’t your lunatic uncle talking. These are the words of Peter Thiel, PayPal billionaire and leading libertarian, not spoken in a drunken rage at Thanksgiving dinner, but published in Cato Unbound, perhaps the nation’s leading libertarian outlet.</div>
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Thiel clearly felt the heat on this one, since he was forced to append a statement at the end saying, “It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us,” adding: “While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better.”</div>
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Thiel’s prescription? “Escape” democracy by using technology to create spaces where the democratic process cannot go. His ideas include ocean colonization, or “seasteading”; outer space; and inevitably, “cyberspace.”</div>
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Unfortunately for the libertarian ethos, cyberspace is a government creation. The Internet, and the core technology which enables us to access it, were both created at government expense using government resources. But Thiel’s dream, the libertarian dream, is one in which publicly created tools, which should rightly be considered the modern “commons,” are usurped by a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals for their own undemocratic and noncompetitive purposes.</div>
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<strong style="background: transparent; border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">7. We can replace death with libertarianism. </strong>If they can’t bend us to their will in this lifetime, they’ll achieve the goal by other means. Thiel begins his Cato essay this way:</div>
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“I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.”</div>
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That’s right. The new libertarian ideology insists that private entrepreneurs will conquer death. Then they’ll force us to bend to their will in the new dominion of eternal life, whether in biochemically preserved flesh or as uploaded spirits in a digital netherworld. Either way, their freedom won’t be ours. Based on their past behavior, they’ll “monetize” our afterlife with advertising and by manipulating our artificial-life experiences.</div>
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Life extension has its merits, if handled humanely and justly. But an eternity of “curated content” governed by Silicon Valley billionaires? I’d rather die, thanks very much. And if the Republican Party accepts the “libertarian moment” as its new ideological covering, it apparently has a death wish too.</div>
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Richard (RJ) Eskow is a writer and policy analyst. He is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign for America's Future and is host and managing editor of The Zero Hour on We Act Radio.</div>
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