This is specifically about Republican governors like Rick Scott. who campaigned on the idea that they would be working for their constituents to bring jobs to the state, then turned around and killed projects to save a little bit of money, projects that would have brought a great many jobs to the state.
And it’s also about Republicans in any state and at the federal level who seem to be working very hard to kill jobs, increase unemployment, and destroy the economy.
It is important, first, to remember that Scott is not a politician in any normal sense of the word. As we know, “politicians” are at least in theory vulnerable to having their constituents vote them out of office when they get upset enough.
Rather, he is a corporate CEO. As we all know, he is one of the worst corporate criminals around, having been responsible for the largest corporate fine when his health insurance company was caught ripping off the taxpayer and bilking Medicare. What that means is he sees his job as maximizing profits and cutting losses. He sees no responsibility to the taxpayer, just as corporate executives see no responsibility to those who work for them for a living.
In fact, having come from a background where he is handsomely rewarded for ending the employment of as many workers as possible, he feels privileged to make the decision of who works and who does not. And like so many in charge of corporate America, he feels that there are way too many people at the bottom who do not even deserve to exist, and rich folks ought to change that – by eliminating as many jobs as possible, so that people who don’t deserve jobs will die off quietly.
The high speed rail project that would have brought so many jobs to his state, and even more jobs by boosting the economy, had to be killed, because the people who got those jobs don’t deserve to be working, or they’d have jobs already.
It’s corporate warfare, nothing less and nothing more. The revolution is coming. Take a number.
Awesome research by the Daily Show staff in exposing just how the GOP’s “new” Pledge to America is nothing but retreads from years past. Excellent research digging up a speech from Boehner in 1998 where he said the exact same words he said yesterday.
By BruinKid of DailyKos
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010): … a smaller …
BOEHNER (3/3/1998): … a smaller …
BOEHNER (9/23/2010): … less costly …
BOEHNER (3/3/1998): … less costly …
BOEHNER (9/23/2010): … and more accountable …
BOEHNER (3/3/1998): … and more accountable …
BOEHNER (9/23/2010 AND 3/3/1998): … government in our nation’s capitol.
….
So two years ago America broke up with you, because you had badly mistreated her. … And you come back rapping on our door, hat in hand, and you say, “Baby, I know you love me. But if we get back together, I pledge to you, I promise you, I will still try to f*ck your sister every chance I get.
Update: Oh, almost forgot. Since school’s started up again for us, I won’t be able to post these diaries at this time anymore; my sleep schedule’s gonna change quite a bit. Over the summer, I tried to get these posted almost as soon as the videos were put up online by Comedy Central. I can’t do that anymore, and I’ll be on campus during the daytime, so what would you guys prefer I do? I’ve added a poll to see what time suits the community the best, where you’d see the diary before it disappears. (And yes, these diaries take up enough time and effort to get everything correct, that I don’t want to do it, only to have only 2 or 3 people notice it before it falls away.)
A year and a half ago, the Republican Party was reeling, still picking shrapnel out from a can of whoop-ass that had been opened up on them in the 2008 elections. It was time for some self-reflection.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IN (4/30/2009): There’s no question it’s been a challenging time for the GOP.
REP. ZACH WAMP, R-TN (3/25/2009): It’s time for new faces, new leadership, to lead our party.
REP. MIKE PENCE, R-IN (4/30/2009): … we’re bringing new ideas …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (11/23/2008): You’ll see a lot of effort on our part to be the party of new ideas.
New ideas, everything is on the table. Uh, spitballing here, how about something like this? We got a black guy too! You know, just spitballing here.
So the search for new ideas began in Northern Virginia, in a well-respected think tank/pizza place called Pie-Tanza‘s. Of course, Pie for pizza pie, and Tanza for owner Tony Tanza.
But that was just the start. The Republicans held town hall meetings. They spoke to their constituents. They took donors to Hollywood lesbian bondage clubs. They even started their own website.
REP. JOE BARTON, R-TX (8/19/2010): AmericaSpeakingOut.com, that’s a website that the Republicans are using in the House of Representatives to try to get your ideas.
But seriously, they had nothing. They had nothing. They were completely out of ideas. Well now, it’s nearly two years later, crucial midterm elections around the corner, and House Republicans poised with a real chance to win huge. So they’re ready to unveil the fruits of their labor. I give you, the 2010 Republican Pledge to Pie-Tanza… I mean, America. Enjoy.
9/23/2010:
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN, R-TN: We pledge to honor our families, traditional marriage, and life.
REP. BILL CASSIDY, R-LA: … real tort reform …
REP. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, R-WV: … don’t spend more than you take in …
REP. JEB HENSARLING, R-TX: … stop out of control spending …
REP. MAC THORNBERRY, R-TX: Support our troops, fight the terrorists, stand by our friends, and protect our citizens.
Whoa! Who are these fresh faced young guns and their bold new ideas… wait a minute! That’s the same shit we heard before! I think your fresh new ideas… if I’m not mistaken, your fresh new ideas sound slightly like, I’m sorry, did I say slightly? Exactly like your old ideas.
REP. PETER ROSKAM, R-IL (9/23/2010): … rein in the Washington, D.C., red tape …
REP. DENNIS HASTERT, R-IL (1/3/2001): … cut Washington red tape …
REP. JEB HENSARLING, R-TX (9/23/2010): … act immediately to reduce spending …
REP. NEWT GINGRICH, R-GA (6/5/1998): … have real reforms to reduce spending …
REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, R-UT (9/23/2010): … change the way we do business in Washington …
REP. JIM NUSSLE, R-IA (11/19/1994): … change business as usual in Washington …
REP. PETER ROSKAM, R-IL (9/23/2010): … make the tax cuts permanent …
REP. DICK ARMEY, R-TX (9/15/2002): … make the existing tax cuts permanent …
REP. BILL CASSIDY, R-LA (9/23/2010): … health savings accounts that puts the patient firmly in control …
REP. DENNIS HASTERT, R-IL (8/30/2004): … health savings accounts, which will give families more control …
REP. JEB HENSARLING, R-TX (9/23/2010): … reduce the size of our government …
REP. NEWT GINGRICH, R-GA (9/18/1998): … reducing the size of government …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010): … a smaller …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (3/3/1998): … a smaller …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010): … less costly …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (3/3/1998): … less costly …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010): … and more accountable …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (3/3/1998): … and more accountable …
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010 AND 3/3/1998): … government in our nation’s capitol.
(wild audience applause)
(Jon making motorboating sound)
Wow! I don’t even know what to say! This thing’s not even a sequel, it’s like a shot-by-shot remake! I thought the Pledge was you were humbled, and you were gonna come back with fresh new ideas. Wasn’t that the Pledge?
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-OH (9/23/2010): On the point we make in this preamble to our pledge, is that we are not going to be any different than what we’ve been.
I believe that is a promise you can keep. So two years ago, just to get this straight, two years ago America broke up with you, because you had badly mistreated her. And so you disappear, do some soul-searching, get your head together, and you come back rapping on our door, hat in hand, and you say, “Baby, I know you love me. But if we get back together, I pledge to you, I promise you, I will still try to fuck your sister every chance I get. It’s who I am, baby! It’s who I am! Now, make up your mind, because I’m not going to ask you twice!
You may also want to see Jon Stewart pick apart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dickishness, as well his excellent interview with King Abdullah II of Jordan (extended version here) on the prospects of Middle East peace.
And Stephen concluded his work as a migrant farmer to hilarious extremes, as well as hitting back at Fox & Friends for criticizing him for testifying before Congress today on behalf of the migrant farm workers.
After last week’s propaganda debacle, MoveOn.org has released an amateurishly-edited video of Andrew Breitbart talking about his allegiance to al-Qaeda, proving that with video editing anything can be proven.
Breitbart and embattled RNC Chairman Michael Steele will be appearing side by side at an upcoming Republican event, just in case you’ve forgotten who works for whom.
Salon has a lovely article this morning updating us on Rand Paul’s current position on his board certification for opthalmology. You remember how he started his own certification board because he thought having to pay money to that other board was wasted, and he didn’t want to have to spend his time getting training or continuing education or taking tests when he could just jump in there and start operating, the free market at work.
His own certification board has no website and apparently no paper documentation. It is nothing but a PO Box in Bowling Green, KY. He did recently claim to be certified by that “other” board, which is nothing but a lie.
He’d like to get rid of government programs. But he thinks doctors are different. They should be guaranteed a comfortable standard of living by the government.
Does he inform his patients when examining them that his “board certification” is by himself, so they can make those “informed decisions” that lead to success or failure at the hands of the free market?
I wouldn’t want a doctor who had no need of certification and was unwilling to discuss his qualifications cutting open my eyes. Would you?
The guy is a liar, a creep, a fake, and a douchebag. Medicare ought to stop paying for surgery he does.
The flotilla of ships carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in blockaded Gaza was attacked last night by the Israeli navy. Commandos boarded the ships, which had put up no resistance, and massacred 19 unarmed civilians. The ships had been waiting in international water for months.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has called off Tuesday’s scheduled meeting with Obama, voicing full support for the navy’s actions – probably to prevent Obama from canceling first.
The White House said in a written statement that the United States “deeply regrets” the loss of life and injuries and was working to understand the circumstances surrounding this “tragedy.” Huffpo story
In other words, Obama is scratching his head, asking Rahm, “WTF were they thinking?”
The Israeli justification for murdering all those people is that they were attacked after they stormed the ship without justification. They did indeed seize the other ships uneventfully, and all have been towed to port.
So why did they seize the ships, which were moored in international waters? They wanted the goods and the ships. It was an official act of piracy.
How will the mainstream media manage to suppress this? Do you suppose this will show up on Fox News?
So he canceled on his Meet The Press appearance this Sunday, only the third scheduled guest to do so in 62 years.
Maybe he is thinking that he needs to work on his message with his handlers. If this is what he’s doing, it means he thinks his message is not ready for prime time. He needs to work on his sound bites to take back control of the interview from real journalists. You can never tell when a journalist will ask an inconvenient question, and he’s just had a rude awakening about what a real interview is after all the fawning softball questions he was fielding.
He’s probably not thinking about the big gaps in libertarianism that might make it unworkable as a political system, the ones he might not want to be associated with even though he may fully agree.
Paul is new to politics and really naive. He previously had said very little about his opinions. Most people simply do not know what classic hard line libertarianism stands for, and Maddow was the first member of the press to ask him hard questions. He was under the impression that after hearing what he had said while campaigning, most people understood his positions and agreed. Like many who associate themselves with the Tea Party, he thought mistakenly that his personal beliefs and positions are some sort of a consensus in this country and that the polls are wrong.
If he was more politically sophisticated he would probably have had an answer practiced for the question she asked him, but for him that would have necessitated dealing with a campaign manager who believes in research.
Many people agree with a few of the positions of libertarians. Hardly anyone thinks that we should go back to an era where segregation was legal, and he wouldn’t take a stand against it.
The idea that someone who is running for public office has the right to keep their opinions to themselves and not tell us what they believe in is absurd. If he can’t stand the heat of honest inquiry, he shouldn’t be running at all. Right now it looks like he won that primary on his name and his pretty face.
Last night Rachel Maddow spoke with Rand Paul, and he was evasive, to say the least.
I have read numerous blog posts about her interview, and I think there is a basic misunderstanding of his position on “rights”.
I think his difficulty (impossibility?) with answering the question “should a business owner be able to refuse to serve customers based on race?” is more than just evading that question itself.
It is a matter of trying to keep his philosophy out of sight. For all intents and purposes he seems to have succeeded in maintaining control of the issue. It doesn’t look good for him right now, but they aren’t asking him the questions he really, really doesn’t want anybody to hear.
Years ago I accidentally bought a hardcore libertarian book by mail, and I was absolutely shocked what I read. I had no idea. I was young, but not quite so naive after reading that.
The “rights” they perceive are very different from the ones we would think of as “human rights”.
He feels that it is a basic human right to discriminate against anyone you wish to discriminate against for whatever reason you may have. It is infringing on that right for the government step in and say you can’t.
It goes far beyond the question of a restaurant owner discriminating against black people. It extends to hiring practices, housing, pretty much all are considered “business dealings” that the government should keep out of.
The potential hiree and the business owner have the “right” to negotiate their terms of employment. The government should not interfere with such things as labor laws, safety regulations, etc. It is up to the potential employee to either work out a deal to his satisfaction, go somewhere else, or buy a factory and refuse to hire the guy who discriminated against him.
There is no recognition of the idea that the unequal power in such a situation means that there can be no fair negotiation.
Environmental issues? They were not a consideration when this philosophy was carved in stone. Many people at the time thought that they would take care of themselves, or at least they would only happen in the poor part of town. It would be interesting to get his take on the BP disaster right now.
I’d guess he favors the Alan Greenspan notion that people will make reasoned decisions based on full disclosure when deciding who to take their business to, rather than the fact that given a completely unregulated situation, those with no ethics will steal everyone else blind.
Taxes? Please, rich people shouldn’t have to pay taxes at all. Let investor groups build roads and bridges and erect toll plazas to pay for maintenance.
The libertarian philosophy is the direct ancestor of the “culture of greed” that we see touted so often, even among those who are being repressed by it.
Libertarianism is basically anarchist at heart, but at least anarchists are realists about the violence that would exist. In the libertarian utopia, there is no need for enforcement, as money does all the talking that counts. If you need to protect your property, you can hire a goon squad security company to deal with the issues.
What sort of issues? Well, when they get rid of public education and illiteracy soars, some of those unemployable people might decide to exercise their Second Amendment rights to buy guns and then take back their country.
Following up on the farce that the supposed ACORN tapes have turned out to be… The transcripts of the originals show that both the O’Keefe and Giles were dressed in street clothes. He was posing as a college student trying to help an abused prostitute escape with some underage prostitutes from her pimp, all the rest is creative editing and dubbing.
Nobody does it better than Stephen Colbert, if the “it” he does best is creative editing to make it look like someone is saying something they never meant to say.
The Huffington Post has published an article Senate Democrats Consider Nightmare Scenario on Health Care Reform, which proposes that the ultimate “nightmare scenario” might be just around the corner, were the CBO to come back with figures that put the project in the red, based on the latest changes (concessions) made to Republicans and right wing Democrats who insist that they don’t want to spend too much money, but want changes made to make the project more costly.
I commented that I can think of several nightmare scenarios. It is rather short-sighted to think that this is the only one which would hurt the Democratic party or people who need access to health care but are not getting it.
Of course, nor do I believe in the sort of blind faith that I have been told to place in the President, who has given us no reason to believe that he is planning on fixing this in the foreseeable future.
But anyway, the “nightmare scenarios” I see involve access to healthcare in this country getting worse, with premiums and prices going through the roof, while apparently the worst abuses by insurance companies have been loopholed out of sight. They can still do just about everything to you they want, but now they can send you a bill for however much they want and you are forced to pay. They don’t have to approve your services and treatment. They can say it’s not reasonable and you will have no recourse.
They can and will set low annual limits on payments they are required to make.
So far we have not heard anything about how subsidies for the working poor would be managed. I suspect they will just go away, and people who don’t have 5K to pay for insurance (like, because it’s half their income) will get arrested and convicted for being poor.
There will be more rationing of health care than ever, now that insurance companies have permission to cut off granny’s benefits.
This is a disaster, both in the short term and long term. Good luck convincing people whose taxes skyrocketed long before it was decided whether they would even get benefits that they are better off.
This is no kind of reform at all. It’s only good for big health insurance and drugs. But I’m sure they’ll fix it coming up real soon. The proof is that absolutely nobody in the administration is saying they will fix it. Go blind faith!
Or perhaps, those who take their orders from their god (or think they do, especially those who brag they do) should not be politicians.
I’ve heard plenty of times before about prisoners who took part in penitentiary bible programs having conversions and getting privileges because of this. But this is the first time I have heard where clemency in murder cases was apparently a result of supposed conversions to Christianity.
Not only did Mike Huckabee give clemency to the guy who is the only suspect right now in the police shooting that killed 4 officers, he gave clemency or pardons to other violent criminals who went out and killed again, granted based on their word and the word of his religious advisors. He completely ignored the advice of correctional officials.
This is a secular country where people are free to practice whatever religion they please or none at all. The Huckster would crack down on all our private lives to force us to obey the rules he is imagining that his god decrees for us, yet he is so gullible he does not even bother to examine the facts when making decisions that impact public safety.
He cares about our souls, but doesn’t give a damn about our lives.
Sarah Palin is on a mission from God, too. She wants to start Armageddon and bring about the End Times.
Not only did Mike Huckabee give clemency to the guy who is the only suspect right now in the police shooting that killed 4 officers, he gave clemency or pardons to other violent criminals who went out and killed again, granted based on their word and the word of his religious advisors. He completely ignored the advice of correctional officials.