Don't listen to republicans

Why does anyone listen to republicans? I mean, really? They have ZERO, ZILCH, NADA, creditability. History proves they are on the wrong side of every issue. So please tell me why they are allowed to use the public airways to mislead the American people and distort what we decide while liberal/progressive voices are silenced? Why aren't we hearing about the Progressive Caucus Budget to the same degree we're hearing about Paul Ryan's budget proposal?

The 75-member House Progressive Caucus has put out its own budget to counter Paul Ryan's Medicare-gutting GOP plan.

This is more than a fantasy document. It's sound policy. The conservative Economist magazine has called the budget "courageous." As a conversation-starter, it shows that the path out of our debt and deficit quagmire is not as steep as most imagine, and that getting America's fiscal house in order isn't incompatible with making critical investments in jobs and infrastructure.

The budget has more of what Americans say they want — new taxes on the rich and cuts to defense — than either the GOP's or the president's budget. And it has none of what Americans say they hate: changes to the social compact that's guided America from the days of the New Deal and the Great Society.

What's that you say? The Americans want new taxes on the rich and cuts to defense? I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! That explains why we aren't hearing about it in the media. *Snark*

Let Congress Test Out Paul Ryan's Medicare Plan on Themselves and Their Families: That Would Kill It Right Quick

If the politicians in DC are so serious about deficit reduction, then why don't they start by cutting their own pay, health care benefits and pensions?

Doesn't budget control begin at home?

And if Paul Ryan's Medicare plan is so terrific, why don't Ryan and other Congressional supporters of his budget immediately pass a bill that will replace their health care benefits with the Ryan plan?

In fact, why not run a test program with the Koch brothers, members of their Americans for Prosperity and elderly Tea Party supporters? All of them should volunteer to immediately go on the Ryan Medicare, drastically limited "voucher program" - which would leave a high percentage of seniors unable to afford medical insurance - as sort of a test model of Ryan's plans for privatizing and shrinking Medicare.

Then we can see the actual results of a plan that would raise health care costs by adding the profits of corporations and administrative costs to Medicare, while drastically reducing benefits due to the small amount of money allocated to vouchers for each senior - and the for-profit insurance industry profit motivation to deny as much care as possible.

Why aren't Senator Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kuchinich invited to appear on mainstream media talk shows? I'll tell you why, it's because they might tell the TRUTH.

The Base has left the building

President Obama's base is deserting him faster than rats leaving the Titanic. I want to blame the Presidents' staff/advisers, but in all honesty I can't because after all, he's the one who hired them.

From a press secretary who sneeringly referred to us as The Professional Left, to a Chief of Staff who called us F*cking Retards. From an Education Secretary who is against public schools and public school teachers, to advisers who made him into a their version of what the first African American President should be. A token, with no real power. Someone to make them feel good, so they could pretend we are a post racial America. Someone to lecture black folks about personal responsibility.

I'm going to assume President Obama honestly thought he would allowed to govern when he took the oath of office on that January day in 2009. I also assume he thought republicans would work with him. Little did he know Rush Limbaugh and Company were already planning his failure. Mission Accomplished. The first African American President is a failure, so we don't have to worry about this little social experiment again. I fear after President Obama, there will never be another African American President.

White people are truly scared of Obama. On one hand they are scared he might enact policies that might improve conditions for African American and be the black President for black people only. and on the other hand, they are scared he's going to exact some kind of revenge for the way blacks have been treated by the white power structure.

There is a divide within the black community regarding President Obama. Recent polling indicate his approval has dropped from 95% to 85%. During the campaign blacks were discouraged from asking about issues that affect their community.

Liberal/Progressive whites who supported the President are through too.

Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the Democratic Party left him before he left the party. Like many progressive supporters of Barack Obama, I'm beginning to have the same feeling about this president.

Consider what we've seen since the shellacking Democrats took in the fall elections.

I thought President Obama was smart and was going to surround himself with smart people. I didn't know he would be so busy trying to keep his JOB he would forget to do his job.

It's not wise to throw your base under the bus. As the young people say, you better recognize.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. President Obama needs to get control of the message. He who controls the message controls the outcome.

False Equivalency and Trial by Media

What we have in the wake of Saturday's shootings in Arizona is a false equivalency, and a trial by media, in the media, for the media(also known as the court of public opinion). Could it be the mainstream media is feeling a tad bit defensive for their role in enabling the toxic state of political discourse by giving Sarah Palin and others a national and international platform?

Roger Ailes, president of the Republican network, offered the usual defense -- insisting that Jared Lee Loughner "was not attached" to Tea Partiers -- and said the criticism of Fox News is "just a bullshit way to use the death of a little girl to get Fox News in an argument."
But also Ailes went a little further, making two related points. The first is that he claims to have told his network's on-air talent to "shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," and urged Fox News' team to stay away from "bombast." The second is that Ailes is convinced that "the Democrat [sic] Party" is just as bad: "This goes on ... both sides are wrong." Ailes added that he hopes "the other side" tells its team to tone down the rhetoric, too.

TeeVee Pundit Heads parade "expert" after "expert" before cameras declaring Jared Loughner is mentally ill without the benefit of a professional, independent examination. It is a weapon of mass distraction from the fact he attempted to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman in an atmosphere of violent threats against Democratic politicians.
If Loughner were an African American, a Muslim or an immigrant we would hear HOURS AND HOURS of debate about, shiftless blacks, radical Muslims, and them there illegal immigrants, not a mental illness.
Legal Schnauzer says the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Reveals Cluelessness Among American Elites and is an indication that a few of our nation's leaders are woefully out of touch with reality.

Many Americans, especially elites, tend to think of crime in a "bottom-up" fashion. It's something that an individual from a lower class inflicts upon an individual from a higher class. In that sense, Jared Loughner appears to be a standard-issue American criminal. He apparently is a troubled guy, perhaps inflamed by right-wing rhetoric, who had access to a gun and took out his anger on an innocent person from a higher class. Had one of Loughner's targets not been a member of Congress, many Americans probably would have never heard about the shooting. Many of us, after all, have become anesthetized to bottom-up crime.

For the media and elected officials attemppt to promote the spin this tragedy is the result of a "maniac" and not the result of a political assassination by a fanatic influenced by a toxic political culture is proof they believe the American people are stoopid, and we will believe anything they say, simply because they said it.
Prior to the Arizona Shootings, we had a campaign season rife with gun rhetoric by right wing republicans.

Robert Lowry, a Republican challenger to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event in October. The event was at a gun range, and Lowry shot at a human-shaped target that had Wasserman Schulz's initials written next to it. He later said it was a "mistake."

Geno at Pine Belt Progressive saw this coming and sounded the alarm in February of 2009.

I’m concentrating on studying white supremacy as a political movement until further notice. I need to know just how advanced it is at this point so that I can judge how best to deal with it.
It’s my general opinion that the way to deal with groups like this is to shine a spotlight on them. And I think when you do that, you typically find some people who have to be dealt with by the state, some who have to be defeated politically, and some who can be assisted by education.
I think a time may be coming when it will be necessary to confront these groups and deal with them. If so, the methods we use to confront them will determine whether we make the situation worse, or whether we make it better. So we must choose carefully.
For now, I will say that I am seeing some developments that concern me. I have a fairly alarming hypothesis about them that I am trying to confirm with evidence, and I am afraid they will be in a position to recruit a lot of real talent soon if they aren’t already. I think it is worthwhile to spend some time gathering evidence, and can think of nothing more important to spend my time on.

Geno also cautioned us not to forget about the white supremacists with this comment;

I'm afraid they're gonna have to be smacked down. Here's why. They've been forming totally new groups - chapters and cells -- for the entire time Bush was president. All these new orgs can recruit independently, and appeal to people with slightly different interests. And the numbers required to do great evil, assuming you have a committed and energetic rank-and-file with talented leadership, are smaller than one might think.

Driftglass warned us about the men and women who thrive and grow at the white hot core of the Pretty Hate Machine

Your Party Masters have burned your bridges and salted the Earth behind you, and now there is nothing left for you to do but desperately tunnel deeper into the Hell you have built for yourself.
Which is why John McCain now publicly grovels and kisses the poxy asses of the men who service and steered the Pretty Hate Machine diffidently past the bodies of the dead and dying of NOLA, and gleefully down the blood-tarred, bone-macadamed streets of Iraq. Men who went right after his family -- his wife and children -- and his honorable national service without a second thought when it suited their despicable purposes.
Because the Pretty Hate Machine does not come with a conscience, and it now casts its depraved shadow over their entire Party.
And over the entire nation that Party has seized.
And over the entire world that Party has polluted.
It has become all Means and no Ends but More Power, and as with all power, it comes with a steep price.

A steep price indeed. From "job killing" to "death panels" republicans have numbed us to their rhetoric, enabled by the mainstream media.

The GOP has relied on the phrase “job killing” to frame the repeal effort as an economic endeavor that will help create American jobs and sustain the economy, but conservatives probably didn’t give much thought to the implications of the word “killing,” having relied on the rhetoric of ‘life and death’ so frequently throughout the health care reform debate. In fact, if it wasn’t for Saturday’s shooting, few people would have seriously considered the real meaning of the GOP’s words. In the aftermath of “death panels,” suggestions that the law may “cost you your life“, kill more people, and abort babies, the Republicans have downright numbed us all to their frequent use of death imagery as a tool to ferment political opposition. A quick look through the past 18 months or so reveals a stunning array of messages warning Americans that the Democrats’ signature legislation would lead to death.

Once again I am begging President Obama to use the power invested in him by we the people to wrestle control of the message from the GOP infused, media enabled Tea Party and stop letting the MSM distort what we decide with all spin all the time. We didn't elect the media we elected Y-O-U. Yes, we DID.