Those Fact-Free Republi-CONs

Some halarious examples of Republi-CON created reality:

And here is a follow-up to Kyl's "groundbreaking excuse-planation by tweeting round-the-clock non-facts":

The Everyman For Himself Budget

UPDATE II: "Once you stop listening to all the swooning and read the numbers, the Republican budget proposal looks like more voodoo economics." Read The New York Times, Ludicrous and Cruel.

And for an alternate view, read The New York Times, The Ryan Journey, which notes that "Ryan’s budget plan isn’t perfect, but it’s forcing Americans to confront the reality of their choices and engage in a serious debate."


UPDATE: As a former Bush chief speechwriter and senior policy advisor notes, "H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying." Read the Washington Post, The real-world effects of budget cuts.

Was the Ryan budget proposal "built on heaping sacrifice onto the poor, slashing scholarship aid to college students and bestowing benefits on the rich?"



Hardly the self-interest "properly understood" philosophy that made the country great.

Palin Fatigue?

UPDATE II: More speculation that Palin "may have peaked, politically speaking." Read the Washington Post, Sarah Palin’s tipping point.


UPDATE: So long Palin: "The presidential ambitions once harbored by the former Alaska governor are all but dead, with even the Republican base rating her in polls as 'strongly unfavorable.' And if there's one thing to blame for her short-lived national political career, it's television. Read TheWeek.com, How TV created, then destroyed, Sarah Palin.

But not just yet: "Let [her and Gingrich] suffer the media attacks so that another Republican can emerge unscathed." Read Forbes, Why The GOP Needs Palin And Gingrich.

Is it time to cry uncle regarding Palin? First Mika:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Now I'm declaring February a Palin-free month. Join me! and This Is Not a Post About Sarah Palin.

Sub Today at NoBullU on WEBY

Usually on Thursdays you can listen to me, the voice of wisdom and reason in a wilderness of partisan rhetoric -- no political insanity, no conservative hypocrisy, no liberal foolishness -- just straight talk, straight at you, and that’s no bull!!

But I was hosted off, for a good cause. Unfortunately, Mike tells me he's going to replay a show full of birther nonsense. He must be promoting Trump for President. Fortunately, Trump is doing his best to discredit himself. (Read the Washington Post, Trump’s disgusting, dangerous dance with birthers.)

I'll be back in May to deprogram you.

Bye-Bye Bonkers

UPDATE: Race baiting and fringe conspiracy have lost their political panache. Read the Washington Post, Why Glenn Beck lost it.

What will those Republi-cons do to inspire the base for the 2012 election?

Appropriately enough, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that it is official, Bonkers is gone from Hedgehog News.

It is The GlennPocalypse:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The GlennPocalypse
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

I especially like the complaints by other Hedgehog News anchors that Bonkers undermines their credibility.

Childish Insults While the Republic Burns

Why is Congress "threatening to shut down the U.S. government in a dispute over a tiny fraction of the federal budget?" Maybe it is because they are too busy insulting one another. Read the Washington Post, 27% of communication by members of Congress is taunting, professor concludes.

Why Is America Great?, Part VII, Self-Interest "Properly Understood"

"Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called 'self-interest properly understood.' The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest 'properly understood' is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late."

Read Vanity Fair, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.

Help WEBY Stay on the Air!

UPDATE: Final tally for the host off competition between yours-truly and the host-who-can-not-be-named: 465 votes for him, and 250 votes for me. Guess you'll heard from me next in May.

If you enjoy Dave and Mike in the morning, followed by Neal Boortz and Clark Howard, and the 'spirited discussion and debate' of the live, call-in show, Your Turn, every weekday afternoon, help WEBY stay on the air:

From all of the hosts, thank you!

The God of Republi-CONism Flip-Flops

Republi-cons were for the war in Libya, before they were against it, just ask Rusty. Read The Atlantic, For the War Before He Was Against It.

State Republi-Con Fiscal Conservative Hypocrisy, Cont.

UPDATE: In Wisconsin, Republi-con Gov. Scott Walker says that "the state is broke and public employees are overpaid." So what does he do, hire a 20-something year old with "no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions" as the Department of Commerce bureau director of board services, a job that paid $64,728 a year.

Next convert the Department of Commerce to a public-private hybrid and give the young man a pay raise of more than $16,500 a year after only a couple of months with the state.

But this was no 'ordinary' young man, he is the son of an important campaign donor.

Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, No degree, little experience pay off big.

"State employees haven't received a raise in more than four years, but most agency heads that Gov. Rick Scott has appointed are making $20,000 a year more than their predecessors . . .

Asked this week why he was paying most of his secretaries significantly more when state employees haven't been given a raise, Scott did not directly answer the question. Instead he said that state employees are "very hard working people."

'And they clearly are doing a great job for the citizens of our state,' Scott told reporters. 'And I want to make sure I do everything I can to make sure we get the best people and we pay them a fair wage.'"

Read the Florida Tribune, Scott gives agency heads a big bump in their pay.

Guess Who

Who can:

Start the day without caffeine,

Always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

Resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

Eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

Understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

Take criticism and blame without resentment,

Conquer tension without medical help,

Relax without alcohol,

Sleep without the aid of drugs,

The Family Dog:

Bankruptcy by Demographics

UPDATE II: The U.S. government spends $40 billion to $50 billion each year on end-stage kidney disease. Read The New York Times, Asking Kidney Patients to Forgo a Free Lifeline, which highlights one case:

"One patient, a 78-year-old woman whose name is being withheld, was not a good candidate for dialysis, her doctors said. She has complications from diabetes, high blood pressure, a heart valve problem and severe coronary artery disease. Her medical problems were so grave that dialysis was likely to lead to a series of medical interventions — hospital stays, drugs and doctor visits — but would not necessarily prolong her life. And her doctors told her that.

But she insisted on dialysis, saying, 'Some life is better than no life.' In the seven months she has been on dialysis, she has been hospitalized four times, including twice for heart surgery.

'I go to dialysis because I want to live,' she said in a telephone interview. 'I want dialysis.'"

UPDATE: Medicare doesn't cover everything. So how much do you need to save? A lot. Read The New York Times, Getting Old Is Expensive.

Should old people just die younger and quicker? Read the Washington Post, A growth lesson from China, which predicts a pretty bleak future for the U.S.:

"This demographic destiny might entail starving every other sector of society -- including national defense, at great cost to America's international standing. It had better not, given what Fogel argues in another essay, this one in the current issue of Foreign Policy. It carries the headline "$123,000,000,000,000." Fogel's subheadline is: "China's estimated economy by the year 2040. Be warned."

He expects that by 2040 China's GDP will be $123 trillion, or three times the entire world's economic output in 2000. He says China's per capita income will be more than double what is forecast for the European Union. China's 40 percent share of global GDP will be almost triple that of the United States' 14 percent.

Fogel finds many reasons for this, including the increased productivity of the 700 million (55 percent) rural Chinese. But he especially stresses "the enormous investment China is making in education."

While China increasingly invests in its future, America increasingly invests in its past: the elderly. China's ascent to global economic hegemony could be slowed or derailed by unforeseen scarcities or social fissures. America's destiny is demographic, and therefore is inexorable and predictable, which makes the nation's fiscal mismanagement, by both parties, especially shocking."

Tell your kids to learn Chinese.

Thank God We Saved the Banksters, But Why?, Cont.

UPDATE: Where is the anger? Read Mother Jones, Wall Street and the Public, which notes:

"Years ago I remember a lot of moderate liberals talking about how the Bush era radicalized them. For me, it was the economic collapse of 2008 that did it. The financial industry almost literally came within a hair's breadth of destroying the world, but even so it took only a few short months for them to close ranks with Republicans and the rich to prevent anything serious being done to rein them in. Profits are back up, new regulations are barely more than window dressing, nothing was done to help underwater homeowners, bonuses are as obscene as ever, unemployment remains sky high, and the public has somehow been convinced that this was all their own fault — or perhaps the fault of big government, or big deficits, or something. But the finance industry has escaped almost entirely unscathed. It's mind boggling. If this doesn't change your view of who really runs the world, I don't know what would."

Once a foob, always a foob.

The legislation that created TARP, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, "prevented a meltdown of the financial system, but failed to meet the legislative goal of protecting home values." Read The New York Times, Where the Bailout Went Wrong.

Florida Republi-CONs Unmasked

From the Pensacola News Journal, Editorial: It's not a crime?:



The editorial is a worthy read.

Class Today at NoBullU on WEBY

Listen to the voice of wisdom and reason in a wilderness of partisan rhetoric -- No political insanity, no conservative hypocrisy, no liberal foolishness -- Just straight talk, straight at you, and that’s no bull!!

NoBullU will broadcast today from 4:05 to 6:00 p.m. at 1330 AM WEBY and on line.

Topics:

Help WEBY stay on the air!, if you enjoy Dave and Mike in the morning, followed by Neal Boortz and Clark Howard, and the 'spirited discussion and debate' of the live, call-in show, Your Turn, every weekday afternoon


Follow-up to fact-free fantasies: shame on our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators, continuing his campaign of fear, anger and hatred by hosting a professional purveyor of hate, rememnber last week it was the faux Florida Sharia law case (perhaps our resident Pastor-to-the-dictators never heard of the religious autonomy principle regarding church faith, doctrine, discipline, and governance);


Local and regional: why did the Sheriff picking a fight with federal judges?, $2.35 million for NCAA Division II football program at UWF, is it worth it?, state Republi-con fiscal conservative hypocrisy, Cont., state worker get the pink slips, the bosses get a $20,000 raise,


National and international: I'm waiting, where's the balanced budget, don't hold you breath because the Republi-CONs Con the Tea Party, there'll be no $100 billion budget cut, and let's admit the obvious, the Republi-CONs are not serious about deficits,

the Middle East mess and the hope for democracy, and a Facebook revolution?, why Libya, and what next, and Obama -- damned when he didn't, and damned when he did -- and why are Republi-CONs undermining U.S. military and foreign policy objectives, after year of incessant moral blackmail regarding Iraq, when the U.S. has the power to do something constructive, and Gaddafi is good reason to try it, he reaffirms my support for an openly debated and conducted assassination policy for rogue dictators,

after the devastation in Japan, you should support better, not just less, government,

57 days til the end of the world, again,

so many lies, so little time to 'refudiate', turns out the New Black Panther voter intimidation case, was complete nonsense from the very beginning, this after the most recent incident of partisan zealotry through highly selective editing of reality, but even Glenn Bonkers doesn't believe it,

union busting, part of the Republi-CON war on the middle class, but who said: "where collective bargaining is forbidden, freedom is lost",

thank God we saved the Banksters, but why?,

budget gamesmanship and tough decisions, and Congressional pension reform hypocrisy,

the Republi-CON Double Dip Recession, not a new ice cream, but it'll make you scream,

after Palin fatigue?, the Republi-con's latest celebrity candidate, he's a birther, it is clear that he hasn't even read the Congressional Research Service that would agree that Obama is a "natural born citizen," (the Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress, providing professional, objective and non-partisan public policy research to members of Congress and their staffers. The writer of the memorandum is a qualified constitutional attorney who has summarized the historical and legal material with references, showing, by contrast, how shoddy the birther arguments are) (this memorandum explains why even Republi-CON Congressmen/women refuse to join the Birthers), and he hasn't talked to Barbara Nelson, who "specifically remembers his birth" because she spoke with the obstetrician who delivered him shortly after his birth,

so you don't believe in global warming, then explain what happens to 35 gigatons of CO2 each year,

the health care industry bottomline, the reason Republi-con want to repeal the new health care law, the nation’s bloated annual health-care tab would swell by more than $4 billion" after a company raised the price of a medicine from $20 to $1,500 per dose,

and who pushing a health care policy his family stands to profit from immensely, and did you know, the Republi-CONs secretly support Obamacare,

Republi-con education merit pay hypocrisy, it is a fraud,

the benefits of a modern secular legal system, don't read your spouse's email, or record her conversations, you can kill a rat, but not a hamster, is it a crime to have a false persona,

you're so wonderful, not,

and 'The Great Stagnation' and our broken political system;


Fun stuff: why men are just happier people, read the witticisms!, Mission Impossible, Squirrel Edition, and Escapa;

and

Donate to a good cause: help the friends of a former instructor at the Naval EOD school at Eglin Air Force Base, Gunnery Sgt. John Hayes, who was detachment company gunnery sergeant from June 2007 to June 2010 and taught several courses and was recently wounded in Afghanistan.

I'll discuss anything, but expect a no mercy take down if you are a party hack pandering to fear, anger and hatred, because the truth sure makes it hard out there for the party pimps.

So tune-in, call-in, but only if you can handle the truth and some ass kickin' discussion of politics and current events.

Shame on Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators

Today, our resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators and his so-called Christian Church will host a professional purveyor of hate.

This evil man makes a fine living (as part of the Fear, Anger, Hatred Industry) traveling around the country to speak to naive church groups, making false, biased, ridiculous, and laughable claims, and playing on Holocaust guilty to encourage a "one-sided foreign policy in favor of Israel and continued wars with Muslim countries."

Although his claim to be running for the Israeli Knesset is not false, he is considered a fringe candidate with no chance of election, like our local Rick Outzen for President.

Shame on Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators for hosting this man.

The Middle East Mess and the Hope for Democracy

"Egypt is messy, and Islamists are gaining ground. But keep your seat. Young democracies are always chaotic." Read The New York Times, Democracy Is Mess.

So Many Lies, So Little Time to 'Refudiate', Cont.

"Yesterday, the Justice Department released the long-awaited results of its inquiry into its own handling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case, and the verdict is in: This whole tale has been complete nonsense from the very beginning." Read the Washington Post, Surprise! The right’s New Black Panther obsession turns out to be a joke. The article concludes:

"Of course, we should be under no illusion that the OPR’s findings will put an end to this false controversy. The most likely outcome is that the conservatives who have spent the last two years flogging this case will now go after OPR head Robin C. Ashton, accusing her of whitewashing the case. Even before the results of the OPR investigation were known, conservatives had already begun smearing her as a political hack.

For today’s conservatives, the absence of evidence of a conspiracy merely serves as more evidence of a conspiracy."

Republi-CON Education Merit Pay Hypocrisy

When Republi-cons pay principals and teachers to produce big gains on standardized school test scores, they get what they pay for, courtesy of "extraordinarily high numbers of erasures . . . [with t]he consistent pattern was that wrong answers were erased and changed to right ones." Read USA Today, When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?

Name That Fraud

"In the 1990s, he made his money off single-payer health-care programs by cheating them. Today, he’s making his money off single-payer health-care programs by running them."

How? By "pushing a policy his family stands to profit from immensely."

Who is the fraud? Read the Washington Post, Rick Scott’s extremely profitable policy proposal.