UnAmerican Culture of Conservatism Exposed at Morally Corrupt Bank of America

UnAmerican Culture of Conservatism Exposed at Morally Corrupt Bank of America

Just when we thought the big banks couldn’t hit a new low, they did.

Six former employees of Bank of America have come forward, alleging that the big bank intentionally denied eligible homeowners mortgage loan modifications, and lied to those homeowners about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.

Bank of America allegedly used these dirty tactics to lead homeowners into foreclosures and in-house loan modifications, both of which helped reap massive profits for BOA’s bottom-line.

The employees who have come forward have also said that the big bank rewarded customer service representatives with hefty cash bonuses and gift cards to popular stores when they foreclosed on homes.

According to a lawsuit filed in federal court, a Bank of America employee who placed ten or more mortgage accounts into foreclosure a month could get up to a $500 bonus.

The lawsuit also alleges that the bank punished representatives who did not hit foreclosure target numbers or who objected to the bank’s tactics. In some cases, those employees who didn’t foreclose on enough people were fired.

This latest jaw-dropper out of Bank of America comes just days after it was revealed that the bank was also using deceptive mailers and sales pitches to sell consumers on mortgage refinancing plans that could actually add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a borrower’s loan.

Despite these latest revelations about foreclosure targets, lies and dirty tactics, nobody at Bank of America is worried about going to jail.

That’s because our elected lawmakers in Washington, particularly Republican lawmakers, are scared straight by the idea of going after the big banks and going after corporate America.

Yet, these same lawmakers are just fine going after the big bad government, especially when it comes to things like the IRS controversy.

But, let’s look at the parallels between the IRS controversy and the latest news coming out of Bank of America.

With the IRS controversy, IRS agents deliberately went after and applied higher scrutiny towards potentially political organizations, liberal and conservative, applying for 501c3 tax-exempt status.

At Bank of America, employees allegedly intentionally denied eligible homeowners loan modifications, and pushed them into foreclosure to get a bonus.

With the IRS scandal, one IRS official took the fifth when testifying before Congress, but is the subject of both a criminal and an internal investigation.

At Bank of America, it’s alleged that customer service representatives were rewarded for lying to homeowners about the status of their mortgage payments and documents.

Despite the obvious similarities between these two scenarios, only one is being investigated loudly and publicly by Congress; The IRS controversy.

So, why is Congress willing to go to the ends of the earth to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal, but refusing to lift a finger when it comes to investigating America’s big banks?

Could it be that employees of the IRS do not make multimillion dollar campaign contributions to members of Congress?

Could it be that employees of the IRS don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying?

And even the media, which is supposed to be an impartial and unbiased source of news and information, is afraid to go after big banks when they commit crimes.

The media would rather drag on ad nauseum about manufactured witch hunts like the IRS controversy, than discuss how the big banks, which American taxpayers have already saved once, are back up to their same old dirty tricks, and threatening to bring down the entire American economy once again.

 One of the reasons the banks are likely to get off is that to do so would appear to be anti-business. Ever hear the word pro-business from conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats. That is code for letting big business do whatever it wants. If you are pro regulation that protects consumers, tax payers and small investors - in this conservative culture you are defined as a raging commie. How did that framing of issues happen. Most of the media is owned by big corporations. The media gets it's revenue from big corporations. So the media never or at least seldom ever holds a politicians accountable for what they mean when they claim that regulations which protect ordinary Americans is somehow anti-business.

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

The Real IRS Scandal - Conservative Groups Were Using Non-Profit Status to Promote radical Political Agenda

It’s important to review why the Tea Party groups were petitioning the I.R.S. anyway. They were seeking approval to operate under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. This would require them to be “social welfare,” not political, operations. There are significant advantages to being a 501(c)(4). These groups don’t pay taxes; they don’t have to disclose their donors—unlike traditional political organizations, such as political-action committees. In return for the tax advantage and the secrecy, the 501(c)(4) organizations must refrain from traditional partisan political activity, like endorsing candidates.

If that definition sounds murky—that is, if it’s unclear what 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to do—that’s because it is murky. Particularly leading up to the 2012 elections, many conservative organizations, nominally 501(c)(4)s, were all but explicitly political in their work. For example, Americans for Prosperity, which was funded in part by the Koch Brothers, was an instrumental force in helping the Republicans hold the House of Representatives. In every meaningful sense, groups like Americans for Prosperity were operating as units of the Republican Party. Democrats organized similar operations, but on a much smaller scale. (They undoubtedly would have done more, but they lacked the Republican base for funding such efforts.)

So the scandal—the real scandal—is that 501(c)(4) groups have been engaged in political activity in such a sustained and open way. As Fred Wertheimer, the President of Democracy 21, a government-ethics watchdog group, put it, “it is clear that a number of groups have improperly claimed tax-exempt status as section 501(c)(4) ‘social welfare’ organizations in order to hide the donors who financed their campaign activities in the 2010 and 2012 federal elections.”

Some people in the I.R.S. field office in Cincinnati took the names of certain groups—names that included the terms “Tea Party” and “patriot,” among others, which tend to signal conservatism—as signals that they might not be engaged in “social welfare” operations. Rather, the I.R.S. employees thought that these groups might be doing explicit politics—which would disqualify them for 501(c)(4) status, and set them aside for closer examination. This appears to have been a pretty reasonable assumption on the part of the I.R.S. employees: having “Tea Party” in your name is at least a slight clue about partisanship. When the inspector-general report becomes public, we’ll surely learn the identity of these organizations. How many will look like “social welfare” organizations—and how many will look like political activists looking for anonymity and tax breaks? My guess is a lot more of the latter than the former.

Not to worry. The anti-American tea bagger political groups which were basically operating as a charity, will get away with it, as conservatives always do by way of political intimidation and whining like the little plastic patriots they are. Certainly everyone, regardless of their politics should not be breaking the law, and they should all be prosecuted. Don't hold your breath waiting for that.

American Patriots Know That Federal Income Taxes on Middle-Income Americans Near Historic Lows

American Patriots Know That Federal Income Taxes on Middle-Income Americans Near Historic Lows

Federal taxes on middle-income Americans are near historic lows, our updated report explains, and that’s true whether you’re talking about federal income taxes or all federal taxes.

When it comes to income taxes, a family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 5.3 percent of its 2013 income in federal income taxes next year, according to a new analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

Average income tax rates for these typical families have been lower during the Bush and Obama Administrations than at any time since the 1950s (see graph).  Taxes were particularly low from 2008 to 2010 because of the Recovery Rebate Credit and the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, which have since expired.

When it comes to overall federal taxes, households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum paid an average of 11.1 percent of their income in taxes in 2009, the latest year for which data are available, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).  This is the lowest on record in data that go back to 1979.
When CBO publishes data for more recent years (such as 2013), overall federal average tax rates on this middle group will likely be higher — though still low historically — because they will reflect the expiration of Making Work Pay and other temporary tax cuts, including the payroll tax cut that expired at the end of last year.

The expiration of the payroll tax cut is the biggest tax change for most people in 2013.  As this table shows, the tax cut helped workers in a wide range of income groups, and its expiration is a key contributor to the slowdown in economic growth that CBO forecasts for 2013.

Yet those wacky conservatives keep claiming that we have to keep large tax cuts for wealthy corporations and billionaires to stimulate economic growth, or have new tax cuts. There is no relationship between low taxes for those skimming huge profits off the backs of American workers. Why are cons lying about taxes. They want to starve thew government safety net - Medicare, Social Security, workmen's comp, unemployment insurance  - pretty much anything that does not fire a missile. The reason we safety net is because history shows us that markets are often good and create wealth, but they are not perfect - as any adult who was around in 2007 will know. The U.S. and it's imperfect markets have a long history. Patriots learn from history, conservatives either rewrite it or pretend it didn't happen.

Patriots Don't Lie About The Number of Americans Receiving Disability

Patriots Don't Lie About The Number of Americans Receiving Disability

Unpatriotic Conservative Media Hype NPR's Myth-Filled Disability Report

A misleading NPR report has become fodder for a right-wing media campaign to scapegoat federal disability benefits, despite the fact that the rise in disability claims can be attributed to the economic recession and demographic shifts, and that instances of fraud are minimal.

NPR reported that the rise in the number of federal disability beneficiaries was "startling" and claimed it was explained by unemployed workers with "squishy" claims of disability choosing to receive federal benefits rather than work. Right-wing media called the report "brilliant," and used it to further the myth that the increase in the number of individuals receiving disability benefits reveals fraud in the system.

Breitbart.com's Wynton Hall wrote that NPR's "eye-opening" piece uncovered a disability program "fraught with fraud." Fox Nation promoted the piece with the headline, "Every Month, 14 Million People Get a Disability Check from the Government..." The National Review Online's blog called the piece "brilliant," while the Washington Examiner's editorial offered it as evidence that disability benefits provide "a voluntary life sentence to idle poverty." The Drudge Report linked to the NPR story and to the Breitbart.com article:

But as Media Matters previously noted, these reports failed to include crucial facts that explain the rise in disability benefits. The recent financial crisis and the rising rate of child poverty have made more children eligible to receive benefits through the Supplemental Security program, while the growth in the number of adults receiving benefits through Social Security Disability Insurance since the 1970s is largely explained by increases in the number of women qualifying for benefits. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explained, as women have joined the workforce in greater numbers over the past few decades, more women are eligible for disability benefits, resulting in higher numbers of beneficiaries.

Furthermore, in a report published in March 2012, the Government Accountability Office found that improper payments of disability benefits are not a widespread problem, and accounted for less than four percent of total improper payments made by federal agencies in fiscal year 2011.

Why would any intelligent American believe anything that Neo-Nazi sites like Brietbart have to say. They, Drudge and Fox want to transform the USA into an authoritarian cult run by plutocrats and religious fanatics who are similar to the Taliban. 

How Low Can Morally Corrupt Republicans Go, GOP Opposition Researcher Names Drudge As A Propaganda Model

How Low Can Morally Corrupt Republicans Go, GOP Opposition Researcher Names Drudge As A Propaganda Model

The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin interviewed Tim Miller, executive director of a new conservative political action committee centered on opposition research, who reminisced about how conservative operatives successfully used blogger Matt Drudge to push debunked or thinly-researched smears against Democrats in 2004, describing it as a "great model" that needs to be updated.

In a March 24 post at Rubin's "Right Turn" blog, Miller described his organization, America Rising, as being dedicated to the "collection, dissemination and deployment of opposition research against Democrats," and uses Drudge's DrudgeReport.com circa 2004 as a model to return to (emphasis added):

    Last week former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades and two young Republican sharpshooters, Tim Miller and Joe Pounder, announced they would set up a new organization, America Rising, devoted to the collection, dissemination and deployment of opposition research against Democrats and a counterpart to the hugely successful American Bridge on the left. On Friday I sat down with Miller and Pounder at a Capitol Hill Starbucks to talk about their new venture.

    They plan on instigating nothing less than a revolution in the way the right does and uses oppo research. They are keen on connecting research to communication and every other aspect of campaigns. Pounder tells me, "It must be responsive to the news cycle and polling." Miller jokes that "research has been people sitting in a dungeon or going through trash cans" and then funneling the information up to a press person to send out in a mass e-mail. Miller says, "Now you have to drive the news cycle."

    The Romney campaign was certainly hobbled by the Democrats' opposition machine, which cranked out information on everything from Bain to Cayman bank accounts, funneled it to friendly press outlets and the Obama super PAC, and kept the Romney team on perpetual defense. But the problem is not specific to the Romney campaign. Miller recalls, "We had a great model in 2004 -- research guys who fed to Drudge. Drudge drove the mainstream media." But, he says, "in a lot of ways we haven't done a good job of updating [that model]. Over time we rested on our laurels."

In 2006, ABC News highlighted Drudge's influence on media, particularly in the 2004 election cycle, saying, "Republican operatives keep an open line to Drudge, often using him to attack their opponents...And then the mainstream media often picks it up."

Drudge did help drive stories to Fox News, right-wing radio and other outlets during the 2004 presidential election, but much of the blogger's content -- which included discredited attacks on John Kerry's military service -- was thinly-researched, deceptively edited, or flat-out wrong.

What does it say about your radical political movement that it's single biggest weapon is not truth, not American values, not legal or economic justice, not liberty, not the Constitution, not progress and jobs, but smears from mentally unstable ideologues.

Americans Want a Back-to-Work Alternative to Creepy Paul Ryan's Austerity Scheme

Americans Want a Back-to-Work Alternative to Creepy Paul Ryan's Austerity Scheme

When it comes to budgets, debts and deficits and, most importantly, the future of the US economy, there are two distinct visions competing in Washington.Members of the Congressional Black Caucus speak against proposed tax cuts, December 10, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Both cost a lot of money.

But they seek to steer the United States in radically different directions.

One vision, that of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, spends our federal largesse on tax breaks for the rich and schemes to divert Medicare funds into the accounts of private insurers. It’s classic crony capitalism. But that’s not the worst of it. Because Ryan’s plan comes wrapped in an austerity model for squeezing government spending and investment, it threatens to stall an economy that is only beginning to grow at a rate sufficient to create needed jobs.

On Thursday, the House voted 221-207 for the Ryan budget. The Republican majority was reasonably solidified in support of the proposal, although ten sincere fiscal conservatives opposed a measure that focuses far more of satisfying the demands of Wall Street donors than actual deficit reduction.

Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the Ryan budget. That can and should be read as a rejection of the ugliest face of austerity. But it is not the case that congressional Democrats are united when it comes to presenting an alternative to Ryanism. And that’s a problem because voters don’t just want Congress to reject austerity; polling data makes it clear that they want an alternative that is focused on job creation.

The best alternatives to the Ryan budget have been presented by the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The two groups, which have a significant overlap in their membership, saw their proposals rejected by the House on Wednesday. Ryan’s Republican colleagues opposed both plans, as did dozens of cautious Democrats who have yet to recognize the importance of challenging the lie of austerity with a no-holds-barred growth agenda.

The political reality, of course, is that this week’s House votes settle nothing with regard to the budget priorities that will ultimately frame the nation’s future. “Once again, Republicans in the House have passed a budget that the American people do not support, and has no real chance of becoming law,” explained Congressman Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat who serves on the Budget Committee. “This is a budget whose math is bogus, but whose consequences are real and serious for our middle class families in Wisconsin. From destroying jobs, to raising taxes on the middle class, to turning Medicare into a voucher system, it makes the wrong decisions and reflects the wrong priorities… But the biggest problem with the GOP budget is that it fails to tackle the greatest threat to our long-term deficit—our need to grow our economy and create jobs. With 12 million Americans still unemployed, and millions more who are underemployed, the best budget we can put forth is one that fosters job growth.”

It will be in the wrangling between the House and Senate, and the broader national debate, that the fiscal and economic priorities of the nation will finally be shaped.

And it is important to recognize that, in that broader national debate, Ryan and the House majority have already lost.

The American people have no taste for austerity.

They want a growth agenda. The new Gallup Poll finds that 72 percent of Americans support spending federal money on a program to “put people to work on urgent infrastructure repairs.” Seventy-two percent of Americans also favor “a federal jobs creation law that would spend government money for a program that would create more than one million new jobs.”

Those positions are antithetical to everything Ryan is proposing.

That’s a growth agenda that is the opposite of austerity.

It is a growth agenda that mirrors what the Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed with its “Back to Work” budget.

The CPC budget plan balances the budget far more efficiently and effectively than does Ryan’s—as it eschews the pay-to-play giveaways to campaign donors in the insurance, pharmaceutical and financial-services industries—and stimulates job creation. That’s because the CPC proposal rejects austerity in favor of growth. The focus on growth is essential to the CPC plan, which is wholly distinct from other Democratic plans that seek to strike an often incoherent balance between smart investments and Ryan’s austerity.

Believing in conservative austerity, Ryan's austerity or Romney austerity is like believing that flesh eating trolls live under all bridges. It is all based on the fetid fantasies of the conservative bubble, not sound economics. America cannot afford austerity. Democrats have already given them austerity-lite, which is why the economy is growing, but slower than it would if we did away with austerity all-together.

Why Is The Media Echoing The Conservative Deficit Zombies When They Do Not Represent The Views of Real Americans

Why Is The Media Echoing The Conservative Deficit Zombies When They Do Not Represent The Views of Real Americans

Why are so many Washington officials obsessed with budget deficits?  And why are they so willing to entertain big cuts to social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and education, while being reluctant or outright unwilling to increase taxes on the highest income earners?  The answer cannot be that most Americans want these choices. Survey after survey shows that large majorities support asking the wealthiest to pay more in taxes and want to maintain or increase spending on Social Security and federal health and education programs.

A possible answer to where budget hawks get energy and inspiration comes from the first systematic survey social scientists have managed to do of the political attitudes of wealthiest one percent of Americans. Working with a team of scholars from several disciplines, I have conducted a study called the “Survey of Economically Successful Americans and the Common Good.” Most national surveys include only a tiny number of very wealthy citizens, but we used additional data sources to identify a larger sample of wealthy individuals living in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.  Further research would be needed to explore attitudes among the very wealthy living everywhere in the United States.  But our findings are highly suggestive of what would be found in a nationwide study.  For the first time, we are able to pinpoint issues on which the very wealthiest agree or disagree with other Americans.

On Key Budget Questions, the Wealthy Have Distinctive Priorities

The wealthy respondents to our survey expressed great concern about budget deficits:

    Fully 87% called deficits a “very important problem” facing the United States, more than attributed such importance to unemployment, education or anything else on a list of eleven potential national challenges.
    On an open-ended question that asked respondents to name the most important problem facing the country, a hefty 32% of the wealthy mentioned budget deficits or excessive government spending, far more than cited any other problem.
    Only 11% of the wealthy mentioned unemployment or education as America’s top problem.
    Wealthy respondents tilted toward cutting back – rather than expanding – federal government spending on Social Security and health care.

By contrast, in a national survey taken about the same time as our survey, only seven percent of all Americans mentioned deficits or the national debt as the most important problem, while 53% cited jobs and the economy as the top problem.  Average Americans also leaned toward expanding rather than cutting back on major federal outlays for Social Security and health care.

Disagreements on Jobs and Income Supports

Most wealthy respondents to our survey opposed a wide range of job and income policies that majorities of ordinary Americans favor. Our respondents were against setting the minimum wage above the poverty line; providing a decent standard of living for the unemployed; increasing the earned income tax credit; and having government provide jobs for everyone able and willing to work who cannot find private employment.

Likewise, the wealthy opposed – while most Americans favor – providing health insurance financed by tax money; spending “whatever is necessary” to ensure that all children can attend good public schools; making sure that everyone can go to college can do so; and investing more in worker retraining and education to help workers adapt to changes in the economy.

The general American public favors more regulation of big corporations, but our wealthy respondents tend not to favor this idea. Most Americans favor using corporate income taxes “a lot” to get revenue for government programs, but most of the wealthy do not favor this.

Darth Vader's human embodiment Dick Cheney famously said that deficits did not matter, he and his conservative comrades tanked the economy, and Democrats took the wheel of the ship they sunk. Suddenly deficits were the most important thing in the world. What is important is rising more revenue, creating jobs, protecting the environment, educating the next generation, reeducating adults to have the skills for new jobs and getting everyone health. What the wealthy want or want conservatives want is irreverent. Conservatives and the conservative wealthy trashed America. They deserve what they reaped. To be ignored.

Fox News and CNN conservative pundit Erick Erickson : Give A Medal To Store Employee Who Beat Shopper's Child With Belt. How can the USA call itself a merit based society when this assclown makes a six figure salary for being a political analyst.

The Conservative Supreme Court May Strike Down Voting Rights Act, Section 5

The Conservative Supreme Court May Strike Down Voting Rights Act, Section 5. Which has had successes both in terms of civil rights and in improving the economic lives of Southern blacks

With most experts expecting Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act to be struck down by the Supreme Court in the coming months, can you talk about the future of the civil rights movement in the South?

It doesn’t look good for Section 5. It’s one of those things where almost from the start a piece of legislation was constitutionally innovative and now it may be due for a second look. What Justice Roberts suggested three years ago, that they really ought to rewrite or come up with a new Voting Rights Act that doesn’t use geographic indicators from the 1960s, is something he’s correct to argue.

But what the Court is being asked is whether they will take the relatively radical step of striking down legislation that has existed for decades, was renewed only recently after extensive hearings, and which has accomplished so much. I have no doubts about where my sympathies lie. But I would propose a test to determine whether this act is really needed or not: We should ask, ‘Do you have consensus in affected areas among the black as well as the white community that this kind of federal oversight is no longer needed?’ I doubt very much that those people would agree with what the Court is suggesting. And without that, how can they really say with any credibility, listening overwhelmingly to Southern whites in political power who never agreed that the VRA was ever needed in the first place, that Section 5 is no longer needed? It’s hard for me to see what makes that particular argument so persuasive.

More here, Why We Still Need The Voting Rights Act: Perspectives From Supreme Court Spectators.

Why Does Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Hate America So Much That She Would Cost Taxpayers Millions Out of Pure Ignorant Spite

 Why Does Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) Hate America So Much That She Would Cost Taxpayers Millions Out of Pure Ignorant Spite

Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (TN) insisted that shutting down the government should be “on the table” as Congress and the Obama administration deal with passing a continuing resolution, raising the debt ceiling, and addressing the sequestration cuts.

Appearing on MSNBC on Monday, Blackburn echoed a growing consensus within the Republican party, insisting that lawmakers should close the federal government or allow the United States to default on its debt if President Obama does not agree to drastic spending cuts. “We are going to look at all of these options,” Blackburn insisted. “You know, there is the option of government shutdown. There is an option of raising the debt ceiling in short-term increments”:

    CHRIS JANSING (HOST): [But are your constituents] willing to see the government shut down? Are you hearing that, Congresswoman?

    BLACKBURN: Yes, they are. Yes, they are. But they want us to be thoughtful in what is done. And this is the good thing. You know, maybe it’s better to keep it open so we can keep cutting it. [...]

    JANSING: Would you be willing if you don’t get the kind of cuts that you think are necessary, would you be willing to go into default or to shut down the government?

    BLACKBURN: I think that there is a way to avoid default. If it requires shutting down certain portions of the government, let’s look at that. Let’s put these options on the table, be very thoughtful, but get this spending pattern broken. We cannot afford a $4 billion a day deficit and trillion dollar plus deficits every single year.

Watch it:

Jansing warned that should the government shutdown, the FBI would stop working, “prisons won’t operate, the court system closes, tax refunds won’t go out, the FAA would go off line.” But Blackburn dismissed these concerns by arguing that Republicans will set priorities for government spending and start eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

The line of thinking has caught fire with “more than half” of the Republican House caucus. As House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) told Politico, “I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we’re serious.” “We always talk about whether or not we’re going to kick the can down the road. I think the mood is that we’ve come to the end of the road.”

A government shut down would cost tax payer's money. Every day the government is shut down starts the clock ticking on accumulated debt and interest on that debt. In 1996 the shut down cost between $700 million and $800 million. These essential services would also shut down: Social Security: Unprocessed. Veteran’s Services: Gone. Health, Disease, And Toxic Cleanup Services: On Hold. National Parks: Closed. Museums: Closed. During the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, museums lost about 2 million visitors. Passports And Visa Applications: Unprocessed. During the last shutdown, more than 200,000 passport applications and 20,000–30,000 visa applications went unprocessed.

6 UnAmerican Media Pundits America Should Ignore in 2013

6 UnAmerican Media Pundits America Should Ignore in 2013

Readers, I recommend you do likewise. Herewith, a barrel of horribles who ought to be jettisoned, exuberantly flung from civilization. They are boils on the ass of the media beast, and it is my well-considered opinion, they should be ruthlessly lanced. With one exception, these offenders were not chosen simply on the basis of awful election-year prognostications, though all were indeed guilty. No, this is a lifetime achievement award. These folks (with one exception) have been awful for a very long time; I propose that in the new year we stand athwart their shitty track records and yell “Enough!”

1. Dick Morris.Regrettably, the Big Dog’s coattails are impossibly long (see Penn, Mark). If Morris couldn’t put “former Clinton adviser” in front of his name, he would be just another toe-sucking mercenary with a gift for impossibly goofy [3] predictions. What’s remarkable -- indeed, an achievement -- is Morris’ ability to continually find suckers willing to compensate him. This includes The Hill, that respected Washington rag, where he still collects a check. The staffers are suitably embarrassed [4] by Morris’ weekly dross. But I do not include Morris for his predictive failures [5]. Stupidity is forgivable, but his sin, operating in bad faith, is not. Morris confessed to Father Sean Hannity a week after Mitt Romney lost the election that he, Dick Morris, projected a Romney victory because [6] “the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic” and “nobody thought there was a chance of victory.” There is no value in a man willing to tell you what you want to hear.

2. Niall Ferguson.In America a Scottish brogue, a nice build and good hair can get you pretty far. These attributes go a long way, I assume, toward explaining why Ferguson hasn’t been run out of Harvard Square on a rail. A review of Paul Krugman’s clips are instructive; if he’s not racist [7], he’s brutally stupid -- ignorant of borrowing costs [8] and willing to lie [9] to his audience about the cost of healthcare reform. Ferguson really showed his ass in the week before the presidential election: in a single Daily Beastcolumn, he argued [10] that Barack Obama still needed to win over undecided voters (he didn’t [11]), that polls were “scar[y] for the incumbent” (they weren’t, which accounts for the War on Nate Silver), and that Obama, on the cusp of the election, would support an Israeli attack on Iran. So: Ferguson was, in the words of Meat Loaf, doubly blessed: ill-equipped to adequately comment on economics -- his area of “expertise” -- and politics. Since he’s also a two-time loser (an adviser to McCain ‘n’ Mittens, respectively), there is no compelling reason to give him the time of day.

3.Peggy Noonan.Mary Ellen Noonan has been around so long it is assumed she must have been, in the supply-sider universe far, far away, talented. Her reputations rests on “a thousand points of light,” a meaningless, ambrosia salad phrase made funny by Dana Carvey, and “Read my lips: no new taxes,” a lie. But that’s enough for a lifetime Journalsinecure, apparently. Noonan’s prose, turgid and purple, is at its worst when evoking the name of Ronald Reagan, which is always. The irony: Her relationship to the 40th president was tenuous. As a former Reagan adviser pointed out [12], after Noonan trashed [13] her fellow speechwriters in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Noonan was “never part of the team” and her gifts, such as they were, were limited to self-promotion. And yet Noonan, like the execrable Mr. Morris, has dined out on this skimpy presidential connection well past the sell-by date.

4. Michael Barone. There are rumors Barone was once a reason-based, intelligent lifeform. I have heard nice thing about The Almanac of American Politics. He continues to be revered by conservatives, who treat him like a combination of Nate Silver and Jesus. But there has been no trace of this supposedly erudite, analytical man for a very long time. In March 2003, Barone wrote [14] that “Quick success in Iraq, followed by success as soon as possible in Syria and Iran, will help us deal with” the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. (To recap: An invasion of two countries that hadn’t attacked us, so quickly on the heels of an invasion of yet another country that hadn’t attacked us.) Indeed, this is in keeping with a fellow who, in 2005, e-mailed Glenn Reynolds (below) to say [15] “there might be something to Intelligent Design.” That same year, he predicted [16] “the end” of political polarization. In 2006, he wrote [17] that a McCain-Lieberman presidential ticket “would probably win easily.” By the time Barone said journalists didn’t care for Sarah Palin because "she did not abort her Down syndrome baby," it wasn’t really a surprise.

5. Charles Krauthammer. Krauthammer once argued [18], in the pages of America’s second-most-influential newspaper, that torture was okay under “the ticking time bomb” scenario, which does not exist and has never existed in real life. For reasons that escape me, the New Republic keeps on its masthead [19] a man who lets a "24" wet-dream dictate his views on foreign policy. I hope it’s simply a matter of priorities -- the magazine has undergone a redesign -- but perhaps they believe, as does Politico, that he is “sophisticated [20].” Krauthammer certainly fooled the Pulitzer committee, which must be so proud to have honored a man so addled he hates [21] the Berenstain Bears and believes Obama blackmailed [22] David Petraeus. In any case, by Krauthammer’s own metric, he ought to be put out to pasture. On April 22, 2003, he told [23] an American Enterprise Institute audience, “Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We’ve had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven’t found any, we will have a credibility problem.” And here we are.

6. Jennifer Rubin. Rubin’s descent into outright hackery (see this Drudge-sirened “EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW [24]” with, ugh, Ed Gillespie) wasn’t precipitous, even though she wrote for Commentary, a journal of sub-basement quality. Her columns filed during the previous election cycle for the New York Observer were relatively clear-eyed. Romney, she wrote [25], was “the least adept politician in the field.” She criticized his “manicured appearance and cautious language [ibid].” In another column, she noted [26] that “Americans don’t like it one bit when candidates adopt positions (or entire platforms, for that matter) for political expediency.” (You don’t say!) It’s unclear what transpired between that election and the most recent, but this time around she functioned not as a reporter but as an unpaid spokeslady for the Romney campaign. Her advocacy [27] was breathtaking brazen; she often resembled those fixtures [28] of pre-Giuliani Times Square, cleaning up after each Romney flub. To Rubin’s credit, she admitted [29] as much.

Actually there are four more at the link. These are people who have huge megaphones via media like Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, AM radio and some are syndicated to newspapers across the country. Why? They lie a lot, they always spin, they hate logic and science, they say they're for freedom and yet are always advocating laws that infringe on freedom.   And speaking of Charles Krauthammer, he really knows how to make a insulting analogy, Larger Sandy Relief Bill Was 'Rape Of The Treasury' (VIDEO).

Gov. Nikki Haley Appoints Radical Anti-American Proto-Fascist Tim Scott, to Replace Wacko Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Gov. Nikki Haley Appoints Radical Anti-American Proto-Fascist Tim Scott, to Replace Wacko Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Tim Scott is America’s newest senator today after getting tapped by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to fill the vacancy left by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). DeMint announced this month that he was leaving the Senate to head up the Heritage Foundation, an arch-conservative think tank in Washington DC.

Though DeMint left big, controversial shoes to fill for Republicans, few conservatives will be disappointed with Scott’s record. Elected to Congress just two years ago in the Tea Party wave, Scott has already garnered headlines for his plan to impeach President Obama, his legislation to cut off union members’ children from food stamps, and his defense of Big Oil.

Here’s a quick look at Scott’s record:

    Floated impeaching Obama over the debt ceiling. As the debt ceiling debate raged in the summer of 2011 because of the intransigence of Tea Party freshmen like Scott, the nation inched perilously close to defaulting on its obligations. One option discussed by some officials to avoid that scenario was for the president to assert that the debt ceiling itself was an unconstitutional infringement on the 14th Amendment. However, Tim Scott told a South Carolina Tea Party group that if Obama were to go this route, it would be an “impeachable act.”
   
    Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike. One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott’s legislation made no exception for children or other dependents.
   
    Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display “would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow.” When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge’s orders, Scott was nonplussed: “Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it.”
   
    Defended fairness of giving billions in subsidies to Big Oil. Scott and his Republican allies in Congress voted repeatedly last year to protect more than $50 billion in taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil corporations. When ThinkProgress asked Scott whether it was fair to do that, especially at a time when oil companies are earning tens of billions in profit every quarter, the Tea Party freshman defended the industry: “fair is a relative word,” said Scott.
   
    Helped slash South Carolina’s HIV/AIDS budget. As a state representative, Scott backed a proposal to cut the state’s entire HIV/AIDS budget, despite the fact that South Carolina ranks in the top-third of reported AIDS cases. The cuts were ultimately included in the state’s budget, impacting more than 2,000 HIV-positive South Carolinians who needed help paying for their medication.

 So Scott is against every ideal America stands for: Scott is part of the conservative Taliban and is against separation of church and state, like the European fascists of the 1930s Scott is a social-Darwinist, he likes the ten commandments but hates the teachings of Jesus and the virtue of charity preached by Founders like Benjamin Franklin, Scott hates people simply because they are ill and is happy to withhold medical care. Yep, he is just a Jim Demint clone, an America hating zealot.

5 Lies The Gun Lobby Tells You

MYTH #2: The Second Amendment prohibits strict gun control.  While the Supreme Court ruled in  D.C. v. Heller  that bans on handgun ownership were unconstitutional, the ruling gives the state and federal governments a great deal of latitude to regulate that gun ownership as they choose. As the U.S. Second Court of Appeals  put it in a recent ruling  upholding a New York regulation, “The state’s ability to regulate firearms and, for that matter, conduct, is qualitatively different in public than in the home. Heller reinforces this view. In striking D.C.’s handgun ban, the Court stressed that banning usable handguns in the home is a ‘policy choice‘ that is ‘off the table,’ but that a variety of other regulatory options remain available, including categorical bans on firearm possession in certain public locations.”

 Amazingly people can support the 2nd amendment and some reasonable gun control at the same time.

America Hating Conservative Pundit Matt Drudge And Fox News Push False Attack Against Disaster Relief Bill In Wake Of Hurricane Sandy

Why Does Bill O'Reilly Hate His Viewers and Feed Them Lies

Why Does Bill O'Reilly Hate His Viewers and Feed Them Lies

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely suggested that President Obama's proposal to let Bush tax cuts expire could leave some wealthy Americans paying 40 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. But Obama has only proposed letting taxes on the top income bracket increase -- which means only income over $200,000 would be affected -- and very few Americans pay more than 35 percent in U.S. taxes.

This tax discussion comes as the Obama administration and the Republican House try to reach a deal on the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.

O'Reilly told guest Adam Corolla that "your state's up to about 14 percent state income tax. President Obama wants to raise it up to about 40 percent federal. That's 54 percent. If he knocks out the deduction for state income taxes, which he wants to do, you'd be paying 54."

This is a complete misunderstanding of how income tax brackets in the United States work. President Obama has proposed letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire, which means the top income tax bracket would increase from its current 36 percent to 39.6 percent. But those rates would only apply to income exceeding $200,000. A taxpayer filing as "single" would currently pay a series of increasing marginal rates on his or her income, beginning with a rate of 10 percent on the first $8700 of income and ending with a rate of 35 percent on income over $388,350. And many taxpayers are able to take deductions, which limit their tax liability.

The taxpayer's effective rate almost always ends up much lower than 35 percent. According to the Tax Policy Center, in 2008, only 10,228 out of 142,450,569 total tax filers paid more than a 35 percent effective tax rate. That's only .0072 percent of tax returns.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted, "a taxpayer's marginal tax rate is the tax rate imposed on his or her last dollar of income." CBPP added: "Taxpayers' average tax rates are lower -- usually much lower -- than their marginal rates.  People who confuse the two can end up thinking that taxes are much higher than they actually are."

Federal income taxes are currently at their lowest rate since the 1950s. Republicans are acting like cry babies over taxes being raised on millionaires from 36 to 39.6%. Talk about false outrage. This is the income bracket that benefits most from infrastructure and a very expensive military/industrial complex. They should be paying rates closer to 42%. In 2008 the average American helped bail these "makers" Producers' champions of capitalism with hundreds of billions of dollars in loans. Now the same arrogant elitists are complaining about doing their part to help rebuild America. Conservative thinking like Bill O'Reilly's is clearly not patriotic American thinking. Bill and his network have an utter contempt for America and its values. You can tell by the endless stream of spin and falsehoods. Indicative of every radical anti-freedom movement in history.

Urban Myths: How Conservative Neo-Nazi Dinesh D'Souza's Lies in "About 2016: Obama's America"

Urban Myths: How Conservative Neo-Nazi Dinesh D'Souza's Lies in "About 2016: Obama's America"

The marketing materials for the upcoming film 2016: Obama's America claim that it "takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world's most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years." If the movie is anything like its source material, we can expect it will be a mostly fraudulent journey.

The movie is based on Dinesh D'Souza's book The Roots Of Obama's Rage, which received high praise from people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, neither of whom have shown any qualms about promoting outright lies, distortions, and outlandish claims in the past.

The New York Times reports that the film is partially financed by billionaire investor Joe Ricketts, who previously considered financing a multimillion dollar political ad campaign linking the racially charged rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to President Obama.

The central thesis of the book is that Obama has some sort of anti-colonial world view, handed down to him by his ancestors, that acts as the motivation behind his actions and policies as president. It is just another form of birtherism, albeit a more highbrow variety of the ongoing conservative conspiracy theory. Appearing on Beck's Fox show, D'Souza explained:

    Obama is not anti-American in that he wishes ill on America. He wants what's best for America. He thinks it's really bad for us to be a colonial power. And therefore, in his view, he is doing right for America by pulling us out, by knocking us off our pedestal, by in a sense taking us from being the world's arrogant superpower. He wants us to share the wealth. He thinks he's gonna get a better America. The problem is, he's stuck in this theory, he's frozen in this time machine. In a sense, he's a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s. It's an incredible idea.

D'Souza boosts this ludicrous premise (Obama ran for the presidency because he hates colonialism ... just like America's founders!) using several claims that are simply not rooted in reality. A few examples:

    D'Souza claims that TARP and the federal bailout were programs that "Obama launched." Both programs began under the Bush administration.

    D'Souza claims Obama went by the name Barack to adopt his father's "African identity," but Obama has explicitly said his name change "was not some assertion of my African roots."

    D'Souza insists that references in Obama speeches to a "nuclear-free world" are evidence of "anti-colonialism," but Ronald Reagan made multiple references to the same concept.

    D'Souza claimed that Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber because he sometimes "supports the release of terrorists who claim to be fighting wars of liberation against American aggression." But the Obama administration formally opposed the release in an official letter from the State Department.

    D'Souza claimed that Obama referred to BP as "British Petroleum" in a May 2010 speech. He never did.

And D'Souza just goes on and on, inventing incidents that never happened, making historical claims that don't match up to the facts, shoehorning these made-up stories into a false narrative of racial resentment.

It doesn't appear that D'Souza has corrected or amended his flawed premise. 2016: Obama's America is just repeating the same falsehoods with moving pictures.

Conservative Republicans are literally organizing bus tours to go see this movie, because conservatives think if you repeat lies on film that magically makes them true.

 As head of the investment company Bain Capital, Mitt Romney laid off thousands of workers.

 Mitt Romney's advice on the foreclosure crisis: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process."

 The former Bain Capital managing director said of Mitt Romney's tenure: "We had a scheme where the rich got richer." [Los Angeles Times,  12/16/2007]

 Mitt Romney set up shell companies in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to avoid U.S. taxes.[Los Angeles Times,  12/19/2007]

 Mitt Romney calls Obama's payroll tax cut that would save middle class/lower income families $1,500 a year "temporary little band aids."

 Mitt Romney's first budget as governor included $240 million in fee increases.

Mitt Romney has proposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations that would cost $7.8 trillion over 10 years.

Mitt Romney's top economic adviser Greg Mankiw said the "offshoring" of American jobs was a good thing.

Mitt Romney, who lambasts the "failures" of government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, profits from investments in the firms.

Mitt Romney said that catching bin Laden would be "insignificant" and it's "not worth moving heaven and earth."

Mitt Romney pledged to expand a Bush-Era policy of permitting doctors to deny women access to contraceptives.

Mitt Romney said he supported the Ryan Republican budget plan that would effectively end Medicare.

Paul Ryan embraces the extreme philosophy of sex cultist Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan wants to raises taxes on the middle class, cut them for millionaires

Paul Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.”

Paul Ryan supports $40 billion in corporate welfare subsides for big oil.

Conservative Republicans Regularly Promote Hate Speech, Then Complain That Normal Patriotic Americans Are Intolerant of Them

Conservative Republicans Regularly Promote Hate Speech, Then Complain That Normal Patriotic Americans Are Intolerant of Them

On Wednesday, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center released a study showing that guests and topics discussed during "The Rush Limbaugh Show," "The Sean Hannity Show," "The Glenn Beck Program," The Savage Nation" and "The John and Ken Show" overwhelmingly marginalized minority groups.

As the study explains:

    The findings reveal that the hosts promoted an insular discourse that focused on, for example, anti-immigration, anti-Islam, and pro-Tea Party positions and that this discourse found repetition and amplification through social media.

These viewpoints have far reaching consequences. NHMC President and CEO Alex Nogales told Fox News Latino that the social network surrounding conservative talk radio and Fox News has spread to social media websites resulting in "an echo-chamber of voices, both online and off, that promotes hatred against ethnic, racial and religious groups and the LGBT community on social media web sites."

Using hateful rhetoric, these hosts have cast immigrants as disease ridden, equated pro-immigrant organizations with neo-Nazis, called Islam an "evil religion," claimed the Obama administration is promoting "race riots" and made fun of the ethnicity of Asian-American politicians.

Yet is a descent American with a conscience objects to their fair mongering, ethnocentrism and greatly oversimplified rhetoric, that descent individual(s) is labeled intolerant. You have to hand the Anti-American Republican movement credit for their twisted logic along with their twisted values.

Romney cannot run on his record at Bail where he was a leach who exported American jobs, made a profit even when the businesses themselves went down the toilet. he can't run on his economic ideas because they are just a rehash of the Dubya Bush and Republican policies that caused the financial collapse he is trying to hold Obama responsible for. So what can he run on. The same radical right-wing crap that you hear on the proto-fascist conservative radio shows, Romney Smears Obama, Falsely Claims He Filed Lawsuit To Restrict Military Voting In Ohio

Today on Facebook, Mitt Romney claims that the Obama campaign is trying to “undermine” the ability of members of the military to vote in Ohio:

    President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage. The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote. I stand with the fifteen military groups that are defending the rights of military voters, and if I’m entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I’ll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.

This certainly sounds outrageous, but it is not true. Since 2005, Ohio has had in person early-voting in the three days prior to the election. This year, however, the Republican legislature in Ohio eliminated early voting during this period, except for members of the military. The Obama lawsuit is attempting to restore voting rights for all Ohioans, not restrict them for the military or any other group. From the Obama lawsuit, filed in federal court:

    Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to restore in-person early voting for all Ohioans during the three days prior to Election Day – a right exercised by an estimated 93,000 Ohioans in the last presidential election. Ohio election law, as currently enacted by the State of Ohio and administered by Defendant Ohio Secretary of State, arbitrarily eliminates early voting during the three days prior to Election Day for most Ohio voters, a right previously available to all Ohio voters.

The Obama campaign’s request for a preliminary injunction does not seek to restrict military voting. Rather, it simply is asking that the full early voting period be open to all citizens, as it was under the law before this year.

Even Fox News acknowledges the purpose of the suit, noting “the lawsuit does not restrict the ability of military personnel to cast their ballots early.”


The Romney campaign is totally unable to back up their candidate’s claim:

    Romney’s spokesman, Ryan Williams, in an interview Saturday could point to no place in Obama’s lawsuit that seeks to restrict the rights of military voters…

Mitt Romney has values? When can America expect to see him display some of those.
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