RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Acts Like Soviet Propagandist, Spreads Wacky Death Panel Rumor

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Acts Like Soviet Propagandist, Spreads Wacky Death Panel Rumor

On Sunday, CNN’s State of the Union invited Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus to offer what turned out to be little more than a dump of Republican talking points opposing the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is “European, socialist style-type health care,” Priebus told CNN. He even claimed that Republicans — who have now voted to repeal Obamacare’s protections for people with preexisting conditions 40 different times — are the true defenders of people who are unable to obtain health insurance without health reform. And then he dropped the death panels line — “what people don’t want are government panels deciding whether something’s medically necessary.” Watch it:

Priebus’ decision to drop this line without any context whatsoever represents an innovation in Republican messaging against providing health care to millions of Americans. The “death panel” smear originally emerged on former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) Facebook page, and was widely viewed at the time as an attack on a bipartisan proposal to enable Medicare to cover voluntary end-of-life counseling. After that proposal was dropped from the bill that ultimately became the Affordable Care Act, several Republicans — including Palin once again — retconned the term “death panels” to refer to a cost-cutting measure known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board or IPAB.

Although the IPAB is empowered to take some measures to bring down Medicare costs if those costs grow faster than a certain rate, it is expressly forbidden to take any action that might qualify as rationing care. Under the Affordable Care Act, no proposal generated by the IPAB may include “any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums under section 1818, 1818A, or 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary cost sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co-payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria.” Moreover, it is not at all clear that the IPAB will do anything at all, because Medicare costs are currently not growing fast enough to trigger the IPAB’s authority.

So the first provision Republicans labeled as a “death panel” wasn’t actually a death panel, and it didn’t even make it into the law itself. The second provision they labeled a “death panel” also isn’t a death panel, and it may not actually do anything at all. Four years after Sarah Palin invented this canard, the Republican National Committee Chair is reduced to simply asserting, without context or explanation, that death panels exist — and hoping someone out there will still believe him.

It is difficult to say where Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus received his political education, from the old Soviet Communists or from read fascist literature. Either way disinformation campaigns like his, Sarah Palin and the Republican party are not American ideals. These radical conservatives will not be happy until they impose an Iranian style totalitarian theocracy on the USA. That is why they wear flag pins and talk about god and country so much, to cover their UnAmerican agenda. These wacko radicals believe that they can fool all the people all the time.

What is the difference between Mitt Romney's Friend Murray Energy and Fascists? Not Much

What is the difference between Mitt Romney's Friend Murray Energy and Fascists? Not Much

IT IS BOTH a pundit’s truism and a mathematical reality that Mitt Romney’s path to the White House runs through Ohio. And that path, in turn, runs through a firm called Murray Energy.

Over the years, CEO Robert Murray has brought in GOP pols from as far away as Alaska, California, and Massachusetts for fund-raisers. In 2010, the year John Boehner became House speaker, the firm’s 3,000 employees and their families were his second-biggest source of funds. (AT&T was in first place, but it has nearly 200,000 employees.) This year, Murray is one of the most important GOP players in one of the most important battleground states in the country. In May, he hosted a $1.7 million fund-raiser for Romney. Employees have given the nominee more than $120,000. In August, Romney used Murray’s Century Mine in the town of Beallsville for a speech attacking Barack Obama as anti-coal. This fall, scenes from that event—several dozen coal-smudged Murray miners standing behind the candidate in a tableau framed by a giant American flag and a COAL COUNTRY STANDS WITH MITT placard—have shown up in a Romney ad.

The ads aired even after Ohio papers reported what I was told by several miners at the event, a bit of news that an internal memo confirms: The crowd was not there of its own accord. Murray had suspended Century’s operations and made clear to workers that they were expected to attend, without pay. “I tell ya, you’ve got a great boss,” Romney said in acknowledging Robert Murray from the stage. “He runs a great operation here.”

The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.

The Murray sources, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, came forward separately. But they painted similar pictures of the fund-raising operation. “There’s a lot of coercion,” says one of them. “I just wanted to work, but you feel this constant pressure that, if you don’t contribute, your job’s at stake. You’re compelled to do this whether you want to or not.” Says the second: “They will give you a call if you’re not giving. .?.?. It’s expected you give Mr. Murray what he asks for.”

And what he asks for offers a lesson for 2012: Even in a year of hyperventilation about super PACs, dubious older ways of raising political dollars still matter.



BOB MURRAY, WHO is 72, is a legendary figure in Appalachian coal country. He hails from three generations of miners in southeastern Ohio; his father was paralyzed in a mining accident when Bob was nine. Murray himself has been injured while working below ground. Unlike his forefathers, though, Murray became a suit. He won a scholarship to study mine engineering and eventually rose to chief executive of North American Coal. In the late 1980s, he took out personal loans to start Murray Energy, which has grown to own eight mines in six states. It is the largest privately held coal-mining concern in the country.

Like a lot of mining executives, Murray’s a ferocious critic of federal mining regulations—even after the 2007 collapse at his Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, where nine people died. He also knows how to throw his weight around. In 2001, he sued the Akron Beacon Journal for $1 billion after a critical profile; that same year, he was acquitted of assault charges after allegedly throwing an environmental activist against a wall. In 2002, local media reported that he warned off mine safety inspectors with this line: “Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss,” referring to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the senator’s wife. (Murray denied the account.) Murray’s fiery streak was on full display after the Crandall Canyon collapse. Wearing his trademark sweater-vest, he angrily insisted to reporters that the collapse had been caused by an earthquake—scientists disagreed—and railed against efforts to curb carbon emissions. At one point, he pulled back his collar to show the scar from his mining accident.

In southeastern Ohio, Murray’s dominance evokes an earlier era. Miners at the Century event told me he treats them well and aspires to know all their names. But the paternalism also features some unmistakable messaging. A huge sign draped outside Murray’s Powhatan No. 6 Mine—the only unionized facility among Murray’s properties—reads: SAVE EASTERN OHIO: FIRE OBAMA. At Century, a lobby notice tells employees where to call to order yard signs with the slogan STOP THE WAR ON COAL: FIRE OBAMA.

The message apparently gets through. Since 2007, employees of Murray Energy and its subsidiaries, along with their families and the Murray PAC, have contributed over $1.4 million to Republican candidates for federal office. Murray’s fund-raisers have feted the likes of Scott Brown, Rand Paul, David Vitter, Carly Fiorina, and Jim DeMint. Home-state pols get love, too. Murray’s PAC and staffers are the sixth-largest source for Ohio senatorial hopeful Josh Mandel. They’ve given $720,000 to candidates for state office in the past decade.

Internal Murray documents show just how upset Murray becomes when employees fail to join the giving. In missives, he cajoles employees to attend fund-raisers and scolds them when they or their subordinates do not. In cases of low participation, reminders from his lieutenants have included tables or spreadsheets showing how each of the eleven Murray subsidiaries was performing. And at least one note came with a list of names of employees who had not yet given. “What is so difficult about asking a well-paid, salaried employee to give us three hours of his/her time every two months?” Murray writes in a March 2012 letter. “We have been insulted by every salaried employee who does not support our efforts.” He concludes: “I do not recall ever seeing the attached list of employees .?.?. at one of our fund-raisers.”

Here’s what stubborn employees missed: The events are typically at Undo’s, an Italian restaurant and banquet hall in St. Clairsville. Dinner is pasta and salad. There’s a cash bar. There’s a receiving line. There are speeches by the visiting beneficiary who generally extols coal. (Employees in Ohio also get invitations to fund-raisers near Murray’s southern Illinois mine; they’re not expected to attend, but are encouraged to send checks.)

The ritual becomes expensive for Murray’s engineers, surveyors, and accountants. “People are very upset about being constantly asked for the checks, because people have lives and families and expenses,” says the first source, a political independent. “They say, ‘This isn’t right. .?.?. I don’t think they’re allowed to do this.’ Most people do it grudgingly.”

Those who decline, the source says, prepare to be questioned. “When they’re pressuring people to write checks, if they haven’t by the deadline, you hear people making excuses—I just had to repair my car, I had an unexpected bill, I just had to pay tuition.”

And yet the tin-cupping continues. “I am asking you to rally all of your salaried employees and have them make their contribution to our event as soon as possible,” Murray writes in a letter to managers ahead of a 2011 fund-raiser for Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker and Tennessee Senator Bob Corker. “Please see that our salaried employees ‘step up,’ for their own sakes and those of their employees.”

A September 2010 letter lamenting insufficient contributions to the company PAC is more pointed. “The response to this letter of appeal has been poor,” Murray writes. “We have only a little over a month left to go in this election fight. If we do not win it, the coal industry will be eliminated and so will your job, if you want to remain in this industry.”

The pressure to give begins as soon as employees enter the company, the Murray sources say. At the time of hiring, supervisors tell employees that they are expected to contribute to the company PAC by automatic payroll deduction—typically 1 percent of their salary, a level confirmed by a 2008 letter to employees from the PAC’s treasurer. (That letter also assures employees that they would not be “disadvantaged” by not giving.) Employees are given a form to sign, explaining that the giving is voluntary. “In the interview .?.?. I was told that I would be expected to make political contributions—that [Murray] just expected that,” says the first source. “But I was told not to worry about it, because my bonuses would more than make up what I would be asked to contribute.”

Later, the sources say, Murray sends letters to employees’ homes asking them to give to specific candidates. The letters feature suggested amounts depending on their salary level—one middle manager was encouraged to give $200 to then–Oregon Senator Gordon Smith—and include forms to fill out and return, with checks, to Murray headquarters. The letters come with great frequency. Before the 2008 election, there were nine fund-raisers in less than three months. Guests included then–New Hampshire Senator John E. Sununu, then–Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, and Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe.

Murray’s exhortations demonstrate more attention to ideology than to Strunk & White. In August 2011, Murray urged employees to attend a $2,500 fundraiser for Rick Perry, “likely to be the Republican Nominee to defeat the destructive Barack Obama.” And for the unconvinced, he attached a “brief, partial listing of the destruction that Barack Obama has reeked.” Murray employees and their households came through, becoming Perry’s second-largest source for funds in the entire country.

After Perry dropped out, Murray switched to Romney. In his April letter for the fund-raiser the next month, he told employees, “America needs business and job creation, not the ruthless destruction that we are seeing from Barack Obama and his Democrats supporters, whom are Hollywood characters, liberal elitists, radical environmentalists, unionists, and Americans who do not want to work.”

CEO Robert Murray has the same twisted view of "freedom" as mid century European fascists. because being a multimillionaire is not enough - he cut corners on safety that got nine miners killed. Murray is in no way, shape or form a patriot. he is a looter, a taker, that lives off the work of labor. Without labor he would just be a greedy bitter old man. The miners could go on without him - maybe open up the first community owned mine - give themselves better wages and working conditions and not treat ordinary working Americans like trash, as Murray surely does. he can do all the phony back slapping pretend to be your friend act he wants, that is just part of the charade of conservatives who think America should be run like a plantation - with the wage slaves down on their knees in gratitude.  Sure Romney loves Murray because they share the same world view.

Can Republicans scare their way to victory?
Make no mistake, this election has become a horse race -- thanks in no small part to the GOP's barrage of lies.

As Romney Repeats Trade Message, Bain Maintains China Ties
Romney is currently running an ad critical of Obama for allowing trade with China - you know what Republicans have been doing since Nixon opened up trade negotiations in the 1970s. Actually presidents do not have the last say over trade deals, Congress does. When is the last time anyone heard a Republican propose a bill to stop trade with them. Such a move would costs people like Romney too much money.

Mr 47% Mitt Romney Prefers The Company of Sexual Perverts Like His America Hating Buddy Marc Leder

Mr 47% Mitt Romney Prefers The Company of Sexual Perverts Like His America Hating Buddy Marc Leder

When Mitt Romney at a private fundraiser dismissed all Barack Obama voters as moochers and victims [1]—showing disdain for nearly half of the American electorate—he was speaking at the home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder in Boca Raton on May 17, 2012. (It was Romney's second fundraising event in Boca that day [2].) This is evident from references made by Romney within the full video recording of the event that has been reviewed by Mother Jones.

When Mother Jones first disclosed secret video of Romney's remarks, we were obliged to not reveal details regarding the time and place of the event. That restriction has been lifted, as the story has garnered attention throughout the media.

At the fundraiser, Romney was asked how he could win in November, and he replied:

    There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Romney made those remarks before donors who had paid $50,000 a plate to attend the dinner at Leder's swanky house [2].

Leder has long been a fan of Romney. In January, the New York Times reported [10]:

    Years ago, a visit to Mr. Romney's investment firm inspired Mr. Leder to get into private equity in the first place. Mr. Romney was an early investor in some of the deals done by Mr. Leder's investment company, Sun Capital, which today oversees about $8 billion in equity.

The paper noted that Leder is something of a poster boy for private equity—and not in a good way:

    Mr. Leder personifies the debates now swirling around this lucrative corner of finance. To his critics, he represents everything that's wrong with this setup. In recent years, a large number of the companies that Sun Capital has acquired have run into serious trouble, eliminated jobs or both. Since 2008, some 25 of its companies—roughly one of every five it owns—have filed for bankruptcy. Among the losers was Friendly's, the restaurant chain known for its Jim Dandy sundaes and Fribble shakes. (Sun Capital was accused by a federal agency of pushing Friendly's into bankruptcy last year to avoid paying pensions to the chain's employees; Sun disputes that contention.) Another company that sank into bankruptcy was Real Mex, owner of the Chevy's restaurant chain. In that case, Mr. Leder lost money for his investors not once, but twice.

But Leder does differ from Romney in one significant fashion: how he likes to have a certain sort of fun. In August 2011, the New York Post reported [11],

    It was as if the Playboy Mansion met the East EBond at a wild party at private-equity titan Marc Leder's Bridgehampton estate, where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat. The divorced Sun Capital Partners honcho rented a sprawling beachfront mansion on Surf Side Road for $500,000 for the month of July. Leder's weekly Friday and Saturday night parties have become the talk of the Hamptons—and he ended them in style last weekend with his wildest bash yet. Russell Simmons and ex-wife Kimora Lee attended a more subdued party thrown by Leder—who's an event chair for Simmons' Art For Life charity—on July 29 together. But the revelry hit a frenzied point the next day before midnight when a male guest described as a "chubby white meathead" and a "tanned" female guest stripped and hopped into the pool naked.

If conservatives want to continue to lay claim to being the most morally perfect people on earth than they can also proudly wear the title of the most self-righteous hypocrites. Leder and Romney have a key goal in common, to make America into 16th century Europe and make sure the moots are deep enough and wide enough that the average hard working Americans they consider irresponsible peasants cannot get into their sex parties.

What Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get About Responsibility

The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier.

That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream.

The problem is that he doesn’t seem to realize how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, or the agonizing choices faced by families in which both parents work and a child falls ill. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

And guess what, Mitt Romney would got get his own father's vote, Romney’s Dad Was on Welfare

Four histories of the right’s 47 percent theory - Romney may have put it into words, but the ideas behind it have been swirling for decades

Paul Ryan (R-WI) & Hal Rogers (R-KY) Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash

Anti-American proto-fascist Erickson thinks he has a sense of humor. What's funny is the level of delusion.

Paul Ryan (R-WI) & Hal Rogers (R-KY) Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message.

On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,” Ryan wrote.

Paul Ryan's request for Obamacare funds

The grant Ryan requested was funded directly by the Affordable Care Act, better known simply as healthcare reform or Obamacare.

The letter, among several obtained by The Nation and The Investigative Fund through a Freedom of Information Act request, is a stark reminder that even the most ardent opponents of Obamacare privately acknowledge many of the law’s benefits.

Federally funded health clinics have long provided a broad range of vital medical, dental and mental health services to underprivileged communities across the country, regardless of a persons’ ability to pay. To meet the goal of expanding coverage, the Affordable Care Act provides for a sweeping expansion of such clinics, including $9.5 billion for operating costs to existing community health centers and $1.5 billion for new construction.

In public, Ryan has cultivated a profile as one of health reform’s most outspoken critics. He savages the Affordable Care Act as an example of “Washington’s reckless spending spree,” as “irresponsible,” and has warned repeatedly that it would place the “federal government squarely in the middle of health-care decisions.”

Explaining his “philosophical difference” with Democrats, Ryan told ABC News this summer that he would seek to repeal the “entire law” because healthcare rights come from “nature and God,” not the government. He expressed dismay that the Supreme Court upheld the law during the interview.

Despite Ryan’s quiet support for an Affordable Care Act clinic grant in his district, the Wisconsin congressman’s promise to repeal Obamacare would undermine the law’s five-year plan to rapidly grow the health clinic system in America by withdrawing the necessary funds. The so-called Ryan Budget plan would also decimate other federal support for health clinics, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Before Republicans broadly agreed upon a strategy of opposing any health reform proposal embraced by President Obama, the party once supported access to healthcare using clinics. The Bush administration requested and received modest increases in federal health clinic funding over the years. Now, however, the GOP has made opposing the entire Affordable Care Act a central plank in its platform, and virtually no lawmakers have been willing to praise it while speaking to the media.

Ryan isn’t alone in shaking his fist at health reform with one hand while extending an open palm behind closed doors.

As I reported over a year ago, even Congressman Hal Rogers, a conservative Representative from Kentucky, and former Senator John Ensign, a rising star in the Republican Party before he resigned in disgrace, wrote letters asking for health reform grants while calling for absolute repeal. Rogers called health reform “socialistic” and a “monstrosity.” Nevertheless, he requested Obamacare funds for a nursing clinic in rural Clay County.

How many faces does the average conservative have? As many as it takes to get what they want, what makes them look good to their constituents at any particular moment. As children people pretend a lot. It is part of the maturing process. Republicans pretend their entire lives, living in fantasy land. They believe, in their little fantasy land that wrapping their lies, hypocrites, and anti-American policies in the flag and claiming that God approves - means their stink smell like roses. Republicans are not patriots any more than the super nationalist Imperial Japanese were during WW II. Conservatives and their wacko ideas are variants of fascism, not Americanism.

After Bucking Federal Judge On Early Voting, Ohio Secretary of State The Conservative Anti-American Radical Jon Husted Ordered To Appear In Court. Why would a self proclaimed "patriot try to prevent senior citizens, students and non-white Americans from voting. The GOP's Disgusting New Southern Strategy: Take the Vote Away from Blacks, Roll Back the Civil Rights Movement

Republican drug addict, draft dodger, serial liar, and serial monogamist Republican Rush Limbaugh: "Feminazis" Won't Like Michelle Obama's Speech Because "Loving Your Husband" Isn't In Their "Playbook" One of the most morally corrupt idiots in the USA is still on the radio giving his opinions and a few dozen anti-American wackos still listen to him.

America hating Republicans join with women hating pervert Republican to Bash Sandra Fluke’s Convention Speech, Parroting Limbaugh’s Sexist Attacks. I'm surprised Republicans took a break from polishing their jack boots and ogling the neighbors through their binoculars to even watch the speech. maybe this is some kind of progress. 

The U.S. Does Not Practice Capitalism As Much as Theft From Workers

The U.S. Does Not Practice Capitalism As Much as Theft From Workers - Capitalism and the Mad Uncle in the Attic

Listen.  Can you hear the Mad Uncle in the attic? His muffled shriekings are getting louder as the myths, deceptions and delusions we’ve been living on evaporate one by one in the face of reality.

Can you feel that sickening thrill as we poise atop this Sisyphean peak we call capitalism, right before the inevitable, nauseating plunge back down into reality?

Can you smell the stench from the soon-to-fail Rio plus 20 meeting as we con ourselves into believing we can snatch a bit more time at the peak if only we could steal yet more of our children’s children’s children’s birthright?

Ah, but we – plutocrats and people alike -- all beg, can’t we keep this damned Uncle locked up for just a little more time.  Maybe until this election is over.  Or until we’ve extracted a little more money from a fossil-fueled economy based on greed and exploitation. Or until … oh, I don’t know … until we’ve bled the last iota of money from the 99%?  Or at least until … I get mine?

Can’t we pretend for just one more generation that capitalism – pure, unconstrained capitalism, the kind Reagan promised us would bring morning to America – isn’t instead bringing mourning to America, and to the world?

Can’t we just pretend, for one more generation, that the whole infinite growth on a finite world thing isn’t just a giant, tragic Ponzi Scheme designed to sell out the future?

Can’t we pass this problem onto them?

Can’t we use buzz words and sound bites to drown out the lunatic?  Words like socialist or redistribution or – most dreaded of all – communism.  Can’t we keep pretending that capitalism is the necessary handmaiden of Democracy, the only path to prosperity, our only source of happiness?

No. We can’t.  Because deep down inside, in places we don’t like to visit, we know the Mad Uncle is right.

What we’re doing now isn’t making us all rich.  It’s impoverishing us.

Ultimately, all wealth comes from natural capital.  Things like fertile soils; viable forests; intact gene pools; abundant minerals; clean water and living oceans; sustainable fish stocks; flourishing ecosystems; a stable, life-sustaining climate.  We are liquidating these essential sources of wealth as if they were so much junk offered for pennies on the dollar at a desperate garage sale.

Our current version of capitalism is good at generating more currency, not greater wealth. And we forget that currency is merely a surrogate for things of real value, with no tangible value in and of itself.

And even the currency isn’t being distributed equally.  It’s being siphoned off by the richest and most powerful in a spiral of inequity.

It isn't making us happy, it's enslaving us to a life spent pursuing more and more stuff we don’t need for reasons we don’t understand.  Bigger; more; faster becomes biggest; most; fastest.  But easy, easier, easiest becomes fatter, sicker weaker.

It isn’t making us free, it’s creating a tyranny of the corporations and plutocrats. They weaken government in the name of freedom, only to turn us into indentured servants to a system that's designed to take from the poor and middle class and give to the uber rich, even as it liquidates Earth’s treasures.

But the real tragedy isn’t our own alienation or our economic and spiritual impoverishment.   It is the diminished legacy we leave the rest of humanity and indeed, the rest of the biosphere.

It’s our willingness to consume the future in an orgy of gluttony, drowning out the Mad Uncle’s protests with the noise of our own slurping, chewing, smacking, munching, crunching as we inhale our children’s birthright.

Hyperbole?

Not really.  Every living system is in decline, and the rate is accelerating.

In the case of climate change we are at the threshold of igniting feedbacks that will usher in an inevitable and catastrophic set of changes that will make life difficult in some areas and impossible in others.

It’s time to admit that the Mad Uncle is right.  Pure, unconstrained capitalism is the problem, not the solution.

What, then, are we to do?

There are alternatives.  We could tie currency to sustainable eco-systems.  Instead of a gold standard we could have a green standard.  Thus, destruction of a nation’s stock of natural capital would devalue its currency, and make it poorer.

We could adopt systems of production and ownership such as Co-ops that emphasized cooperation, equitable sharing of revenue and stewardship of our natural resources. It’s not pie-in-the sky, to consider this. Cooperatives already produce more than $1 trillion in assets, enough to make them equivalent to the 10th largest economy in the world.

Buying and selling stuff is part, but only one of the aspects of freedom. Conservatives seem to aim - on the surface anyway - for some pure capitalism where there are no regulations/no restraints on what has become criminal behavior. This is one they consider the 2012 elections so important. Demographics are changing - and not in favor the proto-fascism practiced by Republicans. They see this as their last chance to put on the power in the hands of the wealthy elite. It is astonishing that at least some working class Americans are happy to help them with their sick twisted agenda.

Please write to the Fox News Anti-American Propaganda channel and ask Monica Crowly to start taking her meds. She cannot tell reality from her fetid paranoia - Fox's Monica Crowley: "Kooks" In Democratic Party Have Taken U.S. "On A Socialist Joyride, Starting With" Obama. The fact is M's Crowly the object of so much Republican idol worship- Ronald Reagan - was more liberal than Obama.

Republican Congressional Candidate Wants To Impeach Obama For ‘Giving Away’ Seven Arctic Islands

Wes Riddle, a Republican tea party activist locked in a run-off with fellow GOPer Roger Williams in Texas’ 25th congressional district, is campaigning on a conspiracy theory even more bizarre than the fantasy that the United Nations and George Soros are conspiring to eliminate the game of golf.

Riddle has promised to begin the impeachment process against President Obama the day he enters Congress — seemingly implying that he believes Obama will be reelected — because of a boundary treaty that was ratified by the Senate in 1991. Obama was 30 years old at the time and just finishing up law school.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has the details:

    Riddle, a retired Army officer from Gatesville, wants to impeach Obama for “giving away” seven Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea islands near Siberia to Russia.

    (Yes, even though those islands were ceded in 1991 under President George H.W. Bush.)

Riddle also wants to impeach Obama, according to the paper, because of “President Obama’s abuse of power and blatant disregard to the Constitution.”

This paranoid fantasy appears to have been spawned by Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. According to his World Net Daily piece, the Obama administration gave away “seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands.” Miller was apoplectic: “We won the Cold War and should start acting like it.”

Though FactCheck.org has thoroughly debunked this conspiracy theory, reality hasn’t stopped Riddle from using it as a rationale for his goal of impeaching Obama.

Riddle has to prove to the other anti-American conservative wackos that he is as deranged as they are so they'll vote for him. Whether what he says is true or not has nothing to do with it. Making mentally deranged claims is the way nutcan Republicans signal to each other they belong to the same tribe of knuckle dragging morons.