Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Ayn Rand: the Tea Party’s Miscast Matriarch » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Ayn Rand: the Tea Party’s Miscast Matriarch » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
"Rand, and her supporters, including Alan Greenspan, viewed altruism as evil: altruism is evil, selfishness is good. And tens of millions of dollars of corporate money is backing that philosophy today in America, no doubt to give obscenely paid CEOs a sip of Rand’s guilt-free narcissism while stoking the fires for more deregulation of a country just crawling back from the crippling effects of deregulation. This is the mindless irrationality of Rand’s brand of rationality."

Sunday, February 26, 2012

How Koch Became An Oil Speculation Powerhouse

How Koch Became An Oil Speculation Powerhouse: pIn April, ThinkProgress caused a stir when we uncovered a series of Koch Industries corporate documents revealing the company’s role as an oil speculator. Like many oil companies, Koch uses legitimate hedging products to create price stability. However, the documents reveal that Koch is also participating in the unregulated derivatives markets as a financial player, [...]/p
"Koch’s Tea Party front groups and lobbyists fight financial reforms designed to reign in the unregulated energy market. While Americans for Prosperity, as well as other Koch fronts, decry the Wall Street reform bill debated in Congress, Koch lobbied to water-down provisions of the bill related to derivatives."

Friday, February 24, 2012

Thom Hartmann: The True Story Of The Tea Party

Mitt Romney: Cut Medicare, Social Security benefits for seniors

Mitt Romney: Cut Medicare, Social Security benefits for seniors
"Except for his plan to mess with Social Security and Medicare. He got much more concrete, and as has been in vogue among Republicans, wants to take away benefits. He's going Ryan-lite on Medicare (the Ryan-Wyden plan), with the addition of raising the eligibility age, and both raising the retirement age for Social Security and means testing it."

GOP Rep. Dave Camp Disappointed That Obama’s Tax Reform Doesn’t Protect Offshore Tax Havens

GOP Rep. Dave Camp Disappointed That Obama’s Tax Reform Doesn’t Protect Offshore Tax Havens: pThe broad corporate tax reform plan released by the Obama administration this week included a provision for a minimum tax on corporate profits earned overseas, a rule aimed at preventing corporations from taking advantage of offshore tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The U.S. loses billions of dollars a year in tax revenue [...]/p

A Compendium of The Goofiest Things That Rick Santorum Has Said So Far... | Common Dreams

A Compendium of The Goofiest Things That Rick Santorum Has Said So Far... | Common Dreams
"That exclusivity might present a problem for him at the polls. If you add up all of the non-Christians, the 99% of woman who use contraceptives, the blacks, the browns, the poor, the recent immigrants, the gays, the tree huggers-- all of the assorted Americans who Rick Santorum does not approve of-- that is one heck of a lot of folks who likely wouldn’t vote for him, even if Rush Limbaugh’s man succeeds in winning the Republican presidential nomination in August."

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Insurance CEO Praises Affordable Care Act: ‘It Has Been A Pretty Good Thing’

Insurance CEO Praises Affordable Care Act: ‘It Has Been A Pretty Good Thing’: pAetna CEO, Chairman and President Mark Bertolini praised the Affordable Care Act during the HIMSS12 Conference in Las Vegas this week, arguing that while the new law and its regulations have “pulled [the insurance industry] through the crucible” and “reshaped” the health care market, “For most of what has already been implemented, it has been [...]/p

Catholic Nuns File Brief Supporting Affordable Care Act

Catholic Nuns File Brief Supporting Affordable Care Act: pAs further proof that conservative efforts to paint President Obama as the enemy of religion are a red herring, nearly two dozen leading Catholic nuns filed a brief in the Supreme Court last week supporting the president’s signature legislative accomplishment. The Catholic sisters who joined the brief include the leaders of many prominent religious orders [...]/p

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Paul Ryan Berates Tim Geithner For Not Embracing GOP’s Medicare Privatization Scheme

Paul Ryan Berates Tim Geithner For Not Embracing GOP’s Medicare Privatization Scheme: pIf President Obama’s newly-proposed budget were to be enacted, it’s long-run projections show U.S. debt stabilizing as a percentage of GDP until approximately 2030, after which it begins to rise again indefinitely. Last Thursday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) decided to take Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to task over those numbers: RYAN: Leaders [...]/p

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Recently Outed Conservative Sheriff Supports Marriage Equality

Recently Outed Conservative Sheriff Supports Marriage Equality: pConservative Arizona sheriff Paul Babeu has gained a lot of prominence as a proponent of the state’s anti-immigration policy, a staunch supporter of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a Congressional candidate, and the volunteer co-chair of Mitt Romney’s Arizona campaign, but he now finds himself mired in a scandal with a jilted lover. In a case [...]/p

Rick Santorum’s Plans For America | Truthout

Rick Santorum’s Plans For America | Truthout
If we let him and his followers get their way, the result will be ever greater divisiveness and decline at home, and war abroad. That is a choice for the rest of us.

Why Right-Wingers' Hatred of Modern Women Is Going to Cost Them the Birth Control Battle (and a Whole Lot of Votes) | Gender | AlterNet

Why Right-Wingers' Hatred of Modern Women Is Going to Cost Them the Birth Control Battle (and a Whole Lot of Votes) | Gender | AlterNet

A Fearful GOP | Truthout

A Fearful GOP | Truthout
The issue, for Republicans, is not just that Santorum would lose in November. It's that he could be a drag on House and Senate candidates as well. Imagine, say, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., trying to explain to his constituents why someone who doesn't fully understand women's participation in the workforce should be president.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Santorum: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’

Santorum: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’

You don't own me

You don't own me
Republicans seem to have mistaken "wage slavery" for ... that other kind of slavery. They must have, because anyone who understood that workers are employees, and not property, would recognize that workers have rights. Not just some rights, not a neatly restricted little subset of rights, but the same rights as the people who employ them.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Santorum Excommunicates 45 Million Christians: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’

Santorum Excommunicates 45 Million Christians: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’: pIn a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University, Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic, warned about the dangers of “the NBA” and “rock concerts,” but also said that while Protestants founded America, mainline Protestantism is in such “shambles” that “it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it”: We all know that this [...]/p

AZ-04: Republican Paul Babeu implicated in explosive scandal, says he is gay

AZ-04: Republican Paul Babeu implicated in explosive scandal, says he is gay
Tea Party Sheriff in Arizona.

PERRspectives: Death of a GOP Talking Point on Tax Cuts

PERRspectives: Death of a GOP Talking Point on Tax Cuts
The Bush tax cuts not only didn't pay for themselves, they weren't paid for anywhere else in the federal budget. They were and continue to be the biggest drain on the U.S. Treasury, whose tax collections as percentage of the American economy hit a 60-year low in 2010.

A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion | Visions | AlterNet

A Conservative Explains Why Right-Wingers Have No Compassion | Visions | AlterNet

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Republicans undiscover fire

Republicans undiscover fire

The lies go beyond instantly dismissible claims like President Obama being the "food stamp president" (why you have to go back one whole administration to discover that more people joined the food stamp ranks under Bush than Obama, but then the Republicans don't seem to remember Bush in any case). The blatant lies extend through every aspect of the Republican platform, such as it is. The simple reason is that the Republicans have no ideas left, at least no ideas that have not been tested and proven to be failures again, and again, and again. The truth is that the Republicans have nothing to offer. Not even anything that looks like a governing philosophy. Conservatism has moved out of the ranks of political theories and simply become a cult; one that requires that certain phrases be mouthed, that certain hatreds be nourished, and that purity be maintained regardless of cost.

Friday, February 3, 2012

PERRspectives: Republicans Double-Down on 'Obama Made the Economy Worse' Lie

PERRspectives: Republicans Double-Down on 'Obama Made the Economy Worse' Lie
As the record clearly shows, it was President Bush who left the U.S. economy in much worse shape than he found it. And no matter how many times Republicans pretend that Barack Obama "made the economy worse," their lie will not become any more true.