Harold Meyerson: In modern GOP, the old South returns - The Washington Post

This column by the Washington Post's Harold Meyerson lays into the adoption of the worst of the old South into the mainstream of the Republican Party: "In its hostility toward minorities, exploitation of racism, antipathy toward government and suspicion of science, today’s Republican Party represents the worst traditions of the South’s dankest backwaters."  Meyerson makes a point-by-point case and concludes "we’re left with a GOP whose existential credo is, 'We’re old, we’re white and we want our country back.' The rest, as the sages say, is commentary."

Harold Meyerson: In modern GOP, the old South returns - The Washington Post

Natalie Coughlin, Gold-Medal . . . Farmer

I found this interesting since I've dabbled in gardening for years and became more aware after my wife's celiac disease diagnosis ... it's a lot easier to track where food comes from when it comes from your own garden.  Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughin gave this interview with the Sierra Club and talked about urban farming (replacing landscape with edible plants) and how her favorite thing to grow is kale (which has become a favorite of mine).  If you're interested in "backyard farming" or just do a little gardening, there's good stuff of interest in this interview.

Natalie Coughlin, Gold-Medal . . . Farmer? - The Green Life

Conservatives' Contraception Obsession

It is difficult not to sound full of righteous indignation when addressing conservatives’ fevered obsession with contraception. Birth control had been settled political ground for decades; now a nasty strain of political misogyny masquerading as religious freedom has reopened the subject.

Legislation such as the defeated Blunt Amendment and Arizona’s House Bill 2625 would allow employers to refuse insurance coverage for birth control medication on religious grounds. The Arizona bill would further allow employers to require women to certify their use of contraceptive medication to be for non-contraceptive purposes or be fired. This should go without saying, but what business is this of employers? It is utterly offensive to give a boss the right to pass some arcane moral judgment on female employees.

Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” for attempting to testify before Congress in favor of requiring insurance coverage of contraceptive medication. Fluke, who was not allowed to testify, publicly talked of a fellow student who took contraceptives for polycystic ovary syndrome and was denied coverage. Limbaugh made the recklessly false characterization that Fluke actually went before the committee and “essentially says that she [Fluke] must be paid to have sex.”

These egregious assaults on women’s access to contraceptives raise the question of the true motive behind the assaults. When you bully and coerce in legislation and in the public square, you forfeit the right to call your motives religious freedom.

Calling Radicalism by Its Name - NYTimes.com

The New York Times editorial linked below underscores the points made by President Obama's speech April 3 at the AP Luncheon in Washington.  The Times highlighted Obama's emphasis on what I've believed for awhile now, that the Republican Party is uninterested in consensus or compromise in pursuit of an extreme agenda.  To quote the editorial, 'But, in this speech, he finally conceded that the party has demonstrated no interest in the values of compromise and realism. Even Ronald Reagan, who raised taxes in multiple budget deals, “could not get through a Republican primary today.”'

Another telling part of the editorial dealt with the disingenuous criticism by House Speaker John Boehner.  'The speech was immediately attacked by the House speaker, John Boehner, for failing to deal with the debt crisis, but Mr. Obama pointed out how hollow that charge has become. “That argument might have a shred of credibility were it not for their proposal to also spend $4.6 trillion over the next decade on lower tax rates,” he said.'

In my view,  the contemporary GOP -- so far removed from the days when I was a Reagan Republican -- serves only its donors and their corporate interests.  All else is a fig-leaf covering to justify what the Wall Street set wants: regulatory gutting, Citizens United judicial decisions, reduced workplace rights from insurance coverage to internet passwords, and the like.  Baldface flow of benefits toward the upper class squeezes the middle class toward the vanishing point, and it is somewhat reassuring that President Obama is mounting a more forceful defense of equity and of the middle class ... and finally abandoning his three-year effort to compromise with what has become an intransigent political party.

Calling Radicalism by Its Name - NYTimes.com

The Reason Rally: A Woodstock for nonbelievers - Patrick Gavin - POLITICO.com

This March 24 is the date for something called the Reason Rally on the Washington Mall. It's an event for secularists, the nonbelievers in and questioners of religion. The link to the Politico article on this event is below. Paul Fidalgo, communications director at the Center for Inquiry, gave a view on why religious belief is popular: “In American culture right now, religious belief is seen as a kind of shorthand for morality. If you can espouse your devotion to a particular faith, it’s your way of indicating that you are now a moral, upright, upstanding person.” Along with an opportunity for like-minded people to get together, Fidalgo's take on a desired message to believers is “We want you to know we’re your neighbors, and we’re not scary.”

The Reason Rally: A Woodstock for nonbelievers - Patrick Gavin - POLITICO.com

The God of Thuggery

Recent instances of the kind of Christian love I could do without:

A teen objected to a prayer mural at secular Cranston West High School in Rhode Island. A federal judge ordered it removed, and the student has received multiple violent threats, including one to "drown that atheist in holy water."

Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal cited Psalm 109 to wish for the death of the President and the widowing of the First Lady: "Let his days be few; and let another take his office. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." He added, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president!"

On the heels of Tennessee's "Don't Say Gay" bill that would bar teachers from discussing homosexuality, State Rep. Richard Floyd proposed a bill to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates, citing “the potential for pedophiles and molesters to come into the restroom" and promising to "stomp a mudhole" into any transgender person who entered a restroom that his family was in. Think of whether you've heard of a transgendered person who molested a child; now think of how many clergy have done so.

With countless incidents such as these recent examples of hatred by so-called Christians, maybe Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church is right when he contends that God hates. You certainly can get that impression. If this is not the case, Christians should do what so many have demanded from Muslims after 9/11 and publicly denounce the hatred within their own ranks.

Nobody Understands Debt - NYTimes.com

I have wondered for the last two years or so why so much damned emphasis has been on federal debt -- not the deficit, but the debt. While I'm not so sure where the push-to-exclusion-of-all-else for austerity came from, this piece from Paul Krugman is the most thorough explanation of why it does not matter nearly as much as the debt Chicken Littles make it out to be.

Nobody Understands Debt - NYTimes.com

The Dead Billionaires Club – The Dead Can’t Vote, but Should They Give? « Truth-2-Power

I've been wondering why there seems to have been a push to take America back to the turn of the previous century since the start of the W Administration. This article opened my eyes to forces that could explain the return of the robber baron mentality among corporate America. Time was that thinking this way would have had me question if I was being paranoid; after reading the intergenerational efforts of the moneyed elite, that internal reflex to think this is just paranoia is, unfortunately, wrong.

The Dead Billionaires Club – The Dead Can’t Vote, but Should They Give? « Truth-2-Power

Bottom Line - Political rancor stifling economic policy debate

I'm linking this story because it refers to a reluctance by economists to offer solutions to our economic problems due to the polarized political climate and what a Princeton University political historian called "the climate of distrust of expertise" -- another disturbing exhibit of evidence that we are paralyzed by loud practitioners of know-nothingness

Bottom Line - Political rancor stifling economic policy debate

The Politics Of The Heavenly And Unheavenly | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics

Religion in the government sector has long been a large concern for me. E. J. Dionne touches on the general points of this issue in the context of the upcoming 2012 presidential election. He gives an historical backdrop to the resistance to Romney and Huntsman for their Mormon beliefs, pointing to past ugliness over Catholic candidates. And he gives broader perspective on how religion can and should interface with how a candidate would govern and how we should judge those candidates without resorting to religious bigotry.

The Politics Of The Heavenly And Unheavenly | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis | McClatchy

This link to a story on McClatchy reveals the rat-a-tat repetitions by the political right about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as so much hot air. The housing crisis was not fueled by the misconduct or practices of Fannie and Freddie, according to data from the Federal Reserve Board; over 84 percent of the loans in 2006 were from private sector lenders, who made 83 percent of the subprime loans to middle- and low-income borrowers that year.

Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis | McClatchy

Five myths about Dodd-Frank - The Washington Post

I'm putting this up for reference, since it comes from the horse's mouth of the Dodd-Frank Act. Blaming Dodd-Frank for the financial meltdown (even though it came after the meltdown) and for our sour economy is an example of how the current GOP deflects blame away from its financial sector sources ... and likely protect its donors.

Five myths about Dodd-Frank - The Washington Post

The last word: Why old dogs are the best dogs - The Week

Having gone through the natural death of a longtime canine companion this year, this article struck a particular nerve. Peanut was about 17 years old, we think, at his passing. He was so mellow yet so happy the last year of his life, with no guile or pretense about him. An old dog defines the word "companion" to me, with echoes of his past combined with the simple enjoyment of just being with his human. Young dogs have the fire of life, but old ones glow like embers and warm you constantly with their presence.

The last word: Why old dogs are the best dogs - The Week

Callousness from the Top Down

I'm astounded this morning by two accounts of callous attitude from the political right and/or the so-called upper class. First, something I've mentioned before on this blog from someone I've mentioned before: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who previously insisted that Joplin tornado victims get no relief unless it was offset elsewhere in the federal budget, told his constituents that any relief from this week's Virginia earthquake would have to be taken from elsewhere in the budget. Further, with the approach of massive Hurricane Irene to the east coast, Cantor preemptively announced that any disaster relief would have to be offset with budget cuts (see link below). Even Tom "the Hammer" DeLay did not go this far when he led House Republicans, denying disaster relief unless the federal budget was cut somewhere else.

Second, National Review writer David French said what many have thought the well-to-do and/or modern conservatives really felt: the poor are at fault for their lot because of personal defect or deficiency. Seriously. French wrote August 24 (see link below) "It is simply a fact that our social problems are increasingly connected to the depravity of the poor. If an American works hard, completes their education, gets married, and stays married, then they will rarely — very rarely — be poor. At the same time, poverty is the handmaiden of illegitimacy, divorce, ignorance, and addiction." Such outrageous twaddle would be laughable except that too many people are anxious to believe it. In a time when job opening announcements often have some variation of "unemployed need not apply" on them, it is apparent that blame-the-victim attitudes have taken much too firm a root in our society.

A sense of responsibility is essential in a society. So is a sense of compassion. What I see happening lately is a sense of smackdown.


The Sources of Poverty - By David French - The Corner - National Review Online

Political Animal - Cantor’s callousness turns preemptive

Analysis: Why Congress and Standard & Poors deserve each other - Yahoo! News

Bill Saporito of Time.com offered his thoughts on S&P and Congress. S&P contributed to the Great Recession by giving AAA ratings to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) backed by "garbage mortgages" from " Alt A subprime pond scum." Congress gave the ratings agencies their power and left it intact even after the financial meltdown. "After all, this is a Congress that let the banking industry run amok, bailed it out with access to trillions of dollars of credit, and has since done precious little to ensure that the process won't be repeated. Nor would Congress reform the ratings industry, which played vital role in the crisis. Nor did it agree a deal worked out between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner that would have preserved the AAA rating. If our Congress is that dumb, perhaps we deserved the downgrade."

Analysis: Why Congress and Standard & Poors deserve each other - Yahoo! News

Alan Grayson: Devil Take the Hindmost

Although this piece is at times political, Grayson offers up a good primer of the history of the phrase and concept "the devil take the hindmost," dating back to a 1610 play performed by the Shakespeare's troop The King's Men. As such, it asks if we as a people want to let the least of us fall ... and if that doesn't also threaten the strongest of us as well.

Alan Grayson: Devil Take the Hindmost (Huffington Post)

Humor on Walkabout

Something keeps crossing my mind now and again: what happened to my sense of humor?

I don't think I lost it per se. It's not that my face would break if I smile because it's unfamiliar. Yet I think back to my younger self, before the weight of responsibility and failures and little victories and aspirations the door has closed on, and I think how that person was easier to laugh, much more into comedy and less likely to be mistrustful.

The old me never missed a chance to watch comedians on TV like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Paula Poundstone, and Jim Carrey. But contemporary comics and comedic actors like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Adam Sandler leave me utterly cold. I wonder, though, if it's the comics that have changed or is it me. I don't listen to music at home on a stereo like I used to, either; habits change over time, but so do perspectives.

The world just seems a more serious place than when I was twentysomething. Back then there wasn't much weight in not succeeding, not as much as the weight of failing seems now. When the world seems a precarious place, it's hard not to see humor as a luxury. Kinda like when a child has to finish the vegetables before dessert, I subconsciously feel there's something undone or unearned when there are troubles in life that give me a "not now" feeling about humor and comedy.

Maybe I'm more contemplative than my younger self was. I used to get into all manner of double entendre jokes, never missed the Airplane movies, and so forth. Yet Carlin remains my favorite comedian of all time, and his offerings were as cerebral as they were irreverent. So I've always enjoyed humor that makes one think. I still enjoy Carlin's books. I suspect a book by Tracy Morgan would not interest me in the least. The Plato and a Platypus books are the only ones that I've enjoyed the way I used to.

If I can get to a point where I tell myself it's okay to let myself enjoy a pleasure that now would make me feel guilty, I could embrace the thorough cleansing benefits of the belly laugh. I'm just not so sure how to get there.

Public Split Evenly on Urgency of Debt Limit Debate | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

The results of this Pew Research poll are disturbing since it shows so many people simply don't understand the grave danger to the world economy of a U.S. default. Perhaps it's a product of our highly polarized political climate, with more people getting their news from Fox News and MSNBC and fewer from CNN. Perhaps it's as Washington Post analysts Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake wrote, that Republicans don't put any stock in Wall Street or the federal government so the dire warnings coming from both have been seen as Chicken Little saying the sky is falling.

Public Split Evenly on Urgency of Debt Limit Debate | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Pornography and the "Marriage Vow" Pledge

There is probably no cultural issue that tests First Amendment freedom of speech protection than pornography. While there were some infamous examples of the need for freedom of speech after the 9/11 attacks (especially Bill Maher being told by then-Press-Secretary Ari Fleischer to "watch what you say"), the enduring attempts to censor pornography are the perennial example of how unpopular speech needs First Amendment protection for there to be free speech for everyone.

The latest public skirmish on this front is the Marriage Vow pledge concocted by an Iowa group called the Family Leader. Presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum have signed this pledge, which includes references to "humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy — our next generation of American children — from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence." Bachmann made a point of equating pornography with human trafficking and slavery, according to Larry Flynt (link below). Moralists have long targeted pornography for elimination, and this pledge makes some wild assumptions to link porn with slavery. But if an unpopular form of expression is banned by government, it's that much easier to start curbing or banning less controversial speech (like the Bill Maher example I mentioned) until freedom of speech is largely meaningless.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58591.html#ixzz1RnnfsSYH

Larry Flynt: Shame on Michele Bachmann for Anti-Porn Pledge - The Daily Beast

Obama calls the GOP’s bluff - The Washington Post

Eugene Robinson gently chides President Obama for what wholesome-sounding government programs will be cut if Republicans don't come off their no-tax-increase demand on the debt ceiling negotiations. Nevertheless, Robinson says Obama is right to call out the GOP (finally, I might add) for their intransigence on revenues and spending cuts. "Every independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel that has looked at the deficit problem has reached the same conclusion: The gap between spending and revenue is much too big to be closed by budget cuts alone. With fervent conviction but zero evidence, Tea Party Republicans believe otherwise — and Establishment Republicans, who know better, are afraid to contradict them."

Obama calls the GOP’s bluff - The Washington Post