Some Cartoons from the Last Week

 

True Colors: Tea Baggers Assault Move On Activist

Denial, It's the Republican Way.

A Letter to Bill Maher

10/13/2010

Dear Bill Maher,

I’ll start by sucking up and saying what a big fan I am, blah, blah, blah.  Sometimes you screw up or are shockingly ignorant on a subject but you’re fighting the good fight and unlike your counterparts on basic cable channels, you admit to mistakes.  A tiny mistake from last Friday’s show was the pronunciation of the county with the asshole firemen.  It’s oh-buy-un (phonetically obaiyun).  I think you said ohbeeon or something.

Just so you know, I grew up in Western Kentucky just north of there and it is a bigger shithole than you can possibly imagine.  You’ve heard of the Bible Belt?  This is the puss leaking from the penis just behind the belt.  It is a horrible place full of mean, hateful people that are truly the worst on earth.  You haven’t seen hate until you’ve lived amongst the Church of Christ and Baptist motherfuckers that make up the population there.  Horrible, evil, haters to the core, most of them were delighted to hear about this man’s house burning to the ground and would’ve been delighted if his children had been killed as well.  They would have felt it was just.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.  I was really disappointed that you let P.J. O’Rourke and S.E. Cupp get away with one of the stupidest Republican tropes out there:  “The government can’t create jobs.”  This is utter and complete horseshit.  Here’s how you counter that statement: 

1.  During the New Deal the government put most of America to work.  Those weren’t jobs?

2.  The people that are re-building all our roads and bridges aren’t working at jobs?

3.  When the government gives people jobs they spend money because they have money.

4.  That money being spent means people sell things meaning they have to buy things to sell meaning they have to hire people to sell the things and make the things and that stimulates the economy and creates more jobs.

5.  The best way to make sure that government money moves straight into the economy is to give it to the poorest first because they’re going to spend it immediately.  I’m poor.  I assure you this is true.

Republicans’ problem with this is the money is going to the bottom instead of the top, and they prefer to be trickled on than raised up.  That’s why they vote against their best interests (mention What’s the Matter with Kansas next time they disagree with you on that one), it’s because they believe they are better than everyone else even though they are dirt poor and getting poorer.  We live in a country of idiots that function according to belief rather than reality. 

There’s also the simple fact that what pulled us out of the Great Depression more than any other thing is that our government took complete and absolute control of the entire economy for four years and put everybody to work with good paying jobs with great benefits while forcing conservation and economy.  When our boys came home from war they came home to fat bank accounts, free education, and health care for life and that combined with the New Deal is why we had the greatest economy, best educated citizenry, and best health in the world up until the Republicans managed to end it all. 

“You can’t raise taxes during a recession” is bullshit.  “Tax cuts create jobs” is bullshit.  “Democratic spending caused the recession” is bullshit.  “The government can’t do it better (or cheaper)” is bullshit.  We have proof in recent history against all these but the Republicans keep on stating them as if they were laws of nature and they need to be called on it every time.  Maybe next time you have two conservatives on, haul out that little list and point out to them how each and every one has no basis in fact.  The Republican economic world view is just as H.W. Bush called it:  Voodoo economics.  In other words it is a religion, a belief system, not a science.  It is pure fantasy and history proves it again and again and again.

I watched Overtime as well and here’s a thing that occurred to me years ago about President Carter’s time in office.  The GOP hated Carter with a loathing that may exceed that which they have for Obama and were almost as obstructionist as today’s Congress.  The oil supply was cut off right after he got elected (probably with strong encouragement from GOP leaders).  The real nail in his coffin was the failed rescue mission in Iran.  Who planned this operation?  The CIA.  Who gave the intel that it was safe to fly those helicopters?  The CIA.  Who was the head of the CIA?  George H.W. Bush.  What did Nixon say about Bush?  “He’ll do anything we tell him.”  Worth thinking about.

Thanks for your time.  Please quit fucking up.

Love,

Alan Miller

The Blame Game

Spill Baby Spill

The Bat Shit Crazy Report

I have regularly mentioned the bat shit crazy madwoman Michelle Bachmann many times before here at MTBN, but Talking Points Memo has come out with an excellent article about the other bat shit crazy loons on the right wing bench. Get to know Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), and Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) just a little better and try not to let their creepy insanity rub off on you.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), who also co-sponsored the "Birther Bill," brushed aside Obama's birth announcement in a local newspaper as irrelevant, saying it's "like me sending out a birth announcement for one of my children."

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) has ... said Obama's nationalized the country more than Hugo Chavez has nationalized Venezuela, and called Nancy Pelosi a "domestic enem[y] of the Constitution."

Enjoy!

The Big Lie(s) - 1

"The vast majority of Americans are against health care reform (voted for President Bush/support the war/oppose giving milk to kittens)"

This is the right wing lie variety that most sets my teeth on edge.  The loathsome Mitch McConnell made the health care claim ["We urge you to abandon the use of reconciliation to pass a partisan bill that is opposed by the vast majority of Americans."] before the vote and it is a subtle kind of lie.  Though factually barely true according to the poll he was quoting, his innuendo was that Americans support his side of the argument.  The fact is that the opposition to health care reform was split into to very disparate camps, one that believed like McConnell that the bill went to far and another that was in complete opposition to McConnell that believed (like me) that the bill did not go far enough.  These two groups are fundamentally opposed to one another but in the continuing Big Lie to the American people, McConnell has made them one.  Again, the fact is that the "vast majority" of Americans didn't believe the bill went far enough and were opposed to the GOP's position.  McConnell is, at heart, a lying son of a bitch.

I remember hearing this same horrible man say that GWB had a "mandate" and that he was elected by the "vast majority" of Americans.  Shrub was (a) never elected legally and (b) even if the vote count was legit (which it was not as the Republicans were involved in massive vote fraud both elections) Shrub received a minority of the popular vote the first time around and the vote was split almost perfectly down the center the second time.  That is not a "vast majority" by any means and makes the GOP and McConnell specifically liars.

Though they have not said so on the record yet, if Obama or the Democrats wanted to pass a resolution saying that kittens should get a little bowl of warm milk the GOP would stand firmly against it and would claim that a "vast majority" of Americans were opposed by adding the people that think kittens should get a little warm cream, the people that think milk is bad for cats, and the people that hate cats together and claiming they think like right wing morons.

"You can't raise taxes during a recession."

This is the mantra of the right wing (including my own repulsive "Democratic" mayor, Jerry Abramson), descending directly from the "Voodoo Economics" lie of "Trickle Down Economics," once poo-pooed by true conservatives and anyone that could add.  What actually happens when we cut taxes (and regulation) on the rich and corporations?  We saw under Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II:  The economy tanks.  Why is this?  Perhaps it's because when you make life easier (as if it needs easing) for the ultra-megas you make it harder on the poor and middle class.  State and local governments must rely more on fees and regressive taxes like sales tax and lotteries which disproportionally effect the lower end of the economic scale to provide services that help most Americans in their daily lives.  Ultimately taxing the poor is not a good way to fund government and those same services are cut drastically (god forbid you should reduce the police patrols in the rich parts of the city) or eliminated completely in the name of a "balanced budget."

The way I look at it is if you're rich and you don't want to pay taxes get the fuck out of this country.  You don't want to pay a local income tax in Louisville, for instance, move to another city.  We don't want your worthless, cheap ass.  You are a leech on society and the community if you don't want to use a little bit of your wealth to improve it.  Better infrastructure, improvement and education programs for lower income individuals, housing for the homeless, mass transit, drug rehabilitation, and so many other publicly funded programs don't only improve the lives of the people they serve directly, the improve the lives of everyone in the community by beautifying the city, reducing crime, and building community. 

"America has the highest tax rates in the world."

"America has the best health care in the world."

Only if you are astonishingly wealthy.  Otherwise we're 37th, just below Costa Rica and a good bit below Morocco.

Onion on GOP Reaction to Health Reform

Republicans, Leukemia Team Up To Repeal Health Care Law

April 8, 2010 | ISSUE 46•14

 

Key Republicans and the blood cancer leukemia make a joint statement condemning the health care bill.

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WASHINGTON—Citing a mutually shared vision of health care in America, congressional Republicans and the deadly bone-marrow cancer leukemia announced a joint effort Wednesday to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the historic new bill that extends health benefits to 32 million Americans nationwide.

"Republicans have no greater ally in this fight than leukemia," said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who was flanked by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), and the abnormal increase in white blood cells. "Denying insurance to Americans with preexisting conditions and ensuring that low-income Americans stand no chance of receiving quality health care are just a few of the core beliefs that the GOP and leukemia share."  [more]

Ah, Hypocrisy. Where Would the GOP be Without You? cont'd

The vocal opponent of health-care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” [Sarah Palin] said. “And I think now, isn't that ironic?” more

Most of the times Republicans make my head hurt.  When it's Sarah Palin I just want to drown the stupid bitch out of pity for her and sanity.  Here she so clearly contradicts her own rhetoric and is utterly oblivious to it.

Mr. Fish: GOP as Giant Pile Up

Slowpoke: Vicious Circle of Stupidity

Confusion Never Helps Scientific Discussions

A.P. London December 1, 2009 [Nicholas Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, t]he leading British climate change economist says the science of climate change is based on sound scientific methods and those who doubt the science of global warming are 'muddled and confused.' Hackers broke into the computer systems of the University of East Anglia climate research unit last month and posted documents online. Some bloggers claim the document shows scientists have overstated the case for global warming and have attempted to manipulate data.

So surely you've heard of these e-mails that show scientists actively worked to block publication of bogus climate studies in peer reviewed journals. If you're like most scientifically literate folks (as we all should be to some degree) you probably thought nothing of it, just some new meaningless tidbit the climate change deniers have glommed onto. And you would be right except the amplification level has been cranked up to the "let's make shit up about this" level.

Even George Will is lying about the e-mails. Read about it here for yourself.

PAUL KRUGMAN (New York Times columnist): That's not -- it's, you know, part -- all those emails -- people have never seen what academic discussion looks like. They don't -- there's not a single smoking gun in there. There's nothing in there. And the travesty is that people are not able to explain why the fact that 1998 was a very warm year doesn't actually mean that global warming has stopped.

The fact is that peer reviewed means just that: a group of scientific peers reads your article, runs your experiments, adds up your numbers, and on and on and on and if none of them can disprove your study's conclusions it gets published. Sometimes this does not compensate for the rare unethical scientist or errors in underlying principles but corrections are continually being made and science moves forward. That's how it works. The thing is, even the things that are in error usually are very close to being right. Science does not consider "close" to be correct unlike the religious ilk for whom belief is absolutely right. Science is not some nerdy guys you hate sitting around in a room making shit up. That's Fox News. That's the Rush Limbaugh show.

The problem here is with the news media and the way it has decided to approach problems like climate change and war. They are too chickenshit to ignore the bullshit or at least report on it as bullshit. When the conclusions reached from hundreds of millions of points of data from centuries of time, from all over the globe, studied by hundreds of thousands of scientists all looking at different aspects of the data with the most powerful computers on earth is called into question because one guy with a PHD questions it you've got to wonder what is wrong with this country. When CBS News is playing an entire clip from a climate denier/lunatic like Senator James Inhofe as if he has the faintest idea what he's talking about you have to wonder if they were awake during journalism school. You don't print something that ain't true unless it's in big quotes and is described as being false. If it's false it's false and the idea the earth is cooling is FALSE. You really don't need to have two opposing guests in the room when the difference is ten million to one. You don't have David Duke on every time you have Barack Obama on but I'd bet David Duke got some votes from Klan members last Presidential election... more votes in proportion than there is evidence contradicting climate change.

I can find you a guy with a doctorate from Oral Roberts University that believes the sun rotates around the earth. But that guy doesn't have the backing of the energy industry so he's not going to bully his way onto every 24 hour news channel show every time astronomy is discussed. And he most assuredly does not go from Fox & Friends to NBC News like climate change deniers. It's like if you always had a Scientologist on when you discussed psychiatry. There is not one scientific organization that disagrees that the world is getting warmer. NOT ONE. The last organization to switch sides changed back in 2007. Guess which organization was last: The Society of Petroleum Engineers. That's right, even the scientists that drill for oil agree we are changing the climate by our actions.

So one of the scientists whose e-mails is involved, Phil Jones, head of a research center at the University of East Anglia, has stepped down. Temporarily. Again something completely unlike that which goes on in the faith based universe. I do believe Marc Sanford is still in office because he is like unto King David. Rubbish.

"It has created confusion and confusion never helps scientific discussions," Nicholas Stern told reporters in London Tuesday. "The degree of skepticism among real scientists is very small."

Yes, Nicholas, confusion does not help scientific discussions but it is exactly what the energy industry depends on to keep us from forcing them to change and put their immense short term profits into keeping the earth livable for humanity. And god forbid we should force people to alter their lifestyles. What kind of madman would require us to conserve energy?

It's All His Fault!

Still Wrecking Cars...

...at least in the last frame, anyway.

The Line-up

If there were ever a group of men that should all be in prison for the rest of their lives, here they are. Even the best of them, Colin Powell, is guilty of taking us into a war by lying to us.

Q: How Do You Know a Right Winger is Lying?

A: Their mouth is moving.

"Why Alan, isn't that a bit harsh?" No. The recent rash of domestic terrorism is a perfect case in point. We'll stick to the terrorist assassination of Dr. George Tiller but since Obama was elected we have had three major terrorist attacks in this country carried out by right wing extremists.

Bill O'Reilly says he never suggested Dr. Tiller should be killed and he says he never called him "Tiller the baby killer." Well, not only did he constantly refer to Tiller as "Tiller the baby killer," in 2006 he said on his radio show:

OK. So, I'm the fascist, I'm the bad guy, I'm the problem. Not Tiller. No, he -- no, no, no. He's a good guy. Now, Tiller's pumping all kinds of money into obviously the attorney general race. He wants the guy that's gonna let him off the hook to win. Those of you listening in Kansas, you ought to know that. You know, I don't -- I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for. You guys know these guys better than I do, but I tell you what, anything Tiller wants, I'm voting the other way. And if I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech.

But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn't get worse. Does it get worse? No. Back with your calls and comments.

"Oh, but that's just that wacky Bill O'Reilly. Nobody takes him seriously." Well, you're wrong about that. An uncle of mine (RIP) who became shockingly right wing after being "born again" said once, in a grave and serious voice, "Bill O'Reilly is looking out for you, believe me." Made me sick with anger but he was in the hospital so I bit my tongue. I guarantee you the man that shot Dr. Tiller worships O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox News machine. They incite this kind of violence.

O'Reilly is only one example. How about "activist judges?" Here's one thing I can tell for sure, when a conservative says he is against "activist judges" he is saying he wants the most activist of judges as long as they're conservatives. When he says he wants them to follow the Constitution as written he means interpret it according to the right wing world view.

When conservatives say they want to protect the environment you can rest assured they're about to poison as much land as possible in as bad a way as one can imagine.

When conservatives say New Deal liberalism has ruined the economy they are lying. Using the GDP as measure you will find that when Republicans have been in power we have had the worst GDP growth. The best growth has been under Democrats. Jimmy Carter is the only Democratic President who has done worse than a Republican, Reagan (who did worse than every other Democrat), but Carter's economy was better than every other Republican President. Our most prosperous years were when the government was taxing corporations and the wealthiest the most. The New Deal got us out of the Great Depression. "That's not true, it was WWII," I hear some feeble minded conservative mimic parrot out there. WWII was the epitome of "tax and spend." We taxed the richest in this country 91%, the government took complete control of business and industry in this country and regulated what we could eat, how much we could drive, and when our lights were on or off and we came out of the war the government shifted the wealth to the not wealthy amongst us with the GI bill, rural electrification, the minimum wage, protections for unions, and works projects. The way we waged WWII is the closest we've come to communism and right wingers will agree that it brought us out of a depression.

The truth is that conservative policies have ruined the economy every single time it's been ruined. Reagan brought us a horrible recession which GHW Bush kept us in and under GW Bush our economy weakened and our capital system collapsed.

Here's yet another HUGE conservative lie: "We follow the intent of the Founding Fathers." Nothing could be further from the truth. The Founding Fathers believed in education and science while conservatives are opposed to and supicious of both. The Founding Fathers were from very firm to rabid in their belief in the separation of church and state while right wingers want evangelicals everywhere and everyone else elsewhere. The Founding Fathers believed your privacy was sacrosanct while Republicans have pressed for reduced protection from being stopped at random and searched, more surveillance of private citizens, and spying on people simply for having different opinions than theirs (they spied on the Quakers, for Christ's sake!). And don't even get me started on habeus corpus.

How about this lie: "We want to reach across the aisle." When the Republicans held power in the Congress and the Executive they totally shut out the Democrats (who took it like a bunch of fucking pussies, I'd like to throw in here), including not even allowing them to use a proper meeting room for their caucus. They put the "fuck you" in bi-partisanship.

Here's a few more:
Colin Powell's speech before the U.N.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"The United States of America does not torture."

"It was just a few bad apples." - Donald Rumsfeld

So if you hear it come out of the mouth of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnel, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, or any other "conservative" figure the exact opposite is true.

Teabaggin Roundup

Good lord that title sounds like some kind of gay cowboy act. No offense to gay cowboys, it's just that it's not really about gay cowboy scrotum sex.

By the way, the tax "increase" they're protesting means the wealthiest Americans will now pay less in taxes than under Reagan and the rest of us will get a taxcut. If those extra tax dollars from the rich are used for programs that reduce expenses (medical, retirement, etc.) then most of us will have gained at very little expense to few of us.

Here's a really excellent blog post about the "teabagging" and how it connects with domestic terrorism.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tempest in a Tea Party
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Here's a short video of Anderson Cooper delivering a great straight man line. (No pun intended.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tea Bagging... by Republicans

From the "too good to be true department" and our good friends at Fox "News" comes a movement for "teabagging." Proving once again that they're not even vaguely a journalistic endeavor, Fox Noise is hyping "tea parties" to protest something horrible (I think it's letting the tax rate on the wealthiest people in America go back to 35% which, as we all know, effects most of Fox Noise's viewership) by "tea bagging" politicians. I'm not kidding, the Republicans have come out pro-teabagging. Rachel Maddow can barely get through this segment:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Whose Fault is this Mess?

The blame lays squarely with every dumbass that voted Republican the last 8+ years. The last administration (and preceding Congresses) gutted our regulatory agencies. What are we left with? A bunch of neutered bureaus that cannot do what they're supposed to do. We have poison food, poison assets, and a bunch of rich fucks that will remain rich while the rest of us suffer the consequences of their greed and immorality. Thanks, Republicans, for making sure government can't work... if it's run by Republicans.