Obama on the Debt Ceiling "negotiations:" A tax by any other name...

Ah, the irony. The sweet, sweet, unintended irony!

I've said this a bunch of times out loud and in print, but had despaired of ever seeing anyone important and well-connected saying something like this out loud. This is one of the great shared secrets of power. Not all taxation is called taxation.

Remarks by the President on the Status of Debt Ceiling Negotiations | The White House:

"Keep in mind, if we don’t do that, if we don’t come to an agreement, we could lose our country’s AAA credit rating, not because we didn’t have the capacity to pay our bills -- we do -- but because we didn’t have a AAA political system to match our AAA credit rating.

And make no mistake -– for those who say they oppose tax increases on anyone, a lower credit rating would result potentially in a tax increase on everyone in the form of higher interest rates on their mortgages, their car loans, their credit cards. And that’s inexcusable."

The way I'd put it is that a "tax" is an additional fee, charge, expense or transactional cost that you cannot avoid and must pay in order to conduct the ordinary business of life.

And this is absolutely a tax. Worse yet, it's a tax that rewards nobody but banks - it essentially will create a condition where you - and you and you and you - will have to pay more for everything, and none of that additional money will achieve a single damn thing.

Which, from the viewpoint of a middleman, is the perfect tax. Getting an extra share of something in return for nothing at all.

Now do please realize that the people that brought us to this passage are the people who say, loudly and insistantly, that "all taxation is theft."

But rather than eliminate taxation, they've figured out how to privatize it - by compelling the government to mandate theft.

This compellingly illustrates the compound idiocy of the Tea-Party caucus, for I regret to say, for the majority of them, there isn't a shred of nudge-nudge wink-wink. They aren't actually trying to "put one over" on the American People. They really think that there is a difference between having to pay Peter and having no choice but to pay Paul.

And they think it's "freedom" when you have to pay Paul twice as much to do what Peter did before, for results that are at best half as good.

The sole task of good government is to do those things that cannot be done cost-effectively in bits and pieces, here and there; to determine standards and provide for the common security and defense.

Well, tanking the economy would be a brilliant stroke of economic warfare, if it were done by an actual enemy of the state. It will do more harm over a longer span of time than, say, popping a nuke over Washington.

So perhaps it might be prudent, at this juncture, to consider that anyone damn fool enough to think that risking the entire economy over a re-election strategy is, in fact, an enemy of the state. In a very real, non-rhetorical, this isn't politics you morons sort of way.

John McCain Wakes Up in Bizarro World

I remember back to the dawning of the current Cycle of Unease, the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

I'd been ignoring politics almost entirely; politics, current affairs, world news and for the reasons most people do.

It's boring. Politics are supposed to be boring. Like soccer, golf or Dungeons and Dragons, while it matters a great deal to those who enjoy the sport and great benefits are claimed of it, the rest of us are mostly glad that it keeps those who are interested in such things locked away in oppressively smoke-free rooms, chewing nicorette and trying to look dignified while peeing on one another's shoes.

It is not particularly surprising that those who participate in this needful task try to make it seem more significant than it is when in the ideal, it is a mind-numbing routine with occasional achievements, not unlike a garbage worker's job; it's value is mostly recognized when the workers go on strike to remind us that we could, after all, do without them if we were not such fucking lazy slobs, willing to recycle and compost.

And perhaps there's a lesson in there for those of us unwilling to sully our hands with such a distasteful task. Clearly, the standards have slipped to a point that it would be an improvement if the whole lot of them went on strike.

You see, every once in a while it does matter what sort of person we send to our legislatures. We expect our political leaders to respond in accordance to our expectations. And I mean not just according to the most petulant and dogmatic interpretation of our political wishful thinking - I mean, in accordance to "what sane people would choose to do, given the access and information a member of Congress has."

In a way, it's just like a volunteer firehouse. Most of the time - ideally, even - it's a way for people to get out of the house, sit around with friends in a context where they can play with large, rumbly boy-toys, drink sodas and swap lies in a context where belching and ball-scratching is not merely tolerated, but humorously encouraged. The understanding, though, is that when the bell rings, you run for the fucking truck! ALL of you!

For ten years, the American People presumed that they had sent firefighters to the hall, and that if they didn't actually say all that much, or seem to be doing all that much that made sense, it was presumed that they were, after all, fire-fighters and knew at least that fire was hot, water was wet and explosives go bang.

As these are not particularly complex ideas, it seemed safe enough to presume that people old enough to be elected to the House and Senate; people legally able drink hard liquor and presumably able to read and at least sign their own names; such people would know intuitively, that there is a time to play games and a time to fight fires.

I mean, you would think, wouldn't you?

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said today that some members of his own caucus who are refusing to agree to a compromise debt ceiling deal are hoping to unleash “chaos” and thus force the White House and Senate Democrats to make bigger concessions than they’re already offering. As many as 40 House Republicans, especially Tea Party members and freshmen, have demanded nothing short of changing the Constitution to include a balanced budget amendment before they would vote to raise debt ceiling, even though that has zero chance before the U.S. faces potential default on Aug. 2.
Speaking on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show this morning, Boehner agreed that failing to raise the limit before the deadline would be devastating, and said the “chaos” plan won’t work when asked by Ingraham what’s motivating the recalcitrant Republicans:
BOEHNER: Well, first they want more. And my goodness, I want more too. And secondly, a lot of them believe that if we get past August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment. I’m not sure that that — I don’t think that that strategy works. Because I think the closer we get to August the second, frankly, the less leverage we have vis a vis our colleagues in the Senate and the White House.

This is what we get from the Tea Party Caucus and the freaking' House Majority Leader?



It's amazing how very diplomatic other nations are being in the face of this assault upon reason and the very real and deadly threat that a small group of economic illiterates would happly tank the global economy in order to achieve a political goal.

But then I rememember Will Rogers' definition of "diplomacy." "Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock."


On that note, I remind y'all that John McCain - A man who is very much an elder statesman of the GOP - didn't say anything like "nice doggie." But more to the direct point, neither did President Obama.  Which leads me to think that he may well have a few choice rocks all picked out.

Mocking the Stupid on the floor of the House

I can only hope that something as entertaining as this comes from the dreaded-but-necessary upcoming Canadian elections.



Because when you are dealing with people who are in denial of climate change, don't see dereguation of the oil and gas industries as a problem, think that the solution to every crisis is to drain the purses of the poor while reducing the obligation of the rich further, when a substantial proportion of the opposition party is either a "Birther" or dares not call birtherism nonsense, when a majority of them does not believe in evolotion, or science, and when they think that this particular issue - defending- NPR based on an entirely bogus "investigation," well, mockery and ridicule is the only proper response.

By all means, let's dispense with collegial respect. Respect is due colleagues. People worthy of the chairs and the chambers, people both willing and capable of properly representing the people in their districts.

All of them. Not just their party and corporate sponsors. This sort of childish, petty, nonsensical behavior disrespects the electorate, and there will be hell to pay.

Just ask any Canadian who once voted for the Progressive-Conservative party.

Wisconsin Cops call for a Fresh Deck and a New Deal

I wonder if Walker truly comprehends what sort of situation he could be in. The entire public service infrastructure wants to see him dangling from a light-pole, but will no doubt settle for a perp-walk and an orange jumpsuit.

And no doubt persons wishing to have a political future in Wisconsin are considering their options.

Meanwhile, folks... let me point out a few obvious things. If you have a mansion or a warehouse, it's probably not a good idea to threaten people who know how to burn it down and get away with it. Assuming, of course, that the arson investigators would notice something as subtle as Molotov cocktail fragments.

But wait, if the arson investigators are laid off... hm. What DOES that do to the insurance claim? Goodness me, I have no idea. At the very least, it complicates matters. Certainly, the current situation clearly has seized the attention of the police department. If I were on a public list of donors to the Walker campaign, I'd be trying to figure out how to distance myself - and my first call would be to my tax accountant!

Consider the math. Non-violent crimes against those donors will have a priority somewhere below jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk.


And all those people who got the tax breaks, for which all this nonsense is intended to fund? Hm... well, if all these public sector workers are locked out - every project that legally requires a state sign-off is on hold. No building permits. No environmental impact statements reviewed. No re-certifications of meat packing or cheese making. Short-staffed or un-staffed, all they could possibly do is shut your operation down, to ensure public health and safety.

And that, of course, is simply the direct, obvious and legal consequences. People laid off in the Department of Public works - won't stop knowing how to use a backhoe. And if broad ditches should appear cutting off non-tax-paying businesses from public roads, well, that would be a firing offense, as well as iillegal. If you had a job, of course, and if anyone was particularly interested in catching you.

...I could go on.

Former Governer Walker - you see, I'm a futurist, stating an obvious future... assholes who say, "I'm the big dog, and you gotta do what I say, 'cause whatcha gonna do about it?" had best stop well short of putting people in a position where being in jail means better meals and medical care than being an obedient serf.
Particularly if the police ain't interested in properly investigating crimes committed by people other than you.

You see, moments like this illustrate why civility and good attention for the sensibilities and interests of your political opponents are vital. Sabotage proper and fair procedure and people will revert to older, but reliable means of ensuring good and effective government.

Tar, feathers and a split rail are a proven means of dispensing with sociopaths. The rule of law is preferable, of course, and that is why it's a traditional Conservative value to colour within the lines.

If this is not terrorism, the word has lost it's meaning.

Let's just come out and say it:

The "War On Terror is not." Because if it actually were, social conservatives, talibancials and right-wing freakout artists who gin up this sort of violence would be IN Gitmo, worksopping the question as to whether or not waterboarding is, in fact, torture.

So, "Terrorism" is in fact anything that threatens the continued dominance of the talibancial, theocratic right wing and their desire to run everyinting for the benefit of the war and oil lobby.

By the way, I have nothing against waging war or drilling for oil. I just want responsible and competant people doing both. And of course, the War On Terror means that if you queation the competaince, intelligence or motives of either group.. welcome to the No Fly List, you International Terrorist Conspiritor, you.

Sara Palin's House, as seen from Taiwan

"Ah wad some power the giftie gie us

To see ourselves as others see us."

— Robert (the stupid, it) Burns

The Courtship of Eddie's Ideology

Given the way politics have been drifting
in the direction of NeoConservatism
and NeoFeudalism, I think Edmund Burke himself
would consider crossing the aisle.

I get excited when I stumble across something that appeals to my own confirmation bias.... I mean, my nuanced, principled and well-founded view of our social, economic and political landscapes. Nice Guy Eddie brings the heat...

Since I don't let an ideology do my thinking for me, I don't really care what positions fall under which label. I really, just DON'T CARE. I'm not trying to Liberal here, I'm just trying to be RIGHT. (As in "correct," not "wing.") And the way I see our modern discourse going, there are really only two groups:

One is very strictly and narrowly defined, and I've written about them here here here and here, for example. And to be with this crowd, you must accept EVERY bit of Dogma, even the ones that contradict other ones, you must swallow every lie, accept every bit of obviously questionable evidence, and utterly reject ANY evidence or argument to the contrary of ANY point. What's more you must accuse your opponents of committing all of the sins you do, and you must HATE them, because they are out to destroy this country. You must believe in your own perfection and the perfection of your positions and that you have a mandate from God that justifies this belief. At worst, the weakest in this camp merely keep quiet, fail to criticise the big-talkers, and silently tell themselves that it will all, somehow be OK, since at least the OTHER GUY'S not winning. 

Then they're are people who can't abide this kind of insanity. And almost regardless of what positions they actually hold, the people in the first camp call them "Liberals" and demonize them.
So, from my POV, there are really on two school's of thought: Radical, Right-Wing Reactionary Authoritarianism... ...and those who reject it.


They have robbed the words "conservative" and "liberal" of any real meaning. Not that I care... I don't really buy into labels... ...which apparently makes me a Liberal.

This is rather what I was thinking when I wrote Crossing the Aisle in Defense of the the Social Contract over at Politicususa..

...[T]hey founded both a nation and established a Constitution that was, indeed, a codified social contract, remarkably well-annotated as to it’s intent, as perfect as the times permitted and designed to allow amendments as times and and need required. It was a recognition that the individual was the foundation of and the entire rationale for the state, that all justice and all rationale for governance flowed from them.  When that essential truth is lost, when position and power depend upon the whims of a foreign court or personal fortunes, there is no such thing as liberty;  merely degrees of licence, of increasing expense and exclusivity.

Granted, these ideas were indeed Liberal.  Scandalously so. But that was more than 200 years ago and in general, it has worked out well. The principles of the American Revolution – it’s foundational ideas – have taken root worldwide, and not so much due to might, but due to the fact that it works. And as a person of reflexively conservative nature, I assert:“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

All that is required is the acceptance that all people are of inherent worth, that each is due individual respect from their peers and their governments and that each person is to be presumed, unless otherwise demonstrated, capable of moral agency, and that the principle duty of government is in fact to safeguard and expand that liberty.

I once thought this to be the great common understanding of Conservatism. For that document is foundational to the social compact that is the United States. The principles it’s based in are basic to what every other Conservative who does not dismiss the Enlightenment as a brief aberration are the essence of Western Civilization. The rule of law, the concept of the inalienable rights of man and, yes, a sharp separation between Church and State, lest the two be come one thing that serves neither end at all well. That, if you might recall, casting back on most of human history, is a nearly unavoidable  conclusion.

At any rate, if a Social Contract is Liberal while ditching the Constitution and the New Deal is Conservative – I guess it’s time for me to cross the Aisle.

 There's been a good deal of musing online about what truly is meant by freedom and liberty. As the Tea Party sorts quite reasonably point out, the whole movement was started by Libertarians. And whatever you may feel about Libertarians in general, it is indisputable that Libertarianism places a great deal of emphasis on individual liberty. An excerpt from this wonderful article, Conservatives v. Libertarians: the debate over judicial activism divides former allies, illustrates the tensions within what often seems to be a monolith of "No."

One of the first libertarians to challenge the conservatives' pro-government stance was the political scientist Stephen Macedo, who wrote a short book for the Cato Institute in 1986 with the provocative title The New Right v. The Constitution. Macedo argued that Bork, Meese, and their allies had turned the American system on its head. As he put it, "When conservatives like Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."


It would be difficult to overstate the role that the Cato Institute has played in critiquing Bork's majoritarian conservatism and in pushing the conservative legal movement in a more libertarian direction. In addition to publishing Macedo's book and producing numerous widely read articles and studies, Cato hosted a seminal October 1984 conference devoted to the topic of "Economic Liberties and the Constitution" Among the participants were the University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein, who argued that the judiciary should play an active role in defending economic liberty (much as it did in Lochner), and Antonin Scalia, then a federal appeals court judge, who advanced the Borkean view that the courts should defer to the political branches on such matters. "The Supreme Court decisions rejecting substantive due process in the economic field are clear, unequivocal and current," Scalia declared. He added that "in my view the position the Supreme Court has arrived at is good--or at least that the suggestion that it change its position is even worse."


In response, Epstein argued that under the Scalia-Bork interpretation, "it is up to Congress and the states to determine the limitations of their own power--which, of course, totally subverts the original constitutional arrangement of limited government." The Scalia-Bork view, Epstein said, ignores the Constitution's "many broad and powerful clauses designed to limit the jurisdiction of both federal and state governments," such as the Commerce Clause, which authorizes Congress to "regulate commerce ... among the several states." He said the Borkeans also ignore clauses "designed to limit what the states and the federal government can do within the scope of their admitted power," such as the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, which says private property may not be taken for public use without "just compensation," and the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause (on which Lochner relied) and Privileges or Immunities Clause, which says states may not "abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens." Taking those provisions seriously, Epstein argued, requires "some movement in the direction of judicial activism" on behalf of economic rights.


This debate brought the conservative-libertarian divide into the spotlight. "That's why the conference was so important as a benchmark," Roger Pilon says. "For the first time, libertarians threw down the gauntlet."

Now, of course economic liberty is an important concept. But economic liberty is not the only form of liberty; indeed, if it's restricted only to the concepts of income and property, it essentially defines most people as being relatively un-free. This is why more left-leaning Libertarians take the seemingly surprising step of supporting collectively-funded, single payer health-care and indeed, something along the lines of a Guaranteed Annual Income. After all, if you do believe that economic freedom is fundamental - then obviously it must cost something to ensure.


The thing that these policies reflect is not any particular bias in favor the poor and disadvantaged, but rather the idea that Liberty is a social good, that enabling people to make a wider degree of choices will tend to ensure that more people will tend to make better ones and that regardless of your philosophy of poverty and it's origins, and inarguably, there are associated costs to society that are utterly unavoidable. Policy simply changes the way in which society will be impacted by the poor.


So you can either pay the poor to be somewhat less impoverished, in a way that also eliminates entire administrative functions designed to target and support depressed local economies, or you can take a more punitive approach - and end up paying far more in terms of urban blight, policing costs, survival - level crime and gang activity that exists to resist and replace an adverserial govenment that sees the poor as a problem to be contained, rather than as citizens with rights.


This is an excellent illustration of the term "inalienable rights" and a practical application of what a "well armed militia" is and was understood to be when the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was crafted. An inalienable right is something that a government may not rightfully nor meaningfully forbid, for there is no legitimate, practical nor cost-effective means of doing so. A law that will cause tension and conflict to the degree that it is enforced, with those it is enforced against, is not just law.


If people are oppressed or feel threatened, they will band together and will strike out at the perceived threat if they must, or to the degree they may, subvert and evade it's effect, generally at the price of far more social cost than that which the law was said to address, with the additional effect that widespread disrespect for the law will undermine the rule of law itself.


Therefore, it's to be understood that the very first principle of good government is to not startle the citizens, nor make them feel that they are regarded in a fundamentally different way than their neighbours, on the other side of the tracks.


Quite aside from "right and wrong" or "right and left," the founders understood that this was the very sort of thing that led to a situation that precluded any meaningful governance at all.


I've referred to the current strain of public policy in the US (and distressingly, in Canada) as "The Galligher School"

Even if every single thing D.A.R.E. and the various "drug warriors" said about slippery slopes and inappropriateness for medical use were factual (a matter of some considerable dispute between those who care more than I, one way or the other), the unregulated consequences predicted by the pearl-clutching nannies would still be less severe than the current state of affairs.

This is leaving aside the entire question as to whether people should be "permitted" to use drugs - since it's clearly failed to change drug usage in any detectable way, it's my presumption that the war is exactly what it seems to be - an ongoing war against people, and that the violence and repression is not a means to an end, it is the entire point.

I refer to it as the "Bigger Hammer" theory of governance. If things don't go as you desire, if people don't behave as you think they should, pull out your  biggest hammer and hit them as hard as you can. I'm quite certain I've referred to it as the Gallagher School of Public Policy. I had no actual idea at the time that it is also Gallagher's idea of Public Policy. Go figure.

So like I said above, the whole point is to smash shit. That's the whole act. Smash shit, say something viciously stupid, and the audience laughs nervously. Confuse that with approval, and carry on.

Arguably, that could be described as what the situation is, in the Untied States - an evident lack of meaningful, effective government, at vast expense, to contrary ends, with no respect for either the economic or personal liberties of any person. And I do honor the Tea Party folks for initially recognizing the issue... but at the moment, their reflexive policy is not political, it is cultural. And their culture - akin to many on the Left, like the Black Bloc - is to simply smash shit they don't like.


I'm a Canadian. I believe that when Ronald Regan popularized the idea that "government is the enemy", that government was unable to help people - well, it was in many ways true. But that's not an inherent problem. It's  a problem in regard to structure, education, regulation and training. It's a confusion about goals, and a long standing and perverse idea that the purpose of government is to fuck with this group of individuals in order to benefit either the largest number of other individuals, or a small number of wealthy ones.


Both ideals are wrong - aside from the morality of it; aside from the principles, or the Constitutionality. Look around you. See the effects on the people you know, the places you travel, the way things were 20 years ago compared to how they are today. These ideas are wrong because they do not work.

It reminds me of Mulroony

The CBC reports:

Industry Minister Tony Clement has dismissed growing calls for him to reverse his decision to scrap the mandatory long-form census, saying he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper are on the same page on the issue.

"There's not a micron of difference of opinion between myself and the prime minister on this," Clement told the CBC's Rosemary Barton in an interview on Power & Politics with Evan Solomon.

During the interview from London, Clement said the government has taken a "compromise position" between privacy concerns and ensuring usable data from the next census in May 2011. Clement's comments came a day after Munir Sheikh, the head of Statistics Canada, the national statistical agency, resigned in protest over the move to scrap the mandatory survey.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the Liberals and NDP slammed Clement's "ideological" decision, saying it has thrown Statistics Canada into "chaos" and will leave policy-makers and organizations across the country flying blind.

The Conservatives have been on the defensive since Clement announced at the end of June that the long-form part of the 2011 census would no longer be mandatory because of privacy concerns. Canadians who receive the long form would be able to refuse to fill it out.

The furor escalated after Sheikh cancelled a planned town hall meeting with Statistics Canada staff, then announced Wednesday evening on the agency's website he was resigning over the issue.

In his statement, Sheikh insisted a voluntary survey cannot be a substitute for the mandatory form.

I'm philosophically opposed to pandering to our tin-foil party fringes. And that is all this seems to be about. Considering how well things have gone south of the border with that strategy.

Your Unfriendly Neighbourhood Conservative Movement

This should give you an insight into why the protection of free speech is so broad and sweeping in the US and Canada.

If speech like this were illegal, you wouldn't know what sort of ideas people like this supported - and you might not realize that such people were being courted and pandered to by less indiscreet conservatives. Hell, you might just think such people who say they are Christians and Conservatives actually knew what those words mean.

Conservatives, disgusted with Conservatives

Passed on to me, and since TPM is being freaking crushed by the traffic... I'm copying in toto. (so you have somewhere else to point people too. Hey, I'm on blogspot... I don't pay bandwidth... )

Let me just add that I wish, I wish, I'd been able to put this together. Now, when the traffic abates a bit, I want you to to the highlighted link and thumb it, stumble  it, tweet it, send it to all your flyover state inbred cousins and generally make a big fat hairy fuss. Because, as Josh says... 

You MUST check out Russell King's "Open Letter to Conservatives" posted on his Talking Points Memo Blog. As MeMeMeMeMe said, it is "the most effective smackdown of rightwing lunacy in the history of the internets."

I concur.

An open letter to conservatives

March 22, 2010, 3:16PM

Dear Conservative Americans,

The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now.  You've lost me and you've lost most of America.  Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I'd like to give you some advice and an invitation.

First, the invitation:  Come back to us.

Now the advice.  You're going to have to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more.  But you have work to do even before you take on that task.

Your party -- the GOP -- and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational.  Worse, it's tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred.  Let me provide some expamples -- by no means an exhaustive list -- of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.

If you're going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you'll have to start by draining this swamp:

Hypocrisy

You can't flip out -- and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a prlimentary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that's centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.

You can't vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it's done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) --  114 of you (at last count) did just that -- and it's even worse when you secretly beg for more.

You can't fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

You can't call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war" at Gitmo? You can't have it both ways.

You can't carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.

You can't refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn't meet with you.

You can't rail against using teleprompters while using teleprompters. Repeatedly.

You can't rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can't be for immigration reform, then against it .

You can't enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

You can't flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same.  Bush.  Ford.

You can't complain that the president hasn't closed Gitmo yet when you've campaigned to keep Gitmo open.

You can't flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush.  Nixon. Ike. You didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on "kissing terms" with the US.

You can't complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent.  (And, no, Newt -- the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)

You can't attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hourswhen you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn't issue any condemnation).  *Obama administration did the day of the event.

You can't throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when -- in fact -- only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.

You can't condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attemted terror attack on his.

You can't mount a boycott against singers who say they're ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he's ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Moaist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.

You can't cry that the health care bill is too long, then cry that it's too short.

You can't support the individual mandate for health insurance, then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.

You can't demand television coverage, then whine about it when you get it.  Repeatedly.

You can't praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, then call it "treasonous" under a Dem president.

You can't propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.

You can't be both pro-choice and anti-choice.

You can't damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you've paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.

You can't condemn critizising the president when US troops are in harms way, then attack the president when US troops are in harms way , the only difference being the president's party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).

You can't be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.

You can't vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of  'open debate'.

If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it's 2004 or 2010.  This is true, too, if you're taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN.  Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution.  This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God's stand, too.

When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you can't send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).

You can't criticize Dems for not doing something you didn't do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.

You can't decry "name calling" when you've been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.

You can't spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare

You can't praise the Congressional Budget Office when it's analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it's unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don't.

You can't vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president.  Either you support X or you don't. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.

You can't call a reconcilliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.

You can't spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.

You can't condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the madates were your idea.

You can't demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don't.

You can't whine that it's unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party's former leader admits you've been doing it for decades.

You can't portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.

You can't complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you've routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain -- threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented -- and admitted it.  Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.

You can't question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn't object when your own Republican president appointed them.

You can't preach and try to legislate "Family Values" when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer's wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheatingon your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coherce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife's mother;

Hyperbole

You really need to dissassociate with those among you who:

·         assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million "isn't a lot of money";

·         say that "Comrade" Obama is a "Bolshevik" who is "taking cues from Lenin";

·         ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;

·         liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and "this Muslim guy" that "offed his wife's head" or call then "un-American";

·         say Obama "wants his plan to fail...so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy";

·         equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;

·         smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;

·         say that the president wants to "annihilate us";

·         compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it's also not Armageddon);

·         equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with "what the Nazis did";

·         call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or "the end of representative government";

·         shout "baby killer" at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing -- cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);

·         prove your machismo by claiming your going to "crash a party" to which you're officially invited;

·         claim that Obama is pushing America's "submission to Shariah";

·         question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;

·         claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;

·         call a majority vote the "tyranny of the minority," even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority -- it's democracy, not tyranny;

·         call the president's support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect "treasonous" (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);

·         call the Pope the anti-Christ;

·         assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;

·         accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers, drunk and suicidal;

·         equate family planing with eugenics or Nazism;

·         accuse the president of changing the missile defense program's logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;

·         accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists;  terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and

·         advocate a traitors act like seccession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we're clear: sedition is a bad thing).

History

If you're going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they're NOT synonymous!)

You can't cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you've decided you don't like his ideas.

You cant repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word "terrorism" or say we're at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.

If you're going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.

You can't just pretend historical events didn't happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn't make it better.)

You can't say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas and very few from the Left) is a long way from "socialist utopia"; health care reform is not "reparations"; nor does health care reform create "death panels".

Hatred

You have to condemn those among you who:

·         call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;

·         elected leaders who say "I'm a proud racist";

·         state that America has been built by white people;

·         say that poor people are poor because they're rotten people, call them "parasitic garbage" or say they shouldn't be allowed to vote;

·         call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don't like their politics     ( re - pea -ted - ly );

·         assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;

·         mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son's politics;

·         declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just "Marxist radicals" but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);

·         joke about blindness;

·         advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;

·         taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases -- especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;

·         equate gay love with bestiality -- involving  horses or dogs or turtles or ducks -- or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;

·         casually assume that only white males look "like a real American";

·         assert presidential power to authorize torture,  torture a child by having his testacles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village  and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;

·         attack children whose mothers have died;

·         call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they've said or done something that would even smell like racism -- same for invoking racially charged "dog whistle" words (repeatedly);

·         condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;

·         complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americansbecause of their race;

·         blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;

·         celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, "fun" politicalviolence, hints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence oractual violence (and, really, suggesting anal rape wth a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and

·         incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a "bloody battle" with the president of the United States.

Oh, and I'm not alone:  One of your most respected and decorated leaders agrees with me.

So, dear conservatives, get to work.  Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bold-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred.  Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America.  We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we'll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms.  We need you.

(Anticipating your initial response:  No there is nothing that even comes close to this level of wingnuttery on the American Left.)

Written by Russell King

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php?ref=recdc