The WAWG Blog

Republicans Trying to Make Legal Representation Available Only to the Rich – The Republican party’s “Spending Reduction Act of 2011” includes elimination of the Legal Services Corporation. The Congress of the United States authorized the Legal Services Corporation Act, and found that”providing legal assistance to those who face an economic barrier to adequate legal counsel will serve best the ends of justice and assist in improving opportunities for low-income persons. But Republicans feel that legal representation should only be available to the rich.

Prewar U.S. Report Admits Lack of “Hard” Proof on Iraqi WMD – The U.S. intelligence community’s determinations about Iraqi WMD capabilities were based largely on subjective assessment rather than “hard evidence” six months prior to the U.S.-led invasion of the country, the International Business Times yesterday quoted a September 2002 Defense Department report. “We range from 0 percent to about 75 percent knowledge on various aspects of their program,” Shaffer wrote.

The United States lacked knowledge regarding the standing of Iraqi fissile material production sites, uranium enrichment centrifuge activities, or work to acquire a nuclear bomb, the report states. No certainty existed on the placement of any Iraqi site engaged in nuclear-weapon work, it says.
“Our knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program is based largely — perhaps 90 percent — on analysis of imprecise intelligence,” the document asserts.

Republicans Love Lobbyists – When Democrat Henry Waxman became chair of the House Energy & Commerce committee, his staff was composed of people who had spent many years dedicated to expanding health care coverage, protecting the environment, and crafting an energy policy that would meet the dual challenges of climate change and fossil fuel resource constraints. The new chair of the committee, Republican Fred Upton,brought in in staff composed of lawyers-for-hire who spent their previous years lobbying for the industries that they now will be overseeing.

Rick Perry Gives Another Prize to Another Friend – In 2008, four Republicans and Democrat Chris Bell, a former congressman and Rick Perry’s challenger in the 2006 governor’s race, signed up to run in a special election to succeed Sen. Kyle Janek of Houston. Because it was a special election, the top two finishers would advance to a runoff if no candidate won a majority.

Minutes before the deadline to get into the race, Stephanie Simmons filed to run as a Democrat. Bell and others suspected that she was a Republican plant sent to split the Democratic vote. After all, Simmons is black, Bell is white, and the election was the same day that Barack Obama ran for president against John McCain.

Nearly 75 percent of the money Simmons raised came from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a business-friendly group that usually supports Republicans, and another 10 percent was in-kind legal services from Ron Wilson, who served in the state House as a Democrat but is famously close to former GOP Speaker Tom Craddick and other Republicans.

If that was the plan, it worked. Bell finished short of a majority win that November and lost to Republican Joan Huffman in a December runoff.

Now, Gov. Rick Perry has appointed Simmons as chairwoman of the state’s Risk Management Board.

Rick says, “Thanks, Steph!”

Medical Care and Education for Children in Texas Ranks Among Worst in Nation – Texas is on track to create a generation of citizens saddled with high health care costs, increasing poverty rates and an inability to compete for jobs on a national level, according to a report released recently.

Compiled by Austin-based Texans Care for Children, the report shows that even at present funding levels, Texas ranks last in several areas it describes as crucial for children. With state funding cuts proposed in every sector including education and medical services as well as the elimination of several prevention programs, staff at the non-partisan child advocacy agency say the Lone Star state is setting itself up for failure.

Timeline of Economic Collapse – Starting from 1987, and going to the present, see what led to the economic collapse and what might be next.

Regards,

Jim

Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan, but Not for Us – Ronald Reagan made big government bigger; he never submitted a balanced budget; and his deficits piled up more government debt than in all the United States’ prior history, due precisely to low taxes and the bloated defense budgets. “Low taxes” and “strong defense” during the Reagan and Bush II administrations produced huge fiscal deficits to be passed on to future generations.

All those Reaganomics tax cuts were, in fact, future tax increases on them. To add insult to injury, the revenue hole left by the Reagan tax cuts was filled by loans from Asia and OPEC, suddenly prosperous thanks to huge trade surpluses. During Reagan’s watch, therefore, the United States swung from being the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor nation, undermining America’s financial sovereignty.

Conservatives Ruined the Economy – Look what conservative economic policies have done to us:

The rich have gotten superrich, the poor have become poorer and the middle classes have marked time, pursuing the American dream by piling up mountains of debt. The ‘rising tide’ that was supposed to ‘lift all boats’ has succeeded only in lifting the yachts of the wealthy. The middle classes are bailing out their leaking sloops while the poor are stranded in sinking dinghies.

The U.S. now has the greatest inequality of wealth among major advanced nations.

The collapse of the house of cards built with debt during the conservative era created a financial meltdown in the final days of Junior Bush’s watch, requiring hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in bank bailouts (signed by Bush, lest we forget). The financial meltdown, in turn, created a deep recession causing soaring unemployment, plunging housing and stock prices, skyrocketing bankruptcies and foreclosures.

John Boehner’s Best Friends are Corporate Lobbyists and CEOs – Throughout his two decades in Congress, John Boehner, the new Speaker of the House, has been a reliable ally of corporate interests. In recent years, he has formed unusually tight legislative, political and even social ties with a group of lobbyists for such giants as Citigroup, Coors, Goldman Sachs, Google and R.J. Reynolds.

Of course, most congressional leaders work with lobbyists, so that’s not odd, but to have them also be his closest friends and social chums — well, you just want to say, “For heaven’s sake, Johnnie, get a life!”

These influence peddlers are now the speaker’s inner circle, guiding his legislative decisions. Even before last November’s election, Boehner had a private meeting with a flock of top corporate lobbyists to help shape “a new GOP agenda.” Forget the tea party. No tea party operative is a Boehner insider. It’s the corporate agenda that Republican leaders will be pushing, and to make sure that it stays on track, Boehner has hired a top corporate lobbyist to be his policy director.

On opening day of the 112th Congress, beaming members of the new Republican majority entered the House chamber, accompanied by their proud families. But the moment did not belong to members alone. Also entering the Capitol for the swearing-in ceremonies was David Koch, the multibillionaire industrialist and laissez-faire extremist who bankrolled much of the tea party/GOP victory last fall. What symbolism! The members were taking office, but Koch and his corporate agenda were taking power. Under the guise of giving government back to the people, the House majority is giving it to the corporate powers who finance their campaigns.

An Insight Into the Conservative Mind: Without Fear of Punishment, You Have No Reason to Be Good – WallBuilders, a Conservative organization, argues that everyone shouldn’t be equal under the Constitution:

“It is one thing to allow freedom of conscience to all. It is another to trust atheists to testify at trial or hold office. This is so because, if one does not believe in God and in an eternal state of punishment or reward, one has no reason to fear that punishment and thus, the theory goes, will be more likely to engage in immoral or unethical behavior, to the determent of one’s fellow citizens and of society.”

This line of thinking could evolve into a long string of one-liners:

If you think you need to be punished, you might be a Conservative.

If you think that being elite (being among the best) is a bad thing, you might be a Conservative.

If you cherry pick your science, you might be a Conservative.

If you think that force is a good way to solve most problems, you might be a Conservative.

….

(Send me your Conservative one-liners, and I’ll distribute the best ones. – Jim)

REMINDER: Chinese New Year was yesterday, and its now the year of the rabbit. So remember to stopping writing “Year of the Tiger” on your checks.

Regards,

Jim

No Money for Texas Teachers; Plenty for Football – A $60 million football stadium is being built at Allen High School, near Dallas, Texas. Residents voted 63 percent in favor of a bond issue in May 2009. This is the same state that is laying off teachers and librarians because people say they want to be financially responsible.

Food Companies Sneaking Fake Blueberries Into Their Products – Blueberries have long been touted as a superfood, high in antioxidants, vitamin C, and manganese. But, it seems that all of those products like Target Blueberry Bagels and General Mills Total Pomegranate Blueberry cereal are not being totally honest with the consumer. As if we have never been lied to by cynical marketers, it seems that several of those blueberry-laden products are made without blueberries. Actually, many of the products have nothing even closely resembling a blueberry in them, other than a bluish tinge (all done with the magic of mixing artificial colors, hydrogenated oils and liquid sugars). How could this have happened?

A group called Natural Food Advocates recently produced an Internet video that threatened to blow the lid off Blueberrygate, once and for all. This expose-style video goes on to point the finger at everyone from Health Valley to Betty Crocker for being blueberry imposters – selling unwitting consumers on the promise of blueberries, but instead serving up dextrose, Corn Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Sugar, Citric Acid, Artificial Flavor, and of course the obligatory Blue #1 and Red #40. As the video states, “When consumers buy blueberry cereals, muffins and mixes, they’re under the impression that they’re buying real blueberries. No ordinary consumer realizes they’re actually buying blue coloring chemicals mixed with hydrogenated oils and liquid sugars.

Texans Shiver Through Rolling Blackouts While Rick Perry Politics in Sunny California – Texas is currently experiencing a record cold-wave and ice storm which has killed at least 6 people and brought rolling power blackouts. Texas parents, public officials, business owners and managers are all struggling to keep homes and businesses warm. Meanwhile, Rick Perry is in California meeting with deep-pocket Republican donors and right-wing opinion leaders.

The cold weather knocked approximately 50 of the 550 power plants in Texas offline this morning and also resulted in increased demand for electricity. Lack of adequate winterization and preparation appear to be a major cause of the outages.” Thanks, Rick, for leaving us unprepared. And thanks for just leaving.

Fox News Producers Scripted ‘Socialism’ Outcry, Email Shows – A seemingly spontaneous response concerning the Obama campaign canceling an appearance on a local news station was actually scripted by Fox News’ producers. The evening before the Fox News segment aired, Fox producer Elizabeth Fanning sent an email to staffers at the network, listing five questions: “Is this a preview of things to come? Will the White House press room be like this? Can you not ask tough questions? Will they suppress the freedom of the press? Isn’t this what happens in communist countries?”

In another e-mail obtained by Media Matters, Fox News Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon told his staff to downplay the importance of climate science that showed the world was getting warmer.

Additional emails showed that Sammon asked his news department to refer to the public option as the “government run option” because polls showed the phrase “government option” was opposed by the public.

Regards,

Jim

A Simple Fact: Dangerous People Can Easily Get Guns – Two weeks after the tragic shootings in Tucson, undercover investigators went to a gun show in Phoenix, Arizona and purchased guns – no background check, no questions asked. In a matter of minutes, an investigator purchased a Glock 9 millimeter and two high capacity magazines, similar to the weapon used by Jared Loughner, without background checks. An undercover investigator also purchased two 9 millimeter pistols from two different sellers, even after the investigator told the sellers that “I probably couldn’t pass a background check.”

Regards,

Jim

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Lies About Use of Nazi References on Fox News – Fox News’ Megyn Kelly claimed last week that her network doesn’t use Nazi references.
Since that’s just flat out wrong, the ball was in Jon Stewart’s court to call her out. Stewart showed example after example of Fox News hosts and guests (including on Kelly’s own show) doing what Kelly claimed never happens on Fox. Watch the video at the link.

Tea Party-Backed Governor Plans to Use Government Workers to Help Get More Republicans Elected – Dan Demerritt, the communications director for Gov. Paul LePage, may have called for a violation of the law when he reportedly announced in an email to the governor’s closest advisers that “once we take office, Paul will put 11,000 bureaucrats to work getting Republicans re-elected.” Using taxpayer-funded public employees for political campaigns is illegal under Maine law.

Gov. LePage has been attracting national attention since his colorful campaign last year, in which he reportedly swore at a reporter and vowed to tell President Obama to go to hell.

His national media attention crested this month, when he rejected the NAACP’s invitations to attend Martin Luther King Day events, and invited the civil rights group to “kiss my butt.”

Republican Party Trying to Narrow the Definition of Rape – Rape is a simple concept: It is any instance when sex is not consensual. That includes when someone drugs a victim or gets him or her drunk, and when someone has sex with a minor.

But not according to the Republican Party, which is seeking to legally change the definition of rape.

These new Republican “definitions” of rape and incest are a dirty trick by anti-choice proponents to restrict abortion access. For decades, the ban on federal funding for abortions has included exceptions for victims of rape and incest. But if the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” passes, only women who are raped by force would qualify to use federal funds to end the resulting pregnancy. It also would limit the incest exception to girls under 18.

Cruel, Unjust Punishment for Mom Who Tried to Help Her Kids Have a Better Life – Kelley Williams-Bolar is a single mother of two daughters, and she is a teacher’s aide in Akron city schools who has been studying to become a teacher. According to Williams-Bolar, after their home in a housing project was burglarized, she decided to protect her daughters’ safety by sending them to school in neighboring Copley Township, where her father lives — and she went to jail for it. Williams-Bolar claims that she maintained a part-time residence at her father’s home, but the school district didn’t see it that way. Neither did County Prosecutor Sherri Walsh, who charged Williams-Bolar with grand theft and falsifying records — a third-degree felony. The judge presiding over the case recognized the harshness of the felony charge and encouraged Prosecutor Walsh to offer a plea bargain for a lighter charge — but Walsh flatly refused.

Williams-Bolar was convicted on the felony charge, and sentenced to 5 years in prison. The judge suspended all but 10 days of the jail time, instead ordering 2 years of probation and 80 hours of community service. She’s out of jail now, but the repercussions could last a lifetime: unless the felony is eliminated from her record, Williams-Bolar may be unable to earn her teaching certificate under Ohio law. Williams-Bolar is only a few classes away from earning her teaching certificate. Now, as a convicted felon, helping her children will be even harder — her dream to become a teacher may have ended as well.

Real justice requires that the punishment fit the crime; by any measure, this is cruelly unjust. Please join us calling on Governor Kasich to take a public stand and do everything he can to right this injustice (including making sure that Williams-Bolar has the opportunity to become a teacher in Ohio).

Chinese CCTV Broadcaster Uses ‘Top Gun’ Footage In Military Drill – Broadcast by China Central Television, the footage was said to have been passed off as an air force training drill showing a Chinese J-10 fighter plane firing a missile and destroying a rival aircraft. Eagle-eyed movie buffs were reportedly able to detect distinct similarities between the aired footage and the climactic aerial combat sequence of Top Gun, the 1986 blockbuster that starred Tom Cruise.

It’s not the first time the Chinese media have re-used Hollywood images without authorization for use in a news broadcast. In 2007, the state-run Xinhua news agency used an X-ray image of Homer Simpson’s head to illustrate a story about the genetic link to multiple sclerosis.

Michele Bachmann Proposes “Don’t Add, Don’t Spell” – In her official Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) offered a bold new policy initiative she called “Don’t Add, Don’t Spell.” Rep. Bachmann called the proposal “a reflection of core Tea Party values” and said it would “deliver the American people from the tyranny of arithmetic, spelling, and punctuation.”

In addition to “Don’t Add, Don’t Spell,” Rep. Bachmann suggested slashing the Federal budget by eliminating nine of the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. “I think you know which one I’d keep,” she chuckled, miming a Western gunslinger with her index fingers.

Rep. Bachmann’s odd onscreen appearance, in which she seemed to be staring off-camera for the duration of her speech, was initially blamed on “a squirrel that got into the studio and distracted her,” said one Tea Party official. But the Minnesota congresswoman offered her own explanation: “I was looking off to one side because I was trying to read off Sarah Palin’s hand.”

Regards,

Jim

Individual actions result from the influences of many factors. This is referred to as “systemic causation.”

Some factors are genetic but many are external: parents, spouses, siblings, other relatives, friends, scout leaders, religious leaders, teachers, bosses, books, movies, radio, TV, web browsing, tweeting, email, etc.. The presence, or absence, of these external factors in the individual’s life can and do change the actions they may or may not take. There are even times when the external factors or extenuating circumstances can make normal and good people do ‘evil’ things. When this happens it is referred to as “The Lucifer Effect.”

The Lucifer Effect takes systemic causation into account to explain why good people do bad things.

It’s not that individuals are prone to perpetrate bad deeds entirely of their own volition. It’s that there may be a set of extenuating circumstances, including a physical environment that provides a framework which makes bad deeds seem beneficial and maybe even necessary. The extenuating circumstances are descriptive labels that dehumanize a chosen enemy, uniforms or other apparel, insignia that identify friend or foe, loose rules of order, and/or lack of direct and remote supervision, etc.. Extenuating circumstances are also the environment: a home, a business, a church, a prison, a mob, or anywhere people can be centralized and exposed to the other extenuating circumstances.

Dr. Phil Zimbardo’s research into The Lucifer Effect grew out of his Stanford Prison Experiment in 1971 and was exemplified a few years ago by what happened at Abu Ghraib.

In both situations, good people were placed under extenuating circumstances, including a centralized location. They then committed evil deeds under lax and loosely specified guidelines from their remote leaders. The kind of loose and lax guidelines that lead to “plausible deniability” for those higher up the ‘food chain.’ In other words, these good Americans were placed in what Dr. Zimbardo refers to as a “bad barrel.”

This bad barrel also isolated the good Americans from limiting factors that could have prevented their evil deeds. No one was there to check and balance the resulting abuse. It’s like meetings of public officials where no security clearances are required, but the media is not allowed to attend. If no one is ‘watching’ with a critical eye, then those in attendance are more inclined to do something wrong or speak inappropriately. People do and say things in their home that they would never do in public – because of the isolation from critical eyes.

Dr. Zimbardo’s research also showed that any learned or inherent factors for doing good, with which individuals had entered the bad barrel, did little to inhibit their bad deeds. In both the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib, there was little effort by those in the bad barrel to self-limit their bad deeds. The extenuating circumstances, or bad barrel, overpowered or shut down any natural tendency to resist doing evil. Any natural ability to feel empathy was inhibited. It’s like what George Lakoff says about the brain’s two political modes of thinking – one frame inhibits the other.

Both the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib were centralized and the good Americans were randomly selected from different subsets of Americans – college students and enlisted military. Additional extenuating circumstances were purposely applied while other limiting circumstances were purposely or accidentally excluded.

Now imagine a decentralized, but still somewhat isolated, set of circumstances that could also cause good Americans to harm other Americans. Replace the central prison, which is a collection of cells, with a nationally distributed collection of cells: churches, homes, and cars. Add to these nationally distributed ‘cells’ additional extenuating circumstances which, unlike the centralized bad barrel, are purposely selected by the cell’s inhabitants. These additional extenuating circumstances serve to further isolate the inhabitants, by their choice, and provide a lax and loosely defined set of guidelines for this ‘distributed bad barrel.’

Relative to this distributed bad barrel, I asked Dr. Zimbardo, “Do you suppose a distributed system is possible that, when combined with remote authority figures, could also engender the Lucifer Effect and cause good people to do bad things?” He replied (uppercase is his):

GOOD REASONING

CLOSED SYSTEM BARRELS ARE OFTEN PART OF LARGER DISTRIBUTED CULTURAL SYSTEMS OF POWER AS YOU NOTE
VERY FINE POINT
I WILL USE IT IN MY THINKING
PHIL Z

So, imagine further that the cells of this distributed bad barrel are occupied by a particular subset of good Americans – as opposed to the randomly selected participants in the centralized case. Imagine this subset is the one referenced throughout this blog and known collectively as right-wing authoritarian followers.

This subset of good Americans needs and seeks out a particular leadership and invites them into their homes and cars, and travels to their evangelical churches. Unlike centralized prisons with centralized and assigned leaders, these chosen leaders are also distributed across the nation; in our governments, in our media, in our churches, and in certain political parties. These leaders are referred to as authoritarian social dominators .

This distributed system is as susceptible to the The Lucifer Effect as the centralized system. Both can influence good Americans to do evil things. Because of The Lucifer Effect, this distributed system, with its isolated followers and chosen leaders, has likely played a part in the killing of Dr. Tiller, other fear and hate based killings around the country, and the attempted killing of Congresswoman Giffords.

In spite of the denial from the leaders of the right, The Lucifer Effect exists and they may have created the first national distributed bad barrel for getting a small number of good Americans to do evil things. Research is needed to confirm this.

Right Wing “Profit” Says Massive Bird Kill Was Result of Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – Have you been wondering about those thousands of birds that fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Years Eve? According to “respected prophet” and Religious Right rising star Cindy Jacobs, the event which some have playfully dubbed the “aflockalypse” was the result of … wait for it … the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy getting repealed. I wish I was kidding. You really have to see this.

In the video Jacobs says, “what happens when a nation makes a decision that’s against God’s principles?” Well, often what happens is that nature itself will begin to talk to us – for instance, violent storms, flooding.”

Although she didn’t mention it, I suspect that repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” also caused her to wear that blue leopard outfit she has on in the video.

Michele Bachmann Says Founding Fathers Were Responsible for Abolishing Slavery – Speaking at an event sponsored by Iowans For Tax Relief, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said the United States was founded on racial and ethnic diversity and that the founding fathers were responsible for abolishing slavery. She only missed it by about 100 years. [And which U.S. President wrote the Emancipation Proclamation?]

Texas Governor Rick Perry Railed Against ‘Bailouts’ on Same Day He Requested One – On the same day “Texans for Rick Perry” launched their “No Government Bailouts” campaign, Perry himself was lining up with the rest of the states asking for billions in federal funding from President Barack Obama’s Recovery Act. Texas faced a $6.6 billion budget deficit in the 2010-11 fiscal years. To fill that gap, the state took $6.4 billion from the Obama administration and declared their budget gap covered, freeing up the Republicans who dominated the legislature to run on their fiscal responsibility.

Texas Has Nearly Double the National Average Percentage of Children Who Go Without Health Insurance – Elderly, women and men in Texas all doing much worse than the national average.

Regards,

Jim

Republican House Leader Says He Backs Plan Which Will Slash Social Security and Medicare – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Sunday threw a measure of support behind a key Republican lawmaker’s plan to dramatically cut Social Security and Medicare. The plan was created by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the new chairman of the budget committee.

Ryan will be giving the Republican Party’s response to the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Bachmann’s Claims are ‘False’ More Often Than Any Other Politician – The Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact noted that Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has made false statements more often than any public official.

“We have checked her 13 times, and seven of her claims to be false and six have been found to be ridiculously false,” PolitiFact editor Bill Adair told Minnesota Public Radio. He added that no other politician had been fact checked as often as Bachmann without saying something that was found to be true.

“I don’t know anyone else that we have checked, more than a couple times, that has never earned anything above a false,” Adair said. “She is unusual in that regard that she has never gotten a rating higher than false.” When PolitiFact last checked the congresswoman, they gave her a “Pants on fire” rating.

Bachmann will be giving the Tea Party’s response to the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Texas Was The #1 Stimulus Moocher – A new study finds that more than any other state Texas relied on Federal stimulus money to balance its budget.

According to the National Congress Of State Legislatures, 97% of the state’s budget shortfall was plugged using stimulus funds — more than any other state.

Fox News Gave Republican Presidential Candidates $55 Million in Free Advertising – Not only did five potential Republican candidates get regular paychecks from Fox News last year, but they also got something even more valuable: airtime

Liberal watchdog group Media Matters found that the five received about $55 million in free advertising over the course of more than 85 hours of appearances in 2010.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appeared for almost 48 hours (worth $31 million). Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had nearly 14 hours

(worth $7.5 million) of appearances.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was given close to 12 hours. Former senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum and former UN Ambassador under George W. Bush John Bolton both received about six hours.

Regards,

Jim

Communicating a progressive worldview requires telling a story and countering the “Nobel Lies,” or beliefs, from the CWCs (conservatives without conscience) with facts.

For progressives to win back the “biconceptuals,” who are typically referred to as “independents” and recently supported Republicans in the 2010 election but supported Democrats in 2008, we need both the story, or progressive narrative, and the facts which require the progressive narrative.

Don’t even bother trying to convert the hardcore CWCs. Their strict-father, authoritarian, upbringing has almost totally turned off their natural ability to empathize with others. CWCs are almost totally about me and believe every individual is on their own and totally responsible for whatever circumstance they find themselves in. CWCs don’t understand “systemic causation.”

Part of most progressive narratives is caring for others – of all kinds. Progressives are about ‘we.’ Progressives have grown up in a protective and empowering family environment and have kept their empathy in tact. Some progressives have even grown their ability to empathize and put their beliefs into a life’s work – think Mother Theresa.

To highlight this ‘we/me’ gulf between progressives and CWCs, remember the campaign slogan from the 2010 Obama team – “Yes We Can.” Contrast this with a poster on the radio set for Glenn Beck that I saw recently – “Yes I Can.”

As for the biconceptuals, their ability to empathize or demonize is dependent on the stronger narrative. When the CWCs control and define the narrative, think dog whistles, the biconceptuals can’t understand stand-alone progressive facts, that are randomly and inconsistently mentioned by progressives, and instead, they either don’t vote or vote with the CWCs. When progressives control or define the narrative, biconceptuals understand the facts, dismiss the CWC beliefs, and vote progressive. Their swing votes have made the difference in the last two national elections. The stronger narrative has been the key to their votes.

During discussions between progressives, they all get the facts. They understand, without saying it, the narrative behind the facts. Biconceptuals, however, need to be reminded of the progressive narrative before they can accept the facts. For them, the progressive narrative, which still exists in their brains, can easily be turned off by the infinitely repeated (and thus stronger), fear based (even stronger), CWC narrative – think “death panels” and how we almost didn’t get a national health care law. The progressive narrative can also be turned back on with sufficient repetition of the progressive narrative.

My favorite bumper sticker is still, “Fearful People Do Stupid Things.” This includes voting for CWCs as exemplified by the 2010 election and all the new Tea Party member in our new Congress. Biconceptuals have been scared stupid by the CWC narratives.

So, to get biconceptuals to accept political facts, a progressive narrative must be added to the conversation which reconnects them to their ability to empathize. Over the last two years, they have have been scared out of caring for others. Help them re-activate their ability to empathize. Tell a personal story of empathy that makes the facts obvious and dismisses the CWC beliefs.

You can try using empathetic narratives on the hardcore, “double high” authoritarian, CWCs, but they will either start yelling at you, unholster their gun, or just say yes to put a stop to what they consider an ‘insane’ dialog.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Failed to Report His Wife’s Income from a Conservative Think Tank – Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report his wife’s income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday.

Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed.

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law.

The allegation comes days after Common Cause filed a letter requesting that the Justice Department investigate whether Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia should have disqualified themselves from hearing a campaign finance case after they reportedly attended a private meeting sponsored by Charles and David Koch, billionaire philanthropists who fund conservative causes.

In the case, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the court ruled that corporate and union funds could be spent directly on election advertising.

The Koch brothers have been key supporters of the group Americans for Prosperity, which spent heavily in the 2010 midterm election and claims a nonprofit tax status that allows it to avoid disclosing its donors.

Clarence Thomas has been the lone justice to argue that laws requiring public disclosure of large political contributions are unconstitutional.

House Republicans Plan Cuts to Energy Star, Weatherization, and Advanced Energy Research – The Republican Study Committee has released their Spending Reduction Act of 2011. Here are a few of their proposed cuts:

• Energy Star Program: $52 million a year.
• Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants: $2.5 billion a year.
• DOE Weatherization Grants to States: $530 million a year.
• Amtrak Subsidies: $1.565 billion a year. (There are no cuts to highway subsidies, of course.)
• Technology Innovation Program: $70 million a year. (Wait, I thought support for innovation was “post-partisan”!)
• Applied Research at Department of Energy: $1.27 billion a year.
• New Starts Transit: $2 billion a year.
• FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership: $200 million a year.
• Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority: $150 million a year.

There are no cuts to fossil-fuel or corn-ethanol subsidies. There are no cuts to America’s bloated military budget, which was somewhere north of $660 billion in 2010, more than the rest of the world’s defense spending combined. And there are no cuts to the sprawling, opaque Department of Homeland Security, which costs more than $50 billion a year. In maintaining global empire and expanding the security state, every dollar is sacred.

Professor Receives Death Threats After Glenn Beck Targets Her – A 78-year-old CUNY professor, Frances Fox Piven, has found herself not only the target of criticism from conservative radio and TV talk show host Glenn Beck, but also the recipient of what amount to death threats.

On his News Channel program, which more than 2 million people watch, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze, Beck has turned Piven into the ‘primary character’ of his ‘warnings about a progressive take-down of America,’ according to the January 21st New York Times. Piven, says Beck, is the author of a plan that will ‘“intentionally collapse our economic system.”‘

Piven has received threats via e-mail and anonymous comments on The Blaze have called for her death: ‘“Somebody tell Frances I have 5000 roundas ready and I’ll give My life to take Our freedom back”‘ and “ONE SHOT…ONE KILL” (spelling and grammar have not been edited).

Cell Phone Companies Trying to Fool You About 4G Ntworks – You’ve seen the 4G advertisements from T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon, bragging about a much-better wireless network with blazing fast speeds.

Here’s the secret the carriers don’t advertise: 4G is a myth. Like the unicorn, it hasn’t been spotted anywhere in the wild just yet — and won’t be any time in the near future.

Regards,

Jim