The WAWG Blog

Rick Perry: Odd Man Out – There’s going to be a Texas gubernatorial debate in Austin after all, but Rick Perry won’t be there. Democrat Bill White last month accepted the invitation, which was initially extended just to Perry, the Republican incumbent, and White. Perry will not be there, campaign spokesman Mark Miner said Tuesday. Libertarian Kathie Glass and Green Party nominee Deb Shafto on Tuesday accepted an invitation from the Houston Chronicle, the state’s other large newspapers and Austin television station KLRU to participate in an Oct. 19 debate at the TV station’s studios.

KLRU will broadcast the one-hour debate in Austin and make it available to stations around the state. Newspapers also will stream it live on their websites.

White and Glass have participated in forums together before. Shafto, Glass and White have all said they’ll participate in a League of Women Voters of the Houston Area debate on Sunday. (Rick Perry will be in an undisclosed location.)

La Te Da! Letter Asks Rick Perry to be Honest (About Himself)

September 21, 2010
To: Mr. Rob Johnson
Texans for Rick Perry
PMB 217, P.O. Box 2013
Austin, TX 78768

Dear Mr. Johnson,
I’m an investigative blogger and the head of Proud of Who We Are, a national organization that calls on elected officials to openly serve the public proudly and honestly as to whom they really are.
I’ve been working for the last 6 years to uncover cases of gross personal life hypocrisy on the part of closeted politicians who use gay and lesbian Americans as a rhetorical punching bag for political gain.
…
… after recently blogging about a trip to Austin, a reader alerted me to a curious expense reported on Governor Perry’s July 2009 campaign finance report.
An entry dated April 13, 2009, reports $78.26 was spent at an establishment named La Te Da, located in Key West, Florida. The explanation for the expense is simply, “Business meeting.” Please see the attached PDF copy of the page from the campaign’s expense report.
In case you are not familiar, the La Te Da is well-known destination for gay travelers with a popular cabaret that features drag show acts.
…
This campaign expense seems to clash with the Governor’s comments toward gay and lesbian Americans – including his most recent assertion that Texas has a better economy because it doesn’t grant gays and lesbians marriage equality.
…
Sincerely,
Michael A. Rogers

Conservatives Blocking Ronald Reagan’s Security Strategy – October 1st marks 18 years since the U.S. Senate approved President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START. It also marks the 300th day since that treaty expired, cutting off U.S. weapons inspectors’ access to Russian nuclear sites. Conservatives in the Senate are now blocking the restart of Reagan’s inspections.

In order to get U.S. inspectors back “looking under the hood” of Russian nuclear weapons, as one military official put it, the Senate must approve the New Start treaty negotiated and signed by the U.S. and Russia. Without this treaty, Reagan’s plan for a steady decrease of nuclear arsenals verified by rigorous inspections will fade.

Much has changed in the world since Reagan was president, but nuclear threats remain. Together, the U.S. and Russia hold 96 percent of the world’s estimated 22,500 nuclear weapons. The explosion of just one in a major city — by accident, miscalculation or madness — would be a disaster.

Wall Street Bankers and Corporate CEOs are to Blame for the “Jobless” Recovery – The Wall Street banks and the multinational corporations, along with those who have done their bidding in Washington for the past few decades are responsible for our economic problems. The Republican politicians that these financial interests own — and the corporate Democrats they have “seduced” with campaign money — have been their willing instruments. While millions of ordinary Americans cannot find a decent job and our nation’s economy sputters, the Wall Street bankers still make gobs of money, the multinational corporations are as profitable as ever and their political friends in Washington sit on top of stuffed campaign coffers.

The executives who decide to take capital to remote locations suffer no personal hardship from the fact that a factory that could have been built in America won’t be — or a factory that was in America will be closed and replaced by a Third World site.

This is equally true of Wall Street bankers. It makes no difference to them if a factory in Iowa is closed and the lives of the well-paid workers there are destroyed so that their multinational corporate client can build a replacement factory in Bangladesh. The rapacious bankers pocket the same huge fees for raising the capital required to fund the replacement factory regardless of where it is built, the new workers are located or what happens to the American workers left in the dust.

Fox News Even Lies About the President’s Taste in Music – In an interview, President Obama said:

“My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me. I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There’s still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.

A lot of classical music. I’m not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need.

Thanks to Reggie [Love, the president’s personal aide], my rap palate has greatly improved. Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I’ve got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert. Malia and Sasha are now getting old enough to where they start hipping me to things. Music is still a great source of joy and occasional solace in the midst of what can be some difficult days.”

So Fox News reports this as, “President of the United States Loves Gangsta Rap.”

U.S. Losing Control of High-Tech Due to China’s Monopoly on Rare Earth Elements – A generation after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made mastering neodymium and 16 other elements known as rare earths a priority, China dominates the market, with far-reaching effects ranging from global trade friction to U.S. job losses and threats to national security.

The U.S. handed its main economic rival power to dictate access to these building blocks of modern weapons by ceding control of prices and supply, according to dozens of interviews with industry executives, congressional leaders and policy experts. China in July reduced rare-earth export quotas for the rest of the year by 72 percent, sending prices up more than six fold for some elements.

Military officials are only now conducting an inventory of where and how U.S. suppliers use the obscure but essential substances — including those that silence the whoosh of Boeing Co. helicopter blades, direct Raytheon Co. missiles and target guns in General Dynamics Corp. tanks.

Just how far U.S. manufacturing has waned is apparent at a factory in Valparaiso, Indiana, where dogs skitter across a bare concrete shop floor, their nails clicking. This brick plant on Elm Street once made 80 percent of the rare-earth magnets in laser-guided U.S. smart bombs, according to U.S. Senator Evan Bayh, a Democrat from Indiana. In 2003, the plant’s owner shifted work to China, costing 230 jobs. Now the plant houses Coco’s Canine Cabana, a doggy day care the current tenants started to supplement sagging income from their machine shop. On most days dogs outnumber the 15 metalworkers, said Kathy DeFries, co-owner of Excel Machine Technologies Inc.

China has the largest share of worldwide reserves of rare earth elements, about 36 percent, and the U.S. is second, with 13 percent, but China produced 97 percent of the world’s supply last year, according to the GAO.

Republican Senator Threatening to Shut Down the Federal Government Through Mis-use of Senate Rules – Jim DeMint’s is making an insane threat to shut down the federal government through mis-use of Senate rules. Senator DeMint warned his colleagues that he would place a hold on all legislation that has not been cleared by his office before the close of business Tuesday.” Any piece of legislation not personally cleared by Jim DeMint will be blocked by Jim DeMint. This could hurt a lot of Americans.

Remember when an Alabama Republican senator earlier this year put a blanket hold on all of the president‘s judicial nominees because he wanted some pork for his district? Remember when Republican Jim Bunning turned himself into a one-man roadblock as Democrats tried to pass an extension of unemployment benefits through the Senate?

Democratic Senator Blocks Obama Budget Chief Pick – President Barack Obama’s pick for budget chief has been blocked in the U.S. Senate by a member of his own party to protest the administration’s ban on offshore oil drilling. The action by Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, means the Senate will not be able to approve Jack Lew as White House budget chief until at least mid-November, when it returns from a six-week break.

Republican Admits to Employing Illegal Immigrant for 9 Years – Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor of California, looked the other way for years while employing an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper, a prominent California attorney representing the housekeeper alleged Thursday. The claim comes at an inconvenient time for Whitman, who just yesterday called for a crackdown on employers hiring illegal immigrants. (Yes, she called for a crackdown on herself.)

At a press conference in Sacramento Thursday, former Whitman housekeeper Nicky Diaz Santillan said she was treated like “garbage” during the nine years she worked in the Whitman household, from 2000 to 2009. The former housekeeper said Whitman told her, “From now on you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. You have never seen me, and I have never seen you. Do you understand me?”

Too Few Americans Bear The Burdens Of War – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that most Americans have grown too detached from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and see military service as “something for other people to do.”

In a speech Wednesday at Duke University, Gates said this disconnect has imposed a heavy burden on a small segment of society and wildly driven up the costs of maintaining an all-volunteer force. Because fewer Americans see military service as their duty, troops today face repeated combat tours and long separations from family. The 2.4 million people serving in the armed forces today represent less than 1 percent of the country’s total population.

“Whatever their fond sentiments for men and women in uniform, for most Americans the war remains an abstraction – a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally,” Gates said.

The Devil Make’s ‘Em Do It – Conservatives can do without a God, but they can’t get through the day without a devil. Their entire model of reality revolves around the existence of an existential enemy who’s out to annihilate them. Take that focal point away, and their whole worldview collapses into incoherence. This need is so central to their thinking that if there are no actual enemies around, they’ll go to considerable lengths to make some (or just make some up).

Unfortunately, the past couple of decades have been rough for them on this front. Losing the Communists as the Bad Guys left a big gap in the conservative cosmology, which they’ve been trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to fill ever since. This void has driven them crazy, forcing them to reveal their inner ugliness in all kinds of ways as they thrash around looking for some likely replacement. The longer this goes on, the more of that ugliness we’ve all seen — and the less coherent their politics have become.

Blacks, the French, Gays, Latinos, Liberals, Europeans, Muslims. That’s why the conservatives are still taking out after the Muslim community now — nine full years after 9/11.

The Tea Potty – The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention, the amorphous, self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit, is what I’d actually call the “Tea Kettle movement” (or maybe the “Tea Potty” movement) — because all it’s doing is letting off steam. Based on all I’ve heard from this movement, it feels to me like it’s all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.

The Tea Kettle movement can’t have a positive impact on the country because it has both misdiagnosed America’s main problem and hasn’t even offered a credible solution for the problem it has identified.

And how can you take seriously a movement that sat largely silent while the Bush administration launched two wars and a new entitlement, Medicare prescription drugs — while cutting taxes — but is now, suddenly, mad as hell about the deficit and won’t take it anymore from President Obama? Say what? Where were you folks for eight years? (Maybe it’s really some other kind of potty movement.)

Regards,

Jim

Conservative Creep Tries to Pull Another Video Con; This Time on CNN – James O’Keefe, best known for hitting the community organizing group ACORN with a heavily edited and misleading undercover video, hoped to get CNN Investigative Correspondent Abbie Boudreau onto a boat filled with sexually explicit props and then record the session. O’Keefe called Boudreau on August 10, supposedly to discuss a documentary. During the conversation, he said he preferred that Boudreau meet him in person in Maryland and asked that she come alone. The phone call was recorded without Boudreau’s knowledge, but CNN obtained a copy of the recording after O’Keefe e-mailed it to friends and colleagues. Boudreau agreed to the meeting, which she understood would be in his office.

A co-worker of O’Keefe told Boudreau that O’Keefe planned to “punk” her by getting on a boat where hidden cameras were set up.

In a planning document from O’Keefe’s Conservative group, listed under “equipment needed,” is “hidden cams on the boat,” and a “tripod and overt recorder near the bed, an obvious sex tape machine.” Among the props listed were a “condom jar, dildos, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs” and a blindfold. The document states they want to “burden her career with this video.” E-mails show they intended to try to embarrass both CNN and Boudreau.

The plan was thwarted after Boudreau was warned by one of O’Keefe’s co-workers.

Republicans Don’t Like Energy Efficiency – Three House Republicans, Joe Barton and Michael Burgess of Texas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, have introduced the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, which would repeal the section of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that sets minimum energy efficiency standards for light bulbs.

When Republicans Are in Charge, Most Americans Suffer – The chart below shows that when Republicans are in charge, income growth rates are lower. They are much, much lower for the poor, not good for the middle class, and most of the income growth goes to the rich. But, when Democrats are in charge, everyone prospers.

Republican Candidate Repeatedly Lies About Attending Colleges – Another university is bringing Christine O’Donnell’s self-professed education history into question Wednesday, as Claremont Graduate University, a school that the Delaware Senate candidate claims she attended, has told Talking Points Memo that they have no record of her being there. She has now apparently lied her LinkedIn profile about attending several colleges.

China’s Big Projects vs. America’s Big Project – China has at least four big stimulus projects going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.

Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing project: fixing Afghanistan.

A Place No One Should Want to Go – Extravagant promises and bluster are the stuff of campaign rhetoric, but the House Republicans’ “Pledge to America” goes far beyond the norm. It is devoid of tough policy choices. This new “governing agenda” does not say how the Republicans would replace revenue that would be lost from permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts, or how they would manage Medicare and Social Security, or even which discretionary programs would go when they slash $100 billion in spending. Their record at all of these things is dismal.

The best way to understand the pledge is as a bid to co-opt the Tea Party by a Republican leadership that wants to sound insurrectionist but is the same old Washington elite. These are the folks who slashed taxes on the rich, turned a surplus into a crushing deficit, and helped unleash the financial crisis that has thrown millions of Americans out of their jobs and their homes.

Not only are the players the same, the policies are the same. Just more tax cuts for the rich and more deficit spending.

The pledge takes the country backward — a place no one should want to go.

Regards,

Jim

Republican “Pledge to America” Fails National Security Test – The national security portion of the Republican “Pledge to America” (buried away on page 37 of the 45-page document) fails to address any of America’s immediate security challenges. Neither Al Qaeda nor Osama bin Laden even merits a mention in the Republican plan. House Republicans are also silent on how to deal with homegrown terrorists, rated as the biggest threat to the United States by Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, the successor to the 9/11 Commission. And though they include a cliché commitment to “support our troops,” Republicans fail to provide any policies that would actually do so.

In contrast, since President Obama took office, the United States has stepped up its fight against terrorists, capturing or killing dozens of al Qaeda leaders and hundreds of al Qaeda extremists. Further, the Democratic Congress has strengthened America’s military by increasing pay for troops in the field, providing them more time between deployments and putting new and better weapons onto the battlefield.

U.S. Census Finds Record Gap Between Rich and Poor – The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record. The top-earning 20 percent of Americans received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

“Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more,” said Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty. “More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy.”

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Rick Perry Has a Problem with the Truth – The non-partisan Politifact.org has graded 40 of Rick Perry’s campaign statements and has found that only 13% of them are true, and only 10% are mostly true.

Republican Mike Pence Can’t Name a Single New Idea by Republicans in Their ‘Pledge’ – On Sunday, Rep. Mike Pence couldn’t give Meet the Press’ David Gregory one actual example of anything in the pledge that’s a new idea and not just the same old recycled talking points we’ve been hearing for years. Well, at least he didn’t make stuff up.

A Pledge to America = Flatline for NASA? – The Republican Pledge says they will “- Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, Pre-Bailout Levels: With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.” If you believe that, then say goodbye to the Obama Administration’s plans to increase NASA’s budget by $6 billion over 5 years.

This Notion That Tax Cuts for the Rich Creates Jobs is Just Nonsense – This notion that you need to have these tax breaks for the very top to create jobs and economic expansion is nonsense. Those tax rates are in effect right now. I don’t see all this job creation as a result of those tax cuts. They’ve been in effect for nine years. At the end of those nine years, we’ve seen losses of millions of jobs. So, this story that somehow those breaks for the very folks at the top, create these jobs is, is just nonsense.

The Republican “Pledge to America,” is Full of Bunk – According to the non-partisan FactCheck.org, the Republican pledge falls short on facts:

· It declares that “the only parts of the economy expanding are government and our national debt.” Not true. So far this year government employment has declined slightly, while private sector employment has increased by 763,000 jobs.
· It says that “jobless claims continue to soar,” when in fact they are down eight percent from their worst levels.
· It repeats a bogus assertion that the Internal Revenue Service may need to expand by 16,500 positions, an inflated estimate based on false assumptions and guesswork.
· It claims the stimulus bill is costing $1 trillion, considerably more than the $814 billion, 10-year price tag currently estimated by nonpartisan congressional budget experts.
· It says Obama’s tax proposals would raise taxes on “roughly half the small business income in America,” an exaggeration. Much of the income the GOP is counting actually comes from big businesses making over $50 million a year.

Really Extreme Politics – Foes of a small-town mayor in Peru said they have dug up the skull of his late father and won’t give it back unless he drops out of next month’s election. Police in San Cristobal said unknown thieves unearthed the remains of Juan Vizcarra Quispe, who died in 1978. His bones were found strewn about the cemetery, but his skull is missing. Mayor Rogelio Vizcarra said he received a text message offering to return the skull if he withdraws his bid for re-election Oct. 3, but he still plans to run.

Regards,

Jim

Rick Perry Doesn’t Take Questions – Letter to Rick Perry from the President of the National Conference of Editorial Writers:

September 23, 2010
Dear Gov. Perry:
The National Conference of Editorial Writers was stunned and disappointed today when you spoke at our luncheon and did not take questions.

Had it been due to a tight schedule, we would have understood. But, clearly, you had ample time to work the room by shaking hands both before and after your talk. You also gave an extended interview before TV cameras in the hallway, in full view of NCEW members for whom you indicated you had no more time.

This is an affront to any notion of civil discourse, such as the kind you have called for on other occasions.

We believe you and your staff have been disingenuous in the characterization of your schedule. If you had hoped to make a positive impression on this national press group, I must tell you that you utterly failed.

Sincerely,
Tom Waseleski
NCEW President

(A room full of informed questioners is Rick Perry’s worst nightmare.)

Rick Perry Can’t Even Get the Support of the Republican-Leaning Farm Bureau – The Texas Farm Bureau’s political committee has backed the Republican nominee for governor since it began making endorsements in 1990. But not this year. The Farm Bureau can’t bring itself to support Rick Perry again.

The Republican Party’s New Strategy: Bring Back Hoover! – The Republican “Pledge to America” has been issued, so we now finally know what the party of “no” will do if it regains control of Congress. And for those who recall the history of the Great Depression, we know we will revisit the days of President Herbert Hoover. And if you don’t remember Hoover, just think back to the great prosperity that President Bush bequeathed to President Obama. Don’t you remember the glorious year of 2008?

To read this “pledge” is to fall into Wonderland, to enter a fantasy world where logic means nothing, straight lines do not exist, the imagination can run wild unencumbered by fact, and all is a mirage of desire and fancy.

Beyond the incantation of the mantra of lower taxes and curbing any government action other than defense spending, not a single meaningful proposal about economic revival can be found in the document. It is no more than a bromide against all that has been done in the past 21 months to reverse the Bush economic cataclysm.

The Republican Spending Addiction – Even if the Republican Party believed in its Pledge to America, it wouldn’t touch the biggest parts of the federal budget. If you really think that the problem with the economy and/or the federal budget is as simple as too much government spending (which it is not), then you have to point your finger squarely at the national Republican Party. Of the six recent Congresses essentially controlled by the GOP, from 1995 to 2006, not one ever reduced federal outlays. (The last year in which federal outlays were lower than the year before was 1965, when Democrats ran both the White House and Congress.)

Republican Pledge Steers Clear of Specifics on Important Issues – The Republican plan steers clear of specifics on important issues, such as how it will “put government on a path to a balanced budget.” It omits altogether the question of how to address looming shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll found nearly three-quarters disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job, with 68 percent disapproving of Republicans compared with 60 percent disapproving of Democrats.

Republicans Already Broke Tax Cut ‘Pledge’ – It didn’t take long for Republicans to break a promise in their new “Pledge to America” to “give small business tax deductions,” Democrats charged this afternoon.

Four hours after the Republicans rolled out its new campaign manifesto, a bill containing $12 billion in tax cuts for small business passed on a 237-187 vote in the House. Only one Republican voted for the measure.

“By breaking one of their top pledges within hours of making it, Republicans proved that you can put as much stock into their promises as you can a promise made at a Lindsay Lohan probation hearing,” snapped Democratic National Committee spokesman Hari Sevugan.

Republicans’ Bizarre and Cynical “Pledge to America” – One can only marvel at the extreme cynicism evident in the Republican Party’s bizarre 21-page “Pledge to America.” The “pledge” was pulled together by a staffer who has served as a lobbyist for some of the nation’s most powerful oil, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Across the country, politicians who stand for policies that would transfer wealth and power back to the Wall Street barons are on the November 2nd ballot.

Their reckless incompetence and greed cost many millions of Americans their jobs, their homes and their hopes for the future. We need to understand that the very people who drove the economy into the ditch are now planning to take back the keys, restart the engine and take the whole country along on their reckless joyride along the road to the bottom. That’s their real pledge.

It’s time to call your friends and relatives. It’s time to make sure your coworkers and neighbors know the facts. Tell them to ignore the GOP’s pledge and remind them of their record. Tell them the truth about the disaster waiting around the corner unless they get out and vote.

Conservative Group Running Misleading Ads on Medicare – The 60 Plus Association, a group that bills itself as “a conservative alternative to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is running an ad that gives a highly misleading impression about funding for Medicare.

The fact is that the law does not take $500 billion out of the current Medicare budget. Rather, the bill attempts to slow the program’s future growth, curtailing just over $500 billion in future spending over the next 10 years.

“Some (changes) increase Medicare spending to improve benefits and coverage,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Medicare Policy Project at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. “Other provisions reduce the growth in Medicare spending to help the program operate more efficiently and help fund coverage expansions to the uninsured in the underlying health reform legislation. Other provisions are designed to improve the delivery of care and quality of care.” More significantly, there’s also $136 billion in projected savings that would come from changes to the Medicare Advantage program. Finally, the ad doesn’t mention any of the benefits to seniors, such as improved prescription drug coverage.

Neuman walked through the changes in an easily digestible tutorial on the Kaiser Family Foundation’s website, a good non-ideological explanation for people interested in changes to Medicare under health care reform.

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Doing Voter Suppression in Wisconsin – According to the statements made on recordings of a meeting of Wisconsin Tea Party leaders, Here’s the plans between the Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair and the state director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin, in their own words:

1. The Republican Party of Wisconsin will use its “Voter Vault” state-wide voter file to compile a list of minority and student voters in targeted Wisconsin communities.
2. Americans for Prosperity will use this list to send mail to these voters indicating the voter must call and confirm their registration information, and telling them if they do not call the number provided they could be removed from the voter lists.
3. The Tea Party organizations will recruit and place individuals as official poll workers in selected municipalities in order to be able to make the challenges as official poll workers.
4. On Election Day, these organizations will then “make use” of any postcards that are returned as undeliverable to challenge voters at the polls, utilizing law enforcement, as well as attorneys trained and provided by the RPW, to support their challenges.

Republicans’ “Pledge to America” is Laughable According to Republican Blog “Red State” – The Republican Blog “Red State” says the following about the House Republicans’ “Pledge to America”:

It is a “grand illusion of an agenda that will never happen, is best spoken of today, and then never again as if it did not happen. It is best forgotten.”

“The entirety of this Promise is laughable.”

“This document proves the GOP is more focused on the acquisition of power than the advocacy of long term sound public policy.”

Republican ‘Pledge To America’ Director Lobbied For AIG, Exxon, Pfizer, Chamber – The Republican Party’s 21-page blueprint, “Pledge to America,” was put together with oversight by a House staffer who, up till April 2010, served as a lobbyist for some of the nation’s most powerful oil, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies.

In a draft version of The Pledge that was being passed around to reporters before the official release, the document properties list “Wild, Brian” as the “Author.” Wild is on House Minority Leader John Boehner’s payroll. Until early this year, Wild was a fairly active lobbyist on behalf of the firm the Nickles Group, the lobbying shop set up by the former Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Don Nickles. During his five years at the firm, Wild, among others, was paid $740,000 in lobbying contracts from AIG, the former insurance company at the heart of the financial collapse; $800,000 from energy giant Andarko Petroleum; more than $1.1 million from Comcast, more than $1.3 million from Exxon Mobil; and $625,000 from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. There are many, many, more.

400 Richest Americans Got Richer This Year, As Most Americans’ Net Worth Tanked – The richest Americans got even richer this year, according to the new Forbes 400 list, even as the country’s total net worth tanked during the second quarter.

The top 400, all of whom are worth at least $1 billion, saw their combined wealth increase 8 percent this year, to the dizzying total of $1.37 trillion, according to analysis from CNN.

Meanwhile, according to data released last week by the Federal Reserve, the net worth of American households and non-profits in the second quarter of this year plunged 2.8 percent, or $1.52 trillion, from the previous quarter, to settle at $53.5 trillion.

Charles and David Koch, the manufacturing and energy titans and Tea Party movement bankrollers, profiled by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker last month, tied for fifth place with $21.5 billion apiece.

Republicans Use Funky Definition of Small Business to Fool You – The “small” businesses that Republican lawmakers say will suffer if the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire are not so small after all. According to the Republican tax logic, a small number of owners is the sole criterion for a “small business.” Such businesses, which according to the Joint Committee on Taxation accounted for 94 percent of all U.S. businesses in 2007, include partnerships, sole proprietorships and S corporations, a designation that allows owners to report profits and losses on their personal tax return, rather than on the company’s.

The report found that businesses with billions of dollars in annual revenue fall under the small business category. Bechtel, a global engineering and construction company that is considered a “small business” under this logic, took in $31 billion last year. Ferrellgas, a propane company, earned $2 billion in revenue last year. Other names include auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which brought in $26 billion. Also on the list are the collection of “small businesses” owned by the billionaire Koch Brothers, who this year tied for fifth on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans, and who bankroll the Tea Party.

Bloomberg first reported this unusual tax logic on Monday. The Republican “small business” designation, the report said, would apply even to individuals with no employees at all. It could include actors, athletes and authors — even President Obama.

Republican Control May Cause Reduction in Proposed NASA Budget – House Republicans have begun calling for a return to 2008 spending levels and other Republicans have urged a spending freeze next year. Both arguments would become more powerful if Republicans take control of one or both chambers in the upcoming election. Lawmakers have been debating the space agency’s future for most of the year, after President Barack Obama proposed giving the agency an extra $6 billion over five years and changing its priorities. NASA advocates worry that disputes could jeopardize the $6 billion over five years — including $278 million more in 2011 — that Obama has proposed.

Republicans Refuse to Include Increased Funding for NASA in Continuing Resolution – Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said Tuesday that increased funding for NASA would have to wait until the lame-duck session after the Nov. 2 elections. Nelson, D-Fla., had hoped to insert language into the continuing resolution, or CR, that Congress must pass to keep the government running after the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30. “For us to be able to change the CR right now I don’t think is realistic,” Nelson said. Republicans have been demanding a “clean” CR, without extra funding or policy changes. Democrats will need at least one GOP vote to move the CR through the Senate.”

The CR will NOT contain any new money or new language guiding NASA. Without an enacted authorization/policy bill, signed by the President, things will continue JUST as they have been, with the Constellation funding restricted, impounded, whatever you want to call it, but held back from the contractors, just as it has been for the past six months. That means even longer delays in ending the uncertainty, more unnecessary layoffs and disruption of lives and careers.

Republicans Lying About Health Care, Bigger Than Ever – The 60 Plus Association, a front group for the insurance companies, is running a deceptive $5 million television ad campaign to attack Democratic candidates who stood up for consumers by supporting the Affordable Care Act.

Most of what these ads say is simply not true. Health Care for America Now (HCAN) yesterday sent a letter to 83 television stations serving 16 congressional districts and called on them to immediately stop airing these outrageous ads, sponsored by a fake grassroots organization that appears to have no real members but definitely has lots of corporate funding.

Media Matters already had compiled a catalog of the 60 Plus Association’s advertising misrepresentations and falsehoods going back to the middle of the health care fight last year. Now the highly regarded and nonpartisan FactCheck.org has a new analysis showing that these ads are propaganda -smears based on lies and distortions. Americans United for Change summarized the many falsehoods in memos sent to reporters in these districts yesterday. MoveOn.org, HCAN and others are organizing grassroots pressure on the stations to take the ads down.

The goal of these ads is to scare seniors into voting for Republican candidates who will side with insurance company lobbyists over consumers. It’s time to fight back by spreading the truth to voters.

Someone in Republican Senator’s Office Wants All Gay People Dead – Sen. Saxby Chambliss has confirmed that an online comment declaring “all faggots must die” originated from his Senate office.

Also, a comment that was left on the Instant Tea website on Tuesday, below a post about Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions receiving awards from the Log Cabin Republicans. The comment posted by someone calling himself “BillyBob” said: “the only thing a disgusting faggot has a right to is a six foot hole in the ground.”

Texas Republican Lawmakers Are Far Right, Democrats Closer to Center – A study conducted by the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University shows the degree of congruence between the ideological pattern of a representative’s voting behavior in the Texas House of Representatives and the partisan-ideological orientation of their legislative district. The graph plots the 150 members of the Texas House during the 2009 legislative session on two dimensions. The first dimension (Y-axis) is the representative’s Liberal-Conservative Score based on their voting record in the House, ranging in theoretical value from -1.0 (extreme liberal) to 1.0 (extreme conservative). Democratic representatives are identified by a blue dot and Republicans a red dot. Click on link above to see chart.

Note that Republican representatives are tightly grouped (they tow the line), have an average score on the vertical axis of around +0.7 (extreme Conservative), and the least Conservative score is around +0.25. None of them are centrists.

Democratic representatives are more distributed along the y-axis (independent thinkers), have an average score on the vertical axis of around -0.25 (slightly Liberal), and some of them have Conservative scores. About 14 of the Democrats are centrists with scores near the origin (0.0).

Asking the Wrong Questions – It is a favorite trick of the Republicans to get people embroiled in what should be a non-issue because it distracts us from asking the right questions about real issues. An example:

Why do we care if the president is a Muslim or not? I am reminded of what Colin Powell said when falsehoods about Obama’s religion circulated during the 2008 campaign:

“But the really right answer is, “What if he is?” Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?…

“I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American.

“He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.”

Powell was right. Lots of our fellow citizens are Muslims. Some are heroes; others are villains; most pursue utterly unremarkable lives. Muslims are, in short, much like all of us. And they are every bit as American as Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, or (dare I say it?) atheists.

From the Start, Bush Team Focused on War with Iraq – Former president George W. Bush’s advisers focused on toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime as soon as he took office and discussed how to justify a war in Iraq shortly after invading Afghanistan in 2001, newly declassified papers showed Wednesday.

The Very Retro Notion That We are Undisputedly Still No. 1 is Extremely Dangerous – When one departs Beijing’s South Station, a giant space-age building, and boards the bullet train to Tianjin. It takes just 25 minutes to make the 75-mile trip. In Tianjin, one arrives at another ultramodern train station — where, unlike New York City’s Pennsylvania Station, all the escalators actually work. From there, you drive to the Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center, a building so gigantic and well appointed that if it were in Washington, D.C., it would be a tourist site. Your hosts inform you: “It was built in nine months.”

Studying China’s ability to invest for the future doesn’t make me feel we have the wrong system. It makes me feel that we are abusing our right system. Too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful, more interested in defeating each other than saving the country.

For democracy to be effective and deliver the policies and infrastructure our societies need requires the political center to be focused, united and energized. That means electing candidates who will do what is right for the country not just for their ideological wing or whoever comes with the biggest bag of money. Instead, we have an evil tide of Know-Nothingness that is sweeping the country and potentially handing congressional power over to a group of dimwits, determined to ruin the American system.

Regards,

Jim

Rick Perry is So Proud; State May Have to Lay Off 9,800 Workers – 9,800 workers could likely be laid off as the state grapples with a projected two-year budget shortfall approaching $21 billion. Mike Gross, vice president of the Texas State Employees Union, said he expects there will be much more pressure to lay off employees next year than in 2003, the last time Texas faced a similar budget crunch. Gross said, “We can afford to do better by our people.” For now, state leaders have protected public school aid from the cuts, though people from across the political spectrum say it is unlikely that schools will be left untouched.

“If the Legislature is going to balance this budget primarily through budget cuts, nothing can be off the table,” said Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. Colleges and universities are expected to add to the final job loss tally when the budget is completed next year. The University of Texas, for instance, has said 600 jobs could be eliminated if a full 10 percent cut is required. At Texas A&M University, the number of affected jobs would be 400.

Rick Perry is too Incompetent to Do a TV Ad Correctly – Governor Rick Perry and his campaign have released their first television ad of the campaign season. The opening seconds of the ad shows one of the store’s workers carrying flowers to put outside the store. But …

“I didn’t know he was going to use our store in an ad. No, I don’t support Governor Perry or his views.”
–Peg McCoy, owner of Farm to Market Grocery in South Austin

Mitch McConnell’s Funny Tax Math Deems Obama a ‘Small Business’ – If Mitch McConnell (R – KY) is taken at his word, then President Obama is a small business. In the debate over extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, the senate Republican leader has employed a definition of “small business” that, Bloomberg reports, is fairly broad.

To come up with McConnell’s figures, he has expanded conventional notions of “small.” Former staff director of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation Ed Kleinbard told Bloomberg that the senator’s definition includes not just “part-time Web designer[s]” but also “investor[s] in a hedge fund” and “partner[s] in a law firm with a billion dollars of revenue.” It also, Bloomberg notes, includes the president, who, according to his tax return, last year took in $5,623,690, most of which came from book sales. McConnell’s definition would also include billionaire George Soros

In Rick Perry’s Texas, the Voices of Women are Unwelcome – The Dallas Morning News revealed that Perry’s planning a “male-oriented” fundraising dinner where “a few, select men can pay $15,000 each to eat pheasant and wild sausage and have conversation with the governor.” How about their wives and “significant others”? Well, they’re welcome to join the men for post-dinner festivities.

You Have Been Mislead About Party Popularity; Republicans Are Actually Far Less Popular with Voters – The Republican Party’s unpopularity marks a critical difference between the election this November and 1994, when the party’s sweep of more than 50 seats won it the majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. Then, the official argued, Republicans had been out of power for more than four decades and voters were ready to try something different. This time, voters know what they would be getting with Republicans in charge and don’t like it, the source said. Here are some recent poll results:

AP Congressional approval/disapproval
Dems 38/60
Reps 31/68

CBS/NY Times, 9/15
Dems 30/58
Reps 20/68

ABC/WaPo, deserve reelection
Dems 34
Reps 31

Brendan Nyhan posted a terrific graphic at pollster.com (Be careful, Republicans are shown in blue, Democrats in red, opposite of what we are used to seeing):

Regards,

Jim

Christine O’Donnell in 1999: ‘I dabbled into witchcraft’ – The story of Christine O’Donnell’s past got a little stranger Friday. Bill Maher — on whose former show, “Politically Incorrect,” O’Donnell appeared repeatedly in the late 1990s — showed a previously unaired clip from Oct. 29, 1999, on his current HBO program, “Real Time,” in which the GOP Senate nominee from Delaware said she “dabbled into witchcraft.” From ThinkProgress:

O’DONNELL: I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. […]

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that. … We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

O’Donnell is an outspoken conservative Christian, making this admission a little surprising.

Update: In other O’Donnell news that may or may not be related, Bob Schieffer tweeted Saturday that the candidate has pulled out of a scheduled appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. She is still scheduled to appear on “Fox News Sunday” at 9 a.m.

Second Update: O’Donnell also canceled her appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

Republican Candidate Says Unemployment Benefits Are Unconstitutional – Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Tea Party favorite Joe Miller said that unemployment benefits aren’t constitutional.

Republicans Disagree With 300 Economists and Major Civic Leaders – The following statement was signed by more than 300 economists and major civic leaders.

In the fall of 2008 the U.S. and other major economies were in a free fall in the wake of a global financial crisis. Emergency stimulus policies here and around the world broke the fall, but brought us only part way to full recovery.

Today there is a grave danger that the still-fragile economic recovery will be undercut by austerity economics. A turn by major governments away from the promotion of growth and jobs and to premature focus on deficit reduction could slow growth and increase unemployment – and could push us back into recession.

…

The President and Congress should redouble efforts to create jobs and send aid to the states whose budget crises threaten recovery by forcing them to lay off school teachers, public safety workers, and other essential workers. It also makes sense to invest in public service jobs – and in infrastructure projects for transportation, water, and energy conservation that will make our economy more productive for years to come.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Lies About Public Employees – In August, the New Republic, the New York Times and others warned, “There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions.” Of course, there’s only one problem with Rush Limbaugh’s claim that public sector employees are “freeloaders” and the charge from Indiana Governor and Republican Mitch Daniels that they are a “new privileged class in America.”

Like so much else conservative mythmaking, it’s simply not true.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. Just one of many recent analyses debunking Republican charges about government workers and their unions, EPI found that “on average, state and local government workers are compensated 3.75% less than workers in the private sector.” The report by Labor and Employment Relations Professor Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University revealed that public employees are undercompensated compared to similarly skilled private sector counterparts

Boehner and McConnell Aren’t Even Liked by Republicans – A new Public Policy Polling survey finds a majority of Republican primary voters think House Republican leader John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell should lose their leadership posts. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say the congressional Republican party needs new leadership.

Republicans are split on whether Boehner should win the Speaker’s gavel if the Republican party retakes control of the House this fall. Thirty-three percent say he should, while 34 percent say he shouldn’t. Another 33 percent of Republican voters are undecided.

McConnell is in about the same shape. Thirty-three percent say the Senate Republican party needs a new leader, while 27 percent think the party should stick with McConnell. A whopping 40 percent say they are “not sure.”

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Have Been Lying About the Deficit – The Treasury says that the deficit for August of this year is 13% lower than that of the August of last year, and 8% lower than the first 11 months of the current fiscal year over the prior matching period.

Republican Fiscal Plan Would Raise Debt Nearly $4 Trillion – The tax plan put forward this week by Republican leaders in Congress would add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt, making it roughly four times as expensive as the Democrats’ health reforms. The Republican plan includes a cut to the estate tax “that would gift $91 billion to the richest 0.25 percent of households.

Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh Lied about Republican Candidate According to Republican Candidate – In an interview with Fox News Wednesday, Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) said that a “significant” reason for his Senate primary loss to Christine O’Donnell was because of “misrepresentations” about his record by conservative radio personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. During the campaign, O’Donnell backers said Castle voted for Obamacare (he didn’t) the stimulus (he didn’t) and now, the impeachment of Bush (he didn’t).

Republicans Harbor Racist Views According to Former Republican Leader – Jim Greer, former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, is accusing his longtime associates of harboring “racist views,” and he’s apologized to President Obama for statements he made damning a speech to American students in 2009.

“In the year since I issued a prepared statement regarding President Obama speaking to the nation’s schoolchildren, I have learned a great deal about the party I so deeply loved and served,” he informed members of the media, in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately, I found that many within the GOP have racist views and I apologize to the president for my opposition to his speech last year and my efforts to placate the extremists who dominate our party today. My children and I look forward to the president’s speech.”

Republican Policy Ideas Are Out-of-Touch With Americans – On Tuesday SHRM/NJ/Pew Congressional Connection released a survey of public opinion on four main proposals that have — in however vague terms — been put forward by members of the GOP leadership. And the results indicate that the Republican Party faces a fairly obvious deficit in public trust on policy matters.

• According to the results, a proposal to extend all the Bush tax cuts (including those for the wealthy) was supported by just 29 percent of respondents.
• Calls to repeal the health care reform law passed by President Obama were favored by just 32 percent of the public.
• Creating vouchers for Medicare was supported by just 33 percent of the public.
• Amending the constitution to disallow automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants who were born in the United States, was favored by 46 percent of the public (49 percent opposed).

Corn Refiners Association Tries to Fool You with a Name Change – The Corn Refiners Association, reflecting on changing consumer sentiment around high fructose corn syrup, have decided to rebrand and rename their product, petitioning the FDA for a name change, calling high fructose corn syrup “corn sugar”.

A study from Princeton University that suggests that the sweetener formerly known as high-fructose corn syrup causes more significant weight gain than table sugar, and a UCLA study suggests that cancer cells feed off fructose at a higher rate than regular sugar.

Regards,

Jim