Republicans

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello blasted alleged super fan, Paul Ryan. (photo: Billboard)

By Tom Morello, Rolling Stone
17 August 12

Last week, Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan, the Republican architect of Congress's radical right-wing budget plan, as his running mate. Ryan has previously cited Rage Against the Machine as one of his favorite bands. Rage guitarist Tom Morello responds in this exclusive op-ed.

Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

This. Is. Awesome.

Make no mistake. In his decision to make Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from Wisconsin, his running mate, Romney finally surrendered the tattered remnants of his soul not only to the extreme base of his party, but also to extremist economic policies, and to an extremist view of the country he seeks to lead.

From the Majority Report, live M-F 11:30am EST and via daily podcast at http://Majority.FM:

Ron Paul wants charity to take care of the uninsured sick...but where was the charity for his own 2008 campaign manager? Kent Snyder died of pneumonia without insurance leaving his wife over $400,000 in medical bills. True, heartfelt care from those who believe in Libertarian ideals.

UPDATE: A fundraiser, which has since ended, was put together for Ron Paul's campaign manager to help pay off his $400,000 medical debt...they only raised $34,870.53. So much for charity. (http://kentsnyder.chipin.com/kent-snyder)

Morans. Watch the video below for a trip down memory lane

GOP Millionaires to Gather at Luxury Resort to Discuss California Republican Party's Image Problem

It is no wonder that the California Republicans are a train wreck.

Get a load of this: In this morning's edition of the Capitol Morning Report, a Sacramento insiders newsletter, there was announcement of a California Republican Reformers Weekend, where a few of the party's elite were going to spend three days discussing the "California Republican Party's poor branding and communication problems and how to fiix them."

And where were they going to do it? At the Hyatt Monterey Hotel & Spa, described in the lodge's brochure as "Monterey's largest luxury conference hotel" with "a host of pampering activities."

You can't make this stuff up.

Because a bunch of millionaires hanging out at a luxury hotel ought to do wonders for the GOP image. Because, you know, voters don't associate California Republicans as being rich and out-of-touch with the middle class, right.

A lengthy article, but worth the read. If you don't have time to read the whole article right now, at least read the final paragraph - "But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise."

What Happened to Obama?
By DREW WESTEN - NYTimes.com

Drew Westen is a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.”

Atlanta

IT was a blustery day in Washington on Jan. 20, 2009, as it often seems to be on the day of a presidential inauguration. As I stood with my 8-year-old daughter, watching the president deliver his inaugural address, I had a feeling of unease. It wasn’t just that the man who could be so eloquent had seemingly chosen not to be on this auspicious occasion, although that turned out to be a troubling harbinger of things to come. It was that there was a story the American people were waiting to hear — and needed to hear — but he didn’t tell it. And in the ensuing months he continued not to tell it, no matter how outrageous the slings and arrows his opponents threw at him.

The stories our leaders tell us matter, probably almost as much as the stories our parents tell us as children, because they orient us to what is, what could be, and what should be; to the worldviews they hold and to the values they hold sacred. Our brains evolved to “expect” stories with a particular structure, with protagonists and villains, a hill to be climbed or a battle to be fought. Our species existed for more than 100,000 years before the earliest signs of literacy, and another 5,000 years would pass before the majority of humans would know how to read and write.

>>> Trendsmap <<<

Tweeters rage against the D.C. machine

Spurred by a blogger to vent about gridlock and political posturing in Washington over the debt ceiling crisis, the Twittersphere was burning this morning with citizens' grievances against their government, announced with an expletive-filled hashtag - vulgarity mixed with insight and a lot of common sense.

Jeff Jarvis (of Buzzmachine.com) promoted the flood of Twitter messages with the hashtag #F---YouWashington. A sample is presented below, spelling and punctuation uncorrected.

Republican Secrets of the Debt

On the same day that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Wall Street rating agencies joined the ever-louder chorus of voices warning Republicans that failure to raise the U.S. debt ceiling would result in "calamity," Speaker John Boehner announced that at least 60 GOP Congressmen "won't vote to raise the debt ceiling under any circumstances." At the same time, his GOP colleagues Michele Bachmann, Steve King and Louie Gohmert accused the Obama administration of lying about the urgent need to raise the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell worried that his party's tough-talk and myth-making could "destroy" the GOP brand.

Sadly for McConnell, that is the Republican brand. His lieutenant Jon Kyl (R-AZ) admitted as much in April, when he declared remarks he delivered on the Senate floor were "not intended to be a factual statement." And so it is with the debt ceiling crisis. When they aren't peddling outright lies, Republicans suffer from selective amnesia regarding the inconvenient truths about the GOP record on debt, taxes and the economy.

Here, then, are the ten Republican Secrets of the Debt:

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/58333

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

Government: California GOP senators go public with their budget demands

Gov. Jerry Brown broke off budget talks with five Republicans in the state Senate in March after complaining that the GOP's demands kept expanding. In particular, he pointed to a seven-page list of items Republicans told him they wanted in any budget deal, many of which had nothing to do with the budget.

Today, four of those senators -- Tom Berryhill of Modesto, Anthony Cannella of Ceres, Bill Emmerson of Hemet and Tom Harman of Huntington Beach -- released details of four proposed reforms that are "necessary components" of any budget deal. It's not clear from their statement that they'll support the Democrats' budget proposal if they prevail on these four issues, though.

The four reforms are:

I wish I had time to explain or fully comprehend all the arcane and archaic legislative maneuvers Harry Reid is pulling, but I'll try to process it and lay it out in a post tomorrow. Suffice it to say, Harry Reid is doing just about everything he can to force this contemptible piece of junk on the American people for four more years. Call Senator Boxer at her Sacramento office or call her DC office (202) 224-3553 and ask her to vote "no" on the extension

How Can Congress Debate a Secret Law?

By Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall

Members of Congress are about to vote to extend the most controversial provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act for four more years, even though few of them understand how those provisions are being interpreted and applied.

As members of the Senate Intelligence Committee we have been provided with the executive branch's classified interpretation of those provisions and can tell you that we believe there is a significant discrepancy between what most people - including many Members of Congress - think the Patriot Act allows the government to do and what government officials secretly believe the Patriot Act allows them to do.

[...]

____________________

Changes the Sens want to make to § 215

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No Time to Debate Patriot

SACRAMENTO, CA - Calling it a "state of emergency campaign," teachers from across the state gathered in Sacramento to begin a series of sit-ins at the State Capitol.

Show your support for public education and other key public services the Week of Action, May 9 - 13. During that week, we want everyone to talk about two things: the need for the state Legislature to pass Governor Jerry Brown's proposal to extend current taxes in order to save thousands of jobs and the services they provide in schools, colleges and universities, public safety, and public health; and the need to restore fair tax policies on the richest Californians and large corporations, so that we will have the resources to invest in a bright future for our state. A recent opinion poll shows strong support for restoring fair tax policies instead of cutting education and services.

Your Week of Action Toolkit

Denis Leary with the Democrat, Republican, and Obama theme song

Republican budget agreed to

This is nothing but a robbery. Tax cuts for the top 20%, and tax raises for the rest of the 80%. Even worse than that

The bottom 80 percent would pay $1,700 more in taxes under Ryan's plan,

while

the top 1 percent (those making more than $460,000 dollars per year) would pay more than $211,000 less on average.

Wait. It gets even worse

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