CapitalistImperialistPig

Kevin Drum says it: The Republican Party is bending its entire will, staking its very soul, fighting to its last breath, in service of a crusade to.... Make sure that the working poor don't have access to affordable health care. I just thought I'd mention that in plain language, since it seems to get lost in the fog fairly often. But that's it. That's what's happening. They have been driven mad by the thought that rich people will see their taxes go up slightly in order to help non-rich people get decent access to medical care. That's a pretty stirring animating principle, no? It's not just the poor, of course. It's anybody with a pre-existing condition, or anybody with a family member with such a condition. It's also a big chunk of the middle class - the self-employed, entrepreneurs who haven't yet made it big, etc.

A popular senior at an elite prep school becomes publicly incensed at the appearance of an effeminate fellow student and gathers up a posse of fellow students, who assault, tackle and pin the student as he screams for help while the senior hacks off his hair. The senior, who was the son of the current governor of the State, was never punished. His victim was later expelled for smoking a cigarette. By the standards being applied today in New Jersey, the perpetrators committed a hate crime, one in some ways more heinous than that which led to the NJ student's suicide. Although five witnesses and perpetrators clearly recalled the deed forty some years later, the ring leader denies remembering it, but still apologized for "youthful hijinks." That was a long time ago, so should the bully be held responsible for those long ago acts, even if they inflicted a lifetime's worth of damage on the victim? I don't know, but as Andrew Sullivan has said, it fits well with the...

.. and other liberals who find something to like in Ron Paul . Can we talk? Ron Paul is not a charming oddball with a few peculiar notions. He's not merely "out of the mainstream." Ron Paul is a full bore crank. In fact he's practically the dictionary definition of a crank: a person who has a single obsessive, all-encompassing idea for how the world should work and is utterly blinded to the value of any competing ideas or competing interests. This obsessive idea has, at various times in his career, led him to: denounce the Civil Rights Act because it infringed the free-market right of a monolithic white establishment to immiserate blacks; to dabble in gold buggery and advocate the elimination of the Federal Reserve, apparently because the global economy worked so well back in the era before central banks; suggest that the border fence is being built to keep Americans from leaving the country; claim that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional and should b...

Bachman: I'd fix those Iranians. I'd close our embassy there! Maybe she had to fire the staff historian.

Adam Sorenson via Andrew Sullivan , Watching Rick Perry fail to recall the third part of his own answer in tonight’s debate was like watching a thoroughbred get euthanized on the track. It was shocking, grisly and impossible to look away.

You say you'll take the lie detector test Herman . Do it. And make sure a neutral expert administers it. Yes. I absolutely would," Cain said when asked about taking a test. "But I'm not going to do that unless I have a good reason to do that. Of course I would be willing to do a lie detector test Not that lie detectors are infallible, but you do need to be pretty good liar to fool an expert, I think.

Can we get Mr. Cain off the stage now ? Bialek said Cain put his hand under her skirt and pushed her head toward his crotch after a dinner together in 1997 after she asked to meet him to discuss ways he might be able to help her find employment. She said he backed away after she asked him to stop. Her boyfriend at the time on Monday issued a statement released by Allred confirming that she told him about the incident at the time. Allred did not release the boyfriend's name. She is the fourth woman to accuse him of sexual harrassment. I think we now know what his "gesture with his hand" meant. UPDATE: NYT via Josh Marshall In an interview after Ms. Bialek’s news conference, Joel P. Bennett, a lawyer for one of Mr. Cain’s anonymous accusers, said that Ms. Bialek’s claims were “very similar” in nature to the incident that occurred between his client and Mr. Cain.

The assassin who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and a dozen other people today will doubtless be portrayed as a lone wacko, but I predict that the bloody footprints will lead back to the imams of Fox News and purveyors of political hate on right-wing talk radio. Sarah Palin's website has reputedly just taken down the bullseye they had painted on Congresswoman Gifford's district - but let's not forget who stirred up this and other recent incidents of terrorism. If, as I expect, the murderer was inspired in whole or in part by professional hate mongers, they should be treated just like other terrorists. UPDATE: Josh Marshall reminds us of the huge role the Tea Party has played in the "assassinate your local Congressperson" movement : Arizona has been ground zero for the guns and threats agitation from the right over the last two years. And as an example of the atmosphere in the state of late, back this summer her Tea Party opponent Jesse Kelly held a "Ta...

Rand Paul wants to fix immigration by installing an electric fence along the border – underground – inspired, no doubt, by the ones Ron used to keep him in his yard when he was a lad. Don’t forget to supply all those Mexicans with the little shock collars! The idea of an underground electric fence inspired a certain amount of scorn in the RBC, but hey, what better way to combat the Mexican Drug Underground? All of which reminds me of my important, original, and revolutionary solution to the immigration and border control problem: A twenty mile wide, sea level canal from San Diego to Brownsville. It would require a lot of labor, it’s true – fortunately there is a large supply of willing and able Mexicans willing to work pretty cheap. It would be best if all the work was done with pick, shovel and wheelbarrow. Disposal of all the rock and dirt removed might be a bit of a problem, but we could use some more barrier islands in the Gulf – and maybe a big island off the coast of San Diego. ...

As the American Conservative movement is increasingly consumed by the genies it let loose, more than a few conservatives are beginning to wonder what happened. David Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden: We have both been part of the conservative movement for, as mentioned, the better part of half of our lives. And I can categorically state I've never seen such a hostile environment towards free thought and debate -- once the hallmarks of Reaganism, the politics with which we grew up -- prevail in our movement as it does today. The thuggish demagoguery of the Limbaughs and Becks is a trait we once derided in the old socialist Left. Well boys, take a look in the mirror. It is us now. An Andrew Sullivan reader looks at and doesn't like how a conservative Catholic site reacts to the latest revelations about the pope's role in the pedophilia coverup: Something snapped in the Bush years, though. The whole organization (led by Neuhaus) descended deeper and deeper into neocon unr...

I guess you can never overestimate how flagrant these guys are willing to be. How do you spell "quid pro quo?"

George W Bush and his minions spent the first eight months of his Presidency mocking and ignoring urgent warnings of an imminent terrorist threat. When the most devastating terrorist attack in American or World history occurred, they used the occasion not to kill or capture the perpetrators, but to pursue another foreign war. The family of the ringleader was hustled out of the country in private jets, and the President continued to kiss up to the country that financed the attacks. In a feat of historical revision worthy of 1984 or at least Joseph Stalin, it seems that memory of these events has now completely disappeared from the Republican mind. Josh Marshall's TPM catches Bush Spokesgirl Dana Perino claiming that no terrorist attacks on the United States occurred during W's term of office. Naturally the Faux News interviewer agreed. video In the up is down world of Republican politics, this is not an exception. I have heard the same absurd claim made on television by a...

I am increasingly convinced that the main quality one needs to be a conservative is the ability to believe two mutually contradictory things at the same time. How else to explain the repeated examples of people who fear that government involvement in health care will threaten their Medicare? Or the apparently quite serious editorialist in Investors Business Daily who proclaimed that Steven Hawking could never have survived under the Bristish system of totally nationalized health care, since he would have been denied care because of his disability. Hello! How much do you think any investing advice you might get from that publication would be worth?

It's usually a poor idea to trust habitual liars .

Watching the parade of buffoons, nutbags, sacred fools, ordinary fools and child Buddhas at the CPAC makes it more than a little difficult to imagine how this bunch ruled the country for thirty years. They didn't, of course, or rather, they were just the schlock troops or comic relief for the real controllers - the moneyed oligarchy and the network of stink tanks they created and congressmen, editors, columnists, professors and preachers they had purchased. We ought to bear that in mind before we celebrate the buffoonery too heartily.

Brad DeLong: Shorter CPAC Conference... I'LL GET YOU, MY PRETTY!! AND YOUR LITTLE PORTUGUESE WATER DOG TOO!!

Arun has some primo Kristol Meth . It is sorta scary that Bill Kristol has a PhD - from Harvard yet. Tends to destroy my faith in the Ivy League. Not to mention a rational universe.

Paul Krugman quotes James Galbraith on the nonsensical memes being promoted by the POS: An amazing debate at National Journal. The journal asked, is there room for fiscal stimulus to respond to the crisis caused by the mortgage mess. David Walker, who’s been preaching the need to rein in entitlements, treated the crisis as a chance to push his favorite line: My concern is, when will Washington wake up and start doing something to defuse the potential “super sub-prime crisis” associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances and imprudent fiscal path? And Jamie let loose: What is Mr. Walker’s approach to subprime crisis today? His comment above makes his approach clear. It is to use the crisis as a rhetorical springboard, in order to divert the conversation back to what he calls the “super sub-prime crisis associated with the federal government’s deteriorating finances…” But the fact is, the subprime crisis is real. The collapse of interbank lending is real. The collapsi...

Don't miss Tim Dickinson's hard look at the man behind the myth in Make-Believe Maverick A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty in The Rolling Stone. Dickinson depicts a reckless and dishonest son of privilege whose main talent is for self-promotion - a man whose career in many ways parallels that of George W Bush. Like Bush, McCain was a serial screwup whose family connections repeatedly rescued him from his own reckless blunders. The most devastating parts of the story come from fellow Naval officers, including one from a fellow POW who, unlike McCain, never broke under Vietnamese torture and signed confessions of war crimes. In these stories McCain, before and after Vietnam, is more interested in chasing tail than serving his country. This story is counterweight to the ritual panegyrics to the "hero" in the mainstream media, but also a revealing portrait of the warts on the man who would be...

You don't see many economists or others critiquing the Bush-Paulson bailout. Certainly not our lapdog Congress. Glenn Greenwald is an exception. He sees a repeat of the rush to judgement that led to Iraq. Here is his summary of the plan as presented: Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes. Anybody else think that this might be a bad idea?