PERRspectives: The National Debt? Republicans Built That

PERRspectives: The National Debt? Republicans Built That
"President Bush added $5.1 trillion in red ink to the national ledger. But while the debt has grown by over $5 trillion during Obama's first term, less than $1 trillion can be attributed to new programs he put in place. The rest is the result of the tax revenue loss from the deep recession which began in December 2007 and the continuation of policies inherited from George W. Bush."

Americans For Job Security: Conduit For Right Wing Dark Money

Americans For Job Security: Conduit For Right Wing Dark Money
"After Citizens United, attention has been paid to the sheer amount of money the right wing poured into elections and how that money has influenced public opinion, debate, and outcomes. But for the most part, attention has been placed on the so-called SuperPACs and their participation. While American Crossroads and others were certainly big players on the national landscape, little attention has been paid to how they operate on a state by state basis, and how they are used to launder money across state lines in order to subvert even the mildest disclosure requirements. In this post and ones to follow, I'll be putting the spotlight on these organizations and how they operate together to subvert democracy."

Tea Party's Judson Phillips Throws Romney and Boehner Under the Bus

Tea Party's Judson Phillips Throws Romney and Boehner Under the Bus
"If Romney was the "worst candidate" ever, what does that say about the rest of the wingnuts he was running against in their primary? He would have been a bad candidate already, but Phillips and his ilk along with the rest of the GOP base pushing him to the right helped to assure his fate. He alienated every group out there other than crusty old white men and the millionaires paying his tab, and he paid dearly for it later.

It's always amusing to watch these guys come on the air and complain about a problem they helped create. It's too bad they're not called out for it and asked about who is funding these AstroTurf groups that they represent when they're allowed on the air."

What Could Have Been: The Most Important Bills Blocked By Republicans In 2012

What Could Have Been: The Most Important Bills Blocked By Republicans In 2012: 1. A minimum wage increase. House Democrats proposed legislation in June that would have raised the national minimum wage to $10 an hour, but Republicans blocked it. The minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, even though it would need to be raised to $9.92 to match the borrowing power it had in 1968. If [...]/p

Conservatives’ Infighting Reaches Melt-Down Levels | Alternet

Conservatives’ Infighting Reaches Melt-Down Levels | Alternet
"Most recently, on Christmas Day, those of us who loathe Dick Armey received the gift of Amy Gardner’s Washington Post expose, which detailed the way he tried to take over FreedomWorks backed by a gun-toting thug, and wound up, defeated, with an $8 million golden parachute."

GOP Rep: NRA Plan To Put Guns In Schools Would Create ‘Orwellian Surveillance State’

GOP Rep: NRA Plan To Put Guns In Schools Would Create ‘Orwellian Surveillance State’: Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) blasted National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s plan to put armed guards in school, worrying that it would lead to “an Orwellian police state in America.” Paul, a libertarian most famous for his numerous presidential runs, connected the NRA proposal to onerous TSA regulations in statement on his [...]/p

Mosque Arsonist: Fox News Made Me Do It! | Alternet

Mosque Arsonist: Fox News Made Me Do It! | Alternet
"An Indiana man who pleaded guilty yesterday to setting an Ohio mosque on fire told a judge he was motivated by media accounts – specifically those on Fox News – suggesting Muslims were threatening Americans and were in control of parts of the federal government."

Pastor: 9/11 and CT School Shooting were 'Gracious' Acts of God's Judgment | Right Wing Watch

Pastor: 9/11 and CT School Shooting were 'Gracious' Acts of God's Judgment | Right Wing Watch
"Pastor Bill Elliff of the Arkansas-based The Summit Church and the Religious Right group OneCry appeared on AFA Today with host Buster Wilson this week where he explained that the September 11 attacks and the elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut were “gracious” acts of divine punishment. He said that God allowed the two tragedies to occur because of “our humanistic pride” and secular government in order to “bring us to our senses and bring us back to him.”

Wilson was positively dumbfounded as to why people would be offended by such rhetoric and similar language by AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer, who said that God refused to stop the school shooting because he’s a “gentleman,” and Elliff worried the U.S. is going the way of the Roman and British empires."

Wisconsin's Scott Walker Trusts Teachers with Guns, But Not Collective Bargaining | Alternet

Wisconsin's Scott Walker Trusts Teachers with Guns, But Not Collective Bargaining | Alternet
"Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, who became nationally known for severely limiting the union rights of teachers and other public employees, has indicated support for arming those same school officials who apparently cannot be trusted to collectively bargain."

Close Bachmann Ally Bradlee Dean Suggests Sandy Hook was a Government Plot | Right Wing Watch

Close Bachmann Ally Bradlee Dean Suggests Sandy Hook was a Government Plot | Right Wing Watch
"Bradlee Dean, whose close ties to Rep. Michele Bachmann are well-known and well-established, published a column in WND (Rick Santorum's new home) suggesting that, just as the Nazis burned the Reichstag, the shootings at Sandy Hook and in Aurora, Colorado were orchestrated by the government:"

In Wake of School Massacre, Tea Party Holds 'Great Gun Giveaway' | Common Dreams

In Wake of School Massacre, Tea Party Holds 'Great Gun Giveaway' | Common Dreams
"Four days after a gunman massacred 26 people—including 20 children—at Sandy Hook Elementary School, a North Carolina tea party group announced a "Great Gun Giveaway" to raffle two semi-automatic weapons, including a rifle similar to that used in Friday's shooting in Connecticut."

WND Floats Armed Resistance to Obama Administration | Right Wing Watch

WND Floats Armed Resistance to Obama Administration | Right Wing Watch
"Earlier this week, WorldNetDaily columnist and regular Fox News guest Erik Rushtweeted a video arguing that President Obama orchestrated the Sandy Hook and Aurora, Colorado shootings in order to cover-up a massive government scandal, forcibly disarm Americans, put people in concentration camps and start a civil war. Of course the conspiracy theory is complete nonsense, but Rush doesn’t think so.

Today in WND, Rush effectively suggested that people should begin an armed revolt against the government:"

Welcome to 'Michiganistan' | Common Dreams

Welcome to 'Michiganistan' | Common Dreams
"Formerly the Republican governor, Snyder has been enthroned by the GOP’s lame-duck, legislative supermajority to rule with an iron fist — democracy, rule-of-law, fairness, and the people be damned."

North Carolina Tea Party Group Hosts ‘Great Gun Giveaway’ Before All Newtown Victims Are Even Buried

North Carolina Tea Party Group Hosts ‘Great Gun Giveaway’ Before All Newtown Victims Are Even Buried: Since the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, gun advocates have, by and large, wisely kept out of the spotlight. Even the National Rifle Association, hardly a bastion of liberal thinking, was self-aware enough to temporarily suspend their social media accounts and exercise restraint before finally issuing a statement four days after the tragedy. The Asheville [...]/p

Tea Party Nation: Train Teachers in SWAT Teams to Fight Hamas | Right Wing Watch

Tea Party Nation: Train Teachers in SWAT Teams to Fight Hamas | Right Wing Watch
"In his initial response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips emailed members an article about the massacre whichsharply criticized teachers and urged government to cripple teachers’ unions andplace guards like George Zimmerman at every school. Today, Phillips emailed out apiece arguing that it should “be required that all teachers and other staff be armed and in trained in SWAT” because Americans should worry about “the bloodbath you may well see if Iranian and Hamas agents go en masse into the schools of this nation"."

Pro-Capitalist, Anti-Government Extremists | Alternet

Pro-Capitalist, Anti-Government Extremists | Alternet
"A new breed of investment consultant mixes dubious financial advice with anti-government propaganda."

Tea Party Group Blames Connecticut Shooting On Teachers, Unions, And Sex

Tea Party Group Blames Connecticut Shooting On Teachers, Unions, And Sex: A piece posted to the Tea Party Nation website yesterday, and sent to the group’s members in an email from TPN head Judson Phillips, blamed the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut on teachers, unions, bureaucracy, and the presence of sex in popular culture. In a lengthy screed that’s essentially a round-up of every major cultural [...]/p

Meet Sen. Tim Scott: The Tea Party Lawmaker Who Wanted To Impeach President Obama And Kick Kids Off Food Stamps

Meet Sen. Tim Scott: The Tea Party Lawmaker Who Wanted To Impeach President Obama And Kick Kids Off Food Stamps: Tim Scott is America’s newest senator today after getting tapped by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) to fill the vacancy left by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). DeMint announced this month that he was leaving the Senate to head up the Heritage Foundation, an arch-conservative think tank in Washington DC. Though DeMint left big, [...]/p

Why You Can Kiss Public Education (and the Middle Class) Goodbye | Alternet

Why You Can Kiss Public Education (and the Middle Class) Goodbye | Alternet
"All around us, our public institutions are disintegrating, and the most important public institution of all – our public education system – will likely be the next to go."

How an Astounding New Right-Wing Lie About the Economy Is Born | Alternet

How an Astounding New Right-Wing Lie About the Economy Is Born | Alternet
"There's a new economic myth that's now being amplified by the conservative media. It demonizes vital public services and suggests that the poor are doing just fine thanks to the largesse of the country's “makers.” Conservatives are being told that the United States is now spending vast fortunes combatting poverty – more than we dedicate to national defense, Social Security and Medicare.

This new spin is notable not for its mendacity – although it is completely divorced from reality – but because its origins are easily traced, allowing us to see how these kinds of distortions come to be."

Michigan Governor Heedless Of Election, Pushes Radical Agenda

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The GOP’s Existential Crisis | Common Dreams

The GOP’s Existential Crisis | Common Dreams
"No, what we’re having is a political crisis, born of the fact that one of our two great political parties has reached the end of a 30-year road. The modern Republican Party’s grand, radical agenda lies in ruins — but the party doesn’t know how to deal with that failure, and it retains enough power to do immense damage as it strikes out in frustration."

Lie of the Year: Romney's Jeep, Jobs and China Claim

Lie of the Year: Romney's Jeep, Jobs and China Claim
"Congratulations to Rove, Fox News, and Mitt Romney! They've received an honor which finally matches the recipient: Lie and Liars of the year."

GOP lies in 2012: 'Otherwise they wouldn't win'

The fact-checkers at Politifact chose Mitt Romney's alarmist attack ad alleging that Chrysler will move Jeep production to China as the "lie of the year."

Michigan’s New 'Corporate Servitude Law' Takes Away Worker Rights | Common Dreams

Michigan’s New 'Corporate Servitude Law' Takes Away Worker Rights | Common Dreams
"Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: The right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to overtime pay."

5 Things Boehner Doesn’t Want You To Know About His Fiscal Cliff Deal

5 Things Boehner Doesn’t Want You To Know About His Fiscal Cliff Deal: As the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire automatically in a few weeks, some Republicans are urging their leaders to accept President Obama’s deal to allow tax rates to rise for the top 2 percent of earners, while looking ahead to the next budget showdown. The US will hit its debt limit in early [...]/p

PERRspectives: 10 Things Republicans Don't Want You to Know About the Fiscal Cliff

PERRspectives: 10 Things Republicans Don't Want You to Know About the Fiscal Cliff
"Like Mitt Romney before him, Speaker Boehner's mathdoesn't--and cannot--work. More pathetic still, it is the GOP which is trying to dupe the American people by continuing to peddle its long-debunked myths about taxes and the debt."

‘Right to work’: The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy | Economic Policy Institute

‘Right to work’: The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy | Economic Policy Institute
"RTW laws lower wages for union and non-union workers by an average of $1,500 a year and decrease the likelihood employees will get health insurance or pensions through their jobs. By lowering compensation, they have the indirect effect of undermining consumer spending, which threatens economic growth. For every $1 million in wage cuts to workers, $850,000 less is spent in the economy, which translates into a loss of six jobs."

How the Bitter Losers of 2012 Rammed Through a Union-Destroying Bill in Michigan | Alternet

How the Bitter Losers of 2012 Rammed Through a Union-Destroying Bill in Michigan | Alternet
"The lightning-quick adoption of union-busting ‘right-to-work’ legislation in Michigan this week by an outgoing, lame-duck Legislature was a political coup led by vengeful Republicans as payback for their corporate patrons, including the billionaire oil baron Koch brothers and their front group,Americans for Prosperity ."

GOP Consultant: Voter ID, Longer Lines Are Partisan Strategy

GOP Consultant: Voter ID, Longer Lines Are Partisan Strategy: On Monday, the Pew Center on the States hosted an election post-mortem conference to discuss voting issues. During one panel focused on the long lines and voting difficulties many Americans faced this election, Republican campaign consultant Scott Tranter laughed off the idea that bipartisan support for election reform could ever be achieved. Tranter noted that, [...]/p

Former Republican: 6 Reasons the GOP Is Doomed | Alternet

Former Republican: 6 Reasons the GOP Is Doomed | Alternet
"Although most Republicans see hints of future demographic challenges in the exit polls, many prefer to focus on other factors to explain Romney’s loss out of a desire not to “blow up the party if there are less radical solutions.”  (Hence, the delusional quality of so many of their post-mortems and the lack of interest in meaningful change.)"

PERRspectives: 10 Things Republicans Don't Want You to Know About the Fiscal Cliff

PERRspectives: 10 Things Republicans Don't Want You to Know About the Fiscal Cliff
"Like Mitt Romney before him, Speaker Boehner's mathdoesn't--and cannot--work. More pathetic still, it is the GOP which is trying to dupe the American people by continuing to peddle its long-debunked myths about taxes and the debt."

One Party Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

What are the consequences for America when one of its political parties has gone totally insane?

Threepers Creepers: On Far-Right Fringes, the Exodus to the Woods is Under Way

Threepers Creepers: On Far-Right Fringes, the Exodus to the Woods is Under Way
"Now that they've lost their election and are seeing their political future circling down the drain, a lot of folks on the political right are drowning in despair and retreating even further into the cocoon of non-reality they've created for themselves. And that response is especially acute on farthest fringes of the Right, where the militiamen are stocking up for the Obamacalypse"

Big Right-Wing Names Like Karl Rove and Dick Armey Are Taking the Fall, But It Won't Repair the GOP | Alternet

Big Right-Wing Names Like Karl Rove and Dick Armey Are Taking the Fall, But It Won't Repair the GOP | Alternet
"The GOP’s November shellacking is rattling the foundations of its powerful media-wingnut welfare-industrial complex. Some big names are either parting ways with former allies, or find themselves under suspicion, with their privileges to roam the right-wing fearscape spewing propaganda suddenly limited."

11 Reasons You’re Glad Jim DeMint Is Leaving The Senate

11 Reasons You’re Glad Jim DeMint Is Leaving The Senate: In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC. DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a [...]/p

The Ten Most Absurd Stories at Rick Santorum's New Home, WorldNetDaily | Right Wing Watch

The Ten Most Absurd Stories at Rick Santorum's New Home, WorldNetDaily | Right Wing Watch
"Angling for another presidential run in 2016, Rick Santorum’s decision to join WorldNetDaily, the organization best known for promoting birther conspiracy theories, may not be the worst idea as birthers were projected to be a majority of Republican voters."

How An Obamacare Provision Has Saved Americans $1.5 Billion On Their Health Benefits

How An Obamacare Provision Has Saved Americans $1.5 Billion On Their Health Benefits: A new report from the Commonwealth Foundation finds that Obamacare’s “medical loss ratio” provision — the so-called “80/20 rule” requiring insurers to spend at least 80 percent of every Americans’ premium costs on patient care, rather than on their own profits or overhead — has resulted in a total of $1.5 billion overhead savings and [...]/p

Being Spectacularly Wrong About the Election Won't Be Enough to Pop the Republican Bubble | Alternet

Being Spectacularly Wrong About the Election Won't Be Enough to Pop the Republican Bubble | Alternet
'Rather than one all-encompassing "bubble" that hermetically seals the Republicans inside their media universe there's no shortage of other equally important "bubbles" that serve corporate power. These bubbles often overlap in influence and personnel and still possess the awe-inspiring ability to persuade public opinion on the problems of greatest magnitude facing the United States today."

Sex, Lies and Wiretaps: James O'Keefe's Slimy Underworld

Sex, Lies and Wiretaps: James O'Keefe's Slimy Underworld
"In a nutshell, this is the story of slime merchant James O'Keefe's attempts to prevent the truth about the ugly underbelly of his smear operations from becoming known -- in part because that truth could well land him in prison -- and how his cohorts in the smear operation, especially his "legal team" in the L.A. District Attorney's office, have relentlessly attempted to keep that truth hidden."

Santorum To Write Column For Right-Wing Conspiracy Website

Santorum To Write Column For Right-Wing Conspiracy Website: Rick Santorum has joined WorldNetDaily, a conspiracy theory blog best known for its indefatigable work advancing the birther movement, as an exclusive columnist. The former Pennsylvania senator, who was voted out of office in 2006, will use the perch to remain in the conservative consciousness as he eyes another presidential bid in 2016. His column [...]/p

Meet Gubernatorial Candidate Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s Todd Akin

Meet Gubernatorial Candidate Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s Todd Akin: Virginia’s Republican Party appears poised to nominate state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to be its candidate for governor in 2013 — embracing a man whose extreme political views bear striking resemblance to those of unsuccessful 2012 Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO). With his fervent anti-science, anti-choice, and anti-LGBT, anti-federal government activism, Akin’s extreme positions [...]/p

Dominance: The New Democratic Voting Base Is an Electoral Steamroller | Alternet

Dominance: The New Democratic Voting Base Is an Electoral Steamroller | Alternet
"Republicans will have a permanent disadvantage in presidential elections. That’s not unusual in American elections; Democrats right now appear to have a systematic disadvantage in both House and Senate elections due to how voters happen to be spread out – so, in a sense, a real Democratic advantage for the presidency only evens things out a bit.

It would, however, be a real change in how presidential elections have been fought for at least the last several decades. Republicans would be, in effect, starting every cycle two points behind. If it’s true – and I’m sure before long we’ll have reports from political scientists who have investigated each of the possibilities I suggested – then it’s a pretty big deal."