I had some concerns for Rick Santorum before last night's three GOP primary results came in. My concern for the theo-connic candidate was that he would not get his turn driving the Clown Car this election season. Even though Santorum actually beat Mitt Romney in the first caucus in Iowa….the vote count was so tight that Serious Political and Media Experts simply mentally chalked up Iowa as a Romney win….assuring that the Clown Car keys would not be handed over to Santorum.

But now….thank you Jesus….after Rick Santorum won all three state's primaries/caucuses/beauty pageants last night…..the ex-Pennsylvania senator will don his rubber nose and curly red wig, dab on a bit of makeup, put on his big floppy shoes….grab the Clown Car keys away from the Mittster, and take the GOP-mobile out for a spin. Good on Rick. Theo-cons can drive Clown Cars too. So there.

How confused are GOP voters this year? Very.

In 2008 Mitt Romney won the Colorado GOP caucuses 60-18% over John McCain. Last night, Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in Colorado by 40-35%.

In Missouri, Santorum beat Romney last night 57%-26%…..even though the vote doesn't really count.

But the embarrassment to Mitt Romney last night came from Minnesota Republican voters. Santorum 45%, Ron Paul 27%…Mitt Romney 17%. Romney received about 1/3 of the number of votes that Santorum did in Minnesota last night, despite the fact that ex-Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, T-Paw to his closest friends, is Romney's national campaign chairman and has often spoken out in favor of Romney's candidacy.

The Anyone-But-Romney conservative voters are alive and kicking…..and this morning the Mittster's shins are black and blue.

The DNC Chair issued a painful reminder to Republicans describing how the Clown Car Drive-a-thon has been going…

“In state after state, turnout among Republican voters is lower than it was in 2008, and they are increasingly dissatisfied with their choice of candidates.”

Not enthusiastic about voting this year….AND….dissatisfied with their candidates. Not exactly encouraging stuff for voters hell-bent on taking their country back from the Dark Knight.

Naturally, Rick Santorum will not be the GOP presidential candidate in November. Rick's desire for the federal government to take control of American's sex lives….I'm taking a wild guess…..won't catch on like wildfire with voters. Could be wrong, of course…but let me remind readers about Santorum's….well….creepy thinking…

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

That's not a political candidate talking…..that's a religious nut talking.

It is more than likely that Super Tuesday, March 6th…..will cement Mitt Romney's candidacy. However, book-and-DVD-seller, Newt Gingrich, says he's taking his book selling all the way to the convention in Tampa at the end of the summer. Here's what Gingrich thinks about Romney….

“His (Romney's) record as governor is very clear: He was pro-abortion, he was pro-gun control, he was pro-tax increase, he ended up third from the bottom in job creation,’’ Gingrich said. “The combination of Romneycare and tax increases made him a very weak governor in terms of job creation.’’

Just imagine the Obama ads against Romney this fall focusing on Newt's comments.

The clouds are starting to darken for Republican ambitions to retake the Oval Office. Rasmussen, not to be confused with a progressive polling group, has Obama beating Romney 48%-42% nationally. 51% of all voters say they "somewhat approve" of Obama's job performance.

What's a dazed and highly confused political party, without a popular frontunner candidate, to do?

When in doubt….take more hostages. With the GOP's frontrunner trailing to Obama….what better way to damage Obama's lead than to do damage to the national economy, just like Republicans did in the debt ceiling standoff.

So, in the House….where Tea Freak Flags fly daily….GOP plans are under way to damage the economy through denying an extension of the payroll tax. Hey, if it hurts Americans, if it hurts the economy…..it hurts Obama and helps Republicans.

Based on the latest data….Republicans need all the help they can get.

It seems as if the American Catholic Bishops are oh-so-upset with President Obama's decision to mandate all employers to cover contraception in all health plans, even those provided by religious institutions to employees.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

No Cardinal-designate Dolan……Catholic Bishops burnt out their consciences when they decided to participate in covering up for child rapists under their employ. So, Obama isn't giving Catholic Bishops a year to "figure out how to violate" their own consciences. That steamboat done sailed. Obama is giving Catholic leaders a year to….comply with the laws of the nation……secular laws that those Bishops have been ordered by their Messiah to obey. Render unto Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar.

Through our nation's democratic process, Congress and the President passed into law a new national health care insurance program conservatives lovingly labeled ObamaCare. Health insurance exchanges are being structured right now….and so the details of what would and wouldn't be required to be covered by insurance companies to qualify for those exchanges are being ironed out.

Obama has ordered HHS Secretary Sebelius to include contraception coverage, without co-pay, as a requirement to qualify for the exchanges. All of the insurance plans made available on the exchanges in 2014 will include coverage for contraception. Contraception is legal to purchase in the U.S., and has been for decades.

The problem Catholic Bishops are having…..not Catholic parishioners, because 3 out of 4 Catholics simply ignore their Church's directives on the evil of contraception……is that Obama has ordered all employers, except for 100% sectarian employers, to make those contraception-including health care plans in the national exchanges available to all employees. The Catholic Church in America employs a lot of people. Many of whom are not Catholic. The Catholic Church in America also receives a lot of tax dollars from the federal government to assist them in their charitable operations.

All that said….here is where Catholic Bishops, most conservatives and even a few misguided quasi-progressives miss the mark on this alleged controversy….under the title "U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict", we find…

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

Compare that claim with this…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Did the Founders use the words "respect for conscience" in the first amendment? No. If the Founders would have included a provision in the 1st which stated that all citizens could disobey federal mandates which they deemed didn't "respect" their individual "consciences"…..Americans would be able to withhold their tax dollars from Washington on the basis that the use of those tax dollars violates their consciences. Do American citizens have the legal right to withhold their tax dollars from the federal government because, for example, their consciences are violated through the use of those tax dollars going for the wholesale killing of Muslims in Muslim lands? Of course not.

What U.S bishops claim as their right is not a right at all…..and that non-right is certainly not found in the 1st amendment. Congress is ordered by the 1st amendment to NOT make any laws which "establish" religion. The word "establish" means "institute, build, or bring into being". The U.S. Congress is prohibited from passing laws respecting the "building or bringing into being" of religion.

At the same time Congress is prohibited from respecting the establishment of religion through legislation…..religious citizens are guaranteed that government will honor the "free exercise" of religion without interference.

With Obama's new order to include contraception in all employer health plans….how are Catholics being denied their "free exercise" of religion? Catholics are not being forced by government to buy or use contraception. Catholics can still practice their religion as they wish. What Catholics cannot do….under Obama's order….is compel those who do not practice Catholicism….to practice Catholicism against their will.

The noise conservatives have been making on this Obama order has nothing to do with some Mother Goose version of a non-existent "protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics." Nothing could be further from the truth. The whining we're hearing is all about a misplaced sense of entitlement which many religionists are confusing with the 1st amendment.

When religious groups decide to enter the public arena, secular-government laws apply. Not religious laws, not conscience laws….secular-government laws. Religious groups are not forced into the public arena. Government does not compel religious groups to do charitable work for the public. They choose to do that work voluntarily.

But when Catholic groups enter the public arena…..offering health services to the general public while employing non-Catholics…..Catholic leaders insist that THEY still get to make the rules, or disobey any rules that government has imposed. That is a misguided sense of entitlement which the 1st amendment knows nothing about.

Question: Under Obama's recent health insurance plan order, are Catholics forced to buy, or use contraception?

Answer: No.

How, then, are Catholic "consciences" being "violated"?

For the past few years, I've been explaining to readers how congressional Republicans will move to impeach President Obama…should he win a second term. One doesn't have to be Nostradamus to understand the modern GOP playbook. All one has to do is review the 2nd term of our last Democratic president. Something which Esquire's Charles Pierce does for us.

In the February issue of Esquire, Pierce reports on a recent interview with Bill Clinton……

…Clinton talks about a change of heart experienced by a former GOP congresscritter named Bob Inglis, who lost in a primary in 2010 because he said disrespectful things about Glenn Beck but who, in the giddy years of the late 1990's, wielded his pitchfork most enthusiastically in the cause of impeaching Clinton, an effort for which he recently apologized, according to the former president, who nonetheless told us:

"I had a fascinating meeting with Bob Inglis the other day. Bob Inglis was an extremely conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina. He was a three-term-pledge guy in the nineties…. So he came to me and he said, "I just want you to know, when you got elected, I hated you. And I asked to be on the Judiciary Committee in 1993, because a bunch of us had already made up our minds that no matter what you did or didn't do, we were going to find some way to impeach you. We hated you. You had no right to be president."

If that sounds a little like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's number one priority for Republicans today…..making Barack Obama a one term president…..it is because both are taken from the same chapter of the same GOP playbook. That particular political playbook, incidentally, was partially written and implemented during the 90's by the world renowned moral values champion, Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was the architect of modern conservative wingnuterry….and also the lead morality cop in the GOP's fevered witch hunt ("We hated you.") against President Clinton.

Today, Gingrich (newly reborn moral values champion) is drawing "true conservatives" to his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination…..a nomination he will never win….in the hopes of debating President Obama before a national audience, where Newt, in his troubled mind at least, can really put it to conservatism's latest presidential object of hate, Democratic President Obama. But, sigh….it is not to be, because the Mittster has a train car load of money that the former disgraced Speaker does not….and establishment Republicans don't want to lose the presidential race AND both houses of Congress.

I'm starting to get the feeling that both sides now realize that Obama will win a second term. National polls show Romney trailing Obama by as much as 7 points right now. Sure, the race will tighten and blah, blah…but Romney is no match for Obama and I think both sides know it.

The only question left, then, is Congress. Who will control the houses of Congress after Obama wins a second term? And what is likely to happen if Republicans control Congress?

The person, if in fact he is truly of the human species, whom "three term pledge guy" Bob Inglis made his pledges to…Grover Norquist….let's us in on what the Republican plan will be should a 2nd Obama term become reality.

First…if Republicans should happen to win the presidency and Congress…

If the Republicans have the House, Senate, and the presidency, I’m told that they could do an early budget vote—a reconciliation vote where you extend the Bush tax cuts out for a decade or five years. You take all of those issues off the table, and then say, “What do you want to do for tax reform?”

Then, the question is: “OK, what do we do about repatriation and all of the interesting stuff?” And, if you have a Republican president to go with a Republican House and Senate, then they pass the [Paul] Ryan plan [on Medicare].

Tax Pope Norquist, the divine man whom all but a handful of congressional Republicans have bowed before and saluted as their infallible tax policy commander…reminds us of what Republicans will do if they control the whole shooting match next January. Tax amnesty for untaxed overseas corporate loot re-entering the U.S., (amnesty is fine for tax dodgers, just not Hispanics) making permanent the Bush era tax cuts and gutting privatizing Medicare. All followed by tax "reform" which will lower tax rates even further on America's privileged rich. Oddly…Grover doesn't mention anything about the gargantuan mountain of new debt his popish policies will create.

But what if Democrats still have control come next January…..what then Grover?

Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

Same playbook. Different Democratic president.

To Republicans, impeachment is not a severe tactic reserved for the most egregious presidential behavior. Impeachment is what the GOP playbook states after the question: What to do when there is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress? Answer: Impeach the Democratic president.

On what grounds? On the grounds that Barack Obama is president while being a Democrat.

Last night down in Florida GOP candidate Mitt Romney basically called Newt Gingrich out as an unprincipled liar…which, of course, Gingrich is.

Starting at about the 9:40 mark…listen to Gingrich, a master of deception, attempt to convince viewers that the $1.6 million his company took from Fanny and Freddie wasn't for the purpose of lobbying and influence peddling. Watch how Romney calmly calls out outrageous bullsh*t on Gingrich…and also notice how Gingrich takes a long pause to consider which diversion or distraction to use to take him off the subject.

Romney…

"On this stage, in a prior debate you said that you were paid $300,000 by Freddy Mac as an historian. They don't pay people $25,000 a month for 6 years as historians. That adds up to $1.6 million. They weren't hiring you as a historian. This contract proves you were not an historian, you were a consultant. It doesn't say you provided historical experience, it said you were a consultant. And you were hired by the chief lobbyist for Freddy Mac….You also spoke publicly in favor of these GSE's, these government sponsored entities, at the very time that Freddy Mac was getting America in a position where we had a massive housing collapse. You could have spoken out aggressively. You could have spoken out in a way that 'these guys are wrong, this needs to end'..but instead you were being paid by them."

Yes, Gingrich lied about his work for Fanny and Freddy. Presumably because patriotic conservative voters, according to Village Media Professionals commenting on Gingrich's recent and powerful debate performances, don't care about what's true and what's a lie.

What conservative GOP voters want isn't a candidate who tells the truth. I mean, seriously, consider the top two contenders left in the GOP primaries. Gingrich and Romney change their answers more often than most of us change our socks.

What, then, is the distinction, really, that differentiates Gingrich from Romney….at least to conservative voters? Isn't the answer that conservative voters think Gingrich can put it to President Obama in a mean-spirited, divisive, hate-filled way…in a way that Romney cannot? Isn't that it in a nutshell, so to speak?

Associated Press…

The Republican presidential debates have served up riveting TV and exposed the contenders' strengths and weaknesses. No one has benefited more than Newt Gingrich, whose in-your-face style has excited GOP voters who want a scrappy fighter to take on President Barack Obama in the fall.

The AP writer goes on…

That group of voters (the most conservative S. Carolina voters) backed Gingrich in Saturday's primary in the strongest numbers, in part because of two memorable debate exchanges.

The "two memorable debate exchanges" are explained as being the Juan Williams exchange with Gingrich in the Myrtle Beach debate and John King's hapless exchange with Gingrich at the beginning of the debate in Charleston.

Why do you think these two exchanges, specifically, made the difference in the S. Carolina primary?
I have an answer that conservatives will probably not appreciate.

Conservative voters are angry. They, and their mainstream media apologists, have been telling us that they have been angry ever since Obama took their country away from them. Conservatives are not simply angry, either. They're fighting mad. More than anything else this general election cycle, angry conservative voters want a candidate who will fight as if he/she was as angry as they are.

Angry people…I'm talking mad as hell…..don't care about pesky facts or inconvenient truths. They simply want a representative candidate who has the capability of spreading hostile poison all over the dreaded Dark Knight. These angry conservatives don't even care if their candidate loses the election in spectacular fashion. They don't.

They just want a hitman who will make them feel better when he "gives it" to that dark-skinned president. Gingrich…although truth-challenged and a master of deceit over his career….is just the bombthrowing fighter these angry, angry conservative voters are looking for.

Gingrich is not afraid to dress down an "uppity black" Juan Williams….instructing Juan that, no, he doesn't recognize his insults directed towards poor blacks and black children as "insulting." The audience roared their approval.

Gingrich is not afraid to drag out the rotted "liberal media" sleight of hand game….like Newt did with the pathetic John King the other night. Gingrich, and his conservative fans, just know that the media is "liberal", even though it isn't…and what better way to send tingles down the legs of angry, angry conservative sore losers than to publicly chastise a representative from that "liberal media" for asking a perfectly legitimate question about his 2nd ex-wife.

The "two memorable debate exchanges" which have rocketed Gingrich to the top in GOP polling are memorable only because of what those exchanges say about today's conservatives. Today's conservatives are goddamn angry….so angry they will leap to their feet when blacks and media members are put in their place.

You see, under the spell of one's own hateful anger…..truth, facts, empirical evidence, eye witness accounts….nothing really matters. All that matters to angry conservative voters is that their candidate has enough gumption and audacity to deliver the same ugly, hateful and divisive anger that they have been feeling over America's first black president.

South Carolina's conservative voters chose a GOP presidential candidate on Saturday who has unfavorable ratings nationally of 58-60%.

Newt Gingrich, despite his willingness to bait white conservative voters through outrageous racist arguments, would be utterly humiliated in a national election against Barack Obama. That is why Democrats are saying of a Gingrich candidacy…bring it the hell on.

When you give it some thought, perhaps Gingrich would be the right candidate at the right time….not for the nation, of course….but for the Republican Party. Perhaps a forty state loss to Obama and the national embarrassment that a Gingrich presidential campaign would soil his party with….would finally be enough to persuade the Party Of Lincoln….to reform it's damned self.

One can hope.

However, with 60% disapproval numbers nationally…..it's not likely that Republican primary voters in the other states that are not South Carolina will be so willing to experience the national-party humiliation that a Gingrich presidential candidacy would surely bring to the GOP. Possible? Yes. But not likely.

Even MSNBC's Morning Blow (sic) Scarborough knows what a lot of other non-S. Carolinian Republicans know…..

"Mitt Romney could attack Newt for not being a conservative because Newt is not a conservative. Google it! We [Republicans] ran him out of Congress in 1998 because he sold us out on taxes, he sold us out on spending, he went to the floor and he sided with Democrats on his last speech, calling us the perfectionists caucus. He called us jihadists. He's not a conservative…"

Not exactly nuanced.

So again…that leaves Mitt Romney.

If Romney is the eventual GOP nominee, he plans on running against President Obama by hammering him on his economic record. But how convincing of an argument can Romney make against Obama's economic record when he says stuff like this….

(Radio show host Laura)INGRAHAM: You’ve also noted that there are signs of improvement on the horizon in the economy. How do you answer the president’s argument that the economy is getting better in a general election campaign if you yourself are saying it’s getting better?

ROMNEY: Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession, there is always a recovery. […]

INGRAHAM: Isn’t it a hard argument to make if you’re saying, like, OK, he inherited this recession, he took a bunch of steps to try to turn the economy around, and now, we’re seeing more jobs, but vote against him anyway? Isn’t that a hard argument to make? Is that a stark enough contrast?

ROMNEY: Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.

Romney is aware of the data which I shared with readers on January 11th. Almost two years worth of consecutive private sector job growth, a bullish stock market, record corporate profits, and returning consumer confidence is all evidence pointing to a recovering economy.

But if Romney's plan is to hit Obama hard on the national economy…..and yet, according to Romney, the economy is "getting better" under Obama's leadership….how do Mitt and the Republicans expect to make a compelling argument for changing presidents?

Rock…meet hard place.

In essence then, conservative, anti-Obama voters have two choices in front of them. Pick a guy who the nation overwhelmingly disapproves of in Newton Gingrich, or pick a guy who thinks that President Obama's stewardship of the nation's economy is producing positive results.

All of this puts flesh to Ann Coulter's bony framing awhile back that if Baby Huey Chris Christie didn't enter the race, Romney would be the candidate and the GOP will lose to President Obama.

Sadly…and most likely discouraging for conservative Republican voters….is the reality that Ann Coulter, like a blind (though hideously skinny) pig, actually stumbled onto an acorn of truth.

During the GOP debate the other night, Fox liberal-poser, Juan Williams, asked Newt Gingrich this question….

“Speaker Gingrich, you said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools,” Williams asked. “Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?”

“No. I don’t see that,” Gingrich said flatly.

The "no, I don't see that." was followed by exuberant applause from the, I assume, entirely conservative/Republican debate audience. Take the 2 minutes to appreciate at what point the audience responded enthusiastically.

In Newt Gingrich land, a land where unicorns frolic, opportunistic, conservative hate-spreaders never, never, never "see" racial disharmony. However, those in unicorn land who say they don't "see" racial disharmony are usually always the people who are, you know, agitating racial disharmony.

The fact that Newt Gingrich had singled out inner city black and poor children to surround his 'kids-should-be-janitors' hooey….is all anyone needs to understand here. Instead of Newt making a broader point about all kids today, or even all schools today….Newt purposely chose to comment about black inner city kids…the kids Newt claims won't work unless illegality is involved.

Why do you think Newt chose to agitate by race-baiting white conservative voters?

Well, first off…it works. According to what I heard Pat Buchanan say publicly, Republicans have won a lot of elections by using the "southern strategy"….in other words, baiting white voters into checking the GOP box on the ballot by reminding them that their tax dollars are being used to help black families. That's what the "food stamp president" thing is all about. Reminding white, conservative voters that their tax dollars are going to pay for food for black families……and look, it's a black president who is taking the tax monies of whites and paying for food for blacks. We must take our country back….from…well….blacks.

Even though more whites benefit from "welfare" than blacks….Gingrich made inner city black kids an issue in order to entice conservative voters to his side. I mean, listen to the audience's response. The loudest and most sustained applause and hoopla in the Fox debate was over Newt and Juan's back and forth over questions of insensitivity concerning race. Gingrich responded that he did not see how what he said was racially insensitive and the crowd gave Newt a rousing ovation. Newt played the "southern strategy" perfectly.

Food stamps, inner city school kids, ObamaCare…..it's all the same to the conservatives Gingrich is trying to draw to his candidacy by baiting according to race. In ObamaCare millions more poorer families will have access to Medicaid. To conservatives, that means more blacks will get health care paid for by the tax dollars of whites.

Now most conservatives will disagree with what I've said thus far….claiming that racism has no place in the modern conservative movement. To those I submit the words of a Republican operative who made his living by race baiting….Lee Atwater….

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Get it? See…saying "food stamp president" is a lot more abstract than saying "nigger, nigger"…but is meant to deliver the same message. Whether it's ObamaCare, food stamps, inner city kids who won't work unless they're doing criminal activity, ….it's all part of the same rotted and stinking "southern strategy" begun by the Republican Party after civil rights legislation was passed in the 60's.

Not only did Newt Gingrich "see" what Juan Williams was getting at the other night with his question about "can't you see…that's an insult"…..Newt had planned it that way. Not an accidental bug but a pre-meditated feature.

The disgusting part of the entire exchange was not that Gingrich had purposely baited according to race to lead to Williams question….that's to be expected. That's how Gingrich operates in order to sell more of his books and DVD's. It was the roaring conservative audience approval of Newt's defense of his "southern strategy" which disgusted the most.

Mitt Romney's primary line of attack against President Obama.

Romney claims that Obama has been a job destroyer, while he was a job-creating businessman. For example, he told Fox News: "This is a president who lost more jobs during his tenure than any president since Hoover. This is 2 million jobs that he lost as president."

This is Mitt's mantra. Obama has failed to put Americans back to work. Obama has destroyed, will destroy, or is in the process of destroying, the U.S. economy. Not only is Romney going ahead with this main attack line against President Obama during the campaign, but the entire conservative and GOP movement has been repeating the same charge for 3 years running.

We hear it so often, most of us probably don't even hear it anymore. From the moment Barack Obama was inaugurated it began. Starting on January 20, 2009 the cries went up that the new Dark Knight Democratic president was "destroying" America.

All of it was strategically planned by the Orwellian corporate messengers whom we are oh-so-privileged to have as our overlords. Repetition is vitally important when branding the brains of the public you wish to deceive. The most often repeated word by conservatives and Republicans in describing President Obama….is some form of the word destroy. Obama is destroying America. Obama is destroying the nation's economy. Obama is a job destroyer.

I think it's a good time to look at some charts to determine how much destruction President Obama has done to the nation's economy and employment. I mean, for three continuous years, that's the only message heard from the Party Of Lincoln. Obama has destroyed our economy. Obama has destroyed jobs.

True or no?

The shaded area of the above chart represents employment before, during and after the official period of recession which began during the George W. Bush presidency. As is abundantly clear, only during the first year of the Obama presidency did our economy continue to shed jobs. As is also abundantly clear from the chart, the momentum of job losses during the sad, closing scenes of the Bush presidency was so severe that it took 6-9 more months after Bush left office for the massive job losses to bottom out.

From June of 2009 forward…..the last 2 1/2 years….employment, while sluggish, returned to positive territory.

Yet, Mitt Romney plans to build his campaign to beat Obama on misleading lines like this…."Obama has put us on a road to decline."

The bikini employment chart above is yet another rendering of this same fact. The crashing in employment came during the Bush presidency with enough negative momentum to spill over into the first 6 year of the new Obama presidency. But look at what's happened the last 2 years since. Employment has grown. And not because of government hiring either. Since 2008, 500,000 public sector jobs have been eliminated.

Now, an Obama critic can look at the bikini chart and tell me that job creation is still not strong enough…and I would agree. But to state that Obama's presidency is "destroying" the American economy and private sector job creation is simply not factual.

The Dear Leader of the conservative movement in America, Rush Limbaugh…

"…The president of the United States, Barack Obama, is destroying the United States economy. There is no other way to describe this, systematically destroying it,”

The conservative propaganda outlet Newsmax…

Obama is a human wrecking ball single-handedly destroying our economy and bankrupting the nation.

The DOW index chart above covers the last 3 years since President Obama took office. Take a good hard look. If there is any truth to the conservative claims that Obama is "destroying" our national economy, why would Serious investors be driving the DOW to a three year high? Why would investors be buying stock in American corporations if, in fact, Obama was "destroying" the U.S. economy? Do you think investors want to lose money?

In summary: President Obama has not destroyed the economy nor new job creation. The empirical data is overwhelming. After the hangover wore off from an economic crash that began in December 2007 under George W. Bush's watch…..the nation has experienced private sector job growth upwards to 2 million. After the "bears" in the market sold off starting in the fall of 2007, they have turned bullish ever since.

The one thing, however, which has been "destroyed" over the last three years…..and I can say this unequivocally…..is the credibility of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. They simply lie….without ceasing.

P.S. I think there's some irony in the fact that even though Bush/Cheney did not protect the nation from attack on 9-11, they never tired of telling us how they kept us safe from attack after 9-11. And yet, today's conservatives and Republicans insist that President Obama's first 6 months in office is the only period worth examining when evaluating employment and the national economy. Seems odd, perhaps dishonest.

Myth making is an industry within politics. In our age of smorgasboard news,….just choose what you like….myth making has exploded. Americans can no longer agree on one narrative of what just happened yesterday. Our politics, if not our entire culture, has accepted post-modernism: there is no real truth.

Back in the Bill Clinton days….before the internet and Fox News exploded as primary sources of information, much of it false….myth making was all the rage. If you took the words of conservative and Village media as truth, then you believed that Hillary Clinton was a murderer, or a lesbian…or both. And that President Clinton was most likely still running drugs down in Arkansas and Tennessee. Those were the salad days of what I refer to as wingnuttery.

Today, unfortunately, myth making and a post modern approach to politics has matured into the ghastly, disformed creature we call our modern political discourse.

One particular ongoing story today illustrates what I'm getting at. Operation Fast and Furious.

As you may know, Darrel Issa (R-CA), House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, and richest man in the House…..has decided to go after President Obama through the ATF program Fast and Furious. Issa, and other wild-eyed Republicans, think that they have some impeachable material to use against President Obama after Obama wins a second term. If it all leads to the impeachment of a second-in-a-row Democratic president, then, all the better. Those who doubt what I'm saying may want to look at this article entitled, "Fast and Furious" Just Might Be President Obama's Watergate, from this past September in Forbes.

Issa accuses the Obama administration of…..

…acting recklessly by losing track of almost 2,000 guns on the Southwest border in a botched ATF operation called Fast and Furious. Two of those weapons were recovered near the body of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

Here is how the richest representative in the House characterizes the role Obama's Justice Department played in Fast and Furious.

American Thinker…

"The Department of Justice's conduct in the investigation of Operation Fast and Furious has been nothing short of shameful," said Chairman Issa. "From its initial denials that nothing improper occurred, to efforts to silence whistleblowers who wanted to tell Congress what really happened, to its continuing refusal to discuss or share documents related to this cover-up, the Justice Department has fought tooth and nail to hide the full truth about what occurred and what senior officials knew."

The Reverend's response to this Issa myth making was to explain that Fast and Furious is not unique…and that during President George W. Bush's tenure….an almost identical program was being run by ATF and the U.S. Border Patrol. Conservative commenters scoffed.

In order to squelch yet another myth before it fully forms into a wingnut legend…..read this…

The Justice Department sent nearly 500 pages of documents to Republican lawmakers Thursday that suggest the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may have used questionable tactics and lost track of American-made weapons in a gun trafficking investigation on the Mexican border as early as 2006.

….

The newly released email messages and briefing papers suggest there may be similarities between the Obama operation "Fast and Furious" and an earlier effort during the Bush administration to target the flow of guns into Mexico. The papers include several communications between ATF supervisors and Justice Department prosecutors in Arizona who were trying to build a case against "a very powerful, aggressive and violent" Mexican drug cartel in an earlier operation dubbed "Wide Receiver."

A senior Obama administration Justice Department official who briefed reporters on the documents said the papers show law enforcement officers in the Bush years could have filed criminal conspiracy and false statements charges against lower level figures in the gun trafficking operation, but they decided to watch and wait until they could move higher up the chain of command.

"We want the… manufacturing and distribution pieces also – we want it all," an ATF official wrote in March 2006.

In December, Issa denied that Bush's Operation Wide Receiver had any similarity with Obama's Fast and Furious….

“The difference in the previous administration is there was coordination with the Mexican government,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said at a hearing in December. “They made a real effort under Wide Receiver to pass off a small amount of weapons and track them.”

Umm…no…

…new documents DOJ disclosed to congressional investigators on Thursday indicate that ATF officials didn’t even consider looping Mexican authorities in on their operation until several months after the investigation began and ATF had already lost track of weapons that likely ended up in Mexico.

Republicans and many conservatives actually think that if Obama does something equal or similar to what a previous Republican president has done….that it's different somehow, I guess, because Obama is a Democrat. But that is the stuff of mythology….and blind partisanship.

Insisting that a Justice Department ATF program under a Republican president warrants no comment or consideration…..and at the same time insisting that the same program under a Democratic president is worthy of impeachment….is the stuff of American conservative political mythology.

It's a little like those huge deficits Republicans didn't notice during the Bush years, isn't it?

In July of 2010 President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The bill passed the House 237-192 in June, 2010…and the Senate passed the bill 60-39 in July, 2010.

Dodd-Frank was passed in response to the financial sector collapse that began in 2007.

The bill's goal….

To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end "too big to fail", to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.

Dodd-Frank includes a provision which sets up a consumer financial protection agency.

Title X establishes the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, within the Federal Reserve. The new Bureau regulates consumer financial products and services in compliance with federal law. The Bureau is headed by a director who is appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, for a term of five years. The Bureau is subject to financial audit by the GAO, and must report to the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee bi-annually. The Financial Stability Oversight Council may issue a "stay" to the Bureau with an appealable 2/3 vote. Even though the Bureau is placed within the Fed, it operates independently. The Fed is prohibited from interfering with matters before the Director, directing any employee of the Bureau, modifying the functions and responsibilities of the Bureau or impeding an order of the Bureau.

One year after Dodd-Frank's passage, progressives encouraged Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the new consumer protection bureau. Here's why…

For the first year after the bill's signing, Warren worked on implementation of the bureau as a Special Assistant to the President in anticipation of the agency's formal opening. While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to nominate Warren as the agency's permanent director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions which had criticized Warren as overly aggressive in pursuing regulations and by the Republican members of Congress.

Instead of picking Warren, in July 2011 (one full year after the law's passage) President Obama nominated former Ohio AG Richard Cordray as the bureau's director. Since then, Republicans in the Senate have filibustered any "advise and consent" vote on the president's nomination.

That's where it all stood until yesterday, when in one of his boldest political moves, President Obama appointed Cordray during an official Senate recess. From Obama's speech in Shaker Heights, Ohio yesterday….

"For almost half a year, Republicans in the Senate have blocked Richard’s confirmation. They refused to even give Richard and up or down vote. Now, this is not because Richard is not qualified. There's no question that Richard is the right person for the job. He’s got the support of Democrats and Republicans around the country….

So what’s the problem, you might ask. The only reason Republicans in the Senate have blocked Richard is because they don’t agree with the law that set up a consumer watchdog in the first place. They want to weaken the law. They want to water it down. And by the way, a lot of folks in the financial industry have poured millions of dollars to try to water it down.

That makes no sense. Does anybody think that the reason that we got in such a financial mess, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in a generation — that the reason was because of too much oversight of the financial industry?"

The reason Senate Republicans have been blocking Cordray's nomination is because Republicans don't agree with the Dodd-Frank legislation in the first place. Obstructing the nomination process for Cordray (or anyone Obama appointed) meant that the Consumer Protection Agency part of the law could never go into effect. And of course, that's the point.

The Usual Suspect Republicans, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are oh-so-flabbergasted and offended by Obama's recess appointment of Cordray. Boehner called Obama's move "an extraordinary and entirely unprecendented power grab."

And yet,…

…there is precedent for appointments made during recesses of fewer than three days — President Theodore Roosevelt made more than 160 recess appointments during a Senate break of less than a day in 1903.

Mitch McConnell said yesterday that Obama…"arrogantly circumvented the American people" by appointing Cordray during a Senate recess period. This only makes sense if the "American people" equals "congressional Republicans."

Summary: Before the Civil War, southern state nullification efforts were all in vogue. If Washington passed any laws through the constitutional process, Confederate state representatives believed they had the right to disobey those laws….nullify them. That led to the Civil War where 600,000 Americans died. After the War, nullification was regarded as an illegal act.

In the 1950s, southern states attempted to use nullification and interposition to prevent integration of their schools. These attempts failed when the Supreme Court explicitly rejected nullification in Cooper v. Aaron, again holding that the states may not nullify federal law.

With Republicans seeking to nullify the ACA (ObamaCare) and with Republicans trying their best to nullify Dodd-Frank through obstruction of it's implementation….it's becoming clearer and clearer that the Republican Party is morphing ever closer into a potentially very dangerous Neo-Confederacy.

Good on Obama for punching back. His appointment of Cordray yesterday, plus 3 National Labor Relations Board members Republicans were also obstructing, demonstrates that Obama will not back down from the threats of a Neo-Confederacy.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered his White House thugs to go after Daniel Ellsberg for making public the Pentagon Papers. The Papers were quite an embarrassment to Nixon's White House. Nixon responded by beginning a campaign "against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally." Part of that campaign we know now as the Watergate burglary. Watergate eventually led to President Nixon's resignation.

Today, I feel sympathy for Nixon. Not because he wasn't a deeply disturbed and lawless Republican President…he was….but because, if he were president today, Nixon would have had the liberty to simply 'disappear' Daniel Ellsberg. Watergate would have never been necessary, and Nixon could have finished out his second term without having to resign in humiliation.

Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, President Obama threatened to veto the 2012 Defense Authorization Act if the bill constrained the presidency in any way from…"collecting intelligence, incapacitating dangerous terrorists, and protecting the American people"…..in whatever way the Commander in Chief determined.

Now, Obama has withdrawn his veto threat.

The counterterrorism section of the bill….

…states that the entire world, including American soil, is a battlefield in the war on terror. It expands the U.S. military’s authority to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone, even citizens, suspected of aiding terrorists.

The Defense Authorization Bill will finally legalize the illegal practices we have been practicing as a nation for over 10 years now. Indefinite detention without due process, even for U.S. citizens…..a "world war" where no corner of the earth is immune from U.S. military attack or invasion, and an expansion of the totally bogus "war on terror" broadening it to include "supporters" of "terrorism"…..and allowing the president to decide what that all means.

For those who generally support President Obama's presidency, as I do, make no mistake……it was President Obama, himself, who fought to include U.S. citizens in his indefinite detention without due process powers. It is President Obama who wanted to include U.S. citizens as possible Gitmo permanent detainees. It is President Obama who fought to include suspected U.S. citizens as potential defendants in military trials.

Listen carefully to what Carl Levin (D-MI) said from the Senate floor….

It was the "White House" who demanded the removal of language in Section 1031 of the bill which would exclude U.S. citizens from indefinite detention without civilian trials. It was President Obama, the same man who repeatedly denounced Bush/Cheney lawlessness before being elected president, who is now responsible for "legalizing" and even expanding that same lawlessness.

Signing this Defense Authorization Bill will be Obama's lowest moment as president and will surely set the stage for a future president to become a full-fledged military dictator, untethered from the clear legal restrictions outlined in the Constitution. Yet another example of how America is giving up on it's 200+ year democracy.

And so today, The Reverend has a bit of sympathy for former President Richard Nixon. You see, if Nixon could have only claimed the powers that President Obama is claiming today, he could have simply declared Daniel Ellsberg and editors of the New York Times as "enemy combatants", or "terrorists". Nixon could have had whomever his political enemies of the 70's were….picked up by military police and sent to Guantanamo or indefinitely detained without trial in some foreign hellhole of a prison…maybe even assassinated.

Watergate would have never happened and Nixon would have never had to resign the presidency…..if only he had boldly demanded the presidential powers which Obama claims today. After all, wasn't the Soviet enemy much more of a threat to the Homeland than box-cutter-wielding, stateless, Islamic extremists?

To Republicans who rejoice in my criticisms of a Democratic president….I would point out the support you gave Bush/Cheney in defending their limitless claims of power in illegally waging their contrived and bogus "war on terror." To Democratic voters who support President Obama….I would challenge any excuses offered up in defense of what is very obviously an unconstitutional power grab by this president.

And finally…..I ask all readers to give some thought to a potential Newt Gingrich presidency. A Gingrich presidency with almost limitless unilateral power to round up, incarcerate without charge or trial, and detain indefinitely in Guantanamo prison…U.S. citizens who a President Gingrich, alone, would declare to be "enemies of the state."

Oddly, all this doesn't look like "liberty" and "freedom" to me…..but one thing is for sure….Nixon would have loved it.