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.

Question from last night's CNN GOP debate in Jacksonville, Florida:

My name is Lynn Frazier and I live here in Jacksonville. And for the Republican presidential candidates, my question is, I'm currently unemployed and I found myself unemployed for the first time in 10 years and unable to afford health care benefits.

What type of hope can you promise me and others in my position?

No job, no health care. These are the two most critical concerns for average Americans….not the critical concerns of many conservative politicians….but of average Americans.

Ron Paul: Well, it's a tragedy because this is a consequence of the government being involved in medicine since 1965.

….

But your medical care should go with you. You should get total deduction on it. It would be so much less expensive. It doesn't solve every single problem, but you're — you're suffering from the consequence of way too much government and the cost going up because government has inflated the cost and we have a government-created recession, and that is a consequence of the business cycle.

See an answer in any of that? Paul tells the woman that government has caused the woman not to have health insurance, or something….reminding her of something she already knows….health care is expensive.

No kidding Doc. I have no idea what "your medical care should go with you" even means. The problem being that health insurance and health care costs more than tens of millions of Americans can afford. Offering an unemployed person the idea that she can take her health insurance along with her if she can figure out a way to pay for it…or that she should be able to deduct all of her health insurance costs on April 15th….is one of the least compassionate and most out of touch answers I've heard the Old Doc give.

Gingrich: The largest challenge of this country is to get the economy growing so she can have a job so it's easy for her to have insurance.

So far, so good. Get that economy growing. How would Newt go about doing that?

We need to have a program which would start with, frankly, repealing Obamacare, repealing Dodd-Frank, repealing Sarbanes-Oxley.

Gingrich would get the economy going again for people who lost their jobs and health care by adding millions more people to the uninsured rolls through repealing ObamaCare (something a president cannot actually do). Strange answer, I thought….but Newt is a strange character….much, much more advanced in thought than your average American.

Repealing regulations that, at the very least, make a stab at trying to rein in the richest white collar crooks this nation has ever seen in finance and accounting….is Newt's solution to getting that "economy growing again", so the unemployed woman can find a job. Again….a very odd answer. Encouraging white collar crooks to continue cheating to further enrich themselves by stripping the meager regulations now in place to keep them in check….equals….new jobs and a growing economy.

The solution to a woman in Jacksonville losing her job and health care, according to Newt, is to set free big time accountants and money shufflers in Manhattan to do what they want without oversight while nixing the only national program we have to expand medical insurance to more Americans.

Romney agrees with Newt…

..we know what it takes to put people back to work….. — lowering corporate taxes, lowering regulations, opening up all of the above in energy,….

Lowering taxes on the powerful even further……..stripping back layers of regulations from behemoth corporations, some of whom actually created our current downturn…and drill, baby, drill….are Romney's solutions to putting people back to work. Romney wants to go back to, yes, the "failed policies of the past" to find solutions for the future. Like rummaging around at the landfill to find materials to build a new home.

But here's one that has been bugging me.

Romney:

…if an individual wants to own their own insurance, they're not part of a big group, and so as a result they get a very high rate. What we should do is allow individuals to own their own insurance and have the same tax treatment as companies get. You do that and people like this young woman would be able to own her insurance. The rates would be substantial lower for her buying it individually than if she had to buy it individually today.

First….doesn't it seem odd to you talking about "owning your own insurance"? I have no idea what that even means. How can you own something which, in itelf, is intangible? But Romney's larger answer is where the cat gets out of the bag.

One person going to purchase health insurance pays a higher rate because, according to Mitt, she is only one person, and doesn't get that all-important bulk discount pricing that group plans offer. So Mitt would give individuals the right to purchase health insurance, individually, yet pay bulk pricing…..because a larger insurance pool of customers dilutes risk lowering costs.

If Mitt believes what he is saying…then it follows that the larger the health insurance pool….the lower the individual costs. That, my friends, is one of the arguments for single payer, government run health insurance. If a larger pool equals lower overall costs, then the LARGEST pool, all Americans, would be the most efficient way to insure for medical care, the most direct way to lower insurance costs.

Santorum went on to add "health savings accounts" as a solution. Giving an incentive to people who can't afford health insurance right now to save money to pay for their own health care. Not an answer for those who can't afford any of it, but a great new tax shelter for the already-rich who can.

So, what do you think? Did these 4 GOP candidates offer up genuinely reasonable, credible or practical solutions to our jobless recovery or unaffordable health care problems?

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels gave the response to President Obama's SOTU address last night. Really smart GOP insiders wanted Mitch Daniels to run for president against the Dark Knight, however, Mrs. Daniels said no. No biggie, really…..Daniels is an unknown. But what Mitch Daniels is doing to the state of Indiana is kind of a big deal.

Like John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Daniels knows that crushing unions takes away Democratic assets…making it easier for Republicans to win elections and hold onto power at the same time that Americans are turning away from the divisive, intolerant and rich-serving GOP.

So, Daniels and his GOP legislature are right now trying to force a "right to work" law onto the citizens of Indiana. As we have learned in Ohio and Wisconsin, right-to-work laws are, in reality, union disintegration and destruction bills.

But right-to-work laws pushed by Republicans are much more than just attempts to finish off 30 years of conservative war against unions. Right-to-work laws are a frontal attack on democracy. In Indiana, Republican state legislators just defeated an amendment to the proposed right-to-work bill that would allow voters in Indiana to vote on whether or not they wanted such a new law. The vote was 59-39 to keep such a decision away from being made by Indiana voters…proving once again that the will of the people and right-to-work…have nothing in common.

In Indiana's not-yet-passed bill, the goal is transparent….

Under the bill, companies and unions could no longer negotiate contracts that require employees to either join a union or pay fees for representation.

In other words…..if Indiana's bill would pass, democracy and the democratic process would be totally eliminated for workers in that state. Workers would no longer be permitted to organize a union in their place of work…unless those workers first rejected the democratic, majority-rules provisions of any such process.

The majority rules, with rare exception, in our American democratic republic. Republicans want to make one more exception. Republicans in Indiana are pushing to eliminate majority-rules democracy in the workplace….and what's worse….replace it with a new entitlement program, a new welfare program. The cynical irony here is that while these same Republicans claim that "freedom" and "liberty" are at the core of their right-to-work legislation……nullifying the democratic process inside the workplace is their real goal.

Anti-union conservatives are telling us if a majority of workers vote to unionize a workplace, that vote doesn't apply to any workers who disagree with the vote. That's modern GOP "liberty" in action. If we applied this undemocratic thinking to, say, bills passed by a majority of the U.S. Congress…then any citizen who didn't like those bills, could feel free to violate any and all provisions of said bills.

That would be the active nullification of the democratic process….not "liberty", but total chaos. Every citizen could choose, cafeteria style, which laws applied to them and which didn't. The Confederacy tried this undemocratic approach to the U.S. republic…..and it didn't work out all that well.

What Republicans describe as "freedom" and "liberty" in the workplace…is simply the nullification of democracy and the spawning of an "every man can do as they see fit" form of chaotic tyranny.

The kicker about this new push by anti-democratic Republican governors, like Mitch Daniels, is the fact that "right-to-work" is a conservative welfare program. The same political party that prides itself on bashing liberal welfare programs they say creates "brainwashed" dependency, are pushing for the power to establish a brand new welfare program for, I guess, anti-democratic misfit workers.

Mitch Daniels longs for the time when a new employee at a union shop in Indiana is entitled to all the benefits of a union agreement…without having to be a part of that union. All gain, no pain. That sense of workplace entitlement is what Daniels, and others, deem as "liberty" or "freedom." That seems odd, especially when you consider how Republicans constantly berate Americans who receive some form of government "entitlement" as hopeless dependents "enslaved" to government dependency.

Wouldn't anti-democratic, right-to-work misfits in Indiana be taking something for doing nothing should they be granted the "liberty" to benefit from a union contract while rejecting any union provisions? Wouldn't right-to-work employees simply be cowering behind the same government fiats they criticize for making the poor and minorities hopelessly dependent on government handouts?

Of course right-to-work is anti-democratic. Of course right-to-work, at it's core, creates a new anti-democratic form of government dependency….a reliance on government power to create an entirely new exception to majority rule in the workplace.

Mix all of that stuff in with the Republican Party emphasis on American workers needing to work for less money…..and it's relatively easy to see why today's GOP is seen as the Party of the 1%.

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.

Seriously…..can you remember an election cycle when there were so many primary debates? Last night it was sponsored by the GOP-owned teevee network….Fox News. Transcript is here.

BAIER: I’d like to ask a question about keeping money for all of the candidates down the line. What is the highest federal income tax any American should have to pay? We are looking for a number.
Governor?

PERRY: Seven 7 percent flat tax. Simple. Keep it simple.
BAIER: Senator Santorum?
SANTORUM: Well, my plan has two rates, 10 and 28 percent, which is the highest rate under Ronald Reagan when he cut taxes.
BAIER: Governor Romney.
ROMNEY: I would like 25 percent, but right now it’s at 35, so people better pay what is legally required. But ultimately let’s get it down to as low as we possibly can, if it’s 20, if it’s 25 but paying more than 25 percent, I think, is taking too much out of our pockets.
BAIER: So the highest you had was 35?
ROMNEY: Well, that’s what the law is right now, but 25 is where I would like to see us go.
BAIER: Speaker Gingrich.
GINGRICH: I would like to see it be a flat tax at 15 percent and I would like to see us reduce government to meet the revenue, not raise revenue to meet the government.
BAIER: Congressman Paul.
PAUL: Well, we should have the lowest tax that we’ve ever had, and up until 1913 it was 0 percent. What’s so bad about that?

In other parts of the debate, the GOP candidates repeated the only other idea that Republicans have….I mean other than lowering taxes on the already wealthy. The only other idea that Republicans have is to cut government spending. The reason Republicans want to cut government spending is….wait for it….so they can reduce taxes on the already wealthy.

All the talk in last night's "debate" about shuttering federal departments and cutting back on the number of weeks the unemployed receive checks, etc, etc,…..was for the purpose, the objective, of lowering government spending IN ORDER TO cut taxes further on America's already wealthy.

Notice in Brett Boy's question that he didn't ask what middle class tax rates should be, did he? Brett Boy only asked what should the highest tax rate be? Inherent in the question was the deep and sincere concern that Republicans, and those who shill for Republicans, have for America's wealthy….at best, the top 2%.

Santorum's suggestion was the smallest decrease for the already-rich. Paul's was the biggest. Ron Paul, if words mean anything, wants to eliminate the income tax altogether. But the frontrunner and soon-to-be GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, would lower income tax rates on the already-rich to 25%. That would reflect a reduction of 10 percentage points….which means that Mitt Romney would cut the income taxes of the already-rich by about one third.

The already-rich in America are paying income tax rates…right now…that are at 60 year national lows. At the same time, income disparity in the United States has never been so gapped in favor of those already-rich. What that all means to GOP hopefuls is that tax rates on the already-rich are too high….and, apparently, the income disparity gap is still too small. Don't ask me, I can't understand it either.

The corollary of Republican's deep, heartfelt desire to lower income tax rates on the already-rich is the entirely bogus belief that the already-rich in America are our nation's jaaabbb creators. The notion being that the already-rich can't create any new jaaabs if they don't see a reduction in their 60 year low tax rates.

And that's where the GOP hopefuls' heartfelt care and concern for the already-rich hits the harsh shores of reality.

The last GOP administration lowered income tax rates. The already-rich benefited the most from those tax cuts. To boot, the last administration also lowered capital gains and dividend tax rates down to 15%, affecting primarily the already-rich,…..making it possible for people like Warren Buffett…and Mitt Romney….to pay taxes at a lower rate than millions of middle class workers. (Note: that's the reason Romney is refusing to release his tax returns….he's paying at the 15% rate, which is a lower rate than the janitor pays who Newt wants to fire and replace with students.)

And yet, with those deep tax cuts on the already-rich firmly in place for 10 years now……and after a GOP administration which oversaw the most meager job creation over 8 years in modern U.S. history….GOP presidential hopefuls for 2012, like dogs back to their own vomit, are recommending more and deeper tax cuts on those already-rich.

America, as I have repeated umpteen times….is in the middle of a jobs recession because demand for goods and services is too low. Almost 70% of our economic activity is created by consumer demand. When Americans do not have jobs they cannot stimulate demand as we're used to in better times. No matter how far income tax rates are lowered on the already-rich……demand will not be affected. If income tax rates on the already-rich are lowered to zero……demand for goods and services will still not be affected. Those alleged jaaabb creators will still have no reason to hire new workers. They will just have larger bank accounts and trust funds….that's it.

So, in summary…..I don't know who Romney and the Gang are representing when they argue for even lower tax rates on the already-wildly-rich. Tax cuts on the wealthy NEVER result in more jobs being created. The reason? It isn't the rich that stimulates and maintains demand in our economy…it is all the rest of us…the 99%. It is the millions of average workers in America who create market demand…..and for GOP presidential hopefuls to offer even lower income tax rates on the already-rich as some kind of magical cure for our national economy…is one of the biggest disconnects the GOP has with reality.

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.

Writing about Mitt Romney in Esquire, the excellent Charles Pierce had this to say….

He (Romney) is really the only true class warrior in the race. He's counting on prejudice and ignorance because he is running in the Republican primaries and that's the coin of the realm. But he's also counting on the desperate dreams of desperate people who want to believe that there is a big bag of money out there that's going to the Wrong People, and that, if someone would only re-direct it, their lives would be better. Well, there is a big bag of money out there, and it is indeed going to the Wrong People, and those would be the people in whose company Willard Romney has spent his entire, cosseted, entitled existence. He has embarked on a divisive campaign of misdirection, hoping against hope that nobody notices that he mortgaged himself to his ambition on an adjustable rate, and that he's underwater on his soul.

From the moment Barack Obama was elected president, that has been the daily message from the right. Lazy, working and non-working Americans sucking on the government teat are the real source of all of America's economic problems. That, and too many restrictions and taxes on all those rich jaaabb creators.

I've always found that curious. Not curious in the sense of not knowing what the right was doing….but curious in the sense of wondering how in the hell the right was going to get away with blaming the victims for Bush's Great Recession and its consequences.

Through Foxian outlets of deception and the 24/7 braying by racist liars on AM propaganda radio, through a compromised and often corrupt Village media totally beholden to the wishes of the top 1%…and even through despicable GOP presidential candidates claiming that one of our problems is that the working poor simply do not pay enough in taxes….Americans have been bombarded with this, "look over there at those irresponsible poor", malarkey for almost four straight years now.

Apparently, Mitt Romney, will feature this "the poor are responsible for our economic problems" message in his upcoming national campaign to oust President Obama.

The largest threat which faced our 1% overlords following the big bank bailouts of 2008 was the threat that Americans would turn against these bankster overlords in a significant way. The prospect of the 1% paying higher taxes to deal with the galactic loss of government revenues in the aftermath of the crash was real. The fear that these banksters, along with the others who make up the 1%, would face the vitriol from an angry American population was real.

But because so many media outlets and so many politicians are nothing other than servants for the top 1%, the pent up rage and frustration of the American people has been kept to a minimum. Instead, Americans were bombarded with the new, yet counterfeit, Tea Party movement. The Tea Party, whether members realized it or not, was used as a foil, a distraction to keep any serious talk of tighter regulations and higher taxes on the 1% from happening. The Tea Party assisted the bankster criminals, and their political servants, in redirecting responsibility for our nation's economic problems onto government. It soon became the government's fault that banksters removed trillions from the economy. A monumental case of Ayn Rand capitalism gone bonkers became the fault of big government socialists and their lazy-ass dependents.

And that's where Romney comes back into the picture. Mitt Romney is the personification of all that's wrong with America during the bankster era. Mitt is the Wall Street candidate. Romney, apparently, plans on campaigning for the presidency by blaming the poor, the elderly, the vulnerable, the outcasts, and the average working men and women of America for the damage done to our economy by a handful of very wealthy controllers. All governmental programs that assist the poor, the elderly, etc. will be endlessly pummeled by candidate Romney….when the truth is that none of that had anything to do with the economic predicament the banksters put the nation into.

It is not an accident that the last 3 years have been marked by lengthy sermons about deficits, entitlements, the "food stamp" president, the lazy-assness of the unemployed, the "unfairness" of taxing the 1% a bit more, the "makers" and the "takers"…and all the rest of it. It is all part of a very concerted effort by our oligarchial overlords to keep the spotlight off of where it belongs….on them.

Americans have had enough time to evaluate the Tea Party servants of the rich. Americans are now more alert to the deceptive and misleading ways of a corrupt media. Americans have seen the results of an extreme right wing element controlling one chamber of Congress. Nevertheless, Mitt Romney, with his rich overlord funding, and in coordination with a Village media hard wired for Republicans…will undoubtedly take their best doubletalk shot throughout the first 10 months of 2012.

As voters, we must be prepared for the tsunami of propaganda, deception and lies that will be upon us very soon.

Obama gave a speech today. I have a few major disagreements with Obama's leadership….but I couldn't find anything I disagreed with in today's speech.

I've been trying to curb the profanity…and still not stifle myself. But in this case, President Obama was spot-the-f**k hell on.

Pre-emptive disclaimer: I fully recognize the fact that President Obama is in full metal jacket campaign mode. Of that, I have no doubt. At the same time, his speech today clarified and reinforced the truth about supply side economics and Republicans obeisance to it.

If you've been reading this blog, you'll already be familiar with a few of the points Obama makes in his argument over higher taxes on the wealthy. Take special notice of his comments about "unfairness", a subject we've been talking about on King's and this blog….

So far, most of the Republicans in Washington have refused, under any circumstances, to ask the wealthiest Americans to go the same tax rates they were paying when Bill Clinton was president.

Now, keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early 50s, when the top tax rate was over 90%, or even the early 80s, when it was about 70%. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39%. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%. One percent.

This is the height of unfairness. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million.

He makes a good argument.

Obama also went right after the shameless obstructionists….

For the first time in history, the reform we passed puts in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders, payday lenders or debt collectors. The man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former Attorney General of Ohio who has the support of most Attorneys General, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to let him do his job. Why?

This is the best….

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history, and what did they get us? The slowest job growth in half a century.

All of that is precisely correct. This libertarian ideology of letting go and letting the God-infused free market work it's divine magic through trickle down osmosis with government just staying out of the way….please….what has it done for us?. It has resulted in huge wealth disparity and a disastrous long recovery after an historic collapse in the private banking sector. Hugely deregulated private banking sector.

Supply side economics, trickle down economics not only does not work….it's practice always ends in some form of financial ruin. All for the same reason….greed. Seemingly uncontrollable greed. Savings and Loan event of the 80's. Dot.com bubbles in the 90's. Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth scandals in the early 00's. Mortgage meltdown bubble of recent years. Always the same result. Many, many Americans wind up being bilked by these disasters…..and in our present situation, the entire nation, except for the top 1%, have been financially punished for the sins of the perpetrators.

No more…."It doesn't work."

So far, here in the U.S., the Obama administration has been able to successfully stall the implementation of deep government spending cuts in the midst of America's worst financial downturn in 70 years. Despite the never-ending whining coming from conservatives who believe in the doctrine of "expansionary austerity", (an oxymoron if ever there were one), U.S. leaders have been able to fend off the hysterical cries from Republicans and their rich constituents. The expansionary austerity believers would like to take the downturn's opportunity to slash and burn the safety net in America.

That is why for 2 straight years now all we have heard from media, Tea Partiers, Republicans, moderate Democrats and the pimps for corporate interests…..is how desperately we need to slash spending on programs for children, the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable. That is why Republicans have worked so desperately to smash and kill unions and privatize Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They are taking a political shot during one of our most vulnerable economic times.

However, cutting government spending during a deep recession marked by high unemployment, low interest rates and diminished demand…in other words, enacting austerity measures right now….will never result in economic expansion.

Thankfully, so far, the expansionary austerity nutcases have not won the day in the U.S. As a direct result of avoiding the screeching that we can cut our way to expansion….the U.S. economy has actually fared better than many European countries who are already knee-deep in the totally untenable expansionary austerity swamp.

For example, there's Britain…

Britain’s experiment in austerity.

When the Cameron government came in, it was fully invested in the doctrine of expansionary austerity.

….

Now it turns out that contractionary policy is contractionary after all. As a result, despite all the austerity, deficits remain high. So what is to be done? More austerity!

I realize that some readers may simply dismiss anything that Paul Krugman has to say….exactly why, I'm not sure…but he has been spot on in his withering attacks on the expansionary austerity gang…

…history says that a financial crisis reduces long-run growth potential if policymakers don’t limit the short-run damage it does.

And yet what’s happening in Britain now is that depressed estimates of long-run potential are being used to justify more austerity, which will depress the economy even further in the short run, leading to further depression of long-run potential, leading to …

And once again, Krugman borrows The Reverend's analogy to help explain what expansionary austerity folks are really doing…..

It really is just like a medieval doctor bleeding his patient, observing that the patient is getting sicker, not better, and deciding that this calls for even more bleeding.

Just because Leaders are Leaders…doesn't mean that they will make the proper decisions at the proper time. This has proven to be true of Wall Street leaders, Roman Catholic leaders, Penn State leaders, U.S. war Leaders….and of course, the corporate media who worships all of those Leaders and prove their love daily by keeping Americans misinformed.

After looking at the awful decisions being made by certain European Leaders over the last few months, I really do wonder whether this August 8, 2011 article from The New Republic will turn out to be prophetic.

Excerpted from the Business Insider…

John Judis of The New Republic argues that a global depression far longer and more severe than anyone expected now seems nearly impossible to avoid. Judis believes that the coming "depression" will be accompanied by geopolitical upheaval and institutional collapse.

"As the experience of the 1930s testified, a prolonged global downturn can have profound political and geopolitical repercussions. In the U.S. and Europe, the downturn has already inspired unsavory, right-wing populist movements. It could also bring about trade wars and intense competition over natural resources, and the eventual breakdown of important institutions like European Union and the World Trade Organization. Even a shooting war is possible."

….

…the fundamental problem – the spiral downwards caused by confidence crises and ever rising interest rates – is exactly the same now as it was in 1931. And as Italy and Spain come under attack, we are reaching the limit of how much that sticking plaster can heal. Tensions between European countries unseen in decades are emerging."

Numerous world Leaders are doing exactly the wrong thing in the wake of an historic economic downturn. Leaders who obviously place their trust in a totally contradictory and self-defeating policy…..are slashing and cutting their way to economic expansion. A fete which cannot be done.

We are fortunate here in the U.S. that, so far, the Obama administration….without ignoring the President's gestures seemingly favoring the expansionary austerity crowd….has not made the same mistakes as many European Leaders.

Let's hope "profound geo-political repercussions"…or a "shooting war"…..can be avoided, despite the wrongheadedness of many of Europe's Leaders.

The thing about Michele Bachmann is that she leads the TEA Party caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. While everything Mrs. Bachmann says, naturally, cannot be automatically attributed to TEA Partiers everywhere, she does represent TEA Partiers in her House position. And proudly so.

In yet another GOP debate Saturday evening…..that I did not watch….TEA Party Michelle took it to the outer limits...

“The ‘Great Society’ has not worked and it’s put us into the modern welfare state,” she said. “If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security. They don’t have the modern welfare state ….and China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they’d be gone.”

China doesn't have a food stamp program or a Social Security program like the U.S…..and "China's growing." So, in TEA Party thinking, if the U.S. would simply get rid of its food stamp and Social Security programs….the U.S. economy would grow as well.

The Reverend has often pointed out, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes not, that supply side conservatives in the United States will not be happy until American workers are working for Chinese labor rates. Believe it or not, that is the Republican/Tea Party solution to our deep recession.

You see, China's economy is growing…and the U.S?…well, not so much. To movement conservatives who only care about profits….if the U.S. would just follow in the footsteps of a growing economy, like China, our economy could grow too. Getting rid of the safety net of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the food stamp program, and so forth….according to TEA Party caucus leader, Bachmann,….is the way to grow our U.S. economy. Just follow China's lead.

Michele Bachmann is a candidate from the GOP who is seeking the presidency of the United States. She would like the U.S. to behave more like China. That's her message.

And the problem is, as crazy as it may seem,….is that way too many Village politicians on both sides of the corporate-lackey aisle agree with Michele…..even many who would never acknowledge so publicly.

As we see in the Penn State ugliness, the rich, the powerful, the celebrated in American no longer feel like the rules apply to them. I'm not sure why that is, really….but it is. And that principle helps to explain how it is that during America's worst economic downturn in a lifetime, with unemployment rates at somewhere between 9% and 15%, with low tax rates, with our problem being one of lack-of-demand……our Leaders have decided that NOW is the time to rig the system a bit more in favor of the already filthy rich.

Just like with the Penn State "leaders"…..shamelessness is really what it is. America has become a nation led by powerful, wealthy, and detached celebrity Leaders who shamelessly stride the earth above the unwashed masses, doing as they please, taking what they want, dismissively hurting millions in order to enrich themselves and their friends even more.

Our corporately bought-and-paid-for elected officials have been working overtime in the middle of this pain-inducing economic nightmare…working overtime to further enrich the top 1%. These appendages of Fortune 500 America have been taking the opportunity presented in the economic misery being experienced by millions of Americans in this downturn….to further cut taxes and accountability for the already-filthy rich and powerful.

To me, that is the ugly disgrace of our current national political "conversation." There is little difference in what our elitist Leaders are working to accomplishment during our deep recession from how looters often behave during a national emergency. Shameless, and heartless, Leaders are taking the opportunity of our severe recession to take what they can while they can take it.

Disaster governance. Heartless governance.

And as these Leaders arrange and manipulate conditions on the ground to benefit the already rich and powerful at the further expense of the have-nots…..it's just like with Joe Paterno and his untouchable football Leaders……our political leaders no longer have the capacity for shame.

And that…in the end….will lead to America's final demise.