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.

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.

Following up on yesterday's post…it seems that the GOP presidential candidate-to-be, Mitt Romney, has responded to calls to release his tax returns by stating yesterday that his income tax rate is…

"probably closer to 15 percent than anything."

Romney also told reporters that he….

….gets speaker fees "from time to time, but not very much."

Do you know how much is "not very much" in the eyes of Mitt Romney?

$374,000.

Mitt Romney made $374,000 in fees for speeches given from Feb. 2010 through Feb. 2011. Golf outing tip money perhaps. Limousine driver tip money, maybe. But "not very much" in the mind of Mitt Romney, ultra-wealthy candidate for the presidency. Mitt's estimated net worth is nigh on $270 million. Romney's deal upon leaving Bain Capital provided a lifetime yearly income in the millions, so that his nestegg of $250-270 million can be eventually handed down to those who have earned it through their hard work of being biologically connected to Mitt. And if Mitt has anything to say about it…..that future inheritance money that the Romney brood will share will not be taxed by the federal government upon transfer….eliminating the estate tax a top priority of all Republican candidates.

So what to make of this?

A person who receives $374,000 in income in 12 months is automatically in the top 1% of our country's income earners. Yet, Mitt Romney said that that was "not very much." See the problem?

From June 2007 to June of this year, they said, median annual household income declined by 7.8 percent for non-Hispanic whites, to $56,320, and by 6.8 percent for Hispanics, to $39,901. For blacks, household income declined 9.2 percent, to $31,784.

Not only that, but also this…

U.S. household income fell to its lowest level in more than a decade in 2010 and poverty rose to a 17-year high,….

Framed by that dismal looking backdrop….Mitt Romney told reporters that $374,000 a year was "not very much."

The leading contender for the GOP presidential candidacy stated publicly that $374,000….almost 7 times the average family's income during our jobless recovery dating back to the last Republican administration……didn't really amount to "very much."

That is not a symptom of tone deafness. That is a symptom from a man who is not self-aware. A self-aware leading candidate hoping to dethrone the Dark Knight would know better than to add the words "not very much" to a statement where $374,000 was the topic. But not Mitt Romney.

That comment will again reinforce existing doubts over whether Mitt Romney is out of touch with average Americans. Not one American outside of the top 1% would describe $374,000 as "not very much."

Couple the "not very much" Romney comment with the candidate's income tax platform of reducing income tax rates by one third on the top 1%, all during our worst jobless recovery in my lifetime, and my claim that the former governor lacks self-awareness seems reasonable. Who is Romney trying to reach with such comments?

Then we have the half-hearted admission by America's first Mormon candidate that he pays an income tax rate "closer to 15% than anything." Even though Romney doesn't work for Bain Capital any longer, and hasn't for quite awhile, his platinum parachute, studded with diamonds, from Bain continues to pay Romney millions each year. What's more, because the parachute was put together based on the egregiously low capital gains and dividend tax rates of the Bush administration…..Mitt's ongoing millions for doing absolutely nothing is only taxed at 15%. Middle class earners pay at an average of 20%…..for working.

As I said yesterday, I have no insight into how the Republican Party thinks Romney can reach average American voters. If anything, Romney is the very personification of what most Americans detest about the 1%. Detached, arrogant, out of touch, and not self aware.

In a very difficult economic period for most American families, a period marked by huge income disparities between the top 1% and the rest of us…..the Republicans will feature a candidate for the presidency who pays a lower income tax rate on his yearly millions than most of the public employees whom Tea-fueled GOP governors have been attacking as overpaid and coddled. In a very difficult economic period for most American families when their yearly incomes have actually declined by 2.3% over the last couple of years to an average of between $30,000 and $55,000….the Republicans will feature a candidate for the presidency who claims that $374,000 per year is "not very much."

Who would vote for such a person to be the nation's president and CIC?

Better yet…..why would anyone vote for such a person?

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.

Chris Christie, Republican governor of New Jersey, has been recently stumping for the GOP bankster presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Why Romney would desire an uncouth, sloppy, big mouthed ass to be stumping for him is beyond my pay grade to be answering.

Anyway, here's Baby Huey's latest demonstration of civility….

While Mitt Romney quietly smiled on stage, Christie yelled at a female protester, telling her, basically, to, as Digby put it, "suck my dick"…..

When a heckler yelled, "Christie kills jobs," Christie was ready with a response – New Jersey style.

"Really?" Christie replied. "Something may go down tonight but it's not going to be jobs, sweetheart."

Translation: "You, liberal slut, may be fellating someone tonight, as a liberal slut's custom is…..you may be "going down" on someone tonight, as all progressive females protesting our bankster nominee do…..but what's not "going down" is employment if Mitt, our bankster, is crowned president of the U.S….sweetheart"

Christie is the most repellant Republican holding office today…..and that is saying something. The obese governor's sloppiness in appearance is only equaled by his love of shouting locker room language at political and press gatherings.

What's worse….Christie is actually admired by Republican and conservative types BECAUSE he acts like Tony Soprano's pitiful character on the HBO series "The Sopranos." Christie likes to flaunt his Baby Huey appearance and his tendency to bully every time anyone challenges him. But just like Tony Soprano….Christie is but a big ball of conflicted fat in need of counseling.

Hey Huey…Tony Soprano is a teevee character….and you are oh-so-obviously pretending to act like that teevee character. And despite the cheers and applause from Republican zombies who would cheer and applaud with renewed vigor if you took a dump on stage……what you are saying, how you are saying it, how you look…is repulsive to the majority of Americans who are aware of you.

After calling progressive protestors streeet-whores, Christie went on to say some peculiarly stupid stuff…

Obama has "encouraged these people to be angry at Mitt and angry at me because we stand up for what we believe in," he said.

"Mr. President, you're up there in the family quarters of the White House, put your feet up and don't worry about it. Mitt Romney is going to bring people together," said Christie.

A couple of things here. What Mitt Romney and Chris Christie "believe in" is making average Americans suffer for the sake of the wealthy. Mitt's Bain Capital and Christie's attack on school teachers and other average workers in New Jersey clearly reveal that what these two men "believe in" is taking from the average worker and giving to the average millionaire. That's what these two men "believe in.

When Chris Christie had a chance to exercise his newly granted line item veto power last year…..he chose to eliminate $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women's health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental health services.

But Christie also ADDED $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state.

While limiting public employees collective bargaining power, Christie cut the paychecks of public employees, making them pay more towards health care and pensions. All this while threatening to veto a renewal of a surtax on New Jersey's millionaires.

Furthermore, the New Jersey governor's line that Mitt Romney will "bring people together" is the biggest hoot of the election season thus far. What has Mitt Romney done so far? He's divided conservatives and Republicans, not united them. The GOP primary spectacle has been one prolonged scream by conservative and Republican voters of "anyone except Romney."

The GOP Clown Car keys have been handed from one Donald Trump Clown to another all of 2011…all in an effort to avoid a Romney candidacy. Yet, the obese New Jersey governor, in his typical "I'm pissed (and fat)" demeanor brashly claims that Mitt Romney "is going to bring people together."

Finally,….tell me, how is having a sloppy, loud mouthed, crude, anti-working class, pro-rich New Jersey GOP Governor on stage with you telling protesters that they are street whores supposed to help Mitt Romney's chances of becoming the Republican Party nominee in November?

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.

NY Times

The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the largest residential fair-lending settlement in history, saying that Bank of America had agreed to pay $335 million to settle allegations that its Countrywide Financial unit discriminated against black and Hispanic borrowers during the housing boom.

A department investigation concluded that Countrywide loan officers and brokers charged higher fees and rates to more than 200,000 minority borrowers across the country than to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk. Countrywide also steered more than 10,000 minority borrowers into costly subprime mortgages when white borrowers with similar credit profiles received regular loans, it found.

In the case of Countrywide, the racial discrimination was systemic….simply part of the business plan. I suppose the justification for the discrimination was simple greed…..and the fact that the mortgage company COULD discriminate widely in a highly deregulated industry.

When Countrywide was given a pile of mortgage applications with white and minority applicants, applicants with the same credit risk….the lender purposely chose black and Hispanic applicants for "costly subprime mortgages" while whites were steered into less costly "regular loans".

Instead of anyone going to prison from Countrywide…..for conspiratorial discrimination crimes….the new owner, Bank of America, simply pays a cost-of-doing-criminal-business fine without admitting any wrongdoing. Equal justice for all….I think that's called.

Politico

A new South Carolina voter identification law is impacting predominantly black precincts more than others in the state, according to a study by The Associated Press.
…..
The AP found that many voters in predominantly black counties in South Carolina do not have proper identification — and the percentage of minority voters without the required identification is higher in those areas than other precincts statewide.

For example, in Richland County, there are 11,087 nonwhite voters without ID, and in Orangeburg County, there are 4,544. The AP study said that means half of those impacted in Richland are nonwhite voters. In Orangeburg, that equals 73 percent of nonwhite voters hit by the law.

Birtherism, writ large….or the 21st century version of the poll tax, you decide…

Thirty-three states have considered adding or strengthening voter identification requirements this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The new South Carolina law will disenfranchise thousands of state citizens who don't drive and have no means of obtaining a birth certificate, said Victoria Middleton, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina.

Many on the far right claim that America has moved beyond racial discrimination against minorities. In fact, these same conservatives often tout the New Haven, Connecticut firefighter case from the Roberts Supreme Court a couple of years ago where the city of New Haven was actually found guilty of reverse discrimination against white firefighters seeking promotions. Many conservatives concluded from that case that racial discrimination against blacks is basically over…and if anything, whites are the ones now being discriminated against.

To hear conservatives, one would think that what's happened since 1965 is that the discrimination tables have been turned 180 degrees. Now, conservatives intimate, whites are the discriminated-against group and it is minorities and liberals who are doing the discriminating against whites….I guess, because liberals and minorities hate whites, or America, or both….and desire to see their country destroyed.

However, as the two recent stories above demonstrate…..racism against minorities is alive and well in America. What's more, as seen in the Countrywide sewer…and in the GOP's minority voter disenfranchisement conspiracy….institutionalized forms of modern racism are all around us.

Republicans, conservatives….do not like being accused of racism. I get that. And yet, like in the voter disenfranchisement conspiracy in some 33 states, when conservatives are confronted with material like the AP's South Carolina study they most often respond by defending voter ID laws. Conservative credibility, naturally, is diminished because Americans understand that for all intents and purposes….voter fraud in the U.S. is non-existent.

But it could exist, you know, sometime…..conservatives respond. Which is like saying that we need to build a space shield around the globe to prevent aliens from attacking us. You know, it could happen.

Perhaps there are those who, in spite of the seemingly obvious evidence, still do not think racism has anything to do with voter ID and voter suppression efforts by Republican-controlled states. The following information from Politico should clear up the issue….

Early voting: U.S. elections are traditionally held on Tuesdays — an obstacle for many low-income working people, few of whom are given time off to vote. So 33 states and the District of Columbia now allow early voting — including on Saturday and Sunday. Many Americans, particularly minorities, have taken advantage of this.

In 2008, for example, black voters accounted for 13 percent of the total turnout but for 22 percent of the early votes and 31 percent of Sunday voters. Latinos were 7.4 percent overall — but 22 percent of the final-Sunday voters.

In North Carolina, which Obama won narrowly in 2008, more than half of the African-American vote was cast early, compared with 40 percent of the white vote. This pattern was repeated in 2010.

But it won’t be in 2012. GOP state legislatures in Florida, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and West Virginia have cut the number of early voting days. Florida, under Gov. Rick Scott, who has been a leader in the voter-suppression effort, reduced early voting from 14 days to eight. In Ohio, it went from 35 days to 16.

With Countrywide the discrimination was all about the money. With GOP voter disenfranchisement initiatives, initiatives targeting minority voters (Democratic voters), the discrimination is about gaming the system to win elections…..a violation of the civil rights of minority Americans to be sure….but also a conspiracy to commit treason against the citizens of the United States.

America is not in some post-racial era. Racism is still all around us. Yes, everyone is thankful for the progress made in the last 50 years, and would not deny that, indeed, it is progress. Yet as we see with these two current examples of post-racial era racism…..racism is still alive and well in the United States.

Let's do a thought experiment, shall we?

Let's say that McDonald's comes out with a 'new and improved' Big Mac. The Big Mac sandwich has been around for quite awhile now and despite it's continued popularity, McDonald's decides to "save" the iconic sandwich by reforming, remodeling the classic, 39 grams-of-fat, double hamburger.

In my hypothetical, McDonald's plan for revamping the Big Mac includes eliminating the center bun, the sesame seeds on the bun, the pickles, the lettuce, the cheese, the special sauce, and one of the hamburger patties. The new Big Mac has a single hamburger pattie, ketchup, and a slice of onion all on a wheat bun. When McDonald's rolls out it's 'new and improved' Big Mac, the price has also changed. Now the Big Mac costs 40% more than before.

In spite of what appears to be an entirely different sandwich from the Big Mac, McDonald's continues to market the sandwich as the Big Mac. When consumers of grease-infused, fast food hamburgers repeatedly point out that the new sandwich from McDonald's is NOT really a Big Mac at all….Politifact, an alleged online exposer of lies, is called in to settle the issue. Politifact is to look at the evidence and conclude whether McDonald's calling the 'new and improved' sandwich a Big Mac is a lie, or you know, not.

Politifact concludes, in my hypothetical, that not only is McDonald's sandwich still a Big Mac, but that anyone who says it isn't is lying.

Seems kind of crazy….but that's exactly what the compromised online lie detector outfit, Politifact, has done over claims that Paul Ryan's plan to reform Medicare will end Medicare. In fact, Politifact has made the line "Republicans voted to end Medicare" it's lie of the year.

In April the new GOP-controlled House thought that they would go ahead and swing for the fences. So, Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced his new budget….and within that budget was a plan to revamp Medicare. All but 5 GOP House members voted to pass the Ryan budget…and zero Democrats. In Ryan's new and improved plan for Medicare, the federal government would no longer be the single service provider for processing health care claims by America's seniors. In fact, the government would only send out vouchers to seniors, that's it. Seniors would then be expected to take those vouchers and purchase their own private insurance each year from for-profit insurance companies. The conclusion by the Congressional Budget office was that Ryan's 'new and improved' plan for reforming Medicare would cost each senior, on average, an additional $6000 per year out of pocket.

Republicans said that the Ryan plan "saved" Medicare. Democrats and progressives claimed Ryan's plan would "end Medicare". Politifact is claiming that any statement which says that Ryan's plan "ends Medicare" is a lie. The lie of the year, in fact.

Here are the three justifications by Politifact that Democrats and progressives were lying when they said that Ryan's plan ends Medicare….

• They ignored the fact that the Ryan plan would not affect people currently in Medicare — or even the people 55 to 65 who would join the program in the next 10 years.

• They used harsh terms such as "end" and "kill" when the program would still exist, although in a privatized system.

• They used pictures and video of elderly people who clearly were too old to be affected by the Ryan plan. The DCCC video that aired four days after the vote featured an elderly man who had to take a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills.

See? The Big Mac is still the Big Mac…even though it isn't. It is because McDonald's says it is….and on no other basis could my hypothetical, new and improved Big Mac be considered a Big Mac.

It's the same with Ryan's Medicare remodel. Simply claiming that privatized and more expensive Medicare is still Medicare is comparable to calling the entirely different Big Mac in my thought experiment…a Big Mac. Republicans, and their faux-lie-detecting allies, say that Ryan's privatizing of Medicare leaves Medicare as Medicare, despite its having no resemblance to traditional Medicare. And Knee Pad equipped Politifact arrives right on time to fellate Republicans argue that what Ryan is selling is…swear-to-god…still Medicare….and that overreaching Democrats are the liars of the year for claiming Ryan's plan "ends Medicare."

Makes as much sense as this….

"According to (PolitiFact's) logic, if the FBI were replaced with a voucher program wherein citizens would receive subsidies for hiring private investigators to look into criminal activity, but the agency running the voucher program were still called the FBI, it would be unfair to say that the FBI had been ended," wrote Jed Lewison for Daily Kos. "I guess it's their right to make that argument, but it's transparently absurd."

Not just "absurd"….but "transparently" so.

Steve Benen notes that not only are claims that Ryan's plan "ends Medicare" true….but also how audacious Politifact acts when it claims the opposite and then makes the Democratic claim the "lie of the year."

Finally….the question of why Politifact decided to humiliate themselves. My favorite economist lays it all out. It's the false equivalency justification….

The answer is, of course, obvious: the people at Politifact are terrified of being considered partisan if they acknowledge the clear fact that there’s a lot more lying on one side of the political divide than on the other. So they’ve bent over backwards to appear “balanced” — and in the process made themselves useless and irrelevant.

The Liar of the Year award goes to Politifact.