April 8, 2012

The GOP Declares Bankruptcy

The GOP Declares Bankruptcy


With Mitt Romney's recent primary victories in Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin, the inevitability factor has begun to set in and Romney is now the presumptive nominee having prevailed over an embarrassingly weak GOP field of candidates. The good news for Republicans is that by embracing Romney the brutal primary fight soon will come to a merciful end. The bad news, however, is that selecting an out of touch Richey Rich who stands for absolutely nothing as their nominee is tantamount to a declaration of bankruptcy.

The Romney platform is against some of the defining achievements of the Obama administration such as the stimulus, the auto bailout and "Obamacare", while also claiming to be a classic Ronald Reagan conservative who is pro-life, a global-warming skeptic and a life-long hunter who is against banning assault weapons. Who better to carry the GOP flag on these issues than someone who at one point was for the stimulus, the auto bailout, Obamacare, reproductive freedom and addressing global warming; and who in reality had hunted only a couple of times and favored banning assault weapons?

Who better to lead the party of Reagan than a candidate who was an independent during the Reagan-Bush era whose policies he did not embrace?

Who better to lead the anti-government handout charge, than the man whose signature achievement - heading the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics- depended on $1.5 billion from the federal government through mostly earmarked funds?

Romney is the ultimate CGI candidate, who like his movie star equivalents, stands in front of a blank green screen that his handlers fill in later. This was evident from the campaign's beginning when his first ad was called "ridiculously misleading" by PolitiFact after he made a 2008 statement of Obama paraphrasing Senator McCain appear as if it were Obama's own words. The ad prompted a friend of mine, who has no love for Obama, to call me and tell me he is supporting Obama based on that ad alone.

The only thing Mitt Romney is genuine about is that he is Richie Rich, the Grey Poupon candidate and proud of it as he has famously demonstrated in his $10,000 bet offer, bragging about firing people and his multi-million dollar home with an elevator for his cars. He is completely tone deaf when it comes to understanding the other 99 percent as he revealed in Wisconsin by telling the "humorous" story about how his father closed an auto plant in Michigan.

Romney has shown from the start, however, that his objective is not to have a battle over ideas (because that would require that he have or at least hold onto some) but to distort and smear his opponents' record. For example, this means claiming that Obama made the recession worse, when it actually improved or making other false statements about the President.

The 2012 election offered an opportunity for the Republican Party to rebrand itself after the epic failure of the Bush administration and in light of the fact that it has been a quarter century since the Republicans have won a decisive victory in a President campaign. While it is a least somewhat positive that the Republicans appear not to have embraced Rick Santorum's push for Christian Sharia or Newt Gingrich's or Ron Paul's racial politics, the problem is that they have instead selected a Thurston Howell III Ken doll that simply repeats Republican dogma.

Wind him up and Mitt Romney will tell you that the solution to the near economic catastrophe that the Bush administration led us into, is to do the exact same thing as Bush. That may make sense to a crash test dummy, but it will not go over well with those who have endured the worst downturn since the Great Depression and are now saddled with the bill for Bush's lost decade.

It is fitting that Romney's emergence comes as Newt Gingrich's think tank files for bankruptcy. For Republicans, whose party is led by a robot and the strongest argument to be made in favor of their policies is that "at least we didn't cause a depression", are already there.

April 2, 2012

The Difference between April and November Fools

The Difference between April and November Fools

by Bennet Kelley

After Pope Benedict reiterated the Vatican’s long-standing condemnation of the United States’ fifty year-old embargo of Cuba, I noticed some chatter in social media that maybe the remarks could lead to a change in U.S. policy. After double-checking to make sure that pigs were not flying outside, I resigned myself to the fact that the longest embargo in U.S. history was just a sad fact of life in American politics.

The embargo is estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $1-4 billion each year; and not only has it failed to convince the Cuban government to abandon communism but it has given the Castro regime a political scapegoat. No wonder former Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz calls continuation of the embargo “insane”. Yet the policy continues, not because there is any grand expectation that next year is the year it finally works, but rather because both parties fear the wrath of Florida’s Cuban community should they lift the embargo (even though younger Cuban-Americans oppose the blockade).

The Cuba embargo is one of several fixtures in American politics that require a suspension of disbelief. Another example can be found in the “cutting taxes raises revenue” argument which, while asserted by both Democratic and Republican administrations over time, was elevated to Republican dogma during the Reagan administration.

David Stockman, the architect of the Reagan tax cuts explains that

the simplistic and reckless idea that the way to stimulate the economy is to cut taxes anytime, anywhere, for any reason . . . has become a religion, it has become a catechism. It's become a mindless incantation.

An incantation that has been flatly rejected by economists who served under Reagan and G.W. Bush. One such economist is Gregory Mankiw, the head of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, who labeled those asserting that tax cuts pay for themselves as “charlatans and cranks”.

True believers point to the economic recovery and growth in revenue under Reagan, but Stockman contends that the “morning in America” recovery under Reagan was a classic business cycle recovery and that revenues increased both because of the recovery and subsequent tax increases (including the largest tax increase in modern history).

Rejecting this fiction is not inconsistent with conservative principles - it just means that if they are to be revenue neutral any such tax cuts have to be offset by spending cuts or other revenue. The problem is, however, that Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by signing Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge which limits their options to either offering potentially unpopular spending cuts or simply continuing the fiction that tax cuts pay for themselves.

A final unfortunate fixture in American politics is that there is a real debate as to whether climate change is occurring. A twenty-year study commissioned by President George H.W. Bush, which included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the Defense and State Departments, concluded that “the warming of the climate is unequivocal” and is primarily due to man-made causes. This is also the view of 32 National Academy of Sciences from nation’s representing 75 percent of world-wide carbon emissions including China, U.S., Russia, India and Japan.

As Republican weather-man Paul Douglas explains “acknowledging climate change doesn’t make you a liberal” since there can liberal and conservative approaches to solving the problem. Yet it has become dogma among Republicans to deny that even this is occurring. Climate Progress’ Joe Romm aptly sums it up when he states that “the entire conservative movement, including pundits, think tanks, and politicians, now appears willing to stake the future of humanity on their willful ignorance.”

Not only is this dangerous for our planet but its also dangerous for our competitiveness since a corollary to this mindset is a dismissal of alternative energy in favor of traditional fossil fuels. As a result, the United States, which once was far ahead of emerging China and India in Ernst & Young’s Renewable Country Attractiveness Index, is now second to China and India is closing the gap.

April Fools’ Day is a day for light-hearted hijinks and foolishness without real consequences. Embracing foolishness as public policy is a far different notion altogether. When the consequences mean a loss of billions of dollars or jeopardizes our fiscal health or even the future of our planet, we should not have to wait for pigs to fly before we eliminate these foolish notions from our body politic altogether.

Bennet Kelley is an award-winning columnist and host of Cyber Law and Business Report.

January 7, 2012

Tragedy in Tucson: A Somber Anniversary's Call to Repudiate Right-Wing Extremism

Sunday is the first anniversary of the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords that ultimately killed six and wounded 13 others in the worst act of political violence in this country since the bombing of the 1995 Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I remember that moment of shock first seeing the news but at the same time not being surprised to find out that Gabby was the target.

I knew that she regularly received death threats; that the Tea Party demonstrated outside her office carrying weapons every week and that her office had been shot at following her 2010 vote in favor of health care. After the 2010 incident, I wrote that it was "not enough for [Republican Leader] Boehner to say these actions are wrong, if he leaves unchecked the hatred his party so diligently pollinated." Yet the Republicans only added fuel to the fire, as months later Giffords' Republican opponent had a fundraiser to "target" victory and "remove" her from office where donors could shoot an M16 rifle.

Republicans are trying to have it both ways when it comes to its extremist fringe, expressing displeasure over their most outrageous conduct but stoking the mania that fuels it. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Republican presidential sweepstakes where the candidates are willing to condemn the racist rants in Ron Paul's newsletters, only to then engage in race-baiting themselves as Newt Gingrich did in equating African-Americans and food stamps.

The worst thing about Paul, however, is not the dated newsletters but his more recent actions such as endorsing Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin (a white supremacist with ties to the militia movement) for President in 2008 and not Republican nominee McCain; inviting neo-confederates to testify before his subcommittee or his ongoing ties with white supremacist groups.

This has not come up, however, both because the media has been shamefully lazy in reporting on Paul's more recent activities and because you will not hear Gingrich or other Republicans criticize Paul's embrace of the neo-confederate fringe since that has become part of the Republican base. This is especially true as we head into the critical South Carolina primary; home of prominent neo-confederate Representative Joe Wilson who gained national infamy for yelling "you lie" during President Obama's address to Congress on health care.

The reality that no Republican will challenge Paul's white supremacist ties does not alter the fact that they should. In 1992, Bill Clinton angered Jesse Jackson but gained credibility when he repudiated racist remarks by Sister Souljah that called for the killing of white people. John McCain attempted a similar feat before the 2000 South Carolina primary, calling the confederate battle flag a "symbol of racism and slavery," but recanted three days later.

With Paul pursuing a strategy that focuses on the caucus states where organization is key, as long as Republican treat him with kid gloves and refuse to repudiate his David Duke-lite candidacy (Paul is endorsed by Duke), he will come to the GOP convention in Tampa with a sizeable slate of delegates. The Republican nominee would need to placate him to ensure a successful convention, which could undermine his attempt to move to the center as the fall campaign begins. Once again the tail would be wagging the dog, just as in Congress where Republicans have suffered political defeats due to the Tea Party Caucus' insistence on extreme and politically unpopular positions.

When Barack Obama was sworn in, I naively thought that the nation was finally entering into a post-racial era. The bitter cold of that day should have served as a warning, as there has been a 553 percent increase in patriot and militia groups since that time returning to peak pre-Oklahoma City levels. Yet when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning about the rise of right wing hate groups, Republicans cried foul and demanded an apology.

I am not saying that Republicans as a whole condone the tragedy in Tucson or right wing hate groups, in fact the Republicans I know are appalled by both. Yet when Republicans say things like "reload", encourage people to bring guns to public events or embrace white supremacist groups without condemnation by the party leadership, their "silence utters very loud".

The upcoming anniversary and the rise of Ron Paul give the party a chance for a "Sister Souljah moment" that would allow it to break free from a fringe that is hurting it politically. More importantly, it would allow this upcoming election to be based on competing visions of our future and not the ugly scars of our past.

More info on Ron Paul http://ronpaultruthsquad.yolasite.com/