October 31, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


RIGHT-WING AUTHORITARIANS


If conservatives could run things they really wanted, we'd be living in a coast-to-coast prison because conservatives are authoritarians to the core. They talk a good deal about "freedom," but it's only freedom for business. Conservatives want to tell us what we can read, what we can watch, what our sexual orientation will be, that women have no reproductive rights whatever, what drugs we can take to change our consciousness, and even that we can't have physician-assisted suicide if we're in agony and have a terminal illness. This commentary by John Dean is at www.commondreams.org:

Republicans rule, rather than govern, when they are in power by imposing their authoritarian conservative philosophy on everyone, as their answer for everything. This works for them because their interest is in power, and in what it can do for those who think as they do. Ruling, of course, must be distinguished from governing, which is a more nuanced process that entails give-and-take and the kind of compromises that are often necessary to find a consensus and solutions that will best serve the interests of all Americans.

Republicans' authoritarian rule can also be characterized by its striking incivility and intolerance toward those who do not view the world as Republicans do. Their insufferable attitude is not dangerous in itself, but it is employed to accomplish what they want, which it to take care of themselves and those who work to keep them in power.

Authoritarian conservatives are primarily anti-government, except where they believe the government can be useful to impose moral or social order (for example, with respect to matters like abortion, prayer in schools, or prohibiting sexually-explicit information from public view). Similarly, Republicans' limited-government attitude does not apply regarding national security, where they feel there can never be too much government activity - nor are the rights and liberties of individuals respected when national security is involved. Authoritarian Republicans do oppose the government interfering with markets and the economy, however -- and generally oppose the government's doing anything to help anyone they feel should be able to help themselves.

October 29, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


CONSERVATIVES KNOW HOW TO WHINE

If you listened to right-wingers you'd think the most important issues we deal with are: flag burning, school prayer, gay marriage, abortion, and taxes. Lord, help us, they whine about taxes. Since John McCain and Sarah Palin began their rant about "socialism" the right-wingers have been flooding The Fresno Bee with whiny letters about they will have to pay more taxes with an Obama presidency or how they have no "incentive" to work because of higher taxes. Obama is merely proposing to reinstate taxes to the level they were during the Clinton years. The sky didn't fall. And rich people never pay the highest tax rates. They have far more loopholes than we working class types. And I have a bulletin for these whiny right-wingers. Unless there are taxes to pay for the things that make society work their tax savings aren't going to do them much good. If everything collapses around them, what do they propose to do with their money then?

October 28, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


THE "REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH" CANARD

See McCain and Palin spin. Spin, spin, spin. They've tried almost everything out of the Republican playbook. First, there's the "war on terrorism." McCain was a POW in Vietnam, so of course he knows how to run the military and win the "war on terror." No? Palin lives in Alaska, which is near Russia, so of course she knows foreign policy. No? McCain is a "maverick," although he has voted with Bush 90% of the time. Palin is a "maverick" too, although her administration has all kinds of sordid deals leaking out. Now we hear the oldie but goodie spin about "redistribution of wealth." It's not much of a factor for most of us when you think about it because we don't have any wealth. But McCain and Palin would have you believe that Barack Obama will be reaching right into your wallet, swiping your money, and doling it out hither and yon. The real "redistribution of wealth" has been from the working class and the poor to the very rich and to corporations. This commentary by Bill Hare is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

John McCain has taken to once more demagoging the economic issue as the Republican right has traditionally done beginning in the modern era with the tactical and markedly unsuccessful propaganda front directed at Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal.

Roosevelt’s first reelection campaign in 1936 was fresh on the heels of congressional passage and the president’s signature on the landmark 1935 Social Security Act. There was much anger as well resulting from such sweeping legislation as the National Recovery Administration and the creation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 with disciplinary powers applicable to Wall Street.

Laissez faire was what the members of the American Liberty League, the vigilant opposition group to Roosevelt’s economic policies, favored. His comprehensive changes in U.S. economic policy during a critical Depression period prompted them to hurl charges of “socialism” while others went beyond that and asserted that FDR was a dictator of a Communist or Fascist model.

October 27, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


A SYSTEM RIGGED FOR THE RICH

Anyone who paid attention knows that the "trickle down" economics preached by Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and their devotees hasn't trickled down to the majority of us. It was never intended to benefit the working class or the middle class. It was designed all along to enrich the already rich. Tax cuts for the very wealthiest among us are only the most obvious example. Military spending is a cash cow for the rich and high long-term interest rates are another bonanza. This article by Robert Freeman is at www.commondreams.org:

John McCain’s drowning campaign has grasped at the straw of “socialism” to try to smear Barack Obama’s economic proposals. The dirty little secret is that socialism is much more characteristic of McCain’s policies than Obama’s. But it’s socialism for the rich.

It has been an explicit tenet of Republican economic policy since at least Ronald Reagan that the rich need more money and that it is the essential job of government to make sure they get it.

This is what David Stockman, Reagan’s first Budget Director, meant when he let slip that supply side economics was really a “Trojan Horse” intended to pass the nation’s wealth upward. Reagan pursued that goal with evangelical fury.

He enacted a dizzying array of tax and spending policies, all designed to benefit the wealthy. He cut the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners from 75% to 38%. A huge bonanza in its own right, this was only the beginning of the ladling.

Reagan’s massive budget deficits drove up long term interest rates, another boon to the rich. The rich are lenders and lenders prefer higher interest rates. Reagan and his successor, George H. W. Bush, delivered in spades, turning the U.S. treasury into a printing press for the rich. The data speak for themselves.

Jimmy Carter's last deficit was $77 billion. By the end of the Bush I era, deficits had reached $300 billion a year and the national debt had quadrupled, from $1 trillion when Reagan took over, to $4 trillion. Interest payments on that debt had soared from $70 billion a year under Carter to over $300 billion a year.

THE INSECURE RICH

I believe the rich in this country like to tell themselves they're more deserving than the rest of us. They're more hard-working, more innovative, thriftier, more virtuous, favored by God, whatever. Never mind all the rich who inherited their wealth the way kings of old inherited their crowns. Never mind the component of luck. As this author says, most of us are born with two strikes already against us. It's a struggle in this society to survive, much less get rich. We have to scratch for things that should be ours: food, housing, education, and health care to name a few. This article by Maryscott O'Connor is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

A level playing field, indeed. Imagine an America in which everyone begins life on home base, with no balls and no strikes. Or, to use a clearer analogy -- on a level field, rather than some on a mountaintop and some in a ditch. Simple, really: Healthcare for all, food and shelter, education and basic employment -- all basic necessities guaranteed for all. For every other element one might wish, one would simply have to... work hard. To compete in a truly free market, unemcumbered by hunger, by the disabilities of race, family circumstances, "who you know." One's merits would truly be the yardstick by which accomplishments, achievements and advancements would be measured. THAT... is socialism.

Now, WHO could feel threatened by THAT?

I'll tell you who: The TRUE elitists in this VERY unlevel playing field on which we all stumble and on which we've been playing, blindfolded, listening to propaganda over their corporate-funded loudspeakers for generations. Propaganda that's told us that "Socialism equals Communism equals Russia equals Stalin equals BAD!

October 23, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


BUSH'S VERY BAD KARMA

For many years the rich and privileged in the United States have reveled in their sense of superiority. They "deserve" tax cuts because they already allegedly pay more taxes than their fair share. They're the "achievers" who drive the economy. The rest of us are just slugs, you see, who should be grateful for the largess of these wonderful folks who are the doers and shakers. I have a funny feeling that the privileged wouldn't do very well without all the people who provide all the hard work, goods, and services that keep things going. Now the privileged are getting their comeuppance as the system they've created and supported is collapsing around them. This article by Chris Rowthorn is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The must ungodly, screaming, naked irony of this whole mess is that no one blames Bush for any of this. Oh no, the collapse of the entire American economy was caused by a few wanna-be homeowners who took loans they couldn't afford and a few "predatory lenders" who took advantage of them. Neither the media nor the public seem to notice that the "subprime borrowers" are merely the weakest link in the economic chain, the canaries in the coalmine of the American economy. No one mentions that Bush almost doubled the national debt. No one mentions the catastrophic rise in oil prices caused by the invasion of Iraq and the threat of war with Iran, or how it slowed the economy at the worst possible time. No one mentions how Bush wasted US$1 trillion on a war of choice (money which could pay for both the bailout plan and the stimulus plan combined). No one mentions that Bush showed no leadership whatsoever as the crisis deepened. In short, no one mentions how Bush took the American economy and drove it off a cliff. Let me be frank: trying blame the meltdown entirely on subprime borrowers and lenders is like trying to blame the entire Abu Ghraib torture scandal on Pfc. Lynndie England. If you believe that Bush bears no responsibility for present economic crisis, then I've got some mortgage-backed securities you might be interested in.

October 22, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


OUR VERSION OF THE GLASS CEILING

Since the Reagan administration there has been a dramatic increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. The rich have made out handsomely, but working class people have seen their incomes stagnate or decline. In the meantime, everything else is more expensive: food, gas, health care, education, and housing. It isn't just an issue of declining living standards. It's also an issue of social mobility, or the lack of social mobility. One of the great myths in the United States is that by working hard and playing by the rules you can climb the social mobility ladder. The fact is if you're born poor you're likely to remain poor. This article by Jim Lobe is at www.commondreams.org:

That gap has grown particularly large in the U.S. since 2000 -- that is, under the administration of President George W. Bush -- according to the report, which found that the gap between the U.S. middle class and the wealthiest 10 percent has also increased.

The growth in the divide has major implications for social mobility, according to OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria, who said the report's data had demonstrated that the notion that inequality encourages the poor to do better is false.

"Social mobility is low in countries with high inequality like Italy, the UK (United Kingdom), and the United States. And it is much higher in the Nordic countries, where income is distributed more evenly," he told reporters.

"This means that, in most high-inequality countries, dishwashers' sons are more likely to be dishwashers and millionaires' kids can assume that they too will be rich," he said, adding that governments could do much to promote mobility, particularly through progressive tax policies, greater social spending, job creation, and increasing investment in education.

October 21, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


WORLD'S SECOND LOWEST BUSINESS TAXES

Pity the rich and business in this country. If you listened to the right-wing's tales of woe, you would think they just get hit with massive taxation that pays "welfare" for all us deadbeats. The fact is that most of us in the working class pay a higher effective rate, the rate that really counts, than corporations and the rich. This commentary by David Sirota is at www.ourfuture.org:

This concept of effective tax rates (ie. the tax rate actually paid and enforced) is key to understanding the most telling part of this Fox News discussion - the part at the end where former Bush-Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck parrots McCain campaign talking points about America supposedly having a very high corporate tax rate in relation to the rest of the world. This, says Dyck and fellow Republicans, is driving businesses to move offshore.

It sounds like a credible storyline, especially considering that officially, our corporate tax rate is somewhere between 35 and 39 percent. But, as always, the devil is in the details.

To know how high - or low - the effective tax rate is, you have to go beneath the top-line rate and account for all the loopholes, subsidies and write-offs - and the way to do that is by looking at corporate tax revenues as a percentage of a country's GDP. That way, you know how much corporations are actually paying as a share of your overall economy - in other words, you know the real corporate tax rate, not the fake one advertised by top-line numbers. And when you look at America's tax structure through this lens, you see that even the Bush Treasury Department admits we have the second lowest effective corporate tax rate in the industrialized world (see page 42 of this report).

Indeed, this explains the dissonance between Republican claims of "highest corporate income tax rate in the world" and the recent Government Accountability report showing that most corporations pay no corporate income taxes at all. The latter is the truth - most corporations don't pay any taxes because of loopholes, writeoffs and subsidies that allow them to effectively reduce that 35 percent corporate tax rate to zero. In fact, many profitable corporations actually collect tax rebates. But as I told Fox News, we don't hear criticism of that kind of "corporate welfare" from the Republican mouthpieces deriding Obama's middle-class tax cuts as welfare.

LEARNING FROM HISTORY

The economic disaster we've suffered under the administration of George W. Bush is just the latest example of rotten Republican economic policies. Republican policies are always tilted toward the rich. To Republicans and their constituency inflation is the horror. A full employment economy with decent paying jobs means more inflation. So Republicans tailor their policies toward tax cuts for the rich and for business and toward higher unemployment to reduce inflation. This analysis by Larry M. Bartels is at www.csmonitor.com:

Lower unemployment under Democratic presidents has contributed substantially to the real incomes of middle-class and working poor families. Job losses hurt everyone – not just those without work. In fact, every percentage point of unemployment has the effect of reducing middle-class income growth by about $300 per family per year. And the effects are long term, unlike the temporary boost in income from a stimulus check. Compounded over an eight-year period, a persistent one-point difference in unemployment is worth about $10,000 to a middle-class family. The dollar values are smaller for working poor families, but in relative terms their incomes are even more sensitive to unemployment. In contrast, income growth for affluent people is much more sensitive to inflation, which has been a perennial target of Republican economic policies.

Although McCain portrays Senator Obama as a "job killing" tax-and-spend liberal, the new $60 billion plan Obama unveiled last week also has a tax break as its centerpiece – a tax break specifically tailored to create jobs by offering employers a $3,000 tax credit for each new hire over the next two years. Obama's proposal would also extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks for those who remain jobless, as well as match McCain's in suspending taxes on unemployment benefits.

October 20, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY



MCCAIN'S PHONY CONCERN FOR PLUMBERS


John McCain evidently believes that the road to the presidency is paved with smears, innuendo, lies, and stunts like Joe the Plumber. McCain mentioned "Joe" in the third debate with Barack Obama, claiming that poor Joe would be severely hurt by Obama's tax plan. There were lots of problems with "Joe's" credibility, it turns out. But an examination of the real issue, the tax plan, shows that most plumbers and most working class people in general benefit far more from Obama's plan than would benefit under McCain's trickle down economics. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.nytimes.com:

But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?

First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930.

Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000.

October 17, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


NO QUESTION OBAMA IS BETTER FOR MOST OF US

You can get fixated on the biggest problems confronting the United States. The big black cloud of the economy is off in one direction and the swirling winds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are off in the other direction. But there are other issues that will affect our day-to-day lives where it becomes imperative for an Obama victory in November. One of the biggest issues is the Supreme Court. We need an end to right-wing ideologues getting lifetime appointments to the Court. This article is at www.alternet.org:

When the polls open in 18 days, voters will be faced with a stark choice in presidential candidates -- a choice that ultimately comes down to one question: What do you want the next four to eight years of your life to look like? Because the next president will shape the issues that affect the way we live our day-to-day lives.

The future of Social Security, health care, education, income, employment, civil rights and democracy itself all hang in the balance. And the two candidates are worlds apart in their visions for the country.

From the fate of the Supreme Court to the future of Internet access, here are the 10 most important differences between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.

October 14, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

SHAMEFUL DISCRIMINATION IN FRESNO

The San Joaquin Valley is where tolerance and compassion come to die. This is a place inhabited by a horde of mouth-foaming right-wing reactionaries and it even extends into the Catholic Church. The right-wing is in a major tizzy over a California Supreme Court decision allowing gay people to marry. It will "destroy traditional marriage," we're told. A Catholic priest named Geoffrey Farrow spoke out. He admitted that he is gay and is voting against the hateful Proposition 8 favored by the right-wingers. So Farrow has now been cast out without a salary or benefits. How Christ-like is that? This article by Duke Helfand and Catherine Saillant is at www.latimes.com:

A week ago, Father Geoffrey Farrow stood before his Roman Catholic parishioners in Fresno and delivered a sermon that placed him squarely at odds with his church over gay marriage.With Proposition 8 on the November ballot, and his own bishop urging Central Valley priests to support its definition of traditional marriage, Farrow told congregants he felt obligated to break "a numbing silence" about church prejudice against homosexuals.

"How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives?" he asked parishioners of the St. Paul Newman Center. "I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8."Then Farrow -- who had revealed that he was gay during a television interview immediately before Mass -- added a coda to his sermon."I know these words of truth will cost me dearly," he said. "But to withhold them . . . I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian people not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well."

On Thursday, Fresno Bishop John T. Steinbock removed Farrow, 50, as pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center, which primarily serves students and faculty at Cal State Fresno.

RIGHT-WING SMOKESCREEN ON HOUSING CRISIS

In a desperate attempt to blame someone else for the housing crisis right-wing bloviators have tried to blame Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Supposedly, Democrats in Congress resisted tougher regulation of Freddie and Fannie. Freddie and Fannie then allegedly made unwise subprime loans to "those" people who couldn't pay them back. Voila! Housing crisis. As usual, the facts don't support the right-wing claims. This article by David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hallis at www.truthout.org:

Conservative critics claim that the Clinton administration pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make home ownership more available to riskier borrowers with little concern for their ability to pay the mortgages.

"I don't remember a clarion call that said Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster," said Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.

It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.

October 12, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


RIGHT-WING NONSENSE ON THE HOUSING CRISIS


Right-wingers are really reaching in their efforts to blame the current economic crisis on Democrats. It's not due to the free market predatory capitalism they love, they say, but goes back to the Community Reinvestment Act passed in 1977. The CRA was intended to make loans more available to people in poor and minority neighborhoods. Banks practiced something called "redlining." They were literally drawing red lines on maps of certain areas mostly comprised of minorities and refusing to lend there. The CRA was meant to address that. This editorial is from The Boston Globe at www.boston.com:


And yet the Community Reinvestment Act has nothing whatsoever to do with the subprime mess.


The law applies specifically to commercial banks, which in recent months have been the least volatile part of the financial-services industry. The measure was passed in 1977 to combat redlining, the practice of banks refusing to write mortgages in poor neighborhoods - even when they were taking deposits from residents of those neighborhoods.


To meet Community Reinvestment Act requirements, banks do make loans to low-income homebuyers - often in concert with community groups that provide financial advice and other crucial training. While banks at first had to be "dragged into participating," said Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, loans made under the auspices of the reinvestment law have performed remarkably well. One key initiative of this sort, the state's SoftSecond mortgage program, has a delinquency rate of 1.8 percent - compared with about 5 percent for all mortgages in Massachusetts.

October 11, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


RIGHT-WINGERS ARE WRONG ON EVERYTHING


Right-wing political philosophy in the United States is a little like Dorian Gray mixed with Fantasyland. At first glance, it's like Dorian Gray, very appealing in its concept that you can be "free" of the government and that you, too, can get rich. That's when Fantasyland kicks in. You believe that huge tax cuts for the rich will miraculously transform the economy into a giant money machine that will shower wealth down on everyone. You can simultaneously spend massive amounts on the military and make the United States the toughest kid on the block, cut taxes for the rich, and actually get a budget surplus. You can put prayer back in the schools, discriminate against gay people and other minorities, and take us back to the "good old days." This commentary by Bob Herbert is at www.nytimes.com:


Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.
Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.

It’s not just the economy. While the United States has been fighting a useless and irresponsible war in Iraq, Afghanistan — the home base of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 — has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. Osama bin Laden is still at large. New Orleans is still on its knees. And so on.

Voting has consequences.

October 08, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


HISTORY PROVES GOP'S LOUSY ECONOMIC POLICIES

As I've said before, Republican administrations are an almost certain guarantee of a lousy economy. If you like recessions, high unemployment, more poverty, and more despair, just vote Republican. The economy has always performed better under Democratic administrations. Our policies work and theirs don't. This article by Arthur Blaustein is at www.truthdig.com:


What is downright frightening is that Bush and John McCain seem to still believe an unregulated free market will solve America’s economic problems. Barack Obama, on the other hand, maintains that government has the responsibility to keep our economy on the right track. Obama says he will work toward reducing the debt and deficit. He pledges to help the middle class and the working poor by maintaining benefit levels and eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. He will hold the line on our tax progressivity and fairness by rolling back the Bush tax giveaways to taxpayers earning over $250,000 annually. And Obama wants to target health care, education, affordable housing, alternative energy and the environment with critical investments.


McCain wants to privatize Social Security and probably Medicare, although he gets dangerously vague about this at election time. To finance government spending in the wake of his tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush has borrowed heavily from the Social Security Trust Fund. At the same time, the United States owes huge amounts to foreign investors. McCain and George W. are mired in the failed economic policies of Republican predecessors. In 1980, Bush I called supply-side policies “voodoo economics.” But he embraced these “trickle-down” policies in order to become vice president and then president. Reagan and both Bushes’ royalist economic policies of the 1980s and the past seven years were failures—a fool’s paradise built on the sands of borrowed time and borrowed money. The consequences were staggering debt, industrial decline, shrinking wages, four painful recessions, increased poverty and structural unemployment. The reckless Reagan-Bush-Bush spending and borrowing has brought us to the brink of social catastrophe and economic depression.

October 05, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

PALIN LIED IN THE DEBATE ABOUT SUDAN

In the vice presidential debate with Joe Biden the question of genocide in Sudan came up. Sarah Palin said that her administration had advocated divestment of money Alaska had invested in the Sudan as a way of protesting the atrocities there. The record shows that's not true. She kept talking about cleaning up the corruption in Washington and Wall Street and connecting with "hockey moms." If she can't do the right thing on an issue as important as this, why should we trust her to be vice president or possibly president? This item comes from www.abcnews.go.com:


In Thursday's debate, Palin said she had advocated the state divest from Sudan. "When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars," Palin said.

But a search of news clips and transcripts from the first three months of this year did not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.

"The legislation is well-intended, and the desire to make a difference is noble, but mixing moral and political agendas at the expense of our citizens' financial security is not a good combination," testified Brian Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner, before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan divestment bill in February. Minutes from the meeting are posted online by the legislature.
Gara says the lack of support from Palin's administration helped kill the measure.

October 04, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


RIGHT WINGERS BLAME THE POOR FOR LOUSY ECONOMY

The letters page of The Fresno Bee is a good barometer of right-wing talking points. In the past few days a couple of letters about the current economic crisis caught my attention. The letters made the astounding claim that George W. Bush wanted to regulate Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae back about 2003, that Congressional Democrats resisted, and that the problems at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae brought on our housing crisis and the rotten economy.
So, here we have right-wingers, who normally foam at the mouth about government regulations, suddenly embracing regulations.

But this goes even further. It claims that the problems at Freddie and Fannie are the main reason for the housing crisis, which isn't valid. It also puts the blame on poor and minority people getting affordable loans. The right-wingers claim that these loans were essentially forced on the banks and the loans went bad. So, there you have it: Bush's policies and the right-wingers free market ideas aren't responsible at all. It's just coincidence that we have rotten economies every time Republicans are in power. It's just coincidence that the GOP's fat cat friends always do well and that taxpayers, including those reprobate poor and minority people, wind up bailing them out. This commentary by Sara Robinson is at www.alternet.org:

Conservative pundits and politicians have piled onto the excuse like shipwreck victims clinging to a passing log: The real blame for the current economic crisis, conservatives would have you believe, lies not with anything they did, but rather with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act -- a successful Carter-era program designed to get banks to stop covert discrimination, and encourage them to invest their money in low-income neighborhoods.

It's always easy to tell when the cons are completely lost at sea. The lies get more absurdly preposterous -- and also more transparently self-serving. But when they go so far as to openly and unapologetically latch onto race and class as an excuse for their woes (which this is, at its heart), you know they're taking on water fast -- and scared of going under entirely.

You can hear the conservative commentators burbling this CRA fable from the Wall Street Journal to the National Review; from Rush to YouTube. Neil Cavuto put the essence of the argument right out there on Fox News: "Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster." See! It's all the liberals' fault for insisting on social justice!

October 01, 2008


IMPEACH BUSH



IMPEACH CHENEY


THE END OF THE REAGAN ERA


The absolute disaster we've seen unfold in the financial markets proves conclusively that the free market economics advocated by right-wingers don't work. It's a system that enriches the few and impoverishes the rest of us. It remains stable only as long as the beneficiaries of the system keep their greed in check. But they never do. This article by Harold Meyerson is at www.washingtonpost.com:

We are, just now, stuck between eras. The old order -- the Reagan-age institutions built on the premise that the market can do no wrong and the government no right -- is dying. A new order, in which Wall Street plays a diminished role and Washington a larger one, is aborning, but the process is painful and protracted.

It shuddered to a halt on Monday, when House Republicans, by 2 to 1, declined to support the administration's bailout plan. To lay the blame on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speech (in which she even noted the work of House GOP leaders in crafting the compromise) is to miss the larger picture: The proposal asked Republicans to acknowledge the failure of the market and the capacity of government to set things right. It asked them to repudiate their worldview, to go against the beliefs that impelled many of them to enter politics in the first place.