What Journalistic Integrity?

When you see graphs like the one below, you realize most journalists and journalism entities are led around to ridiculous lengths.  I’ve seen the graph before but haven’t written about it – until I kept hearing about the nonsensical witch hunts being perpetrated by House Republican Teabaggers like Darrel Issa and Fred Upton.  The activities they pursue would qualify them for immediate removal from office in a country with values.

On a related note, I’m sure glad then-Speaker Pelosi decided not to investigate the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations.  No, investigating that would have destroyed the comity of the House.  Real waste, fraud & abuse?  Swept under the rug by Democrats intent on maintaining power.  Fake waste, fraud & abuse?  Ratcheted up to conspiratorial heights by Republican Teabaggers and abetted by the corporate media.

Gasoline Usage Still Way Down YoY; Oil Prices Rising

According to NDD at the Bonddad Blog, Year-over-Year gasoline usage in the U.S. remains significantly negative: 8167 M gallons this year vs. 8810 M gallons last year this week.  That’s -7.3%.

Yet oil prices increased this week by over $4 to $103.24 per barrel and gas prices at the pump rose $0.04 to $3.52 (national average).

Let ‘s state this clearly: it’s not American demand driving those prices up.  We can attribute part of the increase to other growing economies.  But as more people are figuring out all the time, a not inconsequential part of it is commodity speculators.  Then there’s tension over Iran that the Republican Teabaggers are trying to inflame – they just love them all the war and conflict they can gin up (as long as their family members aren’t required to actually serve, dont’cha know).  Finally, don’t discount the role of the giant fossil fuel industry here – do you think they’re taking the Keystone pipeline decision in peace?

As the folks at Bonddad Blog state, oil and gas prices this high helped act like a choke collar on the U.S. economy last year.  Given the relative growing health of the economy since, and the similarly growing prospects for Obama’s reelection largely as a result, that collar might be forcefully reapplied (or no action taken by some to remove it) in order to dim his electoral chances.

Update on OH Democrats

The other day, I ran across a story regarding OH Democrats’ incompetence in the redistricting task for that state and wrote about it here.  They wasted time using volunteers to get petitions signed when a professional outlet was available and ready for work.  But it gets worse than that: Democratic legislators ended up accepting the extremely gerrymandered Republican Teabagger map!  So the volunteer effort was doubly wasted!

Once again, I’ll recap: the map virtually ensures that 16 Republican Teabagger Congresspeople will be elected in 2012 while only 4 Democratic Congresspeople will be similarly elected.  This in a state which decidedly elected President Obama in 2008 – it’s not a Teabagger state at all.  So the good people of Ohio don’t get the appropriate representation for the next decade.  But I guess that’s no big deal.  Do you know why it isn’t a big deal?  Because the fools in charge of the Ohio Democratic Party get to keep their positions!  They remain in power of their moribund establishment while Ohio citizens get screwed!

The problem with all of this, of course, is that the Democratic voters won’t dispose of their party officials.  They’ll buy into the crap that they did everything possible and it was more than enough that “they shined light” on the gerrymandered maps.

Pathetic.

OH Democrats Dreadful Strategizing

OH Democrats made an awful decision to go cheap in their effort to gather signatures to block the Republican Teabaggers’ horrifically gerrymandered congressional district map.  Instead of paying a willing firm to help gather signatures, they felt an all-volunteer force was sufficient.

With 12 days left to a deadline, Democrats still need to collect more than 100,000 additional signature.  That’s slightly less than the number already gathered in 5 weeks’ time.  Oops.

In a state that is known for being pretty evenly split between the two major parties, the Teabagger map would result in 12 Teabagger seats and only 4 Democratic seats.  The inability to make good decisions has its consequences.  Establishment Democrats seem unable on any level to truly understand how to engage in politics.  The Teabaggers aren’t going to play nice just because the Democrats want to.  Perhaps a decade in the extreme minority will help galvanize grassroots Democrats to put together more effective strategies.  Don’t hold your breath, though.

“Bipartisanship” In Action

How successful has the bipartisanship only strategy of governing by “Democrats” worked for Americans?  Pretty damn well … if you’re a Republican Teabagger.  One only need look at recent developments to see just how well this strategy has worked to enact liberal policies:

Michiganders face lower unemployment insurance payments and stricter eligibility rules.

Kansas is trying to become the state with the fewest abortion-licensed facilities: 0.  Remember, abortion is a legal medical procedure.  Other states are trying to ban this legal procedure, regardless of rape, incest, or health of the mother.  Are the Teabaggers screaming that this is a prime example of a big, intrusive government limiting freedom?  Hell no, they’re not.  They have a Black Man in the White House to delegitimize.

Democratic “leaders” are seriously considering ending Social Security and Medicaid.  Perhaps they’re volunteering to do it just so the Republican Teabaggers won’t have to.

The cost of illegal, undeclared, unpaid invasions and occupations the U.S. has perpetrated since 2001?  $3.7 trillion.  Perhaps those Democratic “leaders’ should work to stop the occupations.  That could just stop our hurtling into greater and greater debts and deficits.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations set another record high this year: 394.35ppm.  The globe was the warmest in 2010 than at any other point in recorded history – and likely at any time in tens of thousands of years.  2010 and 2011 have seen more extreme weather events as a result of climate change than at any point in recorded history.  These conditions will only get worse as long as Democrats keep acting “bipartisanshipy” with Republican Teabaggers and never stand up to the dirty energy industry.

So to all the pro-”centrists”: how well is the country doing?  This list took less than 5 minutes to assemble.  There are hundreds of other similar examples.  Maybe it’s time Democrats demanded their elected officials do what they promise on the campaign trail or go work to elect a different Democrat.  This is what voting for the lesser of two evils has brought us.  We’re still walking down the path toward evil.  It’s time to do something else.

Nobel-Prize Winning Economist Rejected By Teabaggers For Federal Reserve Post

The Teabaggers hate everything that isn’t them.  Based in racism, the Teabaggers transcend that disgusting practice.  Case in point: the obstruction of a Nobel Prize-winning economist for the Federal Reserve Board.  Peter Diamond won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on the labor market.  You know – labor – the thing that actually drives the world’s largest economy.  Wages drive demand.  Demand drives the economy – not supply as the Teabaggers zealously cling to.

The obstruction was wrought by one man; one white, upper-class racist Teabagger from Alabama: Sen. Shelby.  He successfully held up the nomination of a Nobel Prize-winning economist because that economist doesn’t agree with with Shelby’s fringe views on how economies work.

I don’t know why Sen. Shelby hates America or Americans. I don’t know why Sen. Shelby thinks that tens of millions of unemployed Americans is good for the economy.  I don’t know why Sen. Shelby decided that he – and he alone – knew more than any other American about economics.  Actually, I do know.  Sen. Shelby wants the Black Man out of the White House.  Anything else, including extending the Great Recession and allowing China to dominate world affairs for the next century, is way down the priority list for Sen. Shelby.  He hates the idea of a black man as President more than he loves his country.

Teabaggers reward failure and punish success.

Will Democrats Push Back On Republican Teabaggers’ Attempt To Gut Medicare?

No.

And I really do think it’s that simple.  Obama has already ceded the majority of the ground that could honestly be considered liberal.  That’s the way he wants it; that’s the way his handlers want it; it’s become the way his supporters want it.  He’s made plenty of pretty-sounding speeches about the topic, saying over and over he won’t let Medicare be turned into a voucher system.  Which tells me that is where things will end up when all is said and done.  Contractual obligations don’t matter to this man or his staff.  Staying in power does.

Mark my words: the big 3 contractual obligations run by the federal government will look very different after Obama and other “Democrats” are done with them.  Those changes might not take place immediately, but they’ll take place.  Just like his health care system reform insurance giveaway – the biggest changes still won’t take place for years, but they’re coming.  And when they get here, it’s not as if the system will be better than was before the reform.  And the Obama drones will swear up and down that the destruction of Medicare will be as good for all of us as the health insurance giveaway was.

Want to prove me wrong, Obama?  Fine, prove me wrong.  Don’t let Republican Teabaggers start the process to destroy programs that have worked quite well for generations.  Actions speak louder than words.  Stand up to extremists for once instead of trying to figure out a way to help them stab the rest of us in the back.

House Republican Teabaggers Vote To Increase Deficit By $1.25T; Does Teabagger Base Care?

I’m guessing not, since today’s vote in the House to repeal the Affordable Care Act was simply the culmination of a go-nowhere strategy that was well publicized since last year and the Teabagger base hasn’t interrupted Republican Teabagger town halls or offices to date.  You see, they only care when Democrats spend more than is available.  When their Teabagger Representatives vote to do the same … there’s nothing but silence.

Teabaggers, whether the base or in office, don’t care that they want to jack up the deficit by $1.25 Trillion.  As long as they can symbolically vote against the duly elected President of the United States who happens to be a Democrat, that’s all that matters.  Stay classy, folks.

Republicans Playing Teabaggers For Fools

One of the supposed primary causes for the Teabaggers to exist was their stated “concern” for the national debt and national deficits.  Never mind that the Bush Regime tripled the national deficit in only 8 short years, it was only when a half-black man was President that the deficit mattered all of a sudden.  There were some noises being made in the leadup to the 2010 election that Republican Teabaggers would hold their elected officials to account if they weren’t serious about deficit reduction efforts.  Well, it turns out the Republican Teabaggers already in office are doing some mighty strange things as the 112th Congress is about to start:

Republicans’ deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically.

To get around this fact, they’ve included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill (scheduled for a vote a week from Wednesday), the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more.

Got that, Teabaggers?  Two of your chief “concerns” are about to run headlong into each other.  If the health industry giveaway legislation is repealed, the deficit will balloon because future costs would no longer be held down.  But if Republican Teabaggers say repealing the law doesn’t count against the deficit (more fuzzy math from the same crowd that helped triple the deficit just a few years ago), what will the Teabagger base do?  Will they storm their Representatives’ offices the same way they stormed Democratic offices in the summer of 2009, demanding that their concerns be addressed?  If nothing like that happens (and I doubt it will) in 3 month’s time, it will prove that the Republican Teabagger movement really was more about race than budget.  It will also be more proof that the Teabagger “movement” really was controlled by obscenely rich special interests.  I can’t imagine the Teabagger base will respond favorably when they figure out the rest of us were pointing that out all this time not to make fun of them, but to try to convince them to look at things honestly.  They were used to elect a Republican majority and now they will be expected to sit on the sidelines and stay quiet for the next two years.

Large-budget items that are racking up trillions of dollars onto the deficit by Republicans aren’t supposed to count against the deficit?  Same old typical Republican hypocrisy.  I await the overwhelming Teabagger response.

Mike Rosen’s Hatred Is Overwhelming – Case Example

Occasionally, I will read Mike Rosen’s editorials in the Denver Post. Mostly, it’s just to keep the latest right-wing hate messages fresh in my mind. His column always includes lies and innuendo. He usually resorts to name-calling. Like most Teabaggers, he can’t seem to help himself. It is rare, however, that he achieves what he achieved today: multiple groups got lumped into the same hate speech.

The supposed topic is the repeal of the odious, unconstitutional “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy keeping certain Americans from serving their country as proudly as Americans who more neatly fit the idyllic vision of an imaginary America that Rosen and other scared, angry white males hold dear.

First, hatred of women,

When she [former Rep. Pat Schroeder] advocated the removal of restrictions on women in combat, it was to advance the cause of radical feminism.

then the real purpose of this diatribe, Rosen’s hatred of homosexuals:

The same can be said for those gay activists whose main objective was to score a symbolic equal rights victory regardless of its toll on the military.

followed by those durned lib’ruls

Public opinion polls showing support for gays in the military include the views of a majority of people with no military experience and no desire to join — liberal sociology professors, for example, who might make lousy leathernecks.

But don’t worry, Rosen’s warrior-worship tendencies come out shining:

Far more significant will be the damage to careers of soldiers and their officers accused of insensitivity, and retention and recruitment losses of those with a warrior disposition — people we can least afford to lose — who will spurn military careers because of religious, moral or cultural objections to open homosexuality.

Heaven forbid a few bigots don’t join or stay in the military. It would be far better, according to Rosen, if the bigots are allowed to openly display their hatred than allowing Americans who want to volunteer to actually do so. There will be no law preventing bigots from being openly bigoted, although that might do more to improve overall morale.

I have a better idea. Let’s pass a law that keeps white, warrior worshipping, others-hating males from displaying those characteristics in public if they want the privilege of serving their country. Then maybe Rosen will want to seriously address civil rights issues.

This is no longer the 1750s, Mr. Rosen. Most of us are thankful that this country has moved beyond the ownership of certain human beings and the open denigration of one of the sexes. Advocating for the outright discrimination of a demographic is morally repugnant.

Cross-posted at SquareState.