Mike Rosen: Forgetful Or Deceitful?

I try not to pay too much attention to people whose view of reality is in stark contrast to obvious facts – Mike Rosen is one of those people.  His columns for the Denver Post are usually so absurd, I read them instead of the comics.

Today’s column crosses a line, however.  This is the linchpin of his argument today [emphasis mine]:

Another covetous complainer, disparaging “absurdly ridiculous” sports salaries, argued that Manning’s salary could, instead, have gone to pay for school buses, textbooks, free lunches, teachers’ pay and other societal needs. In fact, the degree of our compassion and commitment to governmental largess on such items is already measured by $15 trillion of federal debt and more than $100 trillion in unfunded government liabilities.

As usual, extremists like Rosen over-reach to “make their case”.  Rosen wants readers to believe in his fantasy that the $15 trillion of federal debt is 100%, completely due to governmental largess and compassion (Rosen invokes disdain of the mythological welfare queens here).

Really?

Isn’t it interesting that St. Ronnie, the patron saint of modern Teabaggerism, was responsible for $3 trillion of federal debt.  Not only that, but St. Ronnie charged up that debt in 8 short years, tripling the debt of the previous 200 years.  How much compassion and commitment to governmental largess did St. Ronnie have again, Mr. Rosen?

Furthermore, Bushes Sr. and Jr. threw their weight into the federal debt explosion that Teabaggers like Rosen want to pile onto the shoulders of Democrats.  Did Rosen ever write a column taking Bush Jr. to task for invading and occupying two sovereign nations without making sure the budget accommodated such activitie?  No, he did not.n  You see, it’s alright for Teabaggers to rack up $13+ trillion of federal debt.  It’s not alright for a Democrat to rack up $1-2 trillion of federal debt (Clinton was actually paying the debt down in the late 1990s).

Would it be nice to fund schools, textbooks and teachers (not administrators!) to the same tune of Manning’s recent contract?  Sure, it would.  It would have been even nicer if more Denver voters had felt the same way when they agreed to build Pat Bowlen (a 1%er) a new stadium for him with our hard-earned tax dollars.  Denver schools would have seen increased funding and Mr. Bowlen would have faced the choice of extorting another city’s taxpayers or staying in Denver and spending some of his riches to keep his stadium up to date.

Denver voters’ commitment to corporate largess is what we need to discuss.  But Rosen would much rather keep convincing readers that the 1%ers are the victims in our society.  Boo-hoo!

This comment by Rosen is simply disgusting to read:

There are only a handful of people on this planet who can do what Peyton Manning does on a football field. There are many millions of people in this country who can do what teachers do in a classroom.  That’s not to demean teachers, just to recognize an economic reality in a free society.

It’s fascinating to read honest statements from extremists like Rosen.  There are many millions of people who can do teachers’ jobs.  That’s exactly what Rosen believes and he sees nothing morally wrong with insulting them.  The difficulty of a job isn’t what we should discuss here either.  What should we discuss?  The value we place on a teacher vs. a quarterback.  Rosen puts zero value in a teacher and millions of dollars’ worth of value in a quarterback.  In his fantasy world, teachers are not needed and quarterbacks deserve the largesse they receive.  Because entertainment is far more important than education!

Dick Cheney Pushed For Syria Bombing

All I have to say is, “Duh“.

Were he anybody else, Dick Cheney would have been certified as insane a long, long time ago.  As a member of the moneyed elite ruling class, his psychotic viewpoints on governing and the world are allowed to exist in the sphere of public debate as though they were just as valid as any other reasonable human being’s.

What is interesting is that he was proud to stand on his ideological pedestal even as other members of the Bush Regime slowly edged back toward civil discourse on a multitude of topics.  If only the 2000 election weren’t unconstitutionally decided by an ideological Supreme Court; if only the 2004 election weren’t rigged by loyal Bush lieutenants, we never would have found out just how psychotic Cheney really was.

Rep. Giffords (D-AZ) Shot In The Head

After years of increasingly violent rhetoric by the right-wing directed at Democrats, someone finally took action.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while serving her constituents at a public event in Arizona today.

Details are at this time sketchy, which is to be expected.  Some earlier reports claimed Giffords had been killed, but she is now reportedly in surgery but in critical condition.  12 other people on scene were also shot.

The suspect?

The man was young, mid-to-late 20s, white clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down.

This is a disgusting act of cowardice.  This tragic event was presaged by numerous, escalating incidents:

The New York Times writes that Giffords’ office was vandalized in March “a few hours after the House vote overhauling the nation’s health care system.”

Matt Yglesias points out that an anti-Giffords event was held in June with the billing: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”Rep. Giffords was also on Sarah Palin’s “target list.”

The right-wing has not been held accountable for their anti-American speech filled with hate and threats of violence.  I have written since before Obama was elected that unless public leaders took responsibility and worked actively to defuse tensions within the country, someone would eventually be hurt and killed.  This event, while incredibly tragic, doesn’t surprise me.  By Monday morning, right-wing pundits will be claiming that the fault lies with the radical left, that it was people like Giffords who brought it upon themselves.  That will not be acting responsibly.  That will not be exercising American values.  It will be a continuation of public displays of moral cowardice.

My thoughts and prayers are with Rep. Giffords, her family and her staff.

Treasonous Celebrations

Is it me or would people who aren’t angry and white not get away with celebrating a treasonous act?

Republican Teabaggers Fail To Cut NPR’s Federal Funding

This is the Republican Teabaggers’ first brilliant stab at legislating since the 2010 election?  Trying and failing to defund NPR?

Where are the jobs, Rep. Boehner?

Chancellor DeMint’s (R.Teabagger-S.C.) Standing Hold On All Legislation

How will Democratic Senators who care more about self-imposed rules and traditions handle somebody like Sen. Chancellor Jim DeMint (R.Teabagger-S.C.) who held up every piece of legislation in the Senate until he personally cleared its progress?  Until very recently, the public wasn’t even aware that such an abuse of Senate procedure was occurring.  Sen. Chancellor DeMint shouldn’t have the power to be the single person who prevents the Senate from doing what it is supposed to do: deliberate and pass legislation.

Instead, we get nonsense like this:

“It is my understanding Jim DeMint has had a standing hold on everything throughout this two year process,” Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday. “When I have had amendments on a couple of occasions, I have been told: ‘Absolutely, we in the Republican leadership are fine but you are going to have to clear it with Jim DeMint because he has a standing hold on everything.’ So I’m not sure this is a real change from what he has been doing.”

If Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid loses his race to Republican Teabagger Angle, as it looks like he might, will he think back on his lack of drawing attention to this cancer in the Senate?  If Sen. Michael Bennet loses his race to Republican Teabagger Ken Buck, will he think back on his ham-handed attempts at pursuing bipartisanship at all costs?

The Senate is a broken institution.  I don’t want to listen to empty platitudes or promises from anybody on either side of the aisle until the Senate fixes its own problems.  The past 10 years are proof that Republican Teabaggers will do anything and everything in order to pass their legislation and completely halt Democrats from passing their legislation.  Serious people would address this issue.

Republican Teabaggers Get The Constitution Wrong

That’s not terribly surprising to most of the country who watch the Republican Teabaggers screw up on issue after issue, proudly throwing their extremism into the rest of our faces.  But Newsweek has a good article on how Republican Teabaggers get the Constitution wrong.

Republican Tea Partier Ken Buck Called Rape Allegations “Buyer’s Remorse”

Republican Tea Partier Ken Buck has done himself almost no favors in trying to get elected to the Senate this year.  One recent item was Ken Buck’s dismissal of a rape case, calling the allegations “buyer’s remorse”.  Those comments, and others in similar veins, go way beyond insensitivity, as some news reports have written.

Ken Buck is a shining example of what the Republican Party has become: middle-aged white guys who think the 1750s were the best time in America’s history.  Other humans were property and few people had the rights that the white males did.

When you hear a Republican Tea Partier say they want to take the country back, they’re not lying.  Ask them what year they’d like to take the country back to.  Then decide who you vote for this year.

Cons: Less Government Unless Forced Births Are Involved

Seriously, the Cons truly are sickos.  I hesitate to call them people, given news like this (emphasis mine):

One of the laws headed to the [Oklahoma] governor would require doctors to use a vaginal probe in cases where it would provide a clearer picture of the fetus than a regular ultrasound. Doctors have said this is usually the case early in pregnancies, when most abortions are done.

The Cons are clearly confused.  Are they for more government or less?  Because this is the government getting involved in health care decisions, which those same Cons screamed about for over a year.  This is simply more proof that none of the health care debate was actually about an honest disagreement; it was about objecting to anything the half-black President of the U.S. said he wanted.

This is why few Americans are taking the teabaggers seriously.  They push for stupid laws that defy what they themselves say they want.  It’s too much to ask them to make sense – it’s clearly a skill that is simply beyond them.

The worst thing is they want to shove their insane version of reality down the rest of our throats via the government they claim to hate so much.

Tea Partiers Are Mostly Wealthy, White, Ultra-Conservative Men

It’s a little surprising to me why so much attention is being given to the extremist Tea Party.  What’s so shocking about a bunch of older, white rich men being angry at the rest of the country?  They’ve demonstrated for the better part of 30 years that they love to cast themselves as the victims of our society – so nothing they’re saying today is novel, let alone grounded in reality.

Be that as it may, more and more corporate media outlets are running polls to try to crack the nearly impenetrable nut that the Tea Party supposedly represents.  In politics, it’s always good to have numbers to back up arguments.  It won’t make the fringe right-wing any more accountable for their own actions, but the rest of America at least gets a chance to see who they really are.

A majority of Tea Party folks don’t actually seem to be so terribly upset about taxes, which commenters commonly cite as their raison d’etre.  They have said so themselves – they think they’re being taxed fairly.  They have a skewed view of the job President Obama is doing, especially as it relates to the federal deficit and the health insurance mess that was the result of a wasted year of “debate”.

Their deficit concerns are incredibly laughable.  And I think they actually demonstrate what they’re really concerned about.  Before I get to that, I would like to point out that no media polling has yet asked a very important question: if the deficit is really so troubling to you, where were you in the years 2001-2008, when the federal deficit exploded?  President Obama has added a little to the national deficit, it’s true.  I say a little because the last president added many times what this President has or will.  Angry, old, rich white men weren’t screaming about revolts and revolutions last decade.

Why?  Because the president looked like them; because he was one of them.  When the Tea Partiers are threatening to commit violence and cheering domestic terrorists in 2009 and 2010, it is in no small part due to the fact that they don’t like operating in a society that takes care of everybody.  The Tea Partiers loved the historic transfer of wealth that the Cons gave to rich white people.  They’re angry because some of that wealth might find its way back to the people who gave it up in the last 10 years.  Tea Partiers are greedy and selfish.  A majority of them are racist, evidenced by a growing number of poll results, given by the Tea Partiers themselves.

These extremists have made up their own twisted version of history and are trying to force it onto the rest of the country.  Terrorists and their supporters should not be given credence by our media.  That wouldn’t happen if the corporate media didn’t cater primarily to them.