Little Eric Cantor's Special Story

Ahh, it was a mere day after the health care reform bill was passed.  The hill billies and bigots, already full to the gunn'els with shabbily disguised lies and other, overly lipsticked "outrages" from their neo-con mentors, were very, very busy around the country.

There were black Congressmen to be spit on or called "nigger" on the steps of the Capitol.  There was Senator Franks to be called a "faggot" as he walked toward his Senate office.  All this was, of course, conducted as a totally spontaneous  "grass roots" melee --  awash with an inundating presence of network pundits and camera crews -- and, predictably, the latest suspiciously repetitive laments and fear mongering issued forth almost at once.

It was an insult to everything holy.

Would the powerful, out of control tea bag patriots start a civil war?

Was the earlier neo-con prediction that the health care bill would be Armageddon for America becoming reality?

Were the liberals "ramming" our beloved country into some sort of refurbished "Stalinist nightmare?"

Oh, dear.

The story was, uh, ABSOLUTELY RIVETING.

Photo courtesy of

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/applesauce/files/2009/11/eric_cantor_1.jpg

Well, MeanMesa watched, yawning,  practically comatose, as the media fraud boiled and boiled.  Sarah Palin and Rush led their "army of the night" into all sorts of teenage vandalism across the country.  The, uh, people, that is, ALL the people Fox News and the alphabet networks interview from their special list of Super Patriots passed out in American Legion bars, were infuriated at the prospect of, finally, actually having health care.

They were ready to a man to fight for their inalienable right to either face bankruptcy or die without treatment for anything which might ail them.

Totally freaked, the Republican National Committee plummeted into the utter agony of a heart wrenching desperation.  The Democrats, suffering all these injustices from their out of control, right wing neo-con lackeys and thugs would reap a political heyday from public opinion.  The vandalism stories were rushing in.  Windows had been broken by bricks thrown in a modern apparition of Krystal Nacht.

The rightees set their very best wing nut news handlers to work.  This tide HAD TO BE TURNED by conflicting stories before it got too bad.  What little neo-con would emerge from the wreckage to save the day?

BOOM.  Here's Little Eric Cantor (R-Va) staggering forward to "collar the bear!"

"Oh, it was horrible!  A gun shot rang out in the darkness and a moment later a bullet smashed through the window of the Cantor offices!  The Satanic Liberal Health Care Socialists were attacking!  What can we do!  Oh, what can we do?"

Salon Presents the REAL Cantor Office Attack Story

The news reports which had only a few hours earlier been describing the attacks on Democrats by neo-con thugs now quietly slipped into an equal number of "stories" about how ALL Congressmen were being attacked.  Yeah, there were mostly Democrats on the receiving end, but that's not important any longer -- A REPUBLICAN WAS ATTACKED!

HEY!  HEY!  Over here!  LOOK AT ME!  I WAS ATTACKED, TOO!

YIKES!  IT REALLY IS ARMAGEDDON!  Details at ten.

What a great story, and it couldn't have come at a better time!  Oooops.  Wait a minute.  After a closer look, the details begin to emerge.  First, it wasn't Cantor's office after all.  The "office" with the broken window belonged to a consultant to  Cantor.  

Ooooops.  The "office" wasn't even in Cantor's Congressional District.  It was in Pittsburg.  In fact, it was near where the woman had been mauled by NEGROES who carved a "B" on her face for "Barrack Obama."  Oooops, that didn't actually happen either -- she changed her story later while being questioned by the police.

Oooops, the bullet which broke the window in the office which wasn't Cantor's office and wasn't in Cantor's District wasn't actually even shot at the window it broke.  The police investigation revealed that the shot had been fired into the air some distance away and only broke the window as it fell to Earth. 

MeanMesa is sure that the Republican National Committee was back on the line in a New York Minute.  The story was falling apart before their eyes.  All sorts of mean progressive radio hosts were plastering the air waves as they reported the incredible screw up.

Now, Eric Cantor, for those who have seen his pimply little Pompadour whining interviews, frankly lacks the gonads to match the real Republican family values guys who scoff at live prostitutes and dead boys in back rooms.  But still, something had to be done!  This was getting worse by the minute.  The wing-nut "Patriots" of the "Army of the Night" were becoming the laughing stock of the country.

Ahh, it was as if some billowing cloud of Divine Comic Relief had been dispatched from Heaven to wash away all the frustration of the health care debate.

However, although complicated, the Republicans still had full control of their "wholly owned media outlets."  After all, with a political base as illiterate as most of theirs was, practically anything might work

An hour and a half later, police arrested a man for making a "death threat" against Cantor in an unrelated incident.

The Washington Post "Death Threat" Story

It's only a MeanMesa guess, but at least this latest hilarious plan might have a chance to "recapture" some of the RNC's base with a "sympathy vote."

Post Posting Script:  Now, a day after this original posting, additional facts have surfaced about this "death threatener" who just appeared in such a serendipitous, timely and convenient manner.  Apparently, he is another Biblical Scholar who has, turn by turn, threatened just about everybody on Capitol Hill up to and including President Obama.  The exact charge is that he threatened to kill Cantor's "cup cake" wife.

It's a good thing that the Democrat's are devoting their time to actually working on stuff which will help the American people. 

Part One - An Overview of Education Reform

President Obama once said, "If something were easy, it wouldn't wind up on my desk."

We can go a little further as we consider the basic premise of that comment. In any particular challenge to the country, and, hence, to the President, the work will inevitably include two parts, that is, in the sense of students around here, each effort will inevitably include a Primary and a Secondary Model.

The Primary Model will deal with the specific substance of the challenge. The Secondary Model will be equally critical, entrenched in the interpersonal aspects of the challenge. You know, politics.

Education reform will be no exception.

Not only will President Obama have to create a plan which will directly address the immediate threat of US educational failure, he will have to formulate that plan in a way which will address the "multiple constraint environment" in which it will ultimately be hosted and executed.

"Multiple constraint environment?" Secondary Model?

Yes. The Primary Model will deal with the material changes which will be required to re-establish a functional educational system -- it will include all parts of the reform other than the political lubricant required to enlist the American taxpayers, the Congress, the teachers, the parents, and, of course, the hill billies. The Primary Model is the substance of the changes necessary to start producing educated students. More about that later.

However, we all know that whatever the Primary Model might be, putting it in place will have everything to do with the success of all the aspects of the Secondary Model.

How will people see the plan? How accurately will people gauge the  pressing necessity of it?

Will they be enthusiastic supporters or will they fight any proposal "tooth and nail," inebriated with an out of date, aging, neo-con ideology, bombarded with vacuous "talking points" and crassly manipulated by every scare tactic which can be applied by those who, caring nothing about the future of the country, will selfishly pay any price to recapture political advantage?

As the program is being designed, its final success will be a mix of the two components. It can never work if the essential nature of it doesn't address concrete matters of classrooms, text books, students, parents, teachers and graduation rates, but it can also never work if the people who must support it can be convinced not to support it.

In the words of Ed Schultz (The Ed Schultz Show, KABQ 130 AM, Albuquerque, 4PM to 7PM weekdays), "The rocks come with the field."

The whole thing is complex enough that MeanMesa could make posts as long as the Manhattan phone book on the subject. However, let's try to stay focused on what we consider the essential facets of the undertaking. This means, "Don't be too critical of our treatment of the matter just because you think we've left something out of the soup."

Is Obama Over Reacting?

To set the stage, MeanMesa presents the following background. First we can suggest a quick review of a couple of earlier posts on this blog concerning both the issues of substance and the political challenges.

Obma's Next Stink Hole: Educational Performance Testing

http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2009/03/bd87our-next-stink-hole-educational.html

The Surrender of Critical Thought

http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2009/08/surrender-of-critical-thought.html

Now, to assuage those visitors who might think MeanMesa has, once again, "fallen off the wagon" of our normal genteel equanimity while blowing the horn for our own posts, we have tried to select just few videos which might validate our -- and, perhaps, Obama's -- extreme concern about this topic. For background preparation, spend a couple of minutes with the videos at the other end of these links. They speak for themselves.

A short little "speech" from Michael Savage and some of his listeners:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhJkOz3afFY&feature=related

A You Tube short from Kieth Olberman's show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXAzp9J9Hic

Although the subtle messages in these videos might seem just a little "out of sorts," this quality of discourse would never be possible among a populated electorate.  

THAT is the focus of this series of postings on education. When the citizens appearing in these videos are invited to explain what has brought them to these positions, they are only able to offer only the "talking points" which have incited their anger.

That is the foundation of Obama's commitment to critical education reform and this series of MeanMesa postings.

And, to lighten things up a little here at the very end, from Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/25/the-dumbest-things-beauty_n_476548.html#s70706

Why include such a hilarious thing in a posting about education reform?

Well, there is a point -- one which is made clearer by a PBS coverage of a week or so ago.  In the PBS News Hour story, the women who flew bombers and fighters to the front lines in WW2 were being honored  by the President and the Congress. 

 The video from PBS News Hour:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june10/wasps_03-10.html

The context for a beneficial comparison surfaces right here.  Could these theoretically educated beauty queens contribute in a similar way when the nation needed their help?

Worse, given the personal development of such beauties,  would they?  We begin with the context of education and education reform, but we are almost immediately confronting matters of being.  Human beings have to, well, be, and that undertaking in this culture means being educated.

Please join MeanMesa for the whole series of postings on education reform.

After Greed Exhausts One's Friends

MeanMesa sees a series of stories in the events of the world which seem to ring a tone too similar to each other to be ignored.  Now, certainly the aspects of each of these is a study in variation and diversity.  The "on the ground" details derive no commonality with each other -- in fact, they are so disparate that a studied comparison of their sameness is a bit taxing as a topic even from the outset.

To bring this phenomenon to the dinner table where it can be personalized for the benefit of our esteemed and greatly appreciated MeanMesa visitors, perhaps we can approximate it in terms of specifics, that is, in terms of events in individual relations we all might have encountered.  We have all had a friend, relative or casual acquaintance with whom we have enjoyed a very casual sort of gradually expanding understanding.

The relationship itself, although never formalized by covenant or contract, rolls along very comfortably between the two parties.  There are no egregious slights or injuries arising during the period of growing confidence and comfort.  In time, we feel -- again, quite unofficially -- that we, well, understand each other.  However temperate or intimate the relation becomes, expectations of the other continue to be met.

Then, perhaps rather suddenly, we find that the other party has drifted far too far beyond the boundaries of the comfort level we had enjoyed previously.  Instead of the comfortable and casual relation, we find ourselves, perhaps, exploited or roughly manipulated.  The other party has taken a position, adopted an ambition or simply begun to demand that we provide more than we had previously ever thought reasonable.

The comfortable becomes the uncomfortable.

We are stranded with the task of deciding whether the value of the relationship is being exceeded by the cost of the exploitation.  

All this would be little more than an abstraction to be considered in sterile academia if examples were not to be quickly provided at this point.  But first, let's attempt a generalization where the essential components can be codified into parallel and comparable aspects.  That might take this form:

Part One:  The unofficial premise which has up to this time provided the basic foundation of where the boundaries are.

Part Two:  The actions of other parties which seem to exceed these casual limits.

Part Three:  The consideration of the balance between continuing this relationship and acceding to the newly imposed demands or finding the investment required to meet those demands too high and modifying or terminating the relationship.

Part Four:  We can employ this final part as reservoir for all the complications, conditions and pending arguments which might surface as we proceed through the first three.

Let's take a look at some examples -- there are many more than the ones which appear on this list.

Example 1

The Parties:  Greece and the European Union
Part One - The Premise of the Relationship

As the EU was being formed, and subsequently, as new members were gradually admitted to the Union, there was the general perception that, since all the parties would be using the same currency and, hence, impacting its value as it was used in the economies of other members, an acceptably similar policy of fiscal restraint would be followed by all.

Part Two - Exceeding the Limits

Greece, partly as a result of its previous (prior to joining the EU) fiscal policies and partly as a result of the leadership during its membership, failed to impose the fiscal discipline implied by the agreement.

Part Three - the Balance Between Cost and Worth

As it became clear that Greece's fiscal largess was going to require EU resources for its correction, other member states were faced with the prospect of "tightening their belts" because Greece had not "tightened its belt."  The question became whether or not it was worth bailing out Greece to sustain the integrity of the EU Treaty, the value of the Euro and the prosperity of other member's economies.

Part Four - Complications

Unlike the premier economies in the rest of the Union, Greece lacks a basic manufacturing/export/resource base which would make relatively quick fiscal changes either effective or possible.  The contest will be between the domestic political ramifications of EU assistance and the extended period of rather Spartan discipline which will be required to extricate Greece from its bad habits.

Example 2

The Parties:  Israel and the United States
Part One - The Premise of the Relationship


The constant and reliable support of Israel's security extended by the United States is very much directed at its defense from any repetition of the previous Arab invasion attempts.  Implied in the agreement is the idea that Israel will not purposefully antagonize these old enemies unreasonably, drawing direct US intervention into play.



Part Two - Exceeding the Limits


Although US foreign policy has tacitly courted Israeli "tough talk" with Iran, our diplomatic policy has been based more fundamentally on its willingness to patiently but consistently draw itself closer to a "two state solution" with the Palestinians.


Part Three - the Balance Between Cost and Worth


The US finds itself stuck with its policy of continuing to sustain its military and diplomatic commitment to keep Israel safe from aggression while the Israeli state continues to provoke Palestinian intransigence toward any sort of peace agreement.  We seem to be pinned between supporting a valuable friend who  enjoys our backing for its continuing security and a stubborn and aggressive state with ambitions which can only be met by acting against our policy goals.


Part Four - Complications


Although the abandonment of Gaza was a provocative and material step, in the context of the draconian Israeli policies since then, it seems to have had little effect on moving the peace process very much.  When other issues such as the simultaneous claims of ownership of Jerusalem, the repatriation of all refugees from the region of the Israeli state, the isolation wall and water rights are added to the mix, Israel has, frankly, incorporated enough "moving parts" to provide conceptual diplomatic "cover" for its intransigence.  The Palestinian Hamas hasn't helped much either.

Example 3

The Parties:  Georgia, the Russian Federation and the US
Part One - The Premise of the Relationship


Georgia, as a burgeoning democracy among the remnants of the old Soviet Empire, was anxious and willing to accept an implied US backing for its continued autonomy in such close proximity to its recent sponsor and powerful neighbor.  It was expected to pursue gradually improving relations with Russia as it behaved in a rational, mature manner.



Part Two - Exceeding the Limits


Where an on-going negotiation might have gradually diffused domestic conflicts with the Federation in Georgia's two Northern provinces, a very poorly planned scheme of hostility erupted instead.  The ambitions inherent  in Georgia boldly confronting a super-power military as a consequence of behaving badly in its domestic affairs  ranged too far afield beyond the commitment implied by its US security agreements.


Part Three - the Balance Between Cost and Worth


Although the US hardly had an appetite for sacrificing a very visible post-Soviet ally to the "Russian bully," the prospects of antagonizing the Russian Federation was clearly too high a price to pay to sustain continuity in our support.  We let the military conflict run its predictable course -- all the while lamenting the outrage of the brusque treatment of tiny Georgia -- before initiating a very  conservative program of rearmament.

We didn't really stand up or run away.


Part Four - Complications


This whole affair unfolded during the Presidential campaigns of 2008.  The reactionary elements in the McCain camp, probably responding to a scheme cooked up by Mr. Rove and other neo-con political advisors, had quietly emboldened the President of Georgia to try such a reckless gambit based on the ill considered likelihood that the Federation would back down.  It didn't back down, and we couldn't help without rattling our ICBM's, threatening the EU's natural gas supply or permanently forsaking our hope for Russian assistance in Iran.

The List of Parties and Circumstances can include far too many other examples.  We can look at the destructively strained relationship between:

 - the neo-cons and their right wing, evangelical political hosts,


 - the "trust relationship" between the US government and its contsituency of voters


- the affections of Iranians for Americans and the rancor between 
the Iranian state and US policy,


- the Iranian people's hopeful attraction to an Islamic Iranian government and the violent repression after the election,

- the trust of Catholics in the authority and legitimacy of the Church and the cynical behavior of their spiritual leadership in the sex abuse cases.

A great number of these "conflict of interest" incidents can be laid at the boots of the autocracy's savage appetite to convert absolutely anything into a domestic political advantage by synthetically constructing innuendoes of either conspiracy, deception or betrayal in their relentless schemes to promote fear and mistrust in the domestic political arena.  The fact that either poorly designed or outrightly cynical US involvement in such matters often left either dead bodies or desperate, wrecked economies in its wake makes a thorough understanding of this an unavoidable necessity in our path forward.

We seem to be doing a little better in this with an elected, idealistic President who is not politically intimidated with the prospect of acting honorably.

MeanMesa's compliments to the President.

The Shame of Churches: Mystery and Contradiction

MeanMesa watches in puzzlement as yet another wave of child sexual abuse allegations rises up the meet the Catholics.  We suspect that the crimes are far more widely perpetrated than those specific accusations against the Sons of the Vatican.  Perhaps, the deep pockets of the Catholics have incited episodes of less tolerance by introducing an existential possibility of tangible relief for the victims.

The stench roams far and free -- from the cathedrals to the mega-churches.  The behavior is elastic -- from deaf boys trapped in a school to meth dealers and homosexual prostitutes as hired lovers.  Every one is a wrecking ball intent on the destruction of someone or something -- the perpetrator, the institutions, the congregations, the believers and the victims.

The treasuries of the "dirty shirt preachers" perched in poverty and  nestled in, for example,  shanties across the South and Appalachia are either by design or circumstances reflecting the wealth -- and generosity -- of their parishioners, less attractive hosts for remedies of the derelictions of the past.  The scandal is, unhappily, more than broad enough to encompass some such practices no matter where one looks.

Viewing all of this through the eyes of an avowed non-religionist, MeanMesa is stranded with a troubling question from it all.  It would seem that the essential structure of such worship franchises stands in an unreconcilable contradiction to the "facts on the ground." 

What is the question?

MeanMesa wonders. "How has this happened?  Why has it happened so frequently and so consistently?  Is it a recent development or has it been going on all the time -- for centuries?"

And, perhaps an even more vexing question, "What were these various religionists thinking while they had their pants down?"

Not being associated with any of these churches or religions, MeanMesa may be enticed to view things too comfortably and simplistically.  However, aside from that caveat, perhaps such an external view may have some non-ecclesiastical merit of its own.

We are the first to stipulate that, at one time, the Catholic church, for example, was a deeply esoteric institution.  The revelatory prospects of not dying and, in fact, being ascended to heaven to meet all of one's dead relatives in a realm of total bliss were not a work product of St. John the Divine.  They were in place long before the Old Testament.  That possibility has always coerced religionists to accept and submit to the authority of whatever religionist franchise held the reins at any certain moment.

One would think that a man determined to abrogate all the features and themes of a normal life to become a priest would be infatuated with the possibility of his own salvation -- especially when it might be derived at judgement by the assistance he has provided others in a similar project.  When the compelling nature of the esoteric is injected into such a mix, MeanMesa would suspect that the secret energy of such a spirit might make such a life -- and such an undertaking -- hypnotically satisfying to the man making the decision.

In the most general terms, being a priest would become unimaginably difficult absent the reconciling externality of the divine mythology.  The priest is charged with thinking of his own salvation and the salvation of his charges all the time to the exclusion of more sanguine topics.  His esoteric foundation in such systems is what makes possible his claim to such piety.

This foundation, presumably, should be precisely the foundation of his training for the priesthood.  When he is "collared" on that final day at his seminary, his mind must be saturated with his calling.  The earthly details of what other matters  which might also be involved should, reasonably, languish as a distant second to the supernatural commitments he has made.

Yet, earthly details are the full fodder of the process we see underway to correct these transgressions.  Everything is policy.  The scandal is about being covered up, not centered on having committed the act in the first place.  The esoteric  demands of priesthood are set aside, an awkward guest at the table when real, newspaper headline hypocrisy is the main course.  It seems that none of the religionists, whether at the "top" or at the "bottom" of these structures of faith, have any stomach for the Old Testament treatment.

The importance of judgements of policy have shoved aside the importance of  judgements of righteousness.  We see a gigantic church obsessed with its own practices rather than with its supernatural progress.  That supernatural progress, both as it penetrates the priestly class and the supplicant class, appears to be the essence of the matter, but, apparently, the primary interests of those involved seem to reside squarely with policy.

It may be too easy to assign all these MeanMesa comments to the Vatican alone.  At this moment, Rome is the most visible, but for all we care the same criticism can be laid at the boots of Horus, Enlill, Mithra or Baal.

The immense economic drain of these established religious franchises has long ago ceased to be a rational purchase.  When the wars, bigotry, psycopathy and terror which always seem to emerge in their wake is added to the mix, the  distasteful cash extraction and hypocrisy pale.

The time of desert fairy tales may be, at long last, ending.  The final collapse will not occur at the hand of an adversary, but rather from lack of interest in continuing with it.

The Senate Republicans After Health Care Passage

MeanMesa Asks:  
"How are the Grand Old Party Patriots (GOPPs) handling the passage of the 
Health Care Reform Bill?"

Uh, not very well, it seems.

Aside from getting every dirty shirt Attorney General from all the "down south somewhere" states to immediately file an attack of frivolous Constitutional law suits as they try to block health care for the poor, the Senate Republicans, in yet another of their  zombie-like 100% tantrums, have invoked an ancient Senate Rule to stop all work every afternoon at 2 PM.  What exactly does this mean, and what exactly are they doing?

How the Senate Usually Works

Senate business starts at noon.  Of course, Senators are in their offices earlier than than receiving campaign contributions from their, uh, friends, but activities such as the famous Senate "debates," votes and committee hearings all begin at noon.  At 2 PM, two hours later, the Senate is required to act to extend the day's working session on through the afternoon by passing a quick unanimous consent vote to keep going.

If the unanimous consent vote fails, the Senate stops for the day.  And, this "stoppage" isn't limited to the dry cereal pablum we might see on C-Span. either. It extends to everything the Senate is doing.  When the nation is stuck in two worthless wars, an economic meltdown and the mindless diplomatic crises left over from the autocracy, the Senate is, well, expected to be doing something for the American people all afternoon everyday.

That would be, "doing something" for longer than two hours each week day that the Senate is in session.

The average (rough) annual salary for a Senator is around $175,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate

What's Going On Now

The Senate Republicans, once again manifesting their creepy "to a man" lockstep, are refusing to pass the unanimous consent every day.  This can be best understood by the threat that  Grandpappy McCain spouted out the day after the health reform bill passed.  His "pissy" little snit basically said that the Republicans would do everything they could to stop all work which might help the Democrats win the midterm elections in November.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/gop-senators-refusing-to_n_511639.html

Now, this might sound like simply another little "burp" from the petulant children inhabiting the reactionary chairs on the Senate floor -- you know, just more politics as usual.  However, when MeanMesa looks at some of the stuff that will be "clogging up the drain" because of this maneuver, we see more than an innocent blob of our teen aged daughter's bleach-blond hair and chewing gum.

To bring home the paradox, an example will be helpful.

The Example

Senate Republicans Are Willing to Sabotage Afghanistan for Political Gains

This would be the heartbreaking story of "hearings."  Just about all the important stuff the Senate ever does begins with "hearings." Perhaps everyone can remember the famous "hearings" that Senator Baucus held while he was carefully negotiating away everything Americans wanted in the health care reform debate.

Although many of these Seante hearings would normally be going on in the afternoon sessions -- that is, committee meetings which might occur after 2 PM on a normal day before the Republicans began this scheme -- are effectively castrated by the lack of these unanimous consent votes, we can look at a specific example for an explanation of exactly why this latest reactionary move is so lethal.

One of the many hearings which have been scheduled for months was an examination of the corruption in the US policy of training Afghan police. 

Thanks to the Republican idea that everything of value either has to do with more campaign contributions or winning the next election by inflaming the information challenged voters -- almost never for the good of the people or the country -- this police training operation is mired in an abyss of worthless, crooked, no-bid contractors who are not only sucking boatloads of tax dollars out of our Treasury, but, while doing that, are also really pissing off the Afghans and not really creating many well trained Afghan policemen.

This long scheduled committee hearing was to get to the bottom of this little "stink hole."  Some Democratic Senators were convinced that this was something they could definitely improve -- beginning with this Senate Committee hearing, then going forward for a later floor vote on the corrective action to be taken.

Military commanders from around the world, State Department officials in charge of this operation, Defense Department big-wigs and other folks were scheduled to testify in this hearing.  For a moment, it looked very much like the problem was finally going to receive the attention it deserved from the Senators involved.

Ooops!  The hearing is cancelled.  It was, unhappily, scheduled for after 2PM, and, as such, fell under the "knife" of the Senate Republican tantrum.  If you, as a MeanMesa visitor find this troubling, remember that all sorts of other things have been cancelled, too!

This sort of drunken Senate rule banging is left over from a previous age.  MeanMesa has been watching the Senate do such things for decades.  Forty or fifty years ago a scandal such as this would have hardly raised an eyebrow.  During those happier times, the country was fat with prosperity, honor and determination -- the Senate would not have dared such a selfish, childish maneuver under Ike or LBJ.  But, here we are...

Read more at the following links.

from Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/23/senate-unanimous-consent/

and from True/Slant:

http://trueslant.com/johnknefel/2010/03/24/gop-wont-work-past-2-pm-because-naptime-is-important/

Talk to your neighbors, your family, your butcher, your barber -- well, you get the idea.  The neo-cons truly believe that this approach is going to lead them to a landslide victory in the midterm elections.  Do we really approve of such a ill-considered and self-serving political tactic when it both endangers the American troops which are in Afghanistan now, threatens the success of the strategy of the President and dishonors the blood our country has already invested there?

All while Senators such as Grandpa McCain, a failed war monger himself, try to claim the "higher ground" as military violence experts?

We have to make sure that doesn't happen.  Neither we nor the nation can afford for these "throwbacks" to cause even more wreckage and be rewarded for it with re-election in November.\

The time to start is NOW.

One Final Ranting Session Plus An Explanation

All right, by this time MeanMesa visitors have grown tired beyond their normal tolerance of a constant flow of postings directed at the outrageous propaganda campaign the neo-cons have waged as they pursue their nightmarish fantasy of destroying the Presidency -- or, at least, mortally wounding it until they can replace the man in the Oval Office with someone who is the right color.  Here we will present a third, final sample of what is being promoted as reckless campaign fodder for this nation wrecking undertaking of theirs.

What could be the purpose served when MeanMesa just seems to continue to harp on the same topic?

Purpose?  There is one.

 First, however, let's take a look at this final example.  It is yet another toxic email from the Freedom Works people, and it is presented here in full.

Wake Up, There Is Work to Do!

Dear Chad,

I almost didn’t get up this morning. I didn’t want to. If you feel like me today, you are physically and emotionally exhausted after a grueling 15 month battle against the Democrats’ hostile takeover of our health care. The tactics they employed to get it done were unlike any I have seen in my 25 years in Washington. Lies, threats, payola, willful ignorance, duplicity, and smears: we saw it all this past week as Nancy Pelosi did whatever it took to pass multi-trillion dollar legislation that will increase the size and reach of government in ways unseen since LBJ.

The taxes will be devastating to economic recovery, hitting capital, small businesses making as little as $200,000, and lower income individuals (with a tax of over $2,000 dollars should you refuse to buy their mandated product) with equal disregard for fairness and economic consequences. The spending in this bill is astronomical, totaling $2.5 trillion in the first 10 years of full implementation. The health insurance industry will become a big, faceless, grossly inefficient government-controlled utility. It, not you, will determine your plan, how much you will pay for it, and the services and treatments that you will receive should you get sick. ObamaCare: harmful tax hikes, massive deficit spending, less health care for those that need it, and no patient choice.

The American people rejected this scheme a long time ago. They rejected it at the August town halls last year, and when they marched – one million strong -- on September 12th. They rejected it again – Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike -- by electing Scott Brown in Massachusetts, denying Harry Reid the key 60th vote he needed to pass ObamaCare on a party line basis. They rejected it again yesterday, with polls showing consistent majorities against it.

For all of these reasons, I almost didn’t get out of bed this morning. I’m tired. But then I started to think about everything that still needs to be done, and my adrenaline surged. As the great moral philosopher Warren Zevon once said: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” So I got up, had several cups of coffee and wrote down just a few of the things to still be done:

First, we need to keep fighting this legislative battle to the end, and that means fighting Senator Reid’s desire to use “reconciliation,” an expedited budget process requiring only 51 votes, wholly inappropriate for passing a new entitlement program of this magnitude. Senate Democrats refused to meet with the parliamentarian before the House vote this weekend, because Republicans have found problems that make enacting the promised House changes problematic under reconciliation rules.

The American people reject the use of this procedural gimmick for such a massive and unpopular bill. Over 300,000 have already signed our petition site, NoHealthCareReconciliation.com, opposing it. The Republican Study Committee has compiled comments from our petition and published them, demonstrating the superior wisdom of the American people broken out by congressional district, on this matter. Control of the Senate is now in play, and we need to turn the pressure up more on this important vote.

Second, we need to take the battle for health care freedom to the states, where there is a movement catching fire to refuse ObamaCare, state by state. This past week, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Idaho joined a number of other states that reject the unfunded costs, the onerous mandate and the very principle of taking health care choice away from individual patients. This needs to become a 50 state effort, and we will be asking every governor and every state legislator where they stand, and to take a vocal stand against a federal government takeover of health care. This year's tax day protests are a great opportunity to make our voices heard once again, in massive numbers.

Third, we need to take this battle to the Supreme Court and repeal the individual mandate, which is the figurative gun to the head of every American enforcing this government takeover. Most serious legal scholars believe that it is unconstitutional. While the Commerce Clause allows for federal oversight of interstate commerce, the federal government may not mandate that every citizen, because of their mere existence, buy the product of a particular industry. If it could, it is a quick and slippery slope towards mandating other purchases, like a government-defined healthy diet. What’s next, a Jenny Craig mandate and federally-enforced gym memberships? This big, creepy step towards Big Brother violates our Constitution, and we must stop it.

Fourth, we must stop Nancy Pelosi’s arrogant abuse of federal power by Taking America Back. It is now clear that Democrat control of both the legislative and executive branches is the problem. They will not bend to the will of the American people, they will not reach across the aisle, and they have neutered every “Blue Dog” Democrat that once claimed to know better. The fiscally conservative activists that have worked so hard to stop ObamaCare represent a genuine “50 state strategy” for freedom, fiscal responsibility, and now, political accountability. We are already organized in all of the battleground House districts and all of the Senate battleground states. We must make November 2nd, 2010 a grassroots referendum on ObamaCare and all that it represents.

Fifth, when we take back Congress, we must use the momentum to repeal ObamaCare wholesale, or piece by piece. Remember how the legislation is structured: the taxes kick in quickly, but the benefits don’t start for four years. That gives us two congressional cycles and a presidential election to get health care right. By “repeal,” I mean offering a real health care reform plan that puts patients in charge, allows market competition to work, and breaks up the new government health care oligarchy.

Finally, and most important, we must all ensure that the millions of freedom-loving activists who arose from their homes these past 15 long months out of their concerns for the fiscal future of America become a sustained community. This grassroots community, bound by shared principles and connected through relationships and electronic networks, is our only hope to change the arrogant culture in Washington this year, next Congress, and after. As Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison: “The People…are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

So wake up! We have work to do.

Sincerely,

Matt Kibbe

President

FreedomWorks.org

Now, all the parts of this email which have been made bold represent matters which should never be able to be presented as anything even resembling fact.  They are not confusions or incomplete arguments, they are outright lies.

In fact, anyone who has paid even a modest attention to the what information is available will be impressed by the fact that these are not subtle misrepresentations, they are outrageous claims which are one hundred eighty degrees opposite the material facts.  This is the nature of the drivel being relentlessly pumped into the electorate by the "patriots" on the right.  The frenzy reveals just how frightened they are.

The neo-cons are in the process of losing everything of value in what's left of their movement.  The number of American voters who will actually vote based on such misinformation dwindles by the day.  When the right wing's hyperbolic claims about the health care bill causing the end of the country are gradually beached like dead salmon in the spring, even more of their base will be staggering around in an ideological hangover.

MeanMesa isn't inclined to even put forth an effort to discredit all this muck -- it is flowing now like the high tide at flood Brutus calls to Cassius.  

There does, however, remain the matter of the point.  

What is the point?

All these posts about "ranting and raving" show us something.  The message has much more to do with education than with politics.  None of these cheap, trailor park schemes could have moved a single gram of dog poop had the receiving class been educated enough to see through them.  

In fact, had that education been accomplished in these uninformed voters, an interest in events would have also increased, and, with that increased interest, the naivete would have been seriously lessened.  The neo-cons from Mr. Rove to the little pimp who tried to soil ACORN are absolutely banking on this carefully fostered lack of information to ever possibly sell their toxic wares and win elections.

We've seen that during the last eight years.

Here we are speaking of education beyond the purist sense.  Literacy in math and reading may be one thing, but the capacity to understand the reality of current politics can't be divorced too far from the hostilities of the debate.  Our democracy depends on informed voters to search out their interests in the political "kick boxing."  Dumbies, once inflamed out of their right minds with lies such as the ones in the letter above, just show up with a sledge hammer, then covered with blood, blame the opposition for "ruining the game."

Having endured these introductory postings about an uninformed electorate, MeanMesa will move on to the "pay layer" of the central point of all of this.

EDUCATION REFORM

Please join us for that!

More Media Fraud Ranting

Does anyone still wonder what the ultimate effect of this drivel might be?

Take a look at Fire Dog Lake's account of the results of the latest Harris poll.  While you are looking at it, remember that this sort of public opinion can only come from one source.

Folks could never cook something like this up all on their own.

This is why we must break away from the idea that we will get credible information from the US domestic media.

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New Harris Poll Finds Nearly One Fourth of Republicans Believe Obama May Be the Antichrist

By: Blue Texan Tuesday March 23, 2010 10:30 am

Pictured: President Obama, as imagined by Republicans

 No, this isn’t an Onion headline. Yes, it is yet another poll that shows Republicans are out of their f**ck*ng minds.

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he’s a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say “he may be the Antichrist.”

In fairness, that question was clearly designed to make conservatives look bad. I mean, it’s completely possible that Obama may be the Antichrist. Has anyone thoroughly checked him for the Mark of the Beast? How can really we be sure?

Other findings  of the Harris poll, due out tomorrow, include:

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist
• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”

I’m surprised that only about half of the polled Goopers are birthers — that feels low to me.

But we shouldn’t be surprised that nearly 40% think he’s the second coming of Adolf Hitler, since elected Republicans and clowns like Glenn Beck and the Pantload make the comparison often.

Nice party you’ve got there, GOP.

Tags: Obama, Republicans, Wingnuttia

Related posts:

1. New WaPo/ABC Poll: Public Option Nearly Three Times More Popular Than GOP
2. In Re-Election Bid, Blanche Lincoln Getting Crushed by John Boozman, Says New Poll
3. National Review Apparently Unaware that Substantial Majority of Republicans Reject Evolution
4. The Republican Brand in Ruins: 75% of Americans Dislike Republicans; Over 70% Think Palin’s Not Qualified to be President
5. Our Political Situation In A Nutshell

There's still time to start watching the Lehrer News Hour (Albuquerque, channel 5, KNME) on PBS at 5:30!  You'll catch up with some of the facts in no time.

More Crazed Ranting About The Corporate Media Frauds

Now, there may be MeanMesa visitors in places like Viet Nam and Korea who have concluded that the old guy who writes these posts is simply a crazy old loon who sees conspiracies under every cup cake and light bulb.  Most recently, there is the matter of the troubling, endless ranting about what MeanMesa considers to be the corporate media fraud.

This being the case, it's high time for an example.  Once that baby's on the table, everyone can reassess their previous, overly critical, outrageously unfair "rush to judgement."
 

Ecch?  Ecch?  Are You My Daughter?

GET OFF MY LAWN, you whippersnappers!

After all, MeanMesa can hardly afford to simply "cozy up" to the dismal inevitability of being seen as nothing more than a staggering geezer who is "constantly spitting at crows no one else can see," a harsh metric indeed with respect to the "later in life" cogency of this blogging blabbermouth.

 The Example

Here in Albuquerque, the high desert host to MeanMesa Galactic Command, a television news viewer enjoys roughly the same choices as most other Americans -- even the ones rich enough to effortlessly consume cable service costing $Three Digits$ per month.  For that "pretty penny" a viewer in Albuquerque can luxuriously tune himself into his favorite flavor of the corporate alphabet (ABC, NBC and CBS) networks' "news broadcasts."  If the networks who still make the effort of a pretense of objectivity prove too tedious, there is, of course, always FOX, the "Death of America If You Don't Believe What We Say" entertainment and fear carnival channel.

On especially troubling days, even the normally more reasonable PBS News Hour slips into the swamp.  The BBC is spared from this harsh critique primarily because either the Brits have too much sense to get caught up in the synthetic melodrama or they are simply uninterested, a palliative advantage available only to a well subsidized, socialist media from "across the pond."

As for the BBC, MeanMesa offers an adjustment to the well used phrase "our oceans no longer protect us."  That would be, "our oceans no longer protect them."

On the Monday following the historic health care reform bill's passage (that would be yesterday -- March 22, 2010 -- on MeanMesa's sundial...) in the House, The Dick Armey Freedom Works Lie Factory very predictably fired up his famous buses to import around a thousand grumbling, overweight "Tea Bag Patriots" from their trailer parks to the Capital for yet another episode of his  riveting "grass roots WE HATE HEALTH CARE" protests.

Aside from all the folksy home made signs, the bigots screamed the "N" word at a distinguished Black Congressman, spit on another one and called Representative Franks a faggot.  Oh yikes!  No one can accuse those pesky neo-cons of learning any table manners!

However, the news coverage almost completely ignored a crowd estimated at between ten to twenty thousand marching to encourage immigration reform, and that was just the crowd a few blocks away in Washington!    


OOOPS!  They also neglected to cover the other thousands of immigration reform marchers in other cities all across the country.

Shouldn't we be insisting that the so-called media do a little better than that?

Is this really what we used to call Freedom of the Press?

Post Script Posting Correction:  The up to date estimates for the number of immigration reform supporters at the Washington DC rally has risen to around 200,000.  (MeanMesa, 24 March, 2010)

OMG! It's Waterloo! uh... maybe more like Austerlitz

The French Victory, December 1805, Moravia

Napoléon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by Francois Gerard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Austerlitz

MeanMesa is constantly plummeted into an unpleasant state of  incredulity approaching some embarrassing gastric distress as we watch the neo-cons -- each one apparently a victim of the Texas Board of Education -- trot out any historical name which might further inflame their sole source base of hill billies and bigots.  They have fully exploited the now almost total public lack of context for terms such as "socialist," "fascist," "communist" or "statist" far beyond even their most outrageous fantasies of "innuendo wall paper tricks."

It seems that all the Crochety Old White Southerners (COWS) sober enough to stagger up to a microphone love to throw such terms around as if they were no more than Alabama pig manure in the spring, terms which, they suppose, can be effortlessly redefined in any way which might suit their momentary ambitions.  We've seen plenty of it.  This constant referral to Waterloo, although, of course, as tasteless and rude as most of the other drivel they pipe through their wholly owned corporate media fraud, is no exception to this dismal tradition.

So, for the history impaired, MeanMesa finds it necessary to present a few historical facts concerning this Waterloo of theirs.  The unusual "ownership" of such a term is couched in this rather conditional way because the actual Waterloo, along with all of its contemporary, rather material, geo-political implications, was actually quite removed from the ill informed understanding they have sought to court with their rapt listeners scattered through all the trailer parks in Rush Limbaugh's broadcast orbit.

One, perhaps overly simplified version of the events at Waterloo, suggests that the Royal Crown of England at the time, Queen Victoria, -- still reeling from the  "unpleasantness" which the French Royalty had encountered under the populist blade of the French Revolution's guillotines,  actually had little angst in selling her diamond ear rings to finance the Duke of Wellington's European adventure.  Being labeled with the term "neo-con" would not have troubled Miss Queen Vicki in the least.

If the whole affair were to be translated into modern American political terms, Wellington and Victoria would inescapably be represented by the reactionary Republican Party and Napoleon Bonaparte would, even though he wound up  temporarily being an Emperor, represent the "community organizing" side of things.

It was clearly the hope of the British and their royalist allies that Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo would "plug the dike" on the growing appetite of  oppressed European royal subjects to have more say in their futures.  Although hardly a thorough-going, complete, objective analysis of the affair, such a generalization points directly at the contradictory nature of referring to "Obama's Waterloo" as indulged in most recently by the loud, dirty shirt  corporatists in our own government.  For Mr. Frum's comments as reported on Think Progress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/22/frum-health-our-waterloo/

The neo-con who voiced this troubling opinion, Mr. Frum, a heavily soiled speech writer and propagandist employed by the autocracy, has -- with respect the the health care reform bill -- added to his comments in a most interesting way.  For a quick analysis of those comments, MeanMesa offers the following link from the (ultra-fun)  blog ALAS:

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2010/03/21/david-frum-on-waterloo-conservative-leaders-let-us-to-abject-and-irreversible-defeat/

Don't freak out so much that you don't pony up a few minutes of your time to read through these last two links (total read time: less than 5 minutes).  Examine your own thoughts about what has happened in the Congress.  If the history-metaphor doesn't catch your fancy, try Great Nature's approach  (total watch time: 8 minutes).  This short video may help you understand just how wonderfully "out of character" the Democrats have been all through the health care debacle and what that might mean....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Toxic Desert Weeds from the GOP

Naturally, MeanMesa assumes that our visitors have, over time, built up an impressive filtration system for cleaning out toxic email traffic from their computer accounts.  However, a few weeks ago MeanMesa decided to "open the flood gates" to the now heavily soiled, "grassroots" thugs at Dick Armey's Freedom Work's spawn, the Tea Baggers.

Just in case anyone has accidentally been contaminated with the idea that the Tea Baggers are actually any more than a merry band of semi-literate hill billies and bigots -- a very real possibility given that the wholly owned media has obsessively and painfully represented them as a potent new political force when they are actually only a few overweight white Southerners and Cowboy "Patriots" -- our visitors should be armed with a few facts about them.  Rather than bumble through another repetition of the bizarre collection of peccadilloes, MeanMesa will happily "hand the sabre" to Jon Stewart as he is cited in a recent Crooks and Liars article:

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/10-lessons-for-tea-baggers

Back in April, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart offered some sound advice for frothing at the mouth Tea Baggers, "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing." Now five months after their Tax Day outburst, thousands of vein-popping Obama opponents descended Saturday on Washington for Tea Party II. But while Glenn Beck's furious followers alternately slandered the President as a "fascist," a "communist" and worse, they remained unencumbered by either the thought process - or the truth.

Here, then, are 10 Lessons for Tea Baggers:

1. President Obama Cut Your Taxes
2. The Stimulus is Working
3. First Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt...
4. ...Then George W. Bush Doubled It Again
5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care
6. Medicare is a Government Program
7. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim
8. Barack Obama was Born in the United States
9. 70,000 Does Not Equal 2,000,000
10. The Economy Almost Always Does Better Under Democrat

1. President Obama Cut Your Taxes

As in April, the Tea Baggers continued to display their fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. history and the American Revolution. Apparently, the right-wing zealots are outraged by no taxation with representation.

As promised, Barack Obama in the stimulus package delivered on his pledge of tax relief for 95% of American households. Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) didn't only jump start gross domestic product and refill empty state coffers in the second quarter of 2009. As Nate Silver thoroughly documented, "Obama has cut taxes for 98.6% of working households."

Nevertheless, raging Tea Baggers spouting Republican Tax Day lies took to the streets not to thank the President, but to blame him for the tax cuts they received.

2. The Stimulus is Working

A prime target of Bagger bashing, the $787 billion stimulus package passed over the near-total obstructionism of Congressional Republicans is already paying huge dividends for the economy.

To be sure, at 9.7% the unemployment rate remains dismal. But the impact of ARRA and other government actions extends well beyond the Obama administration's claim it has created or preserved one million jobs to date. As I documented in August:

After steep declines of 5.4% and 6.4% in the previous two quarters, gross domestic product fell only 1% in the last three months. And while the ARRA overall added "up to 3 full percentage points of annualized growth in the quarter," President Obama's stimulus helped precisely where it was needed most - rescuing devastated state budgets.

Earlier this month, the reliably Republican Wall Street Journal agreed the Obama administration has helped stem the bleeding from the Bush Recession:

Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.

For the third quarter, economists at Goldman Sachs & Co. predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3%. "Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero," said Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman.

3. First Reagan Tripled the National Debt...

For Tea Baggers supposedly concerned that "deficit spending is out of hand," history apparently began only on January 20, 2009. Because while President Obama rightly resorted to massive deficit spending to rescue the American economy from calamity, it was Ronald Reagan who ushered in the now-standard Republican practice of "spending our children's inheritance."

As Steve Benen rightly noted, it was not Reagan but President Obama whose stimulus plan delivered the largest two-year tax cut in history. And as it turns out, what Saint Ronnie giveth, he also taketh away.

As predicted, Reagan's massive $749 billion supply-side tax cuts in 1981 quickly produced even more massive annual budget deficits. Combined with his rapid increase in defense spending, Reagan delivered not the balanced budgets he promised, but record-settings deficits. Ultimately, Reagan was forced to raise taxes twice to avert financial catastrophe (a fact John McCain learned the hard way from Tom Brokaw last October). By the time he left office in 1989, Ronald Reagan nonetheless more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history. 

4. ...Then Bush Doubled It Again

Following in Reagan's footsteps, George W. Bush buried the myth of Republican fiscal discipline.

Inheriting a federal budget in the black and CBO forecast for a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years, President George W. Bush quickly set about dismantling the progress made under Bill Clinton. Bush's $1.4 trillion tax cut in 2001, followed by a $550 billion second round in 2003, accounted for the bulk of the yawning budget deficits he produced.

Like Reagan and Stockman before him, Bush resorted to the rosy scenario to claim he would halve the budget deficit by 2009. Before the financial system meltdown last fall, Bush's deficit already reached $490 billion. (And even before the passage of the Wall Street bailout, Bush had presided over a $4 trillion increase in the national debt, a staggering 71% jump.) By this January, the mind-numbing deficit figure reached $1.2 trillion, forcing President Bush to raise the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.

Tea Baggers take note: the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And the staggering $2 trillion price tag for Bush's giveaway to the richest needing it least dwarfs the estimated $900 billion cost over 10 years of President Obama's health care proposals. 

5. Republican States Have the Worst Health Care

George W. Bush didn't merely spend the health care money on a windfall for America's rich and famous. He helped ensure red states continued to provide the worst health care in the nation.

Call it the Iron Law of Birtherism: the movement which denies President Obama's Hawaiian birth is strongest precisely in those states where Republicans poll best and health care is worst.

A 2007 Commonwealth Fund report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance," examined states' performance across 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes and hospital use. Topping the list were Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Bringing up the rear were the Bush bastions of Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, with Mississippi and Oklahoma. The 10 worst performing states were all solidly Republican in 2004. (8 voted for McCain in 2008.) 

The extremes in health care performance are startling. For example, 30% of adults and 20% of children in Texas lacked health insurance, compared to 11% in Minnesota and 5% in Vermont, respectively. Premature death rates from preventable conditions were almost double (141.7 per 100,000 people) in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi compared to the top performing states (74.1 per 100,000). Adults over 50 receiving preventative care topped 50% in Minnesota compared to only 33% in Idaho. Childhood immunizations reached 94% in Massachusetts, compared to just 75% in the bottom five states. As the report details, federal and state policies, such as insurance requirements and Medicaid incentives, clearly impact health care outcomes.

(In May, the Washington Post rightly noted it would be blue state residents funding health care reform for their red state brethren in an article titled, "A Red State Booster Shot." The grandstanding of Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal et al notwithstanding, the same one-way flow of taxpayer dollars from Washington to red states, of course, is a permanent feature of federal spending in general. And yet a 2008 survey predictably showed 68% of Republicans believe the U.S. has the best health system in the world, compared to only three in 10 Democrats.) 

6. Medicare is a Government Program

Among the greatest ironies of the health care debate is the specter of Republicans feigning concern over Medicare. The same party that opposed Medicare in the 1960's and tried to slash its budget in the 1990's now scares the bejesus out of 46 million American elderly recipients by warning of bogus death panels and Democrats "sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare."

Even more ironic is that a majority of the GP faithful do not seem to know that Medicare is a government-run program. As I noted previously:

In July, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) described an angry constituent who confronted him at a South Carolina town hall meeting, "keep your government hands off my Medicare." Despite his best efforts to explain that Medicare is a government program, the voter, Inglis lamented, "wasn't having any of it."

But as recent data from Public Policy Polling revealed, that same cognitive failure is now far more widespread than swine flu. While 39% of all Americans responded that the government should "stay out of Medicare," 59% of self-identified conservatives and 62% of McCain voters hold that oxymoronic view. 

7. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim

An April survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 11% of Americans believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, a figure largely unchanged since its polling started in March 2008. Yet 17% of Republicans and 19% of white evangelicals (74% of whom voted for John McCain) insist the President is an adherent of Islam, despite his repeated pronouncements and decades of church attendance to the contrary.

Judging from their signs, a much larger percentage of Tea Baggers maintain this error.

8. Barack Obama was Born in the United States

As it turns out, the Tea Bagging faithful are even worse at basic geography than comparative religion. The Birther contagion is running rampant among the ranks of Republicans. And even with repeated treatments of birth certificates and Hawaiian newspaper announcements from 1961, there is apparently no cure.

A DailyKos/Research 2000 poll found that a stunning 58% of Republicans did not believe (28%) or were unsure (30%) that President Barack Obama was in fact born in the United States. To be sure, this is a Southern pathology, a region home to 69% of all birthers and the only part of the country to increase its Republican presidential vote in 2008. The PPP survey only confirmed the chronic birtherism plaguing the Republican Party:

Only 62% of respondents reported believing that Obama was born in the United States. 10% thought he was born in Indonesia, 7% thought he was born in Kenya, 1% thought he was born in the Philippines, and 20% weren't sure. Among Republicans 44% think he was not born here while just 36% believe that he was.

(In a promising development, only 10% of respondents weren't sure if Hawaii is part of the United States. On this score, conservatives were only slightly more confused than liberals and moderates.) 

9. 70,000 Does Not Equal 2,000,000

Math, too, provides another stumbling block for the masterminds and acolytes of Tea Party movement.

After FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe wrongly inflated the estimates of the 9/12 crowd in Washington DC at 2,000,000, ABC and others corrected the fraud. But that didn't stop the conservative blogosphere from parroting the charade debunked by both DC police - and simple comparative photography.

As Nat Silver concluded, "Size Matters; So Do Lies."

The way this false estimate came into being is relatively simple: Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, lied, claiming that ABC News had reported numbers of between 1.0 and 1.5 million when they never did anything of the sort. A few tweets later, the numbers had been exaggerated still further to 2 million. Kibbe wasn't "in error", as Malkin gently puts it. He lied. He did the equivalent of telling people that his penis is 53 inches long.

10. The Economy Almost Always Does Better Under Democrats

If the extended Pinocchio nose and a similarly over-inflated phallus are the apt symbols of the Tea Party movement, the Tea Baggers are in for one final, rude awakening. For all of their histrionics about "socialism" and "communism", the historical record clearly shows the economy overall and the stock market in particular almost always do better under Democratic presidents.

Just days after the Washington Post documented that George W. Bush presided over the worst eight-year economic performance in the modern American presidency, the New York Times in January featured an analysis comparing presidential performance going back to Eisenhower. As the Times showed, George W. Bush, the first MBA president, was a historic failure when it came to expanding GDP, producing jobs and fueling stock market growth. And across almost every indicator (article here, charts here), Democrats outperformed their Republican counterparts.

The superior performance of Democratic presidents covers virtually the entire spectrum of economic indicators. As Elliott Parker of the University of Nevada, Reno detailed in a 2006 paper, since 1949 Democratic administrations have done better than Republican ones when it comes to unemployment (5.2% to 6.0%), job creation (-.0.4% decrease in unemployment, compared to 0.3% increase), GDP growth rate (4.2% to 2.9%), and even corporate profits as a share of GDP. And to be sure, he found the Dow benefits from Democrats in the White House.

There's no shortage of studies to show that stock market returns are higher under Democratic leadership. (As it turns out, Wall Street's performance is also better when Democrats control Congress.) In 2000, Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov of UCLA's Anderson School of Business concluded that "that the average excess return in the stock market is higher under Democratic than Republican presidents - a difference of 9 percent per year for the value-weighted portfolio and 16 percent for the equal-weighted portfolio." As the New York Times noted of UCLA study in 2003:

"It's not even close. The stock market does far better under Democrats...

As the spent Tea Baggers wipe the spittle from their lips at they trudge home from Washington, they would do well to remember one final truth. The words of Harry Truman, the man Sarah Palin cited as her model, are as true today as when he uttered them generations ago: 

"If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic."

Yeah, yeah.  All this seems to be a lot to read, but it is important to be well prepared when one of these miscreants begins to bombast Republican lies.  Why just yesterday a deeply challenged butcher at a local market asked MeanMesa if I had "buyer's remorse" about voting for Obama.  He had seen my OBAMA tee shirt, and felt, for some dismal reason buried beneath a thousand talking points in his seriously handicapped remnant of conceptual logic, emboldened to make such an ill advised crack.


In fact, this ill advised, yet stalwart neo-con butcher had "thrown out this gauntlet" directly to MeanMesa while standing in line to buy some freshly made Hot Italian Sausage.   While other, less prepared sausage shoppers began to maneuver their shopping carts in a quiet pattern of retreat, MeanMesa, predictably, felt compelled to explore the conversation with this salmon fileting genius.


For a moment, it looked like the poor little neo-con's head was going to explode....

Of course, the specific term, "buyer's remorse," has been one of those phrases endlessly bandied forth by corporate media pundits and other whores -- both male and female -- as they try to sell some of the ideas presented in the citation above.  One can assume that, as simply another "talking point,"  it is far too similar to a Babylonian "dog fly" which has been unfortunately trapped in a blob of day old lip stick inadvertently deposited on one of those famous gold microphones during yesterday's drama festival masquerading as a "News Program."

Just a little more.  MeanMesa always tries to save the best for last.

We mentioned before that the flood gates had been left open for emails from the clients of Dick Armey's Lie Firm, Freedom Works.  That would be the Tea Baggers in one apparition or another.

Check out the following hilarious emails which rolled in during the last few days.

Email One:

Online Grassroots Service Center will enable Activists to Make the Difference in Key Races that will "Take America Back" in 2010! TO ALL FREEDOMWORKS MEMBERS: Washington, DC - FreedomWorks PAC is pleased to announce the launch of FreedomWorksPAC.org; the web arm of the organization that will act as an online grassroots service center for millions of limited government advocates who want to make a difference on behalf of freedom in this critical election year. FreedomWorks Members can access FreedomWorksPAC.org HERE. On the site, accessible to FreedomWorks members only, grassroots activists view FreedomWorks PAC’s up-to-date list of targeted races. They can determine which candidates have been identified as “Champions of Freedom” and need their support and conversely those “Enemies of Freedom” that conservative activists must rally against and defeat. Each candidate then has their own unique page that activists can use to: 1. Access important background information on the candidate 2. Stay up to date on developments in the race including PAC sponsored events and rallies 3. Financially support FreedomWorks PAC efforts to impact their races 4. Download or request materials such as door hangers, brochures, yard signs, etc. - these grassroots materials in particular will be invaluable resources for activists to conduct their own home-grown Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts and make the critical difference in these key House and Senate contests. In addition to issuing guidance to FreedomWorks members on which races they should get involved in, FreedomWorksPAC.org also solicits member feedback on other highly-contested Congressional contests that will help Take America Back. Through the site’s 2010 Battleground Survey, activists weigh in on other races that provide opportunities to unseat big government advocates and elect legislators that will actively fight on behalf of lower taxes, less government, and more freedom. With today’s launch, FreedomWorks PAC added three races to a growing list of “Top Targets” by endorsing Jonathan Paton (R) for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, Tom Graves (R) for Georgia’s 9th Congressional District, and David Castillo (R) for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, as Champions of Freedom. These three now join an impressive slate that includes: Marco Rubio (R) for Senate in Florida, Rand Paul (R) for Senate in Kentucky, Pat Toomey (R) for Senate in Pennsylvania, Mike Lee (R) for Senate in Utah, and Allen West (R) for Congress in Florida’s 22nd District. FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey commented, “FreedomWorksPAC.org provides a new kind of grassroots service center for conservative advocates who want to impact key races this year. This model is only limited by the energy of the activists which, if the tea parties that began in 2009 and continue still today are any guide, points to a changing of the guard in the next Congress.” Visit FreedomWorksPAC.org and find out what you can do to help Take America Back!

Email Two:

Final showdown against Obamacare 2.0 this weekend! The House of Representatives is about to vote on a bill that would lead to a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy - and they are using every bullying tactic, some of them unconstitutional - to get their way. Speaker Pelosi will do anything to get every last vote, and it is up to us to defeat her and her horrible bill. This weekend as the vote draws closer, please take some time out of your busy schedule to make one final push against Obamacare 2.0. Here is what you can do. 1) Call your congressman and tell him or her to vote NO on Obamacare 2.0, whether it is a "real" vote, or a vote to "deem that the bill be passed." 2) Protest outside the local, district office of your Congressman at 12pm on Saturday. You can find his or her office location by clicking here. Bring your friends and some signs, and alert the local media. 3) If you live in the DC area, join us on Saturday for one more protest against Obamacare 2.0. The 12pm protest at the Capitol building will be followed by a candlelight vigil in the evening. For more information about how you can participate, please contact us. We have one long, final weekend to put a dagger into Obamacare 2.0. If we work together and continue to make phone calls we can convince enough Democrats to vote NO on Obamacare 2.0. This vote will be very close, so it is more important than ever that your congressman hears from you one last time. Thank you for your tireless efforts to stop this awful government takeover of our healthcare system. Sincerely, Matt Kibbe President FreedomWorks PS: Please support our campaign to stop Obamacare 2.0 by making a generous donation now.

So, after you have quit the hysterical laughing session, be SURE TO CONTRIBUTE!  Armey has only received a few million bucks from his neo-con clients, and he can use all the dough he can grab before the Tea Baggers fade ignominiously into Saint Ronald Reagan's "dust bin of history."

A Note to MeanMesa visitors:  We're working on getting the emails reduced to fit on the blog page.  Please check back later today!

Yup, yup!  The IT Guy, Dave, showed the old guy how to adjust HTML width code.  

Damn.  This must be the best day ever!