Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Something tells me some Republicons are awfully embarrassed to be seen in their party’s company:

A few months ago, Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican and former chairman of the NRCC, told the WaPo, “The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf.”

Has the GOP “brand” improved since? Apparently not.

Nine of 12 targeted Republicans running in the most competitive Senate races this fall are either skipping the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., or have not decided whether to attend.

Among those who will not attend are Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who is not close to presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is a McCain loyalist. Stevens and Collins will use the convention week to focus on their campaigns.

Also sending regrets is former Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado, running for the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Wayne Allard.

Six others — Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon Smith of Oregon and challengers John Kennedy of Louisiana and Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico are still on the fence. Their spokesman offered responses ranging from “there are no plans yet” to “no decisions have been made.”

Now, I can understand these vulnerable Republican incumbents not wanting to be photographed alongside George W. Bush. I can even understand some of them, particularly those in traditionally “blue” states, not wanting to be seen delivering speeches at the Republican
convention.

But these guys don’t want to go to their party’s quadrennial gathering at all? Do they think voters might forget which party they belong to if they steer clear of St. Paul altogether?

Apparently they do. Good luck with that.

They have plenty to be embarrassed over. Bush has been an enormous failure who broke every promise he made. Observe:

By one count, the president has publicly vowed to “solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations” upwards of 400 times.

As the clock starts to run out on Bush’s presidency, we know, of course, that the opposite is true. Global warming, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, a weak economy … not only is Bush passing monumental problems onto his successor, he’s created new ones that didn’t exist when he got there.

This is especially true when it comes to the federal budget. Bush inherited the largest surplus ever recorded ($128 billion), but his fiscal legacy is a painful one.

The White House on Monday predicted a record deficit of $490 billion for the 2009 budget year, a senior government official told CNN.

The deficit would amount to roughly 3.5 percent of the nation’s $14 trillion economy.The official pointed to a faltering economy and the bipartisan $170 billion stimulus package that passed earlier this year for the record deficit.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Bush “will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history,” adding, “If they gave out Olympic medals for fiscal irresponsibility, President Bush would take the gold, silver and bronze. With his eight years in office, he will have had the five highest deficits ever recorded. And the highest of those deficits is now projected to come in 2009, as he leaves office.”

He’s also leaving a legacy of legal nightmares for his successor:

Remember Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and the team of Bushies who blatantly politicized the employment practices at the Justice Department? Including the selection of judges? In case there were any lingering doubts, the Bush gang’s conduct was apparently literally criminal.

Former Justice Department counselor Monica M. Goodling and former chief of staff D. Kyle Sampson routinely broke the law by conducting political litmus tests on candidates for jobs as immigration judges and line prosecutors, according to an inspector general’s report released today.

Goodling passed over hundreds of qualified applicants and squashed the promotions of others after deeming candidates insufficiently loyal to the Republican party, said investigators, who interviewed 85 people and received information from 300 other job seekers at Justice. Sampson developed a system to screen immigration judge candidates based on improper political considerations and routinely took recommendations from the White House Office of Political Affairs and Presidential Personnel, the report said.

Goodling regularly asked candidates for career jobs, “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” the report said. One former Justice Department official told investigators she had complained that Goodling was asking interviewees for their views on abortion, according to the report.

If this sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. The Justice Department’s inspector general is releasing the results of a lengthy investigation in four parts, and this is the second. The first was released about a month ago, and documented six years of illegal hiring practices relating to the Justice Department recruiting new attorneys (those with “liberal-sounding resumes” were barred from employment). Today’s repo
r
t documents the allegedly illegal conduct from Goodling and Sampson (among others). Still to come are reports on hiring problems in the civil rights division and the dubious purge of nine U.S. attorneys.

That said, today’s report, which is online (.pdf), is a doozy. The Bush gang wasn’t just involved in blatantly criminal acts, their conduct had consequences for the nation.

And that conduct will continue to have consequences, for many years to come. Cleaning up after Bush is going to be a task akin to cleaning up after a herd of two-year olds on crack.

My sincerest sympathies go out to the next president. Unless, of course, it’s McCain, who’s proven himself too addled to clean up after himself, much less the two-year old terror that is the Bush regime.

I weep for America.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Remember, my darlings, it’s Obama who’s the presumptuous one. Not McCain. McCain’s not presumtuous in the least (h/t Digby):

This image is going to give me nightmares tonight, guaranteed.

McCain may be making assumptions based on the fact that the Republicons have gotten very good at stealing elections. Digby has an excellent rundown of some of the major shennanigans, along with a warning so obvious we’ve missed it:

This voting stuff isn’t going away, and if anything it’s going to get more intense as Republicans get more desperate. I can’t believe that this article didn’t get more attention when it came out a few weeks ago. There’s no question that this will became an enormous issue literally out of nowhere this fall.

Election officials worry that the state’s home foreclosure problem will pose a problem this November for voters still registered at their former address, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Voters in pivotal Ohio with outdated addresses face possible pre-election challenges and trips to multiple polling places. They also are more likely to cast provisional ballots that might not be counted.

“It’s a real issue,” said Daniel Tokaji, an Ohio State University law professor who specializes in elections. He wonders whether foreclosures might explain the increasing percentages of provisional votes cast between 2004 and Ohio’s latest election, the presidential primary in March.

Ohio provided President Bush with an 118,000-vote victory in 2004, giving him the electoral votes he needed to win the election.

All of a sudden you’re going to hear that these families forced out of their homes and relocated across the country are actually fraudsters trying to steal the election for Obama. The very fact of vacancy at the addresses where these people are registered makes hundreds of thousands of people prime suspects for voter caging. And you can be sure that re-registering isn’t paramount on their minds, either. In battleground states like Nevada, one out of every 120 or so homes is in foreclosure right now. This seems like a huge under-the-radar issue that is receiving literally no attention.

Time to shine the bright light of scrutiny on the Republicons. We don’t want another election stolen out from under us. I don’t know about you, but the idea of McCain’s little “President McCain” graphic is something I want to see remain presumptuous, not prophetic. So if you know someone unfortunate enough to have suffered foreclosure or any other uprooting experience, be a dear and make sure they get properly registered. Their votes need to count. After all, it’s not likely that McLame and his Incredible Tax Fairy with Magic Budget Dust are going to be able to help people who’ve lost their homes, jobs and possibly hope due to Bush’s insane policies.

In other outrageous news, let’s turn to what one of McCain’s fundraisers is up to these days. I’m not copying in the entire post – you need to head over to ThinkProgress.org to read it for yourself – but here’s the gist: Chevron is battling an $8-16 billion judgement against them for environmental damage in Ecuador’s rainforest. One of McCain’s top fundraisers is pushing hard to ensure they don’t have to pay for their pollution. Outrageous enough, and your blood pressure is sure to rise reading the details.

Here’s the icing:

So far, Chevron’s power push has resulted in “a senior Chevron exec” meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte “on the matter.” “One Chevron lobbyist” told Newsweek that the company’s argument to the Bush administration is: “We can’t let little countries
screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”

Out-fucking-rageous.

But this is exactly how these people think: the corporate juggernauts and the Republicons in their pockets. Dems end up in corporate pockets, too, but not to this extent. Not to where they can get away with having their major fundraiser lobby on behalf of a corporate polluter. Not to where they think sovereign countries have no right to “screw around” with the corporations.

This is 19th century thinking, people. This is colonialism, imperialism, and a sense of entitlement so huge it should leave you sputtering. They think their money entitles them to own the world.

And McCain believes them. Otherwise, why have so many lobbyists on his staff? Why such idiotic tax policies guaranteed to screw the poor and throw cash at the rich? Why repeat every fucking Bush talking point nearly word-for-word?

Don’t be deceived by St. John playing Mr. Common Man on the campaign trail. He’s a corporate bitch, and he’s a lying, pandering, slandering political hack, and he’s going to give us four more years of absolute political decomposition. The White House isn’t even rotting at this point: it’s gone beyond that, so defiled and polluted that I’m surprised it doesn’t explode like a week-old corpse in a humid room:

Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers interviewed investigative journalist Jane Mayer and mentioned that in Mayer’s new book, she notes that FBI agents refused to participate in the CIA’s interrogation of terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay because they determined it to be “borderline torture.” Moyers then asked, “Who were some of the other conservative heroes, as you call them, in your book?”

Mayer remembered one top Justice Department lawyer and “very conservative member of this administration” who said that after participating in White House meetings authorizing torture, he believed that “lunatics had taken over the country.”

Mayer said two other top DOJ lawyers had to develop a system of speaking codes because they feared they were being wiretapped while others described an “atmosphere of intimidation,” mainly from Vice President Dick Cheney:

MAYER: There was such an
atmosphere of intimidation. … They felt so endangered in some ways that, at one point, two of the top lawyers from the Justice Department developed this system of talking in codes to each other because they thought they might be being wiretapped…by their own government. They felt like they might be kind of weirdly in physical danger. They were actually scared to stand up to Vice President Cheney.

That’s how bad it is. High-level government employees are afraid of being physically harmed by the administration. They’re terrified of their own government. This sounds like the USSR, not America. And to retain this power of terror and fear, to stay in control and ride American democracy and prosperity down its death throes, people like Bush, Cheney and the evil fuckers running McCain will lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory.

Don’t let them do it.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

We’re going to start with a little music to set the tone: “Lies” by Black Light Burns.

You always know it’s going to be a rough Saturday when you end up screaming “WILL YOU FUCKERS JUST STOP LYING?” at every blog entry. Lies lies lies lies lies lies lies…. if a Republicon opens his/her mouth, a lie comes tumbling out. If the truth comes out, you can bet it’s an accident or prelude to an even bigger lie. Nothing has proved that so much as today.

Republicans lie on taxes and what Obama plans to do with them:

Yesterday The Entrepreneurial Agenda, a blog at Inc.com, looked at accusations that Obama would harm small business by raising taxes. McCain’s argument is that, “Small businesses are the job engine of America, and I will make it easier for them to grow and create more jobs….If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates.” The Agenda responds:

Well, McCain is certainly, unequivocally wrong that Obama will raise taxes on 23 million small businesses. Let’s begin by establishing the figures. According to Census Department (as reported by SBA), in 2005 there were some 26 million firms with 500 or fewer employees. (McCain’s figures apparently come from 2002.) Of these, 20 million have no employees at all. Many of these are glorified hobbies, others are lucrative consulting gigs, but as the nonpartisan Factcheck.org points out in a thorough debunking, “McCain is arguing that Obama’s tax increase would ‘destroy jobs,’ but he’s counting mostly firms that don’t produce any.”

A more interesting question is whether small businesses would actually see a bigger tax cut under Obama or McCain. Again, if the number-crunchers at the Tax Policy Center is to be trusted, then the laurels go to Obama, who’s proposing a variety of additional tax cuts targeted toward low-income and working families. (Here is the analysis, which includes very detailed descriptions of the candidates’ proposals. More detailed, in fact, than the candidates’ own position papers. Because the candidates haven’t fully fleshed out their tax proposals publicly, the Center has talked informally with campaign advisers and made its own assumptions to fill in the blanks.) Anyone earning under $112,000 in 2009 — or 80 percent of the population — is more likely to see a higher after-tax income under Obama than under McCain.

The post refers to this post at factcheck.org which debunks McCain’s charges on taxes on small business. This isn’t the only time
that factcheck.org has debunked false claims on Obama’s tax plans recently. They debunked a claim that Obama “voted to raise income taxes on individuals who earn as little as $32,000 per year.” They concluded that McCain’s $32,000 figure is “phony.” That is only one of many false claims on Obama’s record made by Republicans. Factcheck.org also debunked a claim from the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee that Obama voted for higher taxes 94 times.

I encourage you to read Ron Chiusad’s full guest post over at The Carpetbagger Report. Just make sure to take your blood pressure medication first.

The Republicons lie about Obama’s foreign trip and his cancelled visit to injured troops in Germany:

I can appreciate the fact that Republicans aren’t quite sure how to criticize Barack Obama’s international travel over the last week. It has, after all, been an usually successful trip, which the McCain campaign practically goaded Obama into taking.

They’ve tried out a few angles, but the attacks have either been foolish, contradictory, or both. Republicans said Obama shouldn’t campaign outside the U.S., but McCain did it first. They said Obama shouldn’t describe himself as a “citizen of the world,” but Reagan used the same line. They said Obama shouldn’t be so popular with people yearning to love America again, but no one’s sure what that actually means.

So, left with literally nothing else, Republicans have turned to an old stand-by: they’re making stuff up.

Obama had planned to visit with injured U.S. troops in Germany before he left the country this week. He scheduled a visit, he wanted to visit, and he arranged for the visit three weeks ago. And suddenly, the meeting was called off, and Obama left the country without having seen the troops.

“A ha!” said the unhinged right. “Obama was blowing off the troops!”

Yeah. The problem with that is, the Pentagon told him not to come. At least NBC, for once, did some actual reporting and set the record straight. But I’m sure that won’t stop the lies. Reality has no meaning for these fuckwits.

And Republicons lie about the significance of German monuments (h/t Sadly, No!):

Just to be clear about the Victory Column: It is not a Nazi monument. Obama has not flunked history — or offended Germans — by choosing to speak there. The original source of this story is, again, my own employer, so I know when bloggers inflate the details out of all proportion. Some minor German politicians have grumbled about the Siegessäule’s history, for political reasons, but their comments aren’t very important.

This is just a glass full of lies. There’s an ocean of them out there. That’s why Dennis Kucinich is my hero o’ the day: his attempts at impeaching Bush probably won’t go anywhere, but at least he’s trying to air out the lies:

House Democrats — and one Republican — are using today’s hearing in the Judiciary Committee to slam President Bush for abusing his executive power.

After laying out a litany of charges against Bush, principally on the “illegal war for oil” in Iraq, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the driving force behind today’s hearing, said Congress must act to remove Bush from office.

“The war was totally unnecessary, unprovoked and unjustified,” Kucinich said in his opening statement. “The question for Congress is this: What responsibility do the president and his administration have for that unnecessary, unprovoked and unjustified war?”

Kucinich said if lawmakers reviewed the issue, they could only come to the conclusion that it was needed.

“I ask this committee to think, and then to act, in order to enable this Congress to right a very great wrong and to hold accountable those who have misled this Nation,” Kucinich said.

If only. I truly do wish these fuckers could be made to pay for endless, terrible lies.