So What Exactly Is A Republican?

First, I want to be clear that when I talk about Republicans or Democrats, I'm speaking about leadership. My issue is not with voters. Voters vote for leaders based on platforms and ideas that they agree with. I have no issue with people who vote Republican. Hell in another year I myself might have voted for John McCain. I'm a huge fan of his.

Further, some of my best friends are Republicans. I've dated Republicans. I've had some great roommates who were Republicans. I may have been a registered Democrat and they a registered Republican; somewhere we found common ground that stands the test of time.

I think most of the people who vote Republican and most who vote Democrat are united in their vision for American Exceptionalism. I define American Exceptionilism not as "we are exceptional because we are American" but "we are Americans striving to be exceptional." There is a big difference. American Exceptionalism is not predicated International Mediocirty nor are we in any way some de-facto leader of Global Exceptionalism; we are a part of a movement toward Global Exceptionalism that is made up of a chorus of voices from around the world... In the end, some of us are Libs or Cons but we are above all just people united!

I do despise seven or so vocal de-facto leaders of the Republican Party that include: Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Cheney, and Ann Coulter. These people have read Mein Komf one too many times and think they can rebrand its core ideas as "Neo Con" and "American Exceptionalism" and force it upon Americans slyly and unconspicuously. And because these leaders are so vocal and so respected/feared by Republican leadership, taking them out of the equation is like taking Obama or Clinton out of the Democratic equation. You just can't do it.

And if Fox News is the voice of conservativism in America, then we all should be a little scared. I heard this on Fox News this morning: "Who is rich anymore anyway?" as if to imply nobody benefited from this recession. Yes perhaps the "value" of some portfolios went down; but the power of those individuals with relatively large portofolios went up, and the opportunity for those without portfolios went down. They may be failures, they may be without a big fat corner office, but a few CEO's and executives at a handful of "too big to fail" companies that just failed are still sitting pretty. This wasn't failure for them; this was early retirement.

But I think I'm getting a bit off point. So let me get back on...

Republicans aren't even Republians anymore. Republicans by nature should look a lot more like Democrats and Democrats should look a lot more like Republicans. Remember that most famous Republican, President Lincoln, fought to re-unite states. Lincoln was a "blue stater" fighting against slavery in "Red States." If you really examine the word republian, it is: re-public, which sounds a lot like big government to me. This is NOT Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party.

So what is a Republican? A person who votes for low taxes and small government?

So why are Republican leaders launching a campaign against the biggest middle class tax cut in history?

Why do Republicans leaders fight against big Government with one hand but play God and stand up against abortion and morality with another.

Do small governments bankroll trillion dollar wars on phony premecises (IRAQ) that they conveniently leave off the ledger? Do small government come equipped with big fat soapboxes to try and regulate abortion and homosexuality.

If I gleaned anything from the Republican response to the housing crisis it was this: people got themselves into this mess people should get themselves out of it. Going with this same line of thinking, shouldn't people be able to make their own decisions and end up in hell? Maybe some of these ultra right Republicans should do a little less PLAYING GOD, and do a little more BELIEVING IN GOD.

Free markets don't have black markets for drugs, because people are free to use drugs and ruin their own lives if they so desire. Legalizing drugs would also go a long way and helping you keep your guns in Wal Mart. If there's no black market for drugs, it eliminates a market ineffiency and a big driver of violence in America and Mexico. If Americans want to kill themselves with heroin, America can tax it heavily and invest the money into Drug Education and Rehabilitation Programs so that at least sober taxpayers don't have to carry the burden. OTC Oxycontin would be such a rush, wouldn't it Rush?

It is lack of transparency and inability to make the tough choices that left a great man like John McCain looking like John Quixote de la whateva this year.

Oh yeah, and if Republican party leadership decides that war is necessary rather than merely a good investment for the VP's oil company, part of the case you make with America to go to war is being upfront about the costs of war, both in money and human life.

When Republican leadership finally gets real, and lives up to its high minded platform, it may rebound in my lifetime.

But let's be real: you can't keep it real and keep Rove. Or his cohorts.

Rush Limbaugh, No Further Commentary Needed

This Foolish Neo Nazi Con Isn't Really Worth Chancing Carpal Tunnel. Enjoy! And By Enjoy, I Mean PRETEND That Nobody Actually Listens To Rush Limbaugh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDsbft2DtD0

From Ann Coulter's Dot Com: The Gentle Musings of an Anti Semetic Neo Nazi-Con

Ann Coulter's Anti Semitism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wnPHFSdrME

(Libs and Cons comments below in RED:)

Apparently, it's OK for Obama to fire the head of General Motors, but Bush can't fire his own U.S. attorneys. (Once upon a time, not so long ago and not so far away, people got paid for performance. And those who didn't perform got fired. It's called accountability.)

It is generally agreed that the Obama administration's demand that Rick Wagoner resign as chairman of General Motors is the price of GM's accepting government money. (What terrible use of passive voice here, Ms. Coulter; I expected more from an Ivy League graduate. As writers, we both know that the passive voice is a crutch, so please let's try and prop up this argument... WHO GENERALLY AGREES?)

To promote the sales of GM vehicles, Obama says the government will stand by your GM car warranty. And all the taxpayers will get a lube job. (Translation: Stand by your corrupt CEO. Note under Obama's plan, most taxpayers benefit. Forgive Ms. Coulter, though, she's one of the unfortunate millionaires who may have to pay more.) The new GM owner's manual will come with a disclaimer: "Close enough for government work." (Ann in the era of the Ipod, it's less acceptable to sound like a broken record. Surely you jive with the time more than the Queen of England.)

Now that we're all agreed that the government can make hiring and firing decisions based on infusions of taxpayer money, I can think of a lot more government beneficiaries who are badly in need of firing. (An interesting transition; not sure if the yang really flips the ying here. But good try, and your arrogant readers probably won't care.)

Just off the top of my head, how about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and everybody at the Department of Education? How about firing all the former Weathermen, like Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, whose university salaries are subsidized by the taxpayer?

Nearly every university in the country accepts government money. Is there any industry in America more in need of some "restructuring" than academia?

What's Berkeley's "business plan" to stop turning out graduates who hate America? (Ms. Coulter must be the foremost authority on hate in America. She bears the dubious distinction of being the most spite- and hate-filled polemicist in the Neo Nazi-Con media corps.) And what is Obama's justification for keeping Shirley M. Tilghman as president of Princeton University as long as Princeton employs prominent crackpot Peter Singer?

Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton's Center for Human Values, believes parents should have the right to kill newborn babies with birth defects, such as Down syndrome and hemophilia, and says there is nothing morally wrong with parents conceiving children in order to harvest them for spare parts for an older child -- or even for society to breed children on a massive scale for spare parts. His views on these issues are so extreme I'm surprised Singer hasn't been offered a position in the Obama cabinet yet. (How dare people like Peter Singer and Nancy Reagan support stem cell research. Extremist liberal crazies will be our demise....aaaaaahhhhh! I'm not going to touch the killing and harvesting of children; but if this is indeed the case and not some abortion re-branding effort, he should be more than just fired. I have a feeling Ms. Coulter is merely sounding alarmist, as she does so brilliantly! Raise the terror-meter to bleach blonde!)

Perhaps he paid his taxes and was disqualified. Singer compares the black liberation movement to the liberation of apes, saying we must "extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species." (Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had said that and then go lie down for 20 minutes.)

The esteemed professor Singer also believes sex with animals is acceptable and has no objections to necrophilia -- provided the deceased gave consent when still alive. We're still waiting to hear his views on sex with dead animals. Especially me, as I have no plans for next weekend. Doesn't a "new vision" for Princeton -- which benefits from massive taxpayer subsidies in the form of student loans and government grants -- require firing the president of Princeton? (I believe that you've totally gone off point, unless you're employing some triangular reasoning pardigm to link Obama and necrophilia viz a viz GM; forgive me for being confused, but I don't believe your writing professor at Cornell would have accepted this absolutely ridiculous course of reasoning; nor does America. We're not as stupid as you think!)

That university is clearly teetering on the brink of moral bankruptcy. (As judged by the self appointed moral authority herself, Ms. Ann Coulter!? I guess when you're argument back business men guilty of real financial bankruptcy, you must resort to solemn vapors of arguments that mean nothing, like "moral bankruptcy".)

When is the government going to get around to firing 99 percent of public school superintendents? They're clearly turning out an inferior product -- i.e., America's public school graduates -- as compared to some of the foreign models now available. (Why, Ms. Coulter, you're a genius; so do something with that Ivy League education and figure out what to do about our inferior "product." Then DO it!)

In New York City, spending on public schools increased by more than 300 percent between 1982 and 2001, coming in at $11,474 per pupil annually -- compared to about $5,000 for private schools. (Finally some actually numbers to support claims. Ms. Coulter's Cornell University Freshman year writing professor must be breathing a sigh of relief. Ivy League representin'!)

But in 2003, a New York court ruled that graduates of New York City's public schools did not have the skills to be "capable of voting and serving on a jury." (Worse, some kids coming out of New York high schools are so stupid they don't even know how to get out of jury duty.)

If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure," isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan "jihads" also an "unnecessary expenditure"? (I'm confused... but that's frequently Ms. Coulter's goal: to confuse and sabotage rather than enlight.) Are all those school condom purchases considered "necessary expenditures"?

Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer more than $10 billion a year, net, in Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, free school lunches, prison, school and court costs. And yet cities, counties and states across the nation are openly refusing to enforce federal immigration law against illegal aliens -- all while accepting billions of dollars of stimulus money on top of a litany of other federal payouts.

Shouldn't somebody be fired over this? Like maybe Geraldo Rivera?

How about hauling San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom before a congressional committee and firing him? In fact, just being named "Gavin Newsom" should be grounds for dismissal. San Francisco is getting $18 million of stimulus money -- to say nothing of its residents who receive federal money in the form of Social Security payments, government grants, welfare payments, federal highway funds and on and on and on. (So Gavin Newsom should go before a congressional committee to defend his name, and the taxpayers in San Francisco should reject seeing their money invested taxpayers? Even some welfare recipients pay taxes too, ya know!)

Doesn't PBS take federal funds? Obama should really ask Big Bird to step down. While we're at it, shouldn't Tim Geithner be fired?

Now that the government owns everything, there's no end to the dead wood that can be cleared out. (Obama should employ some of Bush's covert media controls and make sure writing as abysmal as this doesn't further decay the American education system that was pretty bad BEFORE "No Child Left Behind" was executed poorly and abysmally underfunded; no its just simply a mess. The problem isn't the personnel en masse, and its not the children; it's a Government and a systemic problem made worse by pockets of personnel issues.)

Except the problem is -- as this very partial list demonstrates -- most of the dead wood exists only because of the government in the first place. (So are the leaders of the Republican party and the conservative media corps absolved of all accountability on the basis of some "I told you so; if not for Government there would be no President Bush" sort of circular reasoning?)

Capitalism has its own methods of clearing out dead wood, which the government keeps preventing by forcing the taxpayer to bail out capitalism's losers. (Now here's an idea for you; fight FOR capitalism and examine these phantom methods that this omnipotent force called Capitalism clears out "dead wood." Cuz it sounds to me like that force, it turns out, may just be President Barack Obama beeeoch!)

Ann Coulter's article copied and pasted from http://www.anncoulter.com/, COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE 1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

Under Scrutiny: Reagan's Diplomatic Prowess Holds Up Where Reaganomics Fails

There is a fondness for Ronald Reagan made greater by perception than by his ability to successfully execute Reaganomics. Still he did force the Soviet Union to accept the illegitimacy of its communist government. In so doing he provided the world with one of the greatest examples of international diplomacy the world has ever seen. The iron curtain fell simply because Reagan traveled to the Berlin and demanded that it fall. Reaganomics may not hold up under scrutiny due, but that historical act of diplomacy solidifies Reagan’s legacy in my book.

And if you can use Reagaplomacy instead of expensive war mongering to achieve peace, you might successfully cut taxes you might save Rove all trouble and re-imaging record deficits and a fraudulent war when he edits the next Republican Presidential legacy.

That is if he's not serving community service time for crimes against America... sorry, hallucinated.

Who Keeps Clogging the Toilet?: Stuck Up Bullpooh!

The difference between America’s economy through the fifties (perhaps even into the early 80's)and our's today is that we are a net importer; in other words our economy is based on consumption rather than manufacturing. When unemployment rates rise and the middle class loses its purchasing power, however, the result should come as not surprise. We've taken the consumer out of the consumer based economy.

Think about how many jobs banker of the year Kenneth D. Lewis could have created from an addition 4 billion dollar in assets when he acquired Merril Lynch. This is American Exceptionalism at its Machiavellian best! Kenneth D. Lewis doesn’t deserve an award; he deserves to be fired.

And since all the janitors probably got cut from the bottom line, whose gonna clean up all that pooh before another long, hot, humid New York summer amplifies the stench emenating from Wall Street. Certainly we don't expect classy guys like Ken Lewis to clean up their own pooh.

Six Neo Nazi-Con Fools For April 1st!

Libs and Cons Top Six Neo Nazi-Con Fools

1. http://www.rove.com/
2. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney
3. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
4. http://www.billoreilly.com/
5. http://www.anncoulter.com/
6. http://www.hannity.com/

Libs and Cons Special Blog Series: When Smart People Fuel Stupid Economic Misconceptions

Misconception: The Stock Market and The Market are one in the same. Republicans seem to hold this idea of "the market" as if godlike in its command of business and economy. If the economy seems to be good, Republican credit themselves for their faith in the market, and they credit the market for its freedom and power. If the economy turns lousy, they point to cycles and tell us not to worry because the market will make everything right.

Reality: The Stock Market is one mechanism of exchange that makes up The Market.

The Stock Market is gambling with a bigger purpose. Over time, the stock market measures the markets functional success in spreading societal well-being. It operates essentially as a casino, albeit one that incorporates highly advanced mathematical slot machines and a dual business purpose. The first purpose is to raise cash to grow the business. People invest (or "bet" or "gamble") their money based on their perceived value of the business. It's kind of like a second mortgage for the business where the business pays its lenders back with good decisions that increase the value; the stock is liquid and lenders can cash it in for prevailing stock price at any given moment, The catch is the interest may be positive or it may be negative.

The number of lenders relates to the second function of the stock market as an executive check and the balance. In theory, a large, diverse pool of investors react to information (earnings reports, outlook, expansion, day-to-day operations) that determines the value of the stock. Since supply of the stock is essentially fixed, a stock's value is driven by demand for the stock which is driven by the ongoing success of the business. The stock market, however, is only as good as the speed and accuracy with which the business relays important information to investors. In the internet era, this should happen instantaneously; that it doesn't and that the market has essentially vomitted and shit simultaneously and uncontrollably speaks volumes on the speed and accuracy of the information provided to investors.

Compounding the problems we're witnessing today are bonuses structured to give executives large amounts of stock eventually gave them a controlling interest within shareholder pools that became shallow as the economy evaporated. This explains why shareholders were happy to reward the executives... The executives had in effect become the shareholders. In so doing, they manipulated the model to make it as inefficient as it could possibly get.

The market, on the other hand, is a system of exchange that can best be described as EVERYTHING. It's everything, it's everything that effects everything, it's everything that effects everything that effects everything. The market is the mechanism for economics; economics is the system for and measure of the expansion of societal well-being. Like the stock market, the efficiency of the market is only as good as the infrastructure for deliverying well-being to people; it can be measured by velocity, reach, and quality.

If the market is some omnipotent economic force that we should respect and fear as some Republican governers and talking heads seem to infer, then a bunch of executives just bought a one way ticket to hell. Enjoy your free business class upgrades while they last.

Retention Bonuses or Hush Money...

AIG: Retention bonsuses? Ken Lewis: Banker of the Year?

For real. Once upon a time Wall Street may have been credible. Those times have passed.

AIG is not handing out retention bonuses; that is hush money so the fat can continue to cut the meat and try and convince us that its too fatty.

Ken Lewis could have made a 4 billion dollar TARP payment to the Government if he hadn't given it to his buddies when he bought that other pile of lard that once went by the name Merryl Lynch.

Let AIG Fail--But Cut the Executive Fat First

AIG needs to fail, because they are the health care problem not the solution. From the ashes of AIG, let a new health care model rise up. This new model shall be predicated on incentives to prevent and cure. And let this new model of sound economics by way of expanding well-being be funded by bonuses fraudulently stolen from America designed to transfer wealth back up where it belongs.

Forgive me if I have trouble identifying with Republican senators who publicly decry Universal Health Care; in private I can't help but think this isn't more about their unlimited supply of viagra and botox.

Libs and Cons Special Blog Series: When Smart People Fuel Stupid Economics

MISCONCEPTION: OBAMA'S STIMULUS PERVERTS THE FREE MARKET

The bailouts, the stimulus, the suggestion of nationalizing a national bank has caused some Republicans to charge him with perverting the free market. So I know many highly opinionated yet fundamentally misguided Republican party leaders want us to believe that Obama has guided an economic downcycle into the Great Depression. And I know deep down they hope that their use of the word pervert wasn't an attempt to take back the meaning of the word, but was to linke Obama to the the suggestions that has been imbued in the word "pervert." But what's scary is the thought that they either truly believe that Bush was a perfectionist bent purifying the market. But his his economically inefficient rewarding of the Iraq oil contracts to Halliburton suggests otherwise. But why does this glaring detail go undiscussed among those high minded enough to aspire to such a pure economic ideology?

REALITY: FREE MARKETS DO NOT EXIST

A completely free market might be achievable when the global village achieves some sort of Utopian enlightenment en masse; in other words, not I’ll never see a wholly free market. Further actually a part of any free market, especially when it is the only entity capable of correcting a run of failures (aka Wall Street executives) as severe as those witnessed during this ridiculous meltdown. Republicans have accused Obama of perverting the market. Sorry, the market already in dire need of castration. Obama’s merely countering the perversion in the market with sound economic decisions. And to think that they do is not acceptable from parties for Government.