FREAK SHOW

Teapublican Freak Show

It was a great day for progressives yesterday, as those right of center struggled to maintain sanity. It was a grab your favorite soda pop, make a big bucket of buttered popcorn, and pull up your most comfortable man chair, and sit back and watch the freaks in action.

It's really kind of sad that all the funny, mean and nasty
clowns have been eliminated from the teapublican debate. Now we're down to just the mean and nasty ones.

And the game continues.... Outwitting teapublicans is like Albert Einstein vs Pat Roberson, Mr. Spock vs Gilligan, or James Bond vs Bozo the Clown.

In case you missed the South Carolina GOP debate last night, dumping your first mistress and second wife for your second mistress and third wife is 'human,' and yet asking a question about it is 'close to despicable.' Not my words....see show below.

I bet Newt can now relate to how African Americans feel with his onslaught of welfare and food stamp association. Its funny how things come full circle.

What truly is appalling and despicable, is during yet another debate, callous teapublicans give Newt G a standing ovation, which sends a clear message to intelligent viewers, that disobedience of God's laws are acceptable - and in the "bible belt", or the land of the "Southern Baptist" to boot. This speaks well of "Gods Children" doesn't it?

Newt Grinch is a pasty white, obese, racist, who thought he had enough "man" power to have an open marriage? Really?

Newt Gingrich on the sanctity of marriage: I believe marriage should be between a man and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman and a woman....... You would tend to believe with Newt's open marriage theory, and or policy if you will, came from reading Flipflopney's bible, which is titled, "Joseph Smith, an adulterers guide to multiple wives", which is more aptly titled "the book of Mormon" - which gives cult leaders tips on how to successfully have more than one wife and get away with it, just ask Flipflopney about his 23 grandmothers.

After the conclusion of last nights debate, NFTOS predicts that President Barack Obama just won his 18th straight GOP debate.

The appropriately named Newt Gingrich is the political personification of troglodyte. His sociopathic selfishness is the product of blind ambition driven by a reptilian lust for power and revenge.

Current TV's Keith Olbermann said last night:

"Did you notice how John King never said a word to Newt Gingrich when he came out swinging at him from the very beginning? He had an opportunity to cogently state that character was an important ingredient in a presidential candidate. After all, Newt went after Clinton for his character unabashedly (all while he was married and getting plenty on the side himself). Yet John King says nothing. He lets Newt get away with his nasty overbearing dictatorial egotistical narcissistic attitude. What a weak debate moderator he is. That is the big problem in America. It's bad enough we are living in a time of unprecedented corruption by politicians who want to parse our Constitution, dictate their morality and turn back the clock on our civil rights but having a media that wears blinders or a media that does not have the forbearance to call a spade a spade has ruined our nation. Newt Gingrich blames the media for going after him. I blame the media for waiting too long to go after ALL of them."

How convenient that God is so forgiving to teapublicans. They take it as license that they can sin against their fellow man without questioning their actions. After all, what is the incentive not to sin when all will be forgiven anyway? What a bunch of hypocrites! If that is what "teapublican Christianity" is all about, then I tell you I'd rather have nothing to do with it.

We have to re-post this quote from an earlier blog this week:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." ~ Mohandas Gandhi

Do you think that Gandhi had Newt in mind when saying this?

So, let me understand Newt clearly, Newt Grinch, a staunch conservative teapublican, is for marriage between a man and a woman and another woman making for an "open" marriage, but against same sex marriage as it's immoral and against God's law? Do I understand Newt correctly?

Gingrich is the only Speaker of the House in the history of the U.S. to be charged for ethics violations. He was found guilty, and forced to pay a $300,000 fine. His game plan is to call out other Americans and teapublican candidates on their lack of ethics. His baloney has a first name, its h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y, his baloney has second name its o-p-e-n m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e.

Spike Lee tweeted last night during the debates:

"Folks, We Gotta Rally Around President Obama Or Do You Want To Be Led Astray, Run Amok, Hornswaggled, Okey Doked, Flim Flammed or BAMBOOZLED? YO!"

Newt had been ranting all evening long on how he and the teapublican God Ronnie Reagan worked together often during Newts tenure in DC. Romney aptly placed Newt in his place by saying that poor little Newt had only received one mention in Saint Ronald's memoir, and the mention was not a positive one at that. But then again, Flipflopney thinks that if every car in America had a Reagan bobblehead on the dashboard, we'd be a more righteous and godly nation, with a thriving economy.

If the reichwing-nuts continue to push the 'beginning of life' concept back any further, men are going to have to start deducting their sperm as dependents.

Let's face it readers except for it's workers, poor, gays, blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, women, rights, laws, and Government... teapublicans love America!

I got to thinking, if Newt and Calista gain the right to occupy the house at 1600 Penn ave, would that make them First adulterer and first tramp respectively?

UPDATE: Breaking South Carolina: Gingrich Leads Romney By Two Wives!

NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

GOP Can’t Handle The Truth: Taxes Are Lower Under Obama Than Reagan.



President Obama met with House Republicans today at the White House to discuss ways to move forward on negotiations regarding the nation’s debt ceiling and the budget. During the discussion, talk evidently turned to taxes, and when Obama noted that taxes today are lower than they were under President Reagan, the GOP, according to The Hill, “engaged in a lot of ‘eye-rolling’“:

Republicans attending a White House meeting on Wednesday didn’t take kindly to President Obama telling them tax rates were higher during the Reagan administration. GOP members engaged in a lot of “eye-rolling,” according to a member who was on hand to hear Obama, who invited House Republicans to the White House for discussions on the debt ceiling.

“The President made a comment like the tax rate is the lightest, even more than (under former President) Reagan,” Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) told The Hill following the meeting. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) joked that during the meeting, “We learned we had the lowest tax rates in history … lower than Reagan!”

That House Republicans find this preposterous is symptomatic of the hold Reagan mythology has over them. After all, for seven of Reagan’s eight years in office, the top tax rate was higher than the current 35 percent. In six of those years, it was 50 percent or more. And every year that Regan was in office, the bottom tax bracket was higher than the current ten percent.

For a family of four, the “average income tax rate under Reagan in 1983 was 11.06 percent. Under Clinton in 1992, it was 9.18 percent. And under Obama in 2010, it was 4.68 percent.” During Reagan’s time, income tax revenue ranged from 7.8 to 9.4 percent of GDP. Last year, it was 6.2 percent and is not projected to climb back to 9 percent until 2016. In fact, in 2009, Americans paid their lowest taxes in 60 years.

Republicans are very fond of saying that the U.S. has “a spending problem, not a revenue problem.” But the truth is that revenue has plunged due to the recession and to continued misguided tax cuts, and revenue needs to be raised to eventually bring the budget into balance. And Reagan knew that taxes were an important part of the budget equation. After all, he “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years.


NFTOS

Wisconsin Governor Scott "I've Got Koch Industries In My Back Pocket" Walker

To end a high-stakes stalemate over union rights that has captured the nation's attention, a handful of Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin might have to stand up to their new governor.

Gov. Scott Walker made it clear Monday he won't back off his proposal to effectively eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public employees. Senate Democrats who fled the state last week to delay the plan vowed not to come back to allow it to pass – even if they have to miss votes on other bills Tuesday. And union leaders said they would not let up on protests that have consumed Wisconsin's capital city for a week and made the state the center of a national debate over the role of public employees' unions.

Walker said on "Good Morning America" that there is "no room to negotiate" and rejected a compromise proposal from a Republican state senator.  
Protesters who crowded inside the Capitol for a sixth day Sunday had a similar message. They hung a banner in the Capitol reading "Wisconsin needs 3 cou(R)ageous Senators," referring to the number of Republicans needed to join with Democrats to block the bill.

While there has been significant attention devoted to the fact that Walker's 144-page budget repair bill would strip away collective bargaining rights for public employees, the site "Rortybomb" points out a less noticed provision that would allow the state to sell or contract out any state-owned energy asset in no-bid deals with private corporations. From the legislation (emphasis added):

16.896 Sale or contractual operation of state−owned heating, cooling, and power plants. (1) Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state−owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).

It's truly unclear to NFTOS what "the best interest of the state" is.

But if this deal does goes through, one of the companies that will stand to benefit significantly is Koch Industries. Koch already has several companies in the state, including a coal subsidiary, timber plants and a large network of pipelines.

During the 2010 election cycle, Walker received $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC, his second-largest contribution. The PAC also gave significantly to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn helped out Walker considerably in his race. Koch also contributed $6,500 to support 16 Republican legislative candidates in the state.

The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity has also been standing with Walker throughout his budget battles, busing in Tea Party activists and launching the site, Stand With Walker. After the election, Walker and other Republican governors received guidance from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that is also funded by Koch dollars and has pushed anti-union measures.

As we see Koch Industries and Gov. Walker are intertwined tighter than two redneck cousins seeking a marriage partner at a family reunion. I am sure that if one looked deeper into the "corporate funding to tea party alliances" that Faux News and the Chamber of Commerce would be linked to Walker's hip as well.

The last time Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) went after public sector unions it had “disastrous results” for him and for taxpayers. As Milwaukee County Executive in 2009, Walker tried to get rid of the unionized security guards at the county courthouse and replace them with contractors, which he promised would save the county money. The County Board rejected the idea, but in March of 2010 Walker “unilaterally ordered it,” claiming there was a budget emergency. Walker hired the British security contractor Wackenhut — of Kabul Embassy sex scandal fame — to replace the guards. Unfortunately for Walker and Milwaukee taxpayers, an arbiter later ruled that Walker had overstepped his authority, and ordered the county to reinstate the unionized workers, pay backwages, and pay tens-of-thousands of dollars in arbiter fees. As MSNBC’s Racheal Maddow pointed out last night, Walker’s “dress rehersal” for his current union busting effort may end up costing Milwaukee taxpayers an extra half a million dollars. Watch it here at NFTOS:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

While his anti-union crusade proved to be a boondagle for Milwaukee County, Walker had escaped in time to wash his hands clean of it, as the arbiter’s ruling against didn’t come down until last month — after Walker had been sworn in as governor. Maddow also notes that the man put in charge of Wackenhut’s security at the courthouse had a criminal record and had served prison time.

Oh Scotty, maybe you should stop while your ahead big guy. In politics of late we certainly hear often about "minions" and "puppet masters". Koch Industries is the great and powerful Oz of the GOP, they are behind the curtain pulling the strings that make the talking heads dance and sing.

When MSNBC speaks on Koch Industries they should embed the caption on their crawl "Republican Puppet Master".

Koch's ideology in itself is incongruent and inimical with the Republican image of strength and individualism.

There lies a hammer that nestles itself next to a sacred stained glass window of Ronald Reagan that watches proudly over the Republican Party. Someone needs to pick up that hammer and start swinging. Now.

NFTOS

10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan

Tomorrow will mark the 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth, and all week, conservatives have been trying to outdo each others’ remembrances of the great conservative icon. Senate Republicans spent much of Thursday singing Reagan’s praise from the Senate floor, while conservative publications have been running non-stop commemorations. Meanwhile the Republican National Committee and former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich are hoping to make few bucks off the Gipper’s centennial.

But Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to untie the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill.


ThinkProgress has compiled a list of the top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan:

1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As governor of California, Reagan “signed into law the largest tax increase in the history of any state up till then.” Meanwhile, state spending nearly doubled. As president, Reagan “raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office,” including four times in just two years. As former GOP Senator Alan Simpson, who called Reagan “a dear friend,” told NPR, “Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration — I was there.” “Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, who edited Reagan’s memoir. Reagan the anti-tax zealot is “false mythology,” Brinkley said.

2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.

3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.

4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.

5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose. As governor of California in 1967, Reagan signed a bill to liberalize the state’s abortion laws that “resulted in more than a million abortions.” When Reagan ran for president, he advocated a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, but once in office, he “never seriously pursued” curbing choice.

6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.” He wrote in his memoirs that “[m]y dream…became a world free of nuclear weapons.” “This vision stemmed from the president’s belief that the biblical account of Armageddon prophesied nuclear war — and that apocalypse could be averted if everyone, especially the Soviets, eliminated nuclear weapons,” the Washington Monthly noted. And Reagan’s military buildup was meant to crush the Soviet Union, but “also to put the United States in a stronger position from which to establish effective arms control” for the the entire world — a vision acted out by Regean’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president.

7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants. Reagan signed into law a bill that made any immigrant who had entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty. The bill was sold as a crackdown, but its tough sanctions on employers who hired undocumented immigrants were removed before final passage. The bill helped 3 million people and millions more family members gain American residency. It has since become a source of major embarrassment for conservatives.

8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran. Reagan and other senior U.S. officials secretly sold arms to officials in Iran, which was subject to a an arms embargo at the time, in exchange for American hostages. Some funds from the illegal arms sales also went to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua — something Congress had already prohibited the administration from doing. When the deals went public, the Iran-Contra Affair, as it came to be know, was an enormous political scandal that forced several senior administration officials to resign.
9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act. which placed sanctions on South Africa and cut off all American trade with the country. Reagan’s veto was overridden by the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan responded by saying “I deeply regret that Congress has seen fit to override my veto,” saying that the law “will not solve the serious problems that plague that country.”

10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Reagan fought a proxy war with the Soviet Union by training, arming, equipping, and funding Islamist mujahidin fighters in Afghanistan. Reagan funneled billions of dollars, along with top-secret intelligence and sophisticated weaponry to these fighters through the Pakistani intelligence service. The Talbian and Osama Bin Laden — a prominent mujahidin commander — emerged from these mujahidin groups Reagan helped create, and U.S. policy towards Pakistan remains strained because of the intelligence services’ close relations to these fighters. In fact, Reagan’s decision to continue the proxy war after the Soviets were willing to retreat played a direct role in Bin Laden’s ascendency.

Conservatives seem to be in such denial about the less flattering aspects of Reagan; it sometimes appears as if they genuinely don’t know the truth of his legacy. Yesterday, when liberal activist Mike Stark challenged hate radio host Rush Limbaugh on why Reagan remains a conservative hero despite raising taxes so many times, Limbaugh flew into a tirade and demanded, “Where did you get this silly notion that Reagan raised taxes?“


Brought to you by thinkprogress


NFTOS

NATIONAL DEBT, THE REAL TRUTH

The persistent cacophony from the Republican debt/deficit hawks, who only surface during Democratic administrations, are enough to keep us puking into perpetuity. The most pitiful and annoying aspect of this particular trait in Republicans tea bags, is their seemingly endless forgetfulness when it comes to whom created these debts in the first place. Or could it be they are aware whom created this mess and choose to regurgitate more BS into the political arena?


Indeed, we have become consumed with a burning desire to remind the right wing nut job of exactly who is responsible for driving up U.S. debt. And, as you undoubtedly deduced from our graphic, It is the evil triumvirate of three Republican presidents, at least 2 of which are destined to be remembered in history as "The Two Worst Presidents Ever".

Truly a picture is worth a thousand words, and as one can clearly see (click the image to enlarge it), Republican Presidents, beginning with Reagan, are the ONLY Presidents responsible for the overall increases in the national debt since World War II.

It should be well worth noting that President Reagan took the United States from being the largest creditor nation in the world, to being the largest debtor nation in the world.

A truly sad commentary on the fiscal policy of Republican Presidents.

NFTOS

Does The Republican Care About The Middle Class?

Republicans are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the rich and the powerful. Case in point is senator Dr. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. He had the testicle fortitude last week to speak about shared pain, cutting our deficit after the republicans just gave the rich hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts.


If we didn't take some pain now, we're certainly going to experience apocalyptic pain when 2011 rolls around.

Who does Coburn think he's kidding? After the giant, mammoth, enormous tax cuts for the rich, and now it's time for ":shared pain"? Coburn's rhetoric of course is code words for making you take your share of the pain.

When can we expect these austerity programs to share equally, you know so the rich will also have to pay and not just the middle class?

This was the tea bags strategy all along, look out for the wealthy first and then blame the economic problems on the middle class. If you want to help balance the budget, then go snatch the $400 billion in tax cuts that we just gave to the top 2% back for us. Until the righties do that, we shouldn't cut a dime from the middle class. Coburn, who voted against the tax cut deal, not because he gave away too much of the rich, but because he did too much with the unemployed, then and only then did Colburn have the nerve to talk about sacrifice.

If only we could cut $100 to $200 billion and help ourselves, there cannot be anything that's not put on the table, there will not be one American that will not be called to sacrifice, and those that are more well-to-do will be called to sacrifice to a greater extent.

Do we really believe that for a second. they just gave them $400 billion. are you kidding?

Colburn is also the guy who tried to cut down the 9/11 first responders bill, you remember, this was to cover the health expenses for those workers who worked down at ground zero and now they only get coverage for five years instead of ten, and thanks to senator Coburn, the responders lost $3.1 billion in health care coverage, it went from originally being a $7.4 billion bill to $3.4. 70% of these people have respiratory illness because they sacrificed for our country. There certainly was no bigger sacrifice, but Coburn cut their lengths out, and now he wants to speak on or about sacrifice?

These are not honest actors. The entire republican party has one and only one mission -- help the rich and the powerful, and everyone else be damned and screwed.

George Bush said at a dinner engagement while in office "What an impressive crowd these haves and the have mores, some people call you the elite, I call you my base."

If and when you look at the numbers, you realize that George Bush actually wasn't kidding. Since 1980 the share of the nation's income that goes to the top 1% has gone up from 9% to 23.5%. It hasn't been that high since right before the great depression.

The income of that top bracket has also gone up 281%. since that time. The rich have gotten much richer, and that's what we call the "Reagan revolution", a revolution for and on behalf of the rich. Coburn now has the nerve to talk about the destruction of the middle class? Really?

What does the future hold for the middle class? NFTOS thinks that you'll see a 15% to 18% unemployment rate, and a 9% to 8% decline in GDP in the very near future. We think that you'll see the middle class just get destroyed with a Republican rule in 2011, and the people that it'll harm the most will be the poorest of the poor.

Republicans would love to balance the budget off of the back of the poor and the middle class and not the rich, but somehow in republican logic, that's supposed to help the poor.

The realities are that Colburn and Company will destroyed the middle class by giving tax breaks to the companies who outsource their jobs.

For reference, the republican party blockade bill would take away any subsidies gained earlier in year, and this will also make them disappear. By giving every conceivable tax advantage to the rich, including dividend and capital gains taxes of only 15%.

Republicans will make these subsidies disappear by crushing the unions, and then hence there goes our ability to negotiate with multinational corporations that are making workers work longer hours for less pay.

What about balancing the budget? When's the last time the republican party balanced a budget within the last 30 years? NEVER! Reagan, had giant record-breaking deficits. George H and W Bush, NEVER! Both Bush's recorded larger deficits than Reagan.

The tea bags are not capable of balancing budgets period. Why, because they're too busy giving tax breaks to the top 1%. Leaving the republicans any surpluses (like the one democratic president Bill Clinton gave them) was just a piggybank for the rich. How much credibility do the Republican have on deficits? None, zero, zilch, nada, not one iota. No one should ever take them seriously on the topic.

The republican party doesn't talk about the middle class, or shared sacrifice of the deficit. They've have never really gave a damn about any of these things.

59 million Americans have no health insurance, and these numbers are rising while the insurance company's fees are rising. We bailout the banks, whom are now wallowing in profits, they're not lending, and home foreclosure are on the rise. 4 out of 9 million Americans are in poverty and they can't pay their mortgage, nor their rent. 4 million Americans are now on food stamps.

All of this is like ham and egg justice, you come in the house and you smell ham and eggs, and it blends perfectly, it seems like it's one, but whenever there's a vote, the hog votes against it and the chicken votes for it. The chicken drops a egg, the hog drops a leg. So it looks even, but it's not even, and the fact is that one sacrifices much more, and in this case those who work hardest are in fact paying the most taxes.

Do you really think the John Boehner's and Mitch McConnell's of the world care about you, the middle class? How misconstrued you would be to think so.





NFTOS