Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well*

With the corporate press busy touting polls and soundbites in the Rethuglican clown derby, it would be helpful if the public saw the damage that would be done under several tax and budget plans put forth by several Rethug candidates for President, and it's not pretty.  Courtesy of the Tax Foundation (h/t to Daily Kos), you only have to look at the last two lines of the chart below to see the hole that would be excavated with their tax giveaways (click on chart to enlarge):

After 10 years under the static revenue projection, the deficits range from Sen. "Ayn" Rand Paul's $1.7 trillion, to narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump's whopping $11.9 trillion, with the others falling somewhere in between (failed Louisiana Gov. Piyush "Bobby" Jindal comes close to Rump at $11.3 trillion).

Rethugs are offering new and expanded wars abroad, coupled with ruinous tax plans and budgets for the domestic economy.  What's not to like?
________
*apologies to Cole Porter

Right-Wingers Playing Into ISIS' Hands

As we hear the hysterical, reactionary drumbeat from the usual, arrant fools on the right both here and abroad, let's see what intelligent people have to say about ISIS' strategy and how to defeat it.

Here's Fareed Zakaria (h/t Crooks and Liars):

It's worth asking, what does ISIS want? By most accounts, it wants all of this, a world divided between Muslims and non-Muslims. Its propaganda stresses that the West is intractably anti-Muslim. It has always openly tried to draw Western forces into Iraq and Syria hoping to make itself the great army of believers fighting the crusaders. (our emphasis)

 Here's Shadi Hamid:

“Anti-Muslim and anti-refugee sentiment really play into ISIS' hands," Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an author on Islamist politics, told The WorldPost. “The more that happens, the more French Muslims feel alienated and are susceptible to extremist recruitment.”

“France has long had a problem with integrating its Muslim population, and France does have a disproportionately high contribution of foreign fighters to ISIS,” Hamid said. “So there’s a deeper issue here and it hasn’t gotten better, it’s only gotten worse.”  [snip]

"You hear Republicans saying clash of civilizations and civilizational war, and they don’t realize that’s exactly what ISIS wants us to be saying," Hamid said. "It’s remarkable to me, and just shows a very basic lack of understanding of the threat that we face." (our emphasis)

In the aftermath of the horrific attacks in Paris (and, if confirmed, the downing of the Russian airliner by a bomb over the Sinai, killing 224 people), the response must of course target the vicious, soulless perpetrators.  We must not let this crime be used by right- wingers to set citizen against citizen in order to fulfill their xenophobic, authoritarian agenda.  That would make us allies with ISIS, a role currently being played by right- wing extremists.

UPDATE:  See also this piece by Harleen Gambhir on the same subject.

Unlimited Chances Quote of the Day

“Well, the cool thing about putting your faith in God is he certainly is a God of second chances and third and fourth and fifth chances.” -- full time grifter and favorite of hypocritical Bible thumpers Sarah "Winky" Palin, in an interview with CBS' Sunday Morning, talking about daughter Bristol's second out of wedlock pregnancy. For a "family values" scold, Winky is certainly cavalier about her daughter's tendency to get knocked up before getting married, something she'd be screeching about if it were, say, one of the Obama girls, right? Luckily for this country, Winky had her chance, and lost in 2008. As far as Bristol's concerned, will a third (or fourth or fifth) time be a charm?

(photo:  Lay off the Big Gulps and put your daughter on the pill.)

Why Republican Elites Are In Panic Mode - Exhibit B

Today, frequent blind squirrel Ruth Marcus slips on her reality glasses and focuses her op/ ed on Dr. "Mental Ben" Carson, with a swipe at co- front runner Donald "Rump" Trump.  She says:

"... [the question] about Carson isn’t whether the retired neurosurgeon is a fabulist, and therefore whether he has the right character to be president. It’s whether he has the knowledge and understanding to be president. The evidence is rather conclusive that he doesn’t.

Why single out Carson? This is a fair question in a Republican race whose other front-runner is Donald Trump. But Trump’s brand of blustery unpreparedness is more self-evident, more accessible, than Carson’s. Trump will build a tremendous wall. He’ll stop making stupid deals. If voters are credulous enough to be seduced by his supposed managerial skills and convinced by his grandiose promises — well, that’s on them, though woe to the rest of us.

Carson’s ignorance is of a more subtle sort, delivered with his genial bedside manner. It unfolds not in indignant sound bites but in paragraphs of pure blather. Carson doesn’t just need fact-checking. He needs thought-checking.  (our emphasis)

Meanwhile, both Rump and Mental Ben continue to score with the appallingly awful Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Crazy Party base:

A new poll finds Donald Trump surging well above his chief 2016 rival Ben Carson after week that included a Saturday Night Live appearance and a GOP debate.

Forty-two percent of likely GOP voters supported Trump in a five-day rolling poll released Friday by Reuters/Ipsos, up from 25 percent last week. Carson was also polling around 25 percent last week and his support among GOP voters has since dipped slightly.  (our emphasis)

Mmmmm.  Let's see.  Forty- two percent plus 25 percent equals [tap tap click click] 67 percent (!!!). No wonder the money boys and the insider Republican elites are "in panic mode."

Contrary to the wishful thinking in the Republican hack writers guild that the Rump and Carson melt downs are finally happenin' (no, this time for realz!), the co- front runners show no signs that their bizarre ideas and behavior are negatively affecting their standing among the folks residing in the asylum right- wing bubble.  In fact, the more bizarre the talk and the walk, the more they're clasped to the bosoms of the True Believers.  For this despicable party, the chickens cuckoos are coming home to roost with a vengeance.

Sunday Reflection

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

-- Edith Wharton

To Paris, City of Lights:  You will always be both the candle and the mirror.

Colors Photo of the Day

Washington Square Arch in lower Manhattan, lit tonight to symbolize the French tricolor flag in solidarity with the French people after yesterday's terrorist attacks.  Built in 1892, the arch was actually modeled after Paris' Arc de Triomphe.

(photo: Lou Braga)

Unity

Nous sommes debout, nous sommes unis. J'en appelle à l'unité de toutes et tous.

— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) November 14, 2015

Tweet from the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo.  Translation: "We are standing up, we are united.  I call for unity of all."

In the face of well over 100 massacred in coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris tonight, Paris mourns and will move forward, unintimidated.

UPDATE:  Reuters reports that ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attacks that killed at least 127 with many more wounded.  Some 87 were killed at the concert venue Bataclan.

UPDATE II:  Of course, every call for unity will be met with this from right- wing Twits on Twitter.

President Obama's Statement On Tonight's Terrorist Attacks In Paris

Tweet Of The Week - Wages Are Too Damn High!

Not sure if a major party candidate has ever campaigned on a platform that "wages are too high" before. https://t.co/YvycZQgpua

— Billmon (@billmon1) November 12, 2015

It's not just "Rump" Trump.  Every damn plutocrat puppet Republican thinks the same.

He Didn't Keep Us Safe

One of the rancid falsehoods peddled by Rethuglicans is that former Preznit George "Dumbya" Bush "kept us safe" from terrorists. Perhaps that's because their base thinks that Dumbya became President after the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Dumbya's younger brother, John Ellis "J.E.B.!" Bush would certainly like to perpetuate that lie.

Now, some of Dumbya's co-conspirators are speaking out about the former President's dereliction in ignoring the intelligence warnings leading up to 9-11.  Former CIA Director George Tenet is acknowledging that Dumbya and his crew ignored repeated warnings about al Qaeda's intent to strike inside the U.S. in the months leading up to 9-11,with the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo of August 6, 2001 being the most famous. The former Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center Cofer Black recounts that he gave an impassioned, desk-pounding briefing to Dumbya's National Security Advisor Condoleeza "Gesundheit" Rice two months before the attack, and nothing happened: 

“To me it remains incomprehensible still. I mean, how is it that you could warn senior people so many times and nothing actually happened? It’s kind of like The Twilight Zone.”

More like the Keystone Cops. This pre-9-11 saga has been one of the most egregious examples of dereliction and of avoiding responsibility -- and indeed, avoiding the consequences -- for the biggest national security failing in our history. Imagine if President Obama had been in charge;  the Rethugs would have launched impeachment proceedings immediately, and every right wing media outlet, and some in the corporate media, would have been accusing him of treason and murder.

(photo:  Dumbya holding a copy of "My Pet Goat" upon hearing of the 9-11 attacks)

Weekend Music - Correspondents' Choice

We're letting our Silver Spring and San Francisco Bureau Chiefs suggest the Weekend Music today.  Here again is The War On Drugs' "Burning" (h/t Silver Spring Bureau Chief) and a song by Yo La Tengo from 1997, "We're An American Band" (h/t San Francisco Bureau Chief).  Enjoy.

Protecting the Myth of St. Ronnie

The recent skirmish between Fux loudmouth Bill "O'Liely" O'Reilly and the pompous high priest of the cult of St. Ronnie of Hollywood George F. "Effing" Will over O'Liely's mildly critical book on the former President demonstrates the right wing's obsession with maintaining St. Ronnie's demigod status. Indeed, Effing links the survival of that status to the survival of the conservative movement, which has nothing in the way of achievements in the 20th century save his two elections. What really burned Effing was the book's reference to St. Ronnie's growing signs of Alzheimer's, which were likely accelerated by the 1981 assassination attempt.

The irony is that the historic St. Ronnie wouldn't be embraced as a movement conservative today by its rabid reactionary mob: he added trillions to the national debt, he cut and ran from Lebanon after the Beirut bombings, he granted amnesty to illegal immigrants, and he raised taxes 11 times during his eight years in office. Aside from occasionally kissing the asses of religious fundamentalists, he came up with excuses about why he didn't attend church himself.

As Salon's Sean Illing notes in his excellent article:

All told, Reagan’s policies didn’t shrink the government or increase prosperity for the middle class. On the contrary, they made government more bloated, more defense-oriented, more oligarchic, and less democratic. Conservatives never reckon with these facts because the ahistorical canonization of Reagan prevents them from doing so. Reagan has become nothing more than a juvenile projection, a malleable myth for a movement in denial. (emphasis added)

Effing Will's whole reason for being rests on conservatism being viewed as not just successful, but as essential to America's future.  For that to happen, the movement needs a rallying figure, a secular saint, that can serve as the touchstone for their bogus theories and regressive view of the world.  For Effing, that figure can be none other than Bonzo's co-star, St. Ronnie of Hollywood.

Why Republican Elites Are In Panic Mode - Exhibit A

A man taken seriously by at least a quarter of the Republican electorate, Donald "Rump" Trump had some choice words yesterday in Iowa for Dr. "Mental Ben" Carson, the press, and ISIS.  All of it yuuuuugely presidential:

-- (On Carson) "If you're pathological there's no cure for that folks. And I did one of the shows today, and I don't to say what I said but I'll tell you anyway. I said that if you're a child molester, a sick puppy, you're a child molester, there's no cure for that. There's only one cure, we don't to talk about that cure. That's the ultimate cure. No there's two, there's death and there's the other thing. But if you're a child molester there's no cure, they can't stop you. Pathological, there's no cure. Now he said he was pathological, okay."

-- (On Carson again) "Now here's the beauty of all - he took a knife and he went after a friend and he lunged, he lunged that knife into the stomach of his friends, but low and behold it hit the belt, it hit the belt, and the knife broke. Give me a break, give me a break, give me a break."

-- (On the press) "I may leave here and you may say oh that was not nice what he said. Who cares? Then, you know, I go back to my life, I don't have to do interviews, which I don't like doing to be honest with you. I can leave this scum back here, the press, alone, I don't need 'em anymore. They're garbage, no they're scum. I don't have to deal with 'em anymore."

-- (On ISIS) "ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil caps, right? They have certain areas of oil that they took away, they have some in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the shit out of 'em."

According to reports that we wouldn't question for a second, Republican establishment elites are entering "panic mode" about the continuing popularity of the highly un- electable Rump, Mental Ben, and "loathed" Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz.  Notice in the linked clips, the Rump crowds are enjoying his attacks immensely.  That's the right- wing id that's been fed and nurtured by the same Republican establishment elites that thought it could channel the rage to electoral victory.  Meanwhile, the days are flying by as Iowa, then New Hampshire approach.  Let us pause to enjoy the schadenfreude.

BONUS:  More reactions from Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog,  BooMan (Martin Longman), and Charles P. Pierce.

The Republican Debate - It Was All About The Stupid

Here's Steven Colbert's take on the recent Republican recitation of talking points "debate," with appearances by "Very Serious" candidates Sen. Ted "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz (R-Calgary), Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio (R-Evian) and Donald "Rump" Trump.



"The Nightly Show's" Larry Wilmore also did quick strikes on "Mental Ben" Carson, the "Jesus-y" mix of religion and fact- free politics, as well as "Glug Glug's" admiration for "overpaid" welders.

Change The Diaper, Louisiana

Voters in Louisiana are known for their high tolerance of political and personal scandal, going back at least to the days of Huey Long, but the re-election of admitted prostitute client Sen. David "Diapers" Vitter in 2010 by those wise voters was one for the books (as a client of the "D.C. Madam," Vitter was reportedly fond of wearing diapers during some of his sexcapades). It was also revealed at the same time that he was visiting prostitutes in New Orleans.

Now, Diapers is in a very rough general election fight for Governor with Dem State Rep. John Bel Edwards, who has been very aggressive in reminding voters of the scandal and that Diapers was M.I.A. with a prostitute during a vote honoring veterans in one of the hardest-hitting ads of any political season.  Edwards, an Army veteran himself, has been endorsed by several Republicans in Louisiana, including Republican Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, as well as the Louisiana Sheriff's Association. In a story that's been developing in the past couple of days, Diapers has also been accused by a former New Orleans prostitute of impregnating her and urging her to get an abortion (she bore the child and put it up for adoption). Louisiana law enforcement is also looking into a private investigator working for Diapers who was trying to coerce the prostitute and a reporter on the story against further publicizing the affair.

Polls are indicating that the accumulation of scandals have taken a toll:  Edwards leads Diapers by a healthy, double-digit margin. But, as we know, polls aren't votes, particularly when it comes to Dems actually turning out to vote (Louisiana votes on November 21), so if the DNC isn't working to get out the vote, Diapers might slip by again.

(image: "Can somebody change me?")