Michele Bachmann: Hiding in the Bushes

This is old, but worth reposting just for the entry at #9 on the list.  Scroll down for more.

 

 

The Top 10 Conservative Idiots
(No. 193)

April 11, 2005
Spouting Thomas Edition

Tom DeLay (1,6) tops the list again this week after a tough week for ethics violators, but Fox News (2) is more than happy to give him an assist. Mel Martinez (3) owned up to the Terri Schiavo memo - sort of - not that The Forgery Shovelers (4) cared of course. And John Cornyn (5) suggested that perhaps judges should tone down the old "judging" thing if they cared about their safety. Yup, it's been a prime week for conservative idiocy. Elsewhere, Republican Hypocrites (7) seem to have gone silent on the issue of high gas prices, The Jeff Gannon Show (8) rolled into town for an encore, Michelle Bachman (9) hid in some bushes, and what happens when you mix professional wrestling with right-wing whackery? You get my new all-time favorite conservative idiot in the form of Warrior And Chums (10). Enjoy, and don't forget the key!

Tom DeLay 
This might be the understatement of the year, but Tom DeLay is in the shit. Last week the Campaign for America's Future put up a handy cheat sheet of DeLay's recent scandals, which include taking fancy business trips paid for by lobbyists, taking campaign contributions for favors, using a federal agency (the FAA) for partisan purposes, and alleged money laundering, among other things. In the past week it was also revealed that since 2001 DeLay's wife and daughter have personally received more than $500,000 from his political action committees, and in 1997 DeLay took a trip to Russia which was "underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government," according tothe Washington Post. He later cast votes in support of those same business interests. DeLay has done what he can to clear himself of the charges by, um, trying to change House ethics rules to make the whole thing go away. But let's face it, that doesn't really make him look any better. So what's a poor, downtrodden House Majority Leader to do when the heat is on? Why, blame somebody else, of course! Last week DeLay called the reports about his scandalous behavior "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me." Aww, poor baby. But let it be known that the GOP is backingTom DeLay all the way, so hats off to the Republican party for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bugman, and we'll just wait and see where their firm conviction for being led by an unethical megalomaniac gets them in 2006.

Fox News 
Of course, DeLay's pals at Fox News have been doing their best to disabuse the public of the notion that he might bear just a tiny bit of responsibility for his alleged ethics violations. Media Matters noted that several Fox News hosts went out of their way last week to assist DeLay in his attempt to blame the media for his problems: Brit Hume reported that, "Here in Washington, the press is after Tom DeLay again, but wait 'til you hear the facts," and, "speaking of Tom DeLay, the mainstream media were out after him again today." John Gibson said, "The liberal media is hammering 'The Hammer' - Tom DeLay under a microscope and under the gun. Is this simply a media hit job?" (In order to get a fair and balanced answer he interviewed Rich Lowry, editor of the right-wing National Review.) And our old friend Sean Hannity referred to the "liberal allegations" against DeLay and asked, "Is he the target of a smear campaign?" So if you want to know the details of the charges against Tom DeLay, don't bother asking Fox News. They're more concerned about protecting their buddy than they are about actually reporting the facts.

Mel Martinez 
Last week conservative pundits and bloggers were agog with the possibility that the infamous "Terri Schiavo memo" - which instructed Republican senators to make political hay out of her case - might have been a fake passed around by - booo! - Democrats in order to make Republicans look bad. Because surely Republicans simply aren't capable of playing such awful political games. Yeah right. But the whole thing fell apart at the seams last week when it wasrevealed that the memo actually came from the office of freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez. Of course, Martinez was completely in the dark about the memo - which explains why he was, uh, carrying it around in his pocket - and fired his aide Brian Darling for taking action "unilaterally." At this point it's probably worth mentioning that the St. Petersburg Times said back in November 2004 that "When challenged, Martinez was too eager to assign blame to his staff or to groups he said he couldn't control. As a senator, he will need an office and a staff that speaks with the measured and centrist tone he says will be his own. He can't pretend to be above it all if the people he employs are not." It certainly appears that Martinez hasn't taken that advice to heart. But in case you were worried about the future of poor Brian "Unilateral" Darling, don't fret. He used to work for the Alexander Strategy Group, whose chairman Edwin A. Buckham (former chief of staff to - ta da! - Tom DeLay) said last week that "He is still going to have a bright future in this town." Why am I not surprised...

The Forgery Shovelers 
The news that the memo was in fact not a fake, and did in fact originate from the office of a Republican senator, was somewhat embarrassing to the folks who'd been shoveling the forgery meme. After the "Democratic fakery" angle had played out on right-wing talk radio during the week - without any actual evidence, of course - The Washington Times ran a front page, above-the-fold story alleging that the memo could have been a dirty trick. The Times' claim that the memo was fake was based, incredibly, on this: "A survey by The Washington Times found that every Republican said the memo was not crafted or distributed by him or her." Which obviously cleared up the whole matter. Meanwhile Rush Limbaugh announced that "it appears it's a forged memo all over again!" quoting the American Spectator who wrote, "It's Rathergate all over again, and the same vigilant entities that brought about the collapse of CBS News could now also cause heads to roll among Democratic Senate leadership staffers and further shame multiple news organizations that would appear to have fallen for another document hoax." Crowed Rush, "The memo was made up by Democrat staffers." Whoops. John Aravosis at AmericaBlog has a greatscreenshot of a page from Rush's website which tells the world to "Listen to Rush Conduct Broadcast Excellence." Aravosis also noted that one of the American Spectator's aforementioned vigilant entities, "blog of the year" Powerline - who went nuts accusing the Democrats of faking the Schiavo memo - were still clinging desperately to the possibility that they could turn it against the left byblaming the media for misreporting the story. Nice try, morons.

John Cornyn 
What could be the reason for the recent wave of violence against judges? Just a few weeks ago, a judge's family was murdered. And there was that incident where a man on trial for rape and murder stole a gun and shot a judge dead in court. What could be prompting this crime wave? Have no fear: Sen. John Cornyn has the answer. "I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection," he pondered on the Senate floor last week, "but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in – engage in violence." Don't worry though - apparently Cornyn didn't mean it. According tothe UK Guardian, he wrote a letter last week saying he was "not aware of evidence linking judges' decisions with possible violence. 'I certainly hope that people will not construe my remarks on Monday to state otherwise,' he said." Oh, perish the thought. So I guess you were talking about... what, exactly, Senator? The good news though is that John Cornyn has learned a lesson from all this. And here it is: "The lesson I learned is that Washington is a very tough political environment and if people can take what you say out of context and use it against you, they will." Seriously. He actually said that.

Tom DeLay 
One more entry for the Bugman this week, and it relates directly to the John Cornyn entry above. Cornyn may not be able to legitimately blame the most recent incidents of violence against judges and their families as some sort of revenge for their supposed judicial activism - but he soon will if Tom DeLay keeps it up. We already noted DeLay's not-so-veiled threats to the judges involved in the Terri Schiavo case ("The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior") and last week he kicked it up a notch. DeLay said that the judiciary has "run amok" and "overstepped its authority on countless occasions." His solution? Unclear. But he also said that "Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric." Various conservative leaders decided to pick up that ball and run with it, meeting in Washington last week to discuss "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny." Phyllis Schafly and Michael P. Farris - chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association - both agreed that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ought to be impeached for his opinion that juveniles shouldn't be executed. But it was Edwin Vieira who seemed to be taking Tom Delay's comments to their logical conclusion, citing Joseph Stalin in his "bottom line" for dealing with judges. "[Stalin] had a slogan," said Viera, "and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem.'" The full quote that Viera paraphrased, in case you were wondering, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." So, uh, is anyone else bothered that leading conservatives are now using Joe Stalin as an example of how to deal with their enemies?

Republican Hypocrites 
Special thanks here to the Top Ten reader (you know who you are, sir!) who sent me a list of links featuring Republicans whining about high gas prices in 2000. I'm sure most of you are aware that average gas prices have been topping $2.50 per gallon recently, with San Franciscans recently reporting more than $3 per gallon for regular unleaded:

Photo: San Francisco Chronicle

Now let's take a look at what some of those Republicans had to say in 2000, when gas was around a full dollar cheaper per gallon than it is today:

Rep. Terry Everett: "The Clinton Administration has failed in its duty to develop a policy to deal with our national energy supply and is therefore directly accountable for the higher prices Americans are now paying at the gas pumps."

Dennis Hastert: "House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Clinton administration Friday of misleading members of Congress about the causes of skyrocketing gas prices in the Midwest."

Rep. Wally Herger: "Congressman Wally Herger recently denounced the Clinton-Gore Administration's complacency during the current gas price crisis. 'Northern Californians are being held hostage at the gas pump,' Herger said. 'The Clinton-Gore Administration has demonstrated a complete and total lack of leadership in preventing this problem. It is a clear failure of domestic and foreign policy.'"

Larry Kudlow: "The Clinton-Gore administration’s hapless and incoherent management of foreign policy is nowhere as evident as in their bungling on OPEC’s oil-price hike. ... While crude oil prices could drop to $25 per barrel, they will stay well above the average $20 real price of oil registered over the past ten years. And way above the $10 worldwide average marginal cost of producing new oil. Meanwhile gas prices at the pump are likely to be upwards of $2 per gallon well into the summer."

Glenn Spencer: "In recent weeks, gas prices have surged to their highest level in a decade. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are expected to rise by about 30 percent this winter. ... With the Clinton-Gore administration's policies largely to blame for the pain being felt by consumers, Vice President Gore's camp has pulled out all the stops to shift blame away from his own administration."

Various Repubs: "Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac), Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), and Mark Green (R-Green Bay) today blasted Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the Clinton-Gore Administration for their failure to implement a comprehensive energy policy to deal with staggering gas prices Wisconsin consumers continue to face at the pumps."

So, gas is about 60-75% per gallon more at the pump and oil is about 100% more per barrel than it was when these moaning minnies were whining about how much Bill Clinton and Al Gore sucked, but now George W. Bush is the president - why, his shit don't stink. Perhaps they're still waiting for him to "jawbone" OPEC? Either that or they don't care about gas prices now that he's, y'know, got the gays on the run.

The Jeff Gannon Show 
We noted last week that our old pal Jeff Gannon was going to be appearing at a National Press Club panel on journalism and blogging, and pondered why he was invited to be there since he wasn't a journalist or a blogger. Well it turns out that Gannon was apparently asked along for the purposes of providing hilarious comic relief. Among Gannon's classic gags from last Friday's event were the suggestion that simply reprinting administration press releases is the same as real journalism, and that the government had to pay Armstrong Williams to write a positive story on No Child Left Behind because nobody else would. Funny stuff! He even held up one of those stupid red counties vs. blue counties maps which right-wingers love to use to demonstrate how "red" the country is, except - and this is the mark of a comedy genius at work - the red states were all green, because apparently his printer was running out of ink. But the laugh of the day was surely reserved for this absolute corker: "You can hardly call Fox News conservative." Oh Jeff, you are a clown!

Michelle Bachmann 
Last week Minnesota State Senator Michelle Bachmann (R-Obviously) tried to force a vote on a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage; Democrats said she was trying to end-run Senate rules for political gain. That she chose to do this on the same day that the local gay community was rallying for their rights on the grounds of the Capitol was certainly dubious.According to Eleventh Avenue South, "Even Senate Republicans thought it was in poor taste to try to go around Senate rules on the same day GLBT citizens were making their voice heard. Her move was overwhelmingly defeated." But one of Eleventh Avenue South's eagle-eyed readers happened to catch something rather strange that day - it turned out that Michelle Bachmann had gone to take a look at the rally, but, obviously feeling very frightened of the scary homosexuals, decided to hide in some bushes. Fortunately, the reader got pictures:





Peek-a-boo! What a coward. You know, that photo kind of reminds me of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during Vietnam.

Warrior And Chums 
And finally, the artist formerly known as "The Ultimate Warrior" (now apparently just plain "Warrior" for some reason) made a professional wrestling-sized ass of himself at the University of Connecticut last week, choke-slamming the UConn College Republicans in the process. Former WWF star Warrior had apparently been invited by the College Republicans to speak about... well, actually that's not entirely clear. But Warrior is a radical right-wing nutcase, so presumably that's all the reason they needed. Unfortunately Warrior was a little too nutty even for the College Republicans, "screaming and stomping on the stage," according to liveaudiowrestling.com, and provoking the crowd into a frenzy. The evening turned sour when Warrior answered an Iranian student's question by telling him that he needed to "get a towel," and pontificated on such subjects as why "Queering don't make the world work." Which is a bit odd coming from a guy who used to make a living publicly groping a steady stream of greased-up bodybuilders in leotards.

Anyway, it turns out that the UConn College Republicans were a tad embarrassed by the debacle, issuing a profoundly apologetic press release the next day. They made sure to mention that they were sending individual letters of apology to, "the Rainbow Center, AQUA, QUAD, the African American Cultural Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center, the Iranian Students Association, and the Women's Center." Oh, and in case you were wondering, "this is not a complete list of the groups that will receive a direct written apology from the College Republicans." Good lord.

But the story doesn't end there: the College Republicans' press release provoked a hilarious outburst "From the Desk Of Warrior" where he announced (in the third person!) that "All of the above notwithstanding, it is somewhat sad to see how utterly spineless the UConn College Republicans have turned out to be. Not a single UConn CR voiced any objection to Warrior after the event. The detailed emails between Warrior and the UConn CRs reveal that the CRS repeatedly encouraged Warrior to single out the Tent City Trash for some re-education. Yet, it now seems that the CRS have collectively decided to bow down and beg forgiveness from various extremist, anti-American, left-wing groups who infest the UConn campus. Perhaps the UConn CRS should refrain from engaging in political activism until such time as they develop enough backbone to be able to withstand not being liked by their opponents." Ooh, smackdown! See you next week!

 

Rally Crowd Comparison

Jon Stewart made a joke alluding to the inevitable judgments made about rallies based on color and size.  Interesting comparison, then, of the last Beck rally and the Stewart rally:

[caption id="attachment_894" align="aligncenter" width="738" caption="Click for full size."][/caption]

Here's a photo of a DC metro station during the rally:

Sociopathy on the Right: Ayn Rand and the Triumph of Conservative Cultism

I discovered the following essay in my notes, written by Tim Wise.  He illustrates much of what I wrote of in my own essay previously and he does so with a good intellect.  Well worth a read.

by Tim Wise September 14, 2009, 9:17 pm

At first it seemed little more than a bizarre rant, only slightly worse than those to which we've grown accustomed, given the source. To wit, Rush Limbaugh, who on September 11 condemned President Obama for speaking that day about community service, and encouraging young people to become involved in service projects as a way to help make America a better place. Far from seeing such a call as a positive request to take personal responsibility for improving one's nation, to Limbaugh, it was little more than the "first step toward fascism," intended to conscript the young into a volunteer army, bent on helping to carry out the President's political agenda.

Community service, Limbaugh explained, was something that should be done by convicts. Specifically, he offered: "Let prisoners do it, let prisoners pick up the trash. Let prisoners mow some highway grass. This -- this community service, folks, it's insidious. It is nothing more than a well- sounding compassionate label. But it means something entirely different. It means turning you into a robot." Yes, of course. That's not insane at all. The anti-social nature of the diatribe was stunning. Service, according to the gospel of Limbaugh, is for suckers, for society's "losers," for people who have committed crimes. In other words, it should be viewed as punishment rather than as something to be applauded and encouraged. To do for community is a fool's errand.

Yet as bizarre as his words may seem at first blush, they actually illustrate with bold clarity the fundamental (and increasingly common) core of the conservative belief system. They speak to the sociopathy that is at the heart of the far-right worldview. It is a worldview that holds, quite simply, that doing for others is contemptible; that doing for self is the purpose of human life; that altruism and service are somehow pathologies pushed by collectivists and should be subordinated to selfishness and greed.

Sound too extreme? Well if so, consider this. Among the most interesting phenomena of the past year--and especially since the inauguration of Barack Obama--has been the explosion of interest in (and sales of) books by the late author, Ayn Rand: most prominently her classic novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Indeed, the latter had an all-time record year in 2008, and 2009 sales are on a pace to shatter even last year's numbers.

Far from a simple believer in limited government and a free market economy, Rand's philosophy--now being endorsed by tea party protesters and anti-Obama minions across the nation (indeed the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was among the sponsors of the 9/12 march on Washington)--was predicated on one overarching notion: that a commitment to selfishness and a rejection of altruistic behavior were the height of morality. That's not to say that she merely rejected compulsory altruism via taxation, but altruism even privately chosen. To do for others, out of a charitable impulse or out of some faith-based commitment, for example, is morally and ethically suspect, for neither feelings nor faith are rational bases for human actions, according to her philosophy known as Objectivism. Unless one's assistance to another were rooted in some self-interested motivation, it was to be condemned.

It is especially fascinating to see the so-called "average, everyday folks" at the tea party rallies embracing Rand's thinking and literature. After all, Rand's view of the common man and woman--presumably the very Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms recently enthralled by her--was decidedly grotesque. So, for instance, in her original version of her work,We the Living, Rand had her chief protagonist proclaim: "What are your masses...but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?"

Rand's disdain for the bulk of humanity was, indeed, so extreme that in the aforemetioned Atlas Shrugged--whose main character and "hero" John Galt has been referenced on numerous tea party signs--she indulges a pseudo- genocidal fantasy, in which virtually everyone except Galt and his few "perfect" producers is vanquished. This happy occurrence results from a "strike of the mind," in which Galt and his superior colleagues of industry withdraw their talents from the nation and hole up in a mountain retreat, rather than submit to things like government regulations. Those whom Galt condemns in the book, and thus, whom Rand is herself condemning, are referred to as "parasites" who are unworthy of life. Indeed, Galt's contempt for the weak of the world prompts he and his colleagues to banish the word "give" from their small utopian "gulch." Giving, after all, much like calls for community service, is for suckers.

Even though Galt feels certain that his strike may well kill the vast majority of the world's inhabitants (because they are simply too stupid to survive without he and the other "perfect producers"), he firmly believes, and thus, so does Rand, that this outcome is moral--more so, than say, taxes or charity. In keeping with his strange morality, he not only withdraws his superior talent, but also sabotages the nation's infrastructure (the roads and bridges) thereby making the transport of fuel and grain impossible, resulting in chaos, starvation and general suffering. This is what the Rand-bots are reading, the vision of society they endorse: one comprised of better people, and decided inferiors, sub-humans even, who are worthy of death for their laziness, their sloth, their lack of industriousness. No wonder people imbued with such a truly sadistic mindset

as this would oppose health care reform. To this way of thought, those without health care deserve their suffering, and that suffering should be of no concern to the rest of us.

Those who have written biographies of Rand--including former acolytes-- paint a uniformly disturbing picture. Rand, according to Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand, Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, and Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult was narcissistic in the extreme, incapable of empathy, often cruel--going so far as to have an affair in full view of her husband--as well as paranoid, addicted to amphetamines, and obsessed with her belief that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational."

Interestingly, despite her general disdain for humanity, there were people she seemed to admire greatly, such as William Edward Hickman, whose credo, "What is good for me is right," she described in her Journals as, "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard." But Hickman was no simple expositor of personal greed and self-interest; no mere modern day libertarian; no pedestrian practitioner of excessive self- love. No indeed. He was a sociopathic murderer. In 1927 he kidnapped a 12- year old girl from a school in Los Angeles by the name of Marian Parker, chopped off her legs, cut our her internal organs, drained all of her blood and then spread parts of her body all over the city.

Of Hickman, this sick murderer, Rand had almost nothing but positive things to say.

She indeed critiqued those who would condemn Hickman's actions for having committed "worse sins and crimes," such as those she ascribed to his jury. Among those "greater" crimes--greater than mutilating a child--she included being, "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives." Their ordinariness, in other words, placed them below Hickman, in Rand's mind. "How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" she implored in her Journals.

It was Hickman's willfulness, his disregard for others, which so seems to have resonated with Rand. It fit perfectly with her own developing philosophy, which she would articulate perfectly in her original notes for The Fountainhead, wherein she wrote, "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" Thus Hickman's crime, to Rand, was "a daring challenge to society," rather than the act of a seriously deranged person from whom the society should seek protection.

Indeed, Rand speculates that Hickman's real crime may have been merely that he was "too impatient, fiery and proud" to accept the slow, soul-crushing

death that his life had become. She even went so far as to blame the crime on Christianity, which she described as "ludicrous tragic nonsense," capable of turning this "bad boy with a very winning grin, that...makes you like him the whole time you're in his presence" into a sadistic killer. And so, interestingly, the right is increasingly cleaving to the words and philosophy of a woman who was not only, in all likelihood, mentally disturbed, but the functional equivalent of those who fell in love with say, Charles Manson or Ted Bundy, even after their crimes were exposed. This is what the right is coming to. This is what they really mean when they call themselves "values voters." The values of which they speak, far from being "Christian," and far from being rooted in concern for the country, are--at least for many--firmly grounded in selfishness, applied narcissism and operationalized, organizational sociopathy. That they would seek to make a hero of Rand, and forge a movement based even in part on her thinking is all the evidence one should need that the patients are running the asylum known as the American right. Only, their kind of craziness is not nearly as sympathetic as that displayed by the typical person suffering from mental illness. Theirs is a special kind of crazy, not organic as is the case with so much mental illness, but rather, rooted in anti-social, almost cult-like propaganda. Sadly, it is a propaganda that, even with its horrific message is currently being read by more than a million high school students across the country: probably more than a few of whom are the very ones whose principals and teachers, or parents, refused to let them hear the President speak for fear he might indoctrinate them into such awful projects as community service (or, as it turned out, merely staying in school).

They want their country back, they tell us. And the country they want, so far as their reading habits would suggest, is a nation based on greed, me- firstism and an utter disregard for the well-being of the community. As for me, I will gladly stand with the opposite tradition. Do we want a culture of compassion or contempt? That is the choice. And we should proclaim our answer, compassion, boldly and without apology.

Tim Wise is the author of four books on race. His latest is, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama

"Going Galt" and the Insanity of the Right Wing

[caption id="attachment_811" align="aligncenter" width="494" caption="No, your name isn't John Galt."][/caption]

The rise of teabag politics in the US has lead to an equally disturbing return to deification of Ayn Rand and her Objectivist "philosophy".  The right wing, of course, doesn't talk about Ayn Rand's disdain for things like religions or belief in a god, but focuses instead on her notions regarding capitalism.  Specifically, they use the John Galt figure from one of her books to embody all that an American should be.

Who was John Galt?  He was the deus ex machina in Atlas Shrugged, a rich industrialist who tired of seeing his tax money go to such despicable things as helping the poor.  So, he took his ball and went home, quite literally.  He buys an island and moves there with all his rich friends, leaving the rest of society to go without their creative manna (read: taxes).

[caption id="attachment_812" align="alignright" width="199" caption="Their pledge is "I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." They are bad people."][/caption]

The teabaggers use this fictional character to represent themselves.  They believe they are the same as Galt and no longer want to participate in our society with its taxes and social programs.  There is even an organization dedicated to "going Galt":

They have the typical delusional "Us" and "Them" mentality so prevalent among the right wing.  They are the True Americans© while everyone else is simply a leech, living off the tit of taxpayers.  In replacing Ronald Reagan with Ayn Rand as their Conservative Messiah, they expressing a kind of vicious, self-interested sociopathy some of them don't even realize.  The cognitive dissonance is astounding and they don't seem to actually get what they are saying.

For example, remember Craig T. Nelson's appearance on the Glenn Beck show?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U

He says the words but he doesn't appear to understand what he is saying.  More recently, we see this:

[caption id="attachment_813" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Ummm...."][/caption]

This level of blindness to the implications of their ideology is one explanation for the puzzling endorsement of Rand's philosophies.  Ayn Rand wasn't merely blindingly in love with laissez faire capitalism.  She took it a step further and advocated some of those same concepts as a kind of morality.  A good insight into her psyche was her thoughts on William Edward Hickman, a psychotic killer who kidnapped, ransomed, tortured, and killed a little girl so he could get enough money to go to seminary.  When he was finally captured and investigators were questioning how he could morally justify himself, he famously said "what is good for me is right".

Rand considered this quote to be the epitome of a "real man's psychology".  Her defense of him didn't just end there, however.  She later wrote of him:

"The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal...

"This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."

"And when we look at the other side of it -- there is a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy turned into a purposeless monster. By whom? By what? Is it not by that very society that is now yelling so virtuously in its role of innocent victim? He had a brilliant mind, a romantic, adventurous, impatient soul and a straight, uncompromising, proud character. What had society to offer him? A wretched, insane family as the ideal home, a Y.M.C.A. club as social honor, and a bank-page job as ambition and career...

"If he had any desires and ambitions -- what was the way before him? A long, slow, soul-eating, heart-wrecking toil and struggle; the degrading, ignoble road of silent pain and loud compromises....

"A strong man can eventually trample society under his feet. That boy was not strong enough. But is that his crime? Is it his crime that he was too impatient, fiery and proud to go that slow way? That he was not able to serve, when he felt worthy to rule; to obey, when he wanted to command?...

"He was given [nothing with which] to fill his life. What was he offered to fill his soul? The petty, narrow, inconsistent, hypocritical ideology of present-day humanity. All the criminal, ludicrous, tragic nonsense of Christianity and its morals, virtues, and consequences. Is it any wonder that he didn't accept it?"

Her sympathy for a psychotic murderer is of the same vein of thought which informs her Objectivism.  It is individuals like Hickman who became the model of other heroes in her books, Denny Renahan in "The Little Street".  In further describing Hickman she wrote of her "involuntary, irresistible sympathy for him, which I cannot help feeling just because of [his antisocial nature] and in spite of everything else."

Such individualism and anti-social behavior defined all of Rand's heros and heroines.  They viewed themselves as morally superior by virtue of simply staking out that ground, and the rest of humanity as mere tools to be used, ground down, and tossed aside to achieve whatever goal theses Individuals had for themselves.  Such goals could obviously be building skyscrapers or killing innocent children.  If it's good for them, it's right.

Government and Taxes

Tea Party Dummies

Classic.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiaI63pBmLs

Adam Smith on Progressive Taxation

Ran across this gem from "The Wealth of Nations", which is pretty much the instruction manual for capitalism:

"the expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities."

"When the toll upon carriages of luxury, upon coaches, post-chaises, &c. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight, than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, &c. the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country."

2 Million Teabaggers Myth

I was confronted again today with the myth of the 2 million teabagger rally in DC from last year.  I sat down to write up a scathing debunking, again, of the claim, but discovered others had already beaten me to the punch and done so very well.  Here is Brendan Nyhan:

Chris Orr beat me to the metaphor, but has there ever been a more absurd game of political Telephone than the way the two million protestors myth was created and propagated online?

Eric Boehlert of Media Matters documents the carnage:

The conservative comedy of errors began on Saturday when Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, took to the rally stage and unfurled a massive lie. He told the crowd ABC News had reported that between 1 million to 1.5 million people had gathered to protest Obama's policies. (Later, a FreedomWorks flackconceded she had no idea know why Kibbe manufactured the claim about ABC News.)

Immediately, conservative activist Tabitha Hale (aka "pinkelephantpun") tweeted Kibbe's lie but added an additional 500,000 people to the tally: "ABC reporting 2 million people."

Seven minutes later, Malkin re-tweeted Hale's claim. Then, one minute after that, Malkin turned that tweetinto part of her ongoing protest coverage. Intrepid "reporter" Malkin took an unsupported tweet and reported it as news:

12:34pm Eastern: Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million -- tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C.

Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?

Note that in her blog post there were no links for Malkin's utterly fantastic claim, no place on the Web where readers could go and confirm that D.C. police had pegged the crowd at 1.2 million or that ABC had made the staggering claim of 2 million. The lack of live links should have been a massive red flag for readers and fellow bloggers, especially when it was associated with such a controversial and news-breaking claim.

But, of course, Malkin had no links or any real facts to go on. All she had was a couple of tweets from Hale, who, in retrospect, appeared to have spent much of Saturday just making shit up.

But again, none of that mattered, because Malkin had spoken (2 million!) and the right-wing bloggers knew what to do. Let's take a stroll through the far-right blogosphere and see which sites did their best to spread Malkin's patently absurd claim about 2 million protesters. [Emphasis added.]

Pajamas Media's Roger Simon:

I can remember telling Glenn Reynolds during CPAC that these Tea Party demonstrations were rinky-dink and going nowhere. Barely more than a half-year later, they're putting two million people on the Washington Mall. Wow!

Jawa Report:

UPDATE:(Newbie): Crowd estimated by ABC NEWS: 2 MILLION!

Looking at the Left:

ABC News reports that two million Americans flooded D.C. in what people in the crowd were calling "a conservative Woodstock" Like the liberal Woodstock of the '60s, thousands were rumored stranded on freeways.

Atlas Shrugs:

The two photos above show a tiny fraction of the two million ABC estimates attended.

NewsBusters, the day after the 2 million people story had been debunked:

You'll note no mention of the D.C. rallyyesterday that drew an estimated 1-2 million people.

Wizbang:

Michelle Malkin reported on her site thatABC News estimated the crowd to be 2 million people.

[...]

Rick at Brutally Honest linked to this awesome time lapse video showing progression of the approximately 2 million people who marched in DC today:

Riehl World View:

ABC Reports 2 Million At DC Rally

Right Pundits:

Michelle Malkin is reporting that estimated turnout is now 2 million people.

And then there was the sad, confused work of blogger Stephen Green. Doing his best to spread the word about the supposedly massive crowd size on Saturday, Green first claimed that CNN had reported the crowd was 2 million strong. (CNN never did any such thing.) Then later under a banner that read "correction," Green, following Malkin's phony lead, reported it was ABC News that reported 2 million protesters were on hand. (Green then failed to correct his "correction.")

Of course, the 2 million tally never made sense. Not only couldn't anybody find ABC's alleged reporting, but no other news organization (not even rally co-sponsor Fox News) were going anywhere near the 2 million mark. Instead, most of Saturday's reports used phrases like "tens of thousands" to describe the crowd size.

Just after 4 p.m. Saturday, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen tweeted the glaring discrepancy:

http://michellemalkin.com/: "ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million." Front page, ABCNews.com: "thousands march on Capitol"

By the end of that 4 o'clock hour, ABC's News' Yunji de Nies also weighed in:



Later that afternoon, ABC News took the unusual stepof reporting an article about itself. Headlined "ABC News Was Misquoted on Crowd Size," the dispatch, designed solely to knock down the false rumor that Malkin helped hype, was quite emphatic:

At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."

Finally, near day's end, Malkin finally addressed her bogus ABC News claim and pointed the finger of blame at FreedomWorks' Kibbe. (He's the one who first mentioned ABC News.) Malkin then thanked ABC News for "clearing this up," without noting that "this" was launched when Malkin broadcast a completely fictitious claim without the slightest hint of attribution and then waited most of the day to acknowledge her colossal blunder. And note that Malkin blamed Kibbe because Kibbe told the rally that ABC News had estimated the crowd to be between 1 million and 1.5 million. But Malkin told the world ABC News had claimed it was 2 million. So how was that Kibbe's fault?

Post-protest, some conservatives, such as Instapundit, still tried to push the phony 2 million claim by clinging to a typically awful and unsubstantiatedarticle from the British press that originally suggested "up to two million people" marched on Washington. The article, though, lacked any sourcing. It was just another case of the British press regurgitating a right-wing lie. (The article was later changed to include an equally misleading claim: "As many as one million people flooded into Washington for a massive rally.")

By Saturday night, RedState blogger Erick Erickson, conceding the 2 million number was pure fantasy, did his best to clear up the confusion:

I've been talking all night to people who are there and involved. The 2 million number was generated by the media, but truly seems to be a gross inflation of what is there.

And with that we traveled full circle in the unstable world of the right-wing blogosphere. According to press-hating Erickson, it was the media that concocted the wildly inflated 2 million number. (ABC News again?) In the new, sanitized telling, Malkin's dirty hands, of course, had been completely washed and her leading role in the embarrassing charade had been forgotten and forgiven. Because at the end of the day,it was the media's fault all along.

Amazingly, as Boehlert later pointed out, the Los Angeles Times then framed the story as a "he said," "she said" debate in its headline and subhed:

Crowd estimates vary wildly for Capitol march
How many angry conservatives showed up to protest Obama's policies? Was it 2 million? Or 60,000? It all depends on whom you ask.

In the lede, the LAT noted crowd "estimates ranging from 60,000 to 2 million" before finally clarifying in the fourth paragraph that the actual turnout was under 100,000 people.

But that's not all! As Ben Dimiero pointed out on Media Matters,a new meme later circulated in which a quote was attributed to a National Park Service spokesperson saying the rally was the largest Washington march ever. The problem is that he was talking about the Obama inauguration:

Yesterday on his radio program, while discussing the crowds at this weekend's 9/12 protests, Glenn Beck claimed that the LondonTelegraph "quote[d] a source from the Park Service, the National Park Service, saying that it is the largest march on Washington ever."  This led to a good deal of confusion here, as the Telegraph article contains no such quote.  Just another case of Beck making things up?  Actually, the story behind this turns out to be much funnier than we could have anticipated.

Several conservative blogs have been quoting National Park Service spokesman "Dan Bana" as saying the 9/12 protest was "the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."  This appears to be a repurposing of this quote from David Barna (who, unlike Dan Bana, appears to be a real person):

David Barna, a Park Service spokesman, said the agency did not conduct its own count. Instead, it will use a Washington Post account that said 1.8 million people gathered on the US Capitol grounds, National Mall, and parade route.

"It is a record," Barna said. "We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."

Very impressive!  Unfortunately, as Little Green Footballs pointed out, that quote was actually about the inauguration:

This is so pathetic I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Dozens - if not hundreds - of right wing blogs are running with this quote, portraying it as a statement about the tea party held last weekend: 'We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever.'

The quote is from January. The National Park Service spokesman was talking about Barack Obama's inauguration.

When people said the Internet would revolutionize democracy, I don't think this is what they had in mind.

Update 9/16 2:22 PM: Broken links fixed (sorry about that).

Update 9/17 6:37 AM: Per David Smith's comment below, Glenn Reynolds was more skeptical of the two million figure than Boehlert's language suggests. He previously called it "improbably high" and wrote of the Daily Mail headline "So maybe I was wrong to be so skeptical. But cut it in half and it’s still a huge number."

Fox News embraces "teabagger"

It was only a matter of time before they finally snapped and gave in:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zsUNnFVMsE

Oh, and just in case you are wondering that came from, check here.  Also from that site, is this clear admission to being, actually, Fox News (I had someone online feebly attempt to say this was a Democratic site):

Welcome to the Fox News web site at thefoxnation.com ("Site") which is owned by Fox News Network, L.L.C. (FOX). This Site is operated by FOX and materials on the Site are owned, for the most part, by FOX. The Site may also include materials owned by third parties and posted on the Site by virtue of a license, grant or some other form of agreement between the third party and FOX.

Historical Reality: Boston Tea Party

Often, historical stories get changed in the retelling and can come to mean entirely different things than their original facts indicated.  I explore these "myths by retelling" in the series Historical Reality.

#1 Boston Tea Party

In honor of Tax Day in the US and with a growing tide of protesting voices calling themselves "tea partiers", it's time to take a look at the Boston Tea Party, the traditional "anti-tax/anti-government" story.  First, let's hear how the story is currently told.  Here's one example from the Re-Tea Party:

The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct protest by American Colonists demanding representation in the British Government. They became known as the original patriots.

What were they protesting?  Lack of representation in the British Parliament?  Hmm.  Let's look at another.  This one, from the Tea Party Patriots, doesn't so much tell the story as it sums up what they believed the tea party was all about:

The Tea Party Patriots stand with our founders, as heirs to the republic, to claim our rights and duties which preserve their legacy and our own. We hold, as did the founders, that there exists an inherent benefit to our country when private property and prosperity are secured by natural law and the rights of the individual.

Interestingly enough, another portion of their mission statement, regarding their beliefs, reads:

...united by our core values derived from the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America, the Bill Of Rights as explained in the Federalist Papers

That's an intriguing, if off-topic, blurb which I might explore later.  For now, suffice it to say that the Boston Tea Party is generally believed to be a response by patriotic proto-American citizens to an oppressive government with its huge tax burden.

The Reality

The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773.  One of the main protagonists was Samuel Adams, a Whig Party member and tea smuggler, who worked closely with John Hancock, another well known smuggler.  What they and their cohorts were protesting wasn't the high taxes on tea.  Quite the contrary, actually.

By early 1773, the Townshend Act tax on tea had been place for almost 6 years and was pretty much a fixture of the colonial tea trade.  In fact, the tax was higher in England than it was in the colonies, meaning that such merchants as the East India Company with growing warehouse surpluses in England due to poor sales even as their colonial exports did okay (they received a refund of some of the taxes they collected from tea exported to the colonies).

Meanwhile, in the American colonies, the tea taxes were either grudgingly paid or were bypassed altogether with the burgeoning tea smuggling such notables as Adams and Hancock engaged in with tea from Denmark.  By the middle of the year, the EIC was lobbying the Parliament for some help to deal with their surplus tea stock (a bailout, if you will ;) ).  The Parliament responded with some changes to the law which allowed the EIC to pay the colonial taxes in England instead of collecting them in port and also gave a subsidy for tea shipments to the colonies.  This resulted in a net decrease in the tax on tea the colonists paid.

Let's say that again:  the taxes the colonists paid on tea went down.

This was a win for the colonists.  They got to pay less for their tea than before and enjoy a fine cup of the good EIC stuff.  Yet, this wasn't something all colonials welcomed.  Re-enter, the smugglers.

Hancock and Adams, et al, found themselves facing an undercut tea price.  You see, the lowering of the tea tax meant the colonists could enjoy not only a lower cost tea, but a lower cost than even the smugglers could sell it.  This threatened the bottom line of Hancock's lucrative shipping business and that of his loyal lackey Adams.  What to do?

Well, protesting against lowered taxes was out because who wants to protest that?  So, those early tea partiers (smugglers) focused instead on another thorny issue: representation in the Parliament.

"No taxation without representation" was the shrill cry.  Except, this was also wrong.

You see, the colonists did have representation in the Parliament.  In England, at that time, the Parliament was comprised of voted-in members.  The people doing the voting?  Roughly 3% of British citizens.  Nearly all British subjects, colonists included, had virtual representation in the Parliament.  According to the great English statesman, Samuel Johnson, the colonists are represented by the same virtual representation as the greater part of England."  This was especially true for the colonists given their distance from the English mainland and the sheer costs of protecting the colonies from other countries and the natives.

In effect, the tea smugglers of the colonies jumped on the traditional notion for how British Parliament worked in an effort to stir sympathy to their cause of protesting a 6 year old tea tax which was recently lowered.

So, what did they do?  On the night of December 16, the last night the EIC ships could remain in harbor without offloading and being paid their taxes or risk confiscation by the local authorities, a group of men left the meeting Samuel Adams was holding nearby.  They dressed like Mohawk natives, apparently to play on fears of native invaders and to hide their identities, boarded the ships, and dumped all the tea overboard, thereby securing smuggler trading for weeks and months to come.

And it didn't stop there.

The tea was stored in tightly packed bags inside crates and chests.  Many such bags and chests continued to float in the harbor and eventually float out to sea.  Enterprising colonists, hearing about the previous evening's "party", peered out on the water to, sure enough, see a wealth of floating tea.  Everyone from store merchants to poor people and anyone else who could row a boat floated out to collect some of the floating tea.

The tea smugglers (tea partiers) not wanting to allow even this small loophole in their plans to secure their smuggling business also rowed out.  They physically threatened and turned away anyone trying to collect the floating tea bales.  They then beat the bales with their oars in order to soak and sink them forever, ruining the tea and preventing anyone from getting a freebie.

Samuel Adams used this incident to begin a long series of propaganda pieces, depicting the tea partiers (smugglers) as patriotic heroes who were standing against an unjust government.  This, combined with similar monied interests, fomented the beginnings of the American revolution.

Myth:  American patriots struck a blow against Big Government and excessive taxes.

Reality:  Monied smugglers, acting under the guise of populist sentiment, struck a blow against their legitimate competition and ensured their smuggling profits, made from the colonists themselves, weren't affected by the lowered taxes.

Teabaggers protesting historically low taxes?

From the CBPP:

By Chuck Marr and Gillian Brunet
April 14, 2010
RELATED AREAS OF RESEARCH
Tax — Federal
2001/2003 Tax Cuts
Individuals and Families


Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data. That’s true whether it comes to their federal income taxes or their total federal taxes.
Income taxes: A family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 4.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes this year, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. This is the second-lowest percentage in the past 50 years.
Overall federal taxes: Middle-income households are paying overall federal taxes — which include income as well as payroll and excise taxes — at or near their lowest levels in decades, according to the latest data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
Federal Income Taxes Have Declined Significantly in Recent Decades
Federal income taxes on middle-income families have declined significantly in recent decades (see Figure 1).
In 2000, the year before the 2001 tax cut that President Bush and Congress enacted, the median-income family of four paid 8.0 percent of its income in individual income taxes, according to Tax Policy Center estimates — a smaller share than in any year since 1967 (except for 1998 and 1999). [1] The Bush tax cuts further reduced middle-income tax obligations.
This year, the Making Work Pay tax credit, which President Obama and Congress enacted as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is providing a credit of $800 to married joint filers ($400 to single filers). A median-income family with two children thus will receive an $800 tax cut in the return it files this year.
With the new tax cut, the median family’s federal income taxes will equal just 4.6 percent of its income in 2009. That is lower than in any year since 1955 (the first year for which these data are available) except for 2008, when another stimulus-related tax cut was in effect.
The 4.6 percent effective tax rate — the percentage of its income that a family pays in taxes — is well below the 15 percent marginal tax rate that a family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum faces. Typically, such a family reduces its effective tax rate by taking the standard deduction (or, in some cases, itemized deductions), personal exemptions, and tax credits such as the child tax credit. The Making Work Pay tax credit further reduces that family’s effective tax rate.
Overall Federal Taxes Also at Low Levels
The decline in income taxes on middle-class households in recent years has driven a decline in these households’ overall federal taxes.
Households in the middle fifth of the income spectrum paid an average of 14.2 percent of their income in overall federal taxes in 2006, the latest year for which data are available, according to CBO.[2] This is just slightly above this group’s effective tax rate of 13.8 percent in 2003, which was the lowest level since at least 1979.
Most Americans pay more in payroll taxes, which support Social Security and Medicare, than they do in income taxes. Thus, the 14.2 percent figure reflects the impact of payroll taxes far more than income taxes.
Due to the impact of the recession and the temporary tax cuts in the Recovery Act, particularly the Making Work Pay tax credit, CBO data for 2009 (when they become available) will likely show that middle-income families faced significantly lower effective overall federal tax rates than in 2006.
End Notes:
[1] Tax Policy Center, “Historical Federal Income Tax Rates for a Family of Four,” April 12, 2010. The Tax Policy Center’s estimates were derived by updating (using Treasury’s methodology) a 1998 Treasury Department analysis that examined changes since 1955 in the percentage of income that the median-income family of four pays in federal income taxes.
[2] The CBO study covers the 1979-2006 period and includes federal income, payroll, and excise taxes. Congressional Budget Office, “Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates, 1979-2006,” April 2009.