No I will not apologize for that title, because not only is it an accurate description it’s also a drop in the bucket compared to all the slanderous things Republicans said about Democrats while Bush was President, none of which had half the truth of the title statement.  Take what John Boozman said about the NYC mosque controversy:

America is a land of freedom and tolerance. However, it is also a land of respect and human dignity. Building an enormous 13-story, two-acre, $100 million mosque in the shadows of where the World Trade Towers once stood is not an everyday act of religious expression; it’s a self-evident act of provocation.

***

Put simply, the construction of the Ground Zero mosque is an insensitive, aggressive political statement whose principle purpose is to irritate the public and stoke controversy. Instead of acknowledging this reality, the President bought the activists’ plea for religious expression hook-line-and-sinker and caved to the winds of political correctness in support of the building.

Yeah, apparently being a Muslim means that your religion is somehow insincere and an insult to Americans or something.  Then there’s Rick Crawford:

 Congressional candidate and decorated army veteran Rick Crawford today chastised the Obama administration for failing to focus on creating jobs and stabilizing the failing economy, but having the time to weigh in on the wrong side of the proposed mosque at ground zero.

“It’s sad that the president isn’t working to create jobs and build back our economy, but instead is taking the time to weigh in on an issue that is extremely hurtful to thousands of still grieving families by becoming a proponent of building a mosque at the site where their family members died. It’s a shame and I wish the President would show more respect for our fallen countrymen”.

The proposed Mosque is has been a hotly debated issue for months and last week President Obama voiced his support for allowing it to be built just blocks from where thousands of Americans perished at the hands of Islamic extremists on September 11^th 2001.

The Crawford campaign also called on Democrat Chad Causey to repudiate Obama’s stand on the building of the mosque at the site of one of Americas greatest tragedies; “It’s time for Chad Causey to stand with America instead of the Obama-Pelosi administration. We are asking him to repudiate the sad choice by his leadership to support an extremist group over the families of the Americans that died. He needs to take this opportunity to let the people of Arkansas know where he stands on this issue, is it with the Washington Liberals or those who believe this action by the president is in poor taste?” said Crawford Campaign Manager Jonah Shumate.

Yeah, the people trying to build that mosque/community center are such extremists.  I mean, the Imam is actually helping the U.S. in its outreach efforts to the middle-east.  You don’t get more extremist than that, right?  Aside from Crawford’s ever present stupidity, it should scare the hell out of everyone that he thinks his military service somehow gives him the moral high ground on this issue.  We’re not talking about protecting America from a foreign enemy, we’re talking about the constitutional rights of Americans here.  When people start throwing their military cred around to justify their opposition to our constitutional rights, that’s a sign of a dangerous person who doesn’t need to be anywhere near public office in a free country.

What’s worse is, not only are Boozman and Crawford spitting on the Constitution here, they’re helping Al Qaeda in the process:

  McKINNON: Usually Republicans are forthright in defending the Constitution. And here we are, reinforcing al Qaeda’s message that we’re at war with Muslims. So we’ve got this issue; then we’ve got the 14th Amendment issue, where Republicans are saying you’re not welcome here, when we were the architects of the 14th Amendment. So, I see a bad pattern where we’re headed as a Republican Party.

That’s former Bush advisor Mark McKinnon by the way.  And he’s right.  Al Qaeda’s propaganda and recruitment efforts count on casting America as being at war with Islam, which we are not.  The kinds of things that Boozman and Crawford and so many other Republicans are saying here are almost tailored to work as Al Qaeda talking points, providing a ready example for terrorist lies that America really is at war with all Muslims, not just Al Qaeda and co.  So, the next time you bump into Crawford or Boozman, thank them for giving Osama Bin Laden a helping hand.

Remember this graph?

That’s the comparison of the Bush tax cuts and the Obama tax plan and, as you can see, the rich benefit dispraportionately under the Bush plan.  That’s the plan that conservadems like Mike Ross and Blanche Lincoln are fighting so hard for.  It’s the plan Republicans want to keep in place.  And you know how much it raises the deficit?  $36 billion, and that’s just for next year alone:

A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year — and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation’s millionaires, according to a congressional analysis released Wednesday.

These are the same people who keep talking about how reducing the deficit is so important when it comes to things like health care reform and fighting the recession.  I keep going back to Krugman:

But Washington is providing only a trickle of help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the deficit, say Republicans and “centrist” Democrats. And then, virtually in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade.

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

In other words, poor, working, and middle class Americans aren’t good enough to be priorities of conservatives in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike.  But the rich and big corporations?  They’ll bend over backwards for them.  The deficit is just a convenient scape goat when they want to kick the majority of Americans to the curve.

Yeah…

How Republicans show their love for America: By flying the flag of the people who tried to tear it apart.

About damn time someone got mad enough at the obstructionist to say what needed to be said:

That’s Congressman Anthony Weiner from New York standing up and fighting for the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, a bill that would have provided:

up to $7.4 billion in aid to the survivors of 9/11, including all the first responders who breathed in all manner of toxins in the aftermath of the attacks.

In the end the effort to pass the bill failed and Weiner’s truth telling failed on deaf ears, all thanks to Republicans and a few Blue Dogs, hiding, as Weiner said, behind the cowardly lies about amendments and process as they always do.  Seriously, how low are conservatives willing to sink?  Blocking assistance to the survivors of 9/11 is low-incredibly low.  What’s more, two members of the Arkansas delegation joined them…

Can you imagine what would happen if a Democratic Party HQ hung the American flag in a disrespectful way?  Can you imagine the howls from the Republicans?  Democrats would be labeled communists and traitors.  Hell, they’ve called us that over less.  But, as usual, the Republicans have no room to throw stones.  Especially if their Jonesboro HQ is any indicator:

That’s right, the American Flag outside the Republican HQ is touching the ground in that photo.

Now, to be fair, I drove by the headquarters this afternoon before posting and the problem was fixed, with another, much shorter flag hanging where the old one had been. But seriously, can you imagine if the shoe had been on the other foot? Do you think for a second that if Democrats had a flag drooping on the ground and Republicans had taken a picture of it that they wouldn’t be beating their chests in outrage and spreading it to everyone in earshot?

Sadly, the DISCLOSE Act, part of the remedy to Citizens United, has been held up by Senate Republicans.  Joe Lieberman, for some reason, had to miss the vote, though he plans to vote with the Democrats next time around, but the ball got left in Senator Olympia Snowe’s court, and she continued to prove that there is no such thing as a moderate Republican.  Basically, the DISCLOSE Act requires that companies and interests groups (with some exceptions that a few powerful interests, namely the NRA, got into the bill) to reveal their contributors, have CEOs stand by the ads their corporate PACs fund, and ban foreign money.  Somehow, apparently, requiring the people who put up ads like what we saw in the Senate race here to reveal who they are counts as silencing critics in the view of Minority Leader McConnell.

Free speech exists for the benefit of the people and for our democracy.  To put it simply, it guarantees the free flow of ideas that a free country needs to survive.  But if the Supreme Court is going to interpret the First Amendment to allow corporations to buy elections, then we should at least get to know who’s buying them.  Apparently, Republicans would rather let shadowy corporate contributors operate in secret-even foreign companies.  But hey, they are their base after all.

Disgusting. Dick Morris, he of the toe sucking with prostitutes, hit the campaign trail for Republicans today, and just couldn’t resist saying that Blanche Lincoln and Joyce Elliott are “girls who can’t say no.” Gee…what do you think the joke is?

This is the guy Republicans around the state are embracing. Those folks in the audience weren’t hooting and laughing because they think he’s right on about their voting records. They’re laughing because he basically just called Lincoln and Elliott whores. Republicans are making light of this, Tolbert even dismissed it at the “best they could find” (they being Democrats) and posted a song from “Oklahoma!” labeled jokingly as “more offensive video”. But this is something serious…and sexist. What’s more, this is a guy that Republicans in this state are embracing, as I joked about earlier.

And as far as women saying no, Dick Morris has plenty of reasons to keep his mouth shut about this one. After all, let’s not forget that this sexist ass had to pay someone to not say no.

Heh.  State Lottery Director  Ernie Passailaigue took a rather tame (by my standards at least) little shot at Family Council whack-job Jerry Cox in response to his lottery fear mongering.

“The truth is, children are going to illegally purchase lottery tickets if Arkansas welcomes vending machines,” Cox said in a press release. “The Arkansas Lottery Commission continues to talk about safeguards, like having to swipe a driver’s license, but this will not be enough to effectively prevent children from buying tickets. All they would have to do is borrow a driver’s license from an 18-year-old friend or take one out of their parent’s wallet.”

But Passailaigue dismissed these concerns as coming from those that opposed the lottery in the first place, even referring to Cox as “a high priced lobbyist on the other side who tries to do his best to detract from college scholarships going to Arkansans.”

“It’s basically the anti-lottery forces who lost the election back in 2008, and then said we shouldn’t do the instant tickets because that would create the fall of the earth as we know it, and then the next step was that we shouldn’t be involved in power ball because the sun wouldn’t come up the next morning. This is the next scare tactic and what they are trying to do is actually is do what they couldn’t do at the ballot box which is defeat the lottery,” said Passailaigue.

At least one Republican felt the need to express phony outrage over this one.  Eh, what’s the big deal?  It’s not like Passailaigue said anything uncalled for and it’s not like he called Jerry Cox an immigrant bashing homophobe with a serious problem with women who gives a bad name to Christians everywhere by advocating causes entirely contrary to the message of the Gospels, which he is.  Those are, after all, my lines.  So yeah, kudos to  Passailaigue for not taking crap from a guy who has no business having the influence he does in this state.  Wish others in this state would do the same.

First off, Martha Shoffner should know better then to step in fresh manure…especially after Dustin McDaniel already stepped in it.  More interesting to me though is this little comment referring to Doyle Webb, chair of the Arkansas Republicans:

Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb has accused the state’s constitutional officers of violating the constitution, which bars them from receiving state income beyond their salaries. Webb said Tuesday the party was considering filing a lawsuit if the officers didn’t take steps to reimburse the state for the personal use.

Republicans love to demagogue on the issue of ethics in this state.  They have for years.  But they’re not serious about it, know how I know?  Because if they were they’d have tried to put it on the ballot a long time ago.  But if it’d pass, that’d take their little pet issue away wouldn’t it?  And besides that, if might highlight that many of the Republicans in the state legislature are just as corrupt as some of the Democrats in this state.  Don’t get me wrong, ethics reform is something we really need passed, and Democrats should run with it (or at least one enterprising Democrat should put it on the ballot).  Seriously, if Republicans are serious about this, don’t just threaten a lawsuit that may or may not get anywhere.  Put it on the ballot.  Put your money where your mouth is and start collecting signatures at the first opportunity.

With all the moaning over the deficit we hear from people, very rarely do people identify what is actually causing the deficit to be so high. This graph shows that by 2020, the deficit will be made up by 90% of Bush era and Republican ideas and follies.

Approximately, 50% of the deficit is due to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy which Republicans are currently arguing need to stay in place. The Democrats are trying to roll them back to bring the deficit under control. About 25% of the deficit is due to the economic downturn, which is pretty much universally understood as a problem with deregulation of the market that Republicans pushed and are still pushing. About 10% of it is due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, also started by Bush. Only 5% of it is due to the stimulus and TARP under Obama.

Speaking of the stimulus, the White House announced that the stimulus has saved or created 2.5 to 3.6 million jobs so far. What’s also interesting is that the TARP has actually made money for the government so far. When people complain about the deficit make sure they understand who’s responsible for 90% of it… Republicans.

The Blue Hog Report expertly took apart Republican state representative and Secretary of State candidate Mark Martin, he of the freaky picture.

I cannot be the only interested voter (from either party) out there who is more than a tad frustrated with the complete lack of any information coming from the campaign of State Rep. Mark Martin for Secretary of State.  Sure, in the last few weeks we’ve seen a wild barb or two launched against the “radical” philosophy of his opponent and BHR fave Pat O’Brien because of O’Brien’s staunch support of Barack Obama’s candidacy in 2008 (which, I suppose, is in keeping with the Jim Keet “national talking points/little to do with Arkansas” GOP ’10 theme), but can a general-election candidate really get away with rarely issuing a news release, not posting any issues or policy platforms on his website — which supposedly acts as the “extension of [the] campaign” — updating the blog he frequently touts, or even giving voters a simple Facebook or Twitter update on a reg’lar basis?

Now, as the Blue Hog dynamic duo point out, Martin has made a few statements on the issues, despite his website currently having no issues page.  However, those statements haven’t done Martin much good.  For example, his statement on the Garland County mess and O’Brien’s proposals on how to keep it from happening again:

“It’s not the secretary of state’s role to actually be dictatorial with the counties as far as how they want to conduct some of this stuff,” Martin said. “You have to be really careful, when you are dealing with the counties.

“It’s all fine for us to come up with a bunch of ideas during a campaign and make issues out of them, but I think it’s more important to make sure you work with county officials on doing something that everyone is comfortable with.”

So…sticking up for folks like Charles Tapp AND basically telling us that he had no ideas to present to voters to explain why he deserved to be elected.  Two strikes in a row.

Lol, with such low caliber candidates as Mark Martin, Jim Keet, Mark Darr, and John Thurston, it doesn’t look like Republicans will be taking any of the state level positions this year.  There last hope for their much anticipated take over remains at the federal level, with the senate race and the races in AR-01 and AR-02, and the possibility that they might pick up some seats in the state House and state senate.  In other words, it ain’t doomsday for Democrats.

The DCCC apparently didn’t get the memo that Tim Griffin was supposed to be coronated in the second district. They’re calling for him to say where he stands on the DISCLOSE Act:

Career DC insider Tim Griffin, who is best known as a backroom political operative in Washington, owes it to Arkansas voters to reveal how he would have voted on the DISCLOSE ACT, a bipartisan plan which requires transparency and disclosure in campaign spending by the Big Special Interests – including Wall Street banks and foreign companies.

“Tim Griffin made a career out of protecting special interests in Washington,” said Jesse Ferguson, Southern Regional Press Secretary at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Tim Griffin now needs to tell voters if he thinks these same Wall Street Interests and foreign companies should be able to spend unlimited money without any accountability to influence his race and others across the country. Arkansas voters certainly don’t think the CEOs on Wall Street or companies from China and India should be telling them how to vote, does Griffin disagree?”

That’s not the only thing that Griffin, and John Boozman, Rick Crawford, and Steve Womack for that matter, need to come clean on. Day after day after day we see how corporations are out of control in this country and they have allies in the form of the Republican Party (and conservative Democrats). The DISCLOSE Act barely passed the House and Wall Street Reform may be in jeopardy now. Boozman, Crawford, Griffin, and Womack all need to say where they stand on DISCLOSE, Wall Street Reform, and the Citizens United decision. It’s a simple question, do they stand with the American people or with big business. Yeah, we know the answer to that one…

Tolbert got some video this week of Joyce Elliott speaking to the Political Animals Club in Little Rock.  Now, truth be known, when I originally skimmed the account on it in the course of my busy day I thought I was going to have to write a completely different post than this, but more on that later.  When I actually watched the video though, I have to say I was wowed by what I saw:

Yeah, whatever it is that gives people that thing called charisma, Senator Elliott’s got it, and she really seems to have wowed the crowd.

Now, Republicans are going to take just one thing away from that whole moment. This:

They’re already crowing about it. That’s why I was afraid I was going to have to write a post on how Senator Elliott might need to get better as messaging…mercifully I was wrong. No matter what Senator Elliott says or does, Republicans are going to take it out of context.  Right after she said that Senator Elliott explained that saying Washington is broken is “like saying rain is wet”, and yeah, any pinhead can say that because it’s true and a common realization.  However, the distinction Elliott drew was that it took a real public servant to get things done, and it went over well with the crowd.  Through the whole thing she sounded incredibly optimistic and inspiring, and gave a nice account of who she was and what makes her tick.  And I loved the line about the fire fighter!  The whole “I’m not a politician” line always bugged me.  If you run for office, you’re a politician, that’s how it works, and Elliott made a long overdue distinction that we needed someone who was a “good politician” in the sense that they make good promises, deliver on them, and never forget about the people they represent.  It was a good speech, and Republicans are learning fast that the only way they’ll be able to draw blood is by cutting her with quotes taken out of context.  That’s where we come in by setting the record straight.

After the speech came the Q&A session:

Again, there are a lot of Republicans that are clutching the pearls over her response about American exceptionalism.  You know, because she didn’t say that America was the best place ever ordained for glory by Jesus Christ himself with no flaws worth mentioning whatsoever.  But again, she didn’t say anything all that bad.  In fact, she gave a pretty good response, saying America is different because of the ideas the country was born from while stressing that it could be taken to extremes.  (By the way, for those that don’t know, chauvinism is defined as- excessive or blind patriotism or  undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs or has belonged as well as : an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex by Webster’s dictionary.)  They’re also fretting over her defense of beneficial earmarks, but again, her response makes sense.  It’s one thing when you’re funding a needed highway or a hospital in a district that can’t get funding some other way.  It’s another thing when you’re building the “Bridge to Nowhere”.

All in all, Joyce Elliott gave a good account of herself, and she even got a good swing in at Tim Griffin’s horrible economic philosophy.  I’m glad Senator Elliott made it clear that she will swing a punch when she has to.  In her interview with Politico for instance, she nailed his attachment to Karl Rove, and that’s not the only unsavory connection Griffin has to hit.  Tim Griffin has Joe Barton and BP, along with any half truth or lie the Republicans can up with.  Joyce Elliott has us.  The Republicans are counting on us backing down to them and not calling them to the mat, but Senator Elliott isn’t backing down and neither are we.  So show Senator Elliott that you’ve got her back.  Make a contribution to her on our ActBlue page.

Yesterday, Wall Street Reform made it out of conference.  Think Progress has a nice little chart illustrating how the differences between the House and Senate bill were ironed out.  Blanche Lincoln got her derivatives legislation passed through mostly unchanged with only some minor tweaking on the edge.  Scott Brown got his loophole for the Volker rule pushed through, but as a trade off it looks like Levin and Merkley got an even stronger version of the rule affecting propriety trading.  The Consumer Protection Area passed through safely, but ended up being housed in the Federal Reserve, unfortuneatly.  It would have been better to see it as a strong, independent agency, but having one is better than nothing.  The auto dealers however were able to buy an exemption from the agency’s oversite.  So, overall, far from perfect and with a handfull of loopholes, but still better than nothing and worth passing I think.

I’m still looking for confirmation on whether or not Lincoln’s push to get the Walton’s bank exempted from regulation made it into law or not.  So far, no confirmation is, to me, confirmation that it failed.  However, if I’m wrong, then team Lincoln is going to have more reason not to like me than they already do.  Although, just trying to get that passed was bad enough, and frankly just plain stupid.  It did nothing but increase the distrust and loathing on Lincoln’s left flank that she’s made no active effort to patch up.  But anyway, I’m getting off topic.

The bill now goes back to the House and Senate again for the final time.  Marion Berry and Mike Ross both voted against it last time around.  Can Lincoln use her new involvement with the bill to push them to vote yes this time around?  And really, does Mike Ross want to vote for Wall Street robber barons in an election year?  I know his opponent’s a joke, but seriously?  In the Senate, Lincoln’s vote is assurred, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that Pryor is just a tool, so I’m pretty confident he’s not going to vote differently from Lincoln.  And if Democrats manage to pass this, we’ll actually be at a point where we can say we’ve had a productive 111th Congress, even from a progressive standpoint.  Think about it-the Lilly Ledbetter Act, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the SCHIP expansion, the new credit card regulations, health care reform, the Matthew Shephard Act…feels like I’m forgetting something.  Anyway, add Wall Street Reform to that and we’ll have gotten a pretty good deal out of a Democratic Congress and President Obama.  Sure, it hasn’t been perfect and there’s a lot to gripe about but contrary to popular belief things are getting done.  And while it hasn’t been easy (and a lot of blame for that rests on the shoulders of conservadems like Lincoln and Ross) it was never going to be.  We’ve been left with a huge mess by George Bush and the Republicans and we’re still nowhere near digging ourselves out.  But yeah, there’s plenty of reason to be happy with what Congress and the President are doing now and plenty of reasons not to let either chamber go back to the Republicans.  If it had been up to them, Wall Street Reform would never have happened.  And if they make a comeback, then there’s plenty of awful things that will happen far worse than anything that might come out of a Democratically controlled Congress.

The New Republic has a nice little bit of polling info on the President’s health care reform passed earlier this year.  Brantley sums the findings up nicely:

 It now enjoys solid support, except among those over 65, who are WAY negative. You know. The people who don’t want government health care.

There’s a lot of reasons for the lack of support among voters over 65, ranging from the scare tactics Republicans have used about death panels and Medicare cuts to distrust of Obama (And yes, I am implying that the reason for that is what you think I’m implying.)

That said, this is shaping out much as those of us on the left who were fighting for health care reform predicted.  As time went on and people got to see that it wasn’t the bad thing it was made out to be, support would increase.  And if Democrats get on the ball with it and defend it loundly and strongly without backing down then support will only increase further.  The only sad thing here is we could have had a much better deal to support and defend if Blanche Lincoln and co. hadn’t done everything they could to kill the public option, but I have a hunch we’ll be revisiting that fight in the years to come.

So that aside, what’s this entail for Jim Keet, Rick Crawford, and all the rest of the Republicans running on the repeal line?  It means they can shove it.  Arkansas politics doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  To the extent that it seems that way, it’s because establishment Democrats have run scared and run right.  By framing the message and standing firm, they can win while defending health care reform.  Will they do that?  We’ll see.  But they need to remember that the left isn’t being so quiet or complacent this cycle and our move into the general election hasn’t changed that.