Campaign 2012's Biggest Disconnect: Americans Want Out of Afghanistan, Candidates Would Rather Ignore It 4APR12

IT is way past time for us to get out of Afghanistan. Our military leadership has lied to this President and to the American people about the status of the war effort, protecting the profit margins of the military-industrial complex because war is big business. WE can no longer tolerate the blood sacrifice of Americans in the name of profits for lockheed martin, general dynamics, boeing, xe and all the other defense contractors whose bottom line depends on the deaths of American troops propping up the corrupt government in Kabul. This war is not about terrorism, or democracy or human rights, it is about war as business and the rich getting richer off Americans being killed and maimed, American families being destroyed physically, mentally and financially. It is time for Congress and the President to listen to the American people and get our troops out of Afghanistan ASAP. NO MORE KILLING IN OUR NAME, NO MORE KILLING FOR THE PROFITS OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! From HuffPost.....
You'd think a ten-and-a-half year war would be a major issue in a presidential campaign -- especially a war going as badly as the one in Afghanistan. And especially in the wake of Sen. Jay Rockefeller publicly urging President Obama to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Maybe if the administration proposed funding a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kandahar, the war might get the place it deserves in the national conversation.
Our political and media establishments seem to regard being in a constant state of war as simply part of the "new normal" (to go along with over 8 percent unemployment). Things continue to go from bad to worse, yet we continue to be wedded to plans for a gradual withdrawal that will leave troops in Afghanistan until some point in 2014.
But even though our leaders don't seem to feel any sense of urgency, plenty of others here at home do -- indeed, the vast majority does. There are, of course, many issues on which our leaders are out of sync with the country at large (too big to fail, punishing those who caused the economic crisis, continued tax breaks for the rich, etc.), but this one is especially egregious, given the toll it continues to take in terms of lives lost, money squandered, and Afghan hatred of us increased.
According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, support for the war has hit a historic low, at 23 percent, with 69 percent saying we should no longer be in Afghanistan. And the sentiment that the war is going badly is one of the few bipartisan things in this campaign: 68 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans say the war is going somewhat or very badly. What is more, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent of Americans believe the war has not even been worth fighting.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's response to this turning of public sentiment against the war? "We cannot fight wars by polls," he said. "If we do that we're in deep trouble." Of course that's true, and nobody's asking him to "fight wars by polls," but what he can do is use the same common sense that underlies those polls. We're over ten years in -- these aren't snap judgments. And the fact that we're in "deep trouble" in Afghanistan has nothing to do with our leaders being overly responsive to the public's wishes.
Of course, the war was back in the news most recently because of the horrific killing of seventeen Afghan civilians, allegedly by Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. This grotesque act of violence was both an aberration and not an aberration. It was an aberration in the sense that it in no way represents the behavior of the over two million men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. But it was not an aberration in the sense that war is indeed hell, and atrocities -- even by the best-trained armed forces, and ours is certainly that -- are inevitable in prolonged conflict. That's why prolonging wars a second more than necessary is so deeply immoral. But does anybody sense that kind of urgency?
As Mark C. Russell, a retired U.S. Navy Commander and military psychologist, wrote on HuffPost, the military calls atrocities "misconduct stress behaviors," which always occur in war, "even at the hands of otherwise decent people." While noting that, of course, blame should fall foremost on the perpetrator, Russell believes that the circle of responsibility should be drawn considerably wider:

Bales and his family are just the latest of a long string of members of the warrior class that have unjustly born the burden of fighting an 11-year war. For instance, more than 107,000 military personnel have been deployed at least three times.

Bales, by the way, was on his fourth combat tour. Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general and former commandant of the Army War College, put it this way: "I think if someone wants to place blame, it should be on a succession of national leaders who fail to recognize that combat units, particularly infantry, just wear out."
The sort of warfare the U.S. is fighting in Afghanistan, which exposes soldiers to "the horrors of intimate killing, along with other factors such as fatigue, thirst, hunger, isolation, fear of the unknown and the sight of dead and maimed comrades," writes Scales, "all start a process of moral atrophy that cannot be reversed."
So beyond Bales, says Scales, "the real institutional culprit is the decade-long exploitation and cynical overuse of one of our most precious and irreplaceable national assets: our close combat soldiers and Marines."
And though the Bales case is one of the most sensational, that cynical exploitation has resulted in plenty of others. Just last month, Der Spiegel published photos of two U.S. soldiers posing with the corpses of Afghan civilians in 2010. The two were convicted of murdering those civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, last year, and were also the centerpiece of a Rolling Stone piece on U.S. war crimes called "The Kill Team."
But the danger is not just the odd overextended U.S. soldier breaking down. Last week an Afghan police officer shot nine of his fellow officers, then fled in a government car loaded with AK-47s and ammunition. Earlier the same week, a U.S. soldier was killed by another Afghan police officer, and two British soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier.
According to the Washington Post, the "apparent surge in such incidents" has "raised concerns about the state of the war effort." Indeed, these incidents are becoming so common they're called "green on blue" killings. And Pentagon numbers show that 75 percent of the deaths since 2007 have occurred in the last two years. As the Independent wrote, "the deaths raise fresh questions" and "deepen concerns... "
Over ten years in, isn't it time we stop raising questions and deepening our concerns? How deep do the concerns have to be before we act on them? How many fresh questions have to be raised until we start responding with the obvious answers?
And it's not just the war that's going wrong. As the New York Times reported last week, more and more Afghans are fleeing the country, with over 30,000 applying for asylum in other countries last year, the largest number in a decade. At the same time, only 68,000 Afghans returned, down sharply from the 110,000 who came back the previous year, or the 1.8 million who returned in 2002. And a sum of cash representing a quarter of Afghanistan's entire annual GDP was "physically carried" out of the country last year, raising more "fresh questions."
Even though over two-thirds of Americans want to end the war, the GOP candidates (with the exception of Ron Paul, of course) haven't exactly seized the issue. Certainly not the way they've latched on to the burning issue of contraception. Instead, they've mostly attacked the president for daring to have announced a timeline for withdrawal. "It's unthinkable that you say, 'Here's the date we're gonna leave, regardless of the circumstances,'" Mitt Romney said, adding: "Before I take a stand on a particular course of action, I want to get the input from the people who are there."
This obligatory "listening to the generals" approach ignores that the generals' job is to accomplish the mission they're sent on. It's not their job to decide what that mission is, what its scope should be, and whether it's worth committing U.S. blood and treasure to. That's the job of the civilian leadership, aka the president.
As for Rick Santorum, his answer, in response to the Bales incident, was actually closer to the truth: "Given all of these additional problems, we have to either make the decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out and probably get out sooner given the president's decision to get out in 2014."
Given that doubling down for a full commitment (Another decade? Two decades? Or should we aim for a full century?) without a clear mission would be doubling down on insanity, the answer has to be: "get out sooner."
The only GOP candidate who has had a consistently clear position on the war is Ron Paul. "The truth is, I'm trying to save the Republican Party from themselves because they want perpetual wars," he said on Face the Nation. "It was a waste, there's not gonna be a happy ending, and I think the Republicans have dug a hole for themselves because they're trying to out-militarize the president, say 'we should do more.' Yet 75 percent of the American people say 'we've had enough.'"
And yet even though, as Paul notes, he's the one in agreement with the vast majority of the country, the media mostly treat his foreign policy views as something your crazy uncle might say after one too many drinks.
Surely we can all agree that the first rule of military action should be: do no harm to your own national security. But right now we are doing a lot of harm, losing hearts and minds every day and making our country ultimately less safe as a result.
So, this war is not just a tragic waste of lives and money, it's also weakening our national security by strengthening the resolve of those who will stop at nothing to harm us. And it's deepening our involvement in a civil war that is never going to be resolved while we're in the mix.
"War is destructive of the human spirit," said Vietnam vet and military scholar Andrew Bacevich in an interview with Bill Moyers. "War compromises our humanity."
This one is now compromising our humanity, our national security, our standing in the world, and our claim to the moral high ground.
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The GOP’s ‘Europe’ is a land of make-believe from the WASHINGTON POST 3FEB12

Here is a great rebuttal to the charges by the repiglican / tea-bagger field of candidates that Pres Obama and the Democratic Party want to turn the U.S. into a socialist state a la Europe. WHAT I can't understand is the number of people who support romney's and gingrich(k)'s attacks on the social safety net while they themselves, or someone they know, family, friends or former co-workers, are benefiting from the very programs making up the social safety net. How can they not be aware that these programs are putting food on the table, keeping homes warm, keeping people in their homes, providing medical care when needed for families, for children? Their hypocrisy is amazing, their voluntary ignorance disgusting. If the repiglicans and tea-baggers had their way the poverty rate in the U.S. would be higher than it's current unacceptable level and many more would be hungry, cold, homeless and without any medical care. The attitudes and support of these people for the politics of those who seek to do them harm lends credence to the article on HuffPost on 2FEB12 "Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/intelligence-study-links-prejudice_n_1237796.html?ref=mostpopular
Martin Klingst is Washington bureau chief of the weekly German newspaper Die Zeit. 

Lately it seems that not a day goes by without a Republican presidential candidate portraying Europe as a socialist nightmare. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum paint a picture of the Old World as unfree, strangulated by bureaucratic and inefficient welfare systems, and unable to reform and modernize. To these Republicans, Europe seems to be the antipode to everything America is meant to be.
I understand that stump speeches are coarse and that, to Republican candidates, Europe must be bad because President Obama occasionally praises some of its achievements, such as universal health care or the “green” revolution.
I also know there is an American tradition of holding up the Old World as an example of all that is wrong and corrupt. There is, unfortunately, a more recent European custom of blaming the United States for all that is perverse and profane. Moreover, there are good reasons to worry about Europe’s fiscal calamities, which stem in part from the unaffordable benefits for its citizens. It is understandable that some on this side of the Atlantic fear that the European debt crisis could drag the slowly recovering U.S. economy under.
But when Romney, Gingrich and Santorum warn about “socialist Europe,” they sound as though they are talking about the Soviet empire, which vanished long ago. Europe is the European Union, a modern entity of 27 democratic countries that, despite many commonalities, greatly differ in history, culture, language, sociology and politics. Europe is difficult to comprehend, but viewing it through a single lens is like calling the United States a Third World nation because there are very poor areas in the South where some people live in shacks or have little access to health care or where some schools are corridors of shame.
My problem as a European living in the United States is that it is not Joe the Plumber who is bashing Europe but three longtime politicians who want to be president — people who should know better. Wasn’t Mitt Romney a missionary in France? Hasn’t he spoken fluent French since the late 1960s? I do not recall any important European politician who ran for prime minister or president and pilloried the United States in the same manner. Even when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came out against the imminent Iraq war before seeking reelection in 2002, the rhetoric was muted in comparison.
It is not necessary here to define socialism or to detail the many distinctions between a state-run economy and a social democracy based on a ­free-market system. But those who seek to be president of a global superpower — and may perhaps one day sit at a table with leaders of the Old World — should know a few things:
All 27 E.U. members believe, more or less, in mandatory health-care insurance and public education. They believe that government should offer a helping hand to struggling businesses and people during economic downturns. That is why we pay high taxes. It is also true that a number of E.U. countries have irresponsibly expanded their welfare systems and can no longer afford their bills.
But some countries have carried out necessary economic reforms, engineered their comeback and managed the storm of the Great Recession quite well. To some extent they can now present better results than the United States. Germany, for example, raised its retirement age to 67 and drastically reformed its social safety net, lowering labor costs to businesses. Thanks to government subsidies, German enterprises were able to keep their skilled workers employed during the recession. When business picked up again, the labor force was in place and the economy more competitive. Unemployment is at a 20-year low of about 6 percent.
Several European states run their mandatory health-care systems more efficiently and at lower cost than the United States while guaranteeing every citizen access to affordable and up-to-date services. The population’s health remains an important economic factor. Moreover, while the national debt is disastrous in Greece or Italy, debt remains at a much more responsible level in Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
Romney pointed out in New Hampshire last month that, despite the economic downturn, the average U.S. worker still takes home a bigger monthly paycheck than the average European (and even the average German, who makes more than, say, Romanians). That’s true, but the comparison doesn’t take into account the much greater wealth gap in the United States nor the fact that Americans have to spend larger portions of their income on medical care and education.
A college education is still free in most Old World countries and produces generally better results than in the United States. The Program for International Student Assessment study by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, released in December, shows that high school students in a number of E.U. countries scored better in reading, math and science than their U.S. counterparts. Another OECD report shows that it is much easier for Germans, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Spaniards to climb the socioeconomic ladder than Americans. That’s a stark reversal from the time when greater social mobility was a main reason so many Europeans flocked to the land of opportunity.
Comparing data across societies is risky because cultural and social differences may not be reflected. Yes, pendulums swing. But framing Europe simply as inflexible and outdated, or backward and socialistic, is shortsightedand wrong. Romney, Gingrich and Santorum should know as well as anyone that the globe is no longer flat.
 

Republican Racism is an Air Raid Siren, Not a Dog Whistle from SALON 18JAN12

THIS is an honest and insightful analysis of the gop / tea-bagger field of presidential candidates in the 2012 race. It is an indictment of the tolerance, acceptance and even the proselytizing of racism by poor, working class and middle class whites willingly or through self imposed ignorance. They are accepting the us against them propaganda of rich whites controlling corporate (political) America, refusing to think through the propaganda to the logical conclusion, that the "us" doesn't include the poor, working class and middle class whites, that they themselves are included in the "them", and that romney, gingrich(k), santorum and paul are seeking the presidency only for the benefit of the 1%, not the 99%. It is too bad they will only realize the truth if one of these candidates is actually elected, by then it will be too late and we will all be suffering the consequences. From Salon.....

On his MSNBC show Hardball, Chris Matthews called out Newt Gingrich and other Republicans for what he described as their "dog whistle" appeals to white racism during the South Carolina debate on Monday night.

He was correct in identifying the work that racism does for the Tea Party GOP and its candidates in their efforts to win over white conservative voters. However, Chris Matthews was too generous and kind. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and other Republican candidates are not engaging in subtle dog whistles to their faithful, where racism and white racial anxiety hides in the background, masked and hidden by other language.

Definitions matter: dog whistle politics are based on a signal or cue to the in-group, and one so subtle that those not in the know will overlook it as no more than quixotic background noise, a blip, a comment without context or meaning.

For example, during the 2004 election, President Bush's mention of the infamous Dredd Scott Supreme Court decision had nothing to do with African Americans and slavery. Rather, it was a wink to a rabidly anti-choice conservative Right-wing audience that Roe vs. Wade would be overturned by his administration.

In 2008, McCain-Palin featured a negative campaign ad which borrowed from the movie The Ten Commandments and suggested that Barack Obama was the Anti-Christ. If one was not part of the Left Behind Jesus Camp Christian Nationalist Dominionist crowd, the visuals and narrative of the commercial were odd, bizarre, utterly strange, and devoid of context. The ugliness of these symbols and metaphors were so covert, that they made sense for those outside of the targeted audience only after Time magazine thoroughly deconstructed the campaign adand its malicious intent.

In 2012, Republican candidates are using overt signals, what are for all intents and purposes blaring air raid sirens and signal flares that race, whiteness, and American identity are deeply intertwined. The appeals to white racism by the Tea Party GOP during the primaries are not background rhythms or subdued choruses. They are the driving guitars of Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla," the chorus of Jay-Z's "99 Problems," the opening moments of the Notorious B.I.G's "Kick in the Door," or the flipped samples of Justice's "Stress". You feel it. You know it. To deny the obvious is to close one's ears to a driving drum line and cadence that travels up through your shoes...and to your bones.

How else can a fair observer excuse away Republican arguments that blacks are lazy parasites, whose children should live in work houses and pick up mops and brooms to learn a work ethic, that "illegal" immigrants should be killed by electric fences, or Muslim Americans should be subject to racial profiling, marked like the "Juden" of Nazi Germany?

In all, the Tea Party GOP's campaign for the presidency rests upon marshaling white anger and rage at The Usurper, a perpetual Other, and one not fit for the presidency by virtue of his birth and skin color--he who we know as President Barack Obama. If Birtherism is not based on this calculation, on what else does it rest?

Race matters to the Tea Party GOP. It matters overtly. And it matters to the white populists of the Republican Party without apology or subtlety. This leads to the following practical question: how do we separate the subtle dog whistle from blaring conservative racism? What are the elements of the racial appeal? How can we identify it so that reasonable folk can neuter and castrate it? Is this even possible?

Knowing is half the battle. To that end, let's work through elements of the puzzle: 

The speaker effect. Using one of the most gross examples, when Newt Gingrich talks about lazy blacks on welfare and food stamps who do not know the meaning of hard work he is mindful of his audience. Remember, politics is ultimately about the creation and reinforcement of imagined communities. Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, and Paul know exactly how to talk to their respective audiences in order to get a response. To point: white conservative populists have disdain for non-whites, see them as lazy, outside of the polity, and as rightful targets for appeals based on symbolic racism. In the eyes of the Right, "those people" are not "real Americans." They never can be.

The audience as a public who receives, internalizes, and circulates the Tea Party GOP message about race, white racial resentment, white oppression, and hostility to people of color. The folks in the audience and on the stage during the Republican primary debates "get" the terms of the conversation. In fact, they are deeply attuned to the language and rhetoric of the New Right, as anyone who either goes to one of these events, or votes in a primary election, are deeply invested in its outcome, and a return to white American normality. In all, they are chasing nostalgia and a Leave it to Beaver vision and lie of America. This audience is also "tuned in" to politics. Gingrich and his peers are sending signals to a group primed and ready for his racial appeals...without a need for explanation.

This reality speaks to why there should be no surprise when Republican audiences cheer the death penalty, dying people without insurance, or heckle soldiers who happen to be gay. There are unstated rules, a script, which govern social norms and behavior. The outliers who go to political debates are intimately familiar with this language. Like marks at a professional wrestling event they know when to boo and when to cheer.

Context matters. In isolation, perhaps it would be a more difficult case to suggest that Gingrich's appeals to white audiences about lazy blacks are predominantly and clearly about white racism. However, given that communities are created through speech, and that "discourse" is about a sense of shared meaning with unstated assumptions, any argument for conservative colorblindness is judged to be insincere.

In South Carolina, where the Confederate flag still flies, there was Rick Perry (a neo-Secessionist that wants a Civil War 2.0 and a renewed fight for states' rights); Ron Paul (a bigot whose newsletters continue to suggest that African Americans are ravenous, craven, criminal, stupid beasts); Rick Santorum (a man fascinated by bestiality and the idea that blacks are parasites who only want to live off of white people); and Newt Gingrich who sees all African-Americans and Latinos as being on welfare and the public dole until proven otherwise. In total, these candidates are a rogues gallery where white supremacist attitudes towards non-whites is a standing rule, one only to be disputed after the fact.

Juan Williams is an object of abuse, a means to prove a point. Juan Williams is a paid pinata for white conservatives. I do not know if he was legitimately hurt and surprised by their reaction to him, or if his pain was not feigned, and rather sincere and real. In understanding the logic of Republican racism and naked appeals beyond the dog whistle, Williams was the stand-in, the object of abuse through which to actualize rage and hostility. Barack Obama was not available. Any black body would do. The cheering, snide glee of Newt Gingrich dressing down uppity "Juan," and the audience's cheering of a "boy" being put in his place, would be missed by only the most in denial observer.

Juan Williams is/was a repository for the fecal matter of white conservative bigotry, and a need to maintain superiority over negroes who dare not to step off of the sidewalk when white folks pass. That in another life Juan Williams would be a critic of "negro agitators" during the Civil Rights movement is coincidental to his designated role on Fox News: he is exemplary of Joel Kovel's theories about white supremacy, and how it manifests as a White society which is collectively (and individually) stuck in the fecal phase of human psychological development--it is all over his face. Juan Williams smiles while cashing his checks at the prospect of his politicalcoprophagia at the ass end of conservative politics. He revels in playing the role of the human centipede.

The excuse of ignorance and a lack of memory. One does not need to understand the root of a thing in order to buy into its power. White conservatives (and others) who traffic in racism do not necessarily need to be able to explain how blacks came to be associated in the White racist mind with apes. Likewise, those who hate Jews do not need to be able to give an exegesis on Nazi propaganda in order to be expert anti-Semites.

This is one of the greatest tools and defenses of the contemporary white racist--I didn't know that, you are being unfair!; You are "playing the race card" for calling out my association of the Obama with watermelons and apes as "racist"; I never associated blacks with welfare or crime, people like you are the real bigots for calling attention to how Republicans talk about such things, we are really all Americans!; stop talking about slavery, my family never owned black people!; (and of course) whites are oppressed in America by Barack Obama!

There is a collective reservoir of symbols, assumptions, and narratives that individuals borrow from in a given society in order to make sense of their world. Knowing the wellspring helps; it is not a requirement to perpetuate common sense understanding(s) of the world.

Ultimately, Chris Matthews was correct in the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. To defeat President Obama, the Republican Party is wallowing in white racism in order to win over racially and economically insecure white voters. However, Gingrich and company are doing this overtly. There is little subtlety. Looking forward, the 2012 Presidential season will make the infamous Willie Horton ad of the 1988 presidential election look like a celebration of Dr. King's birthday. The challenge for liberals, progressives, and reasonable conservatives, is how to make the Republican Party pay for their race baiting, and desperate reaching back to the Civil War, Redemption, and Birth of a Nation as playbooks in order to defeat the United States' first Black President.

Sadly, matters may be so dire that the white identity politics of years past are now "new school" rather than "old school." To marshal that fear, insecurity, and anger one does not need nuance, sophistication, or dog whistles. White conservatives can put such feelings on blast and gin up the psychological wages of white fear, white anxiety, and white rage to try to defeat Barack Obama.

As always, the past isn't even past. It is yesterday. Get ready folks. What occurred in South Carolina is only a warm up for what the Tea Party GOP is preparing to unleash in the months to come. What is coming to pass will be an ugly, wild ride.

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Location

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Birthday

September 12

Title

A (Sometimes) Respectable Negro

Bio

Failed Polemicist, A Race Man in Progress, and Contributor to the blog We Are Respectable Negroes

Perry, Gingrich lose lawsuit to get on Virginia primary ballot 13JAN12

OH this is rich, especially the part about newt gingrich(k)'s campaign submitting 1500 signatures written by the same person!!!! This from the group getting America all worked up about voter fraud!!!! From the Washington Post.......

By Anita Kumar

RICHMOND — A federal judge denied a request Friday by four presidential candidates to add their names to Virginia’s Republican primary ballot.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.), former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. failed to qualify for the ballot and sued the State Board of Elections and the state GOP.
U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. said the candidates should have challenged the qualification rules months ago when they realized that Virginia forbids out-of-state residents to collect signatures.
“Had the plaintiffs filed a timely suit, the court would likely have granted preliminary relief,” Gibney wrote in his ruling. “In essence, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair.’’
Gibney said he thought a provision requiring the candidates to use only state residents was unconstitutional, but none of the candidates had managed to collect the required 10,000 signatures. Only former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) qualified for the Virginia ballot.
Virginia, an increasingly important swing state, will hold its primary on Super Tuesday, March 6.
Virginia’s ballot-access rules, in place for four decades, are considered the toughest in the nation. Candidates must collect 10,000 signatures, with at least 400 from each of the congressional districts, while some other states only require candidates to pay fees or sign forms.
State officials said Friday that they would not have time to reprint and mail absentee ballots by Jan. 21 in order to get them out 45 days before the primary as required by state and federal law. Changes would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We remain disappointed that more Republican candidates are not on our primary ballot,’’ said Pat Mullins, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.
Perry’s campaign told state election officials that it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but the lawsuit says 6,000 were submitted. Officials testified that an employee of the Utah firm hired to collect signatures went into a diabetic coma and was unable to either collect all the signatures or turn them in.
Gingrich’s campaign said it submitted 11,050 signatures. But the Virginia firm hired to collect signatures included 1,500 signatures that appeared to be signed by one person.
A poll released last month showed Gingrich with a slight lead over Romney among Virginia Republicans in the race for president. The Quinnipiac University poll showed Gingrich at 30 percent and Romney at 25 percent among Republican voters.
Santorum and Huntsman did not submit signatures and failed to qualify for the ballot. Officials testified Friday that Santorum’s campaign collected 8,000 but did not turn them in because campaign officials knew they fell short. Huntsman’s campaign officials said they did not want to pay $100,000 to a firm to collect the signatures.
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) and legislative leaders said they would be open to looking at changing the ballot rules for future elections during this year’s General Assembly session.
“There are a lot more important issues,’’ said House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford).
“If someone is running for president of the United States, the leader of the free world, you would think they would understand the requirements,’’ said Sen. Ryan T. McDougle (R-Hanover), chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus.
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) had initially said he would push a bill to ensure that more Republican presidential candidates would appear on the state’s ballot this year, but he later backed off.
The Democratic Party of Virginia certified President Obama’s signatures. He was the only Democrat to qualify for the ballot, so the state will cancel the party’s primary.

In Post-Gadhafi Libya, Islamists Start To Rise 3JAN12 & Strength of Egyptian Islamists proves a test for Obama’s pro-democracy policy in the Middle East 5JAN12

AMERICAN government officials and politicians are expressing their concern about the rising influence and political power of conservative Islamist political parties Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and possibly Syria. In reality their concern is not for the fate of democracy in these countries, nor for the human rights of their citizens, but for the state and profitability of American corporate interest and of the U.S. military-industrial complex, dependent on sales of tools of government repression and weapons of mass destruction to the region. Oil and war are the reasons for American concern, not freedom, democracy and human rights, and American support of the violent defeat of the revolution in Bahrain has shown these countries what the American governments interest really are.
One also has to compare the extreme right wing "religious" policies of some of the Islamist parties in these countries with the "religious" policies of some politicians in the U.S. Some of the gop / tea-baggers presidential candidates (ron paul) are supported by and adhere to the beliefs of the "christian" reconstructionist movement, which calls for the nation to be governed by strict "religious" laws that differ with the Islamic Salafist only in the name of their faith. The others (rick perry, newt gingrich, mitt romney, rick santorum) support and are supported by "religious" groups that limit the human rights of women and children and preach intolerance of other faiths, secularism and ethnic groups, the same as mainstream Islamist like the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe we should be more concerned about the threat to our freedom, democracy and human rights from the extreme "religious" right here in America before worrying about "religious" extremist in the Arab world. Here are two interesting articles from NPR and the Washington Post....

by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

[7 min 51 sec]

 

Enlarge Sergey Ponomarev/AP A rebel fighter stands on a monument inside Moammar Gadhafi's main compound in Tripoli.

One year ago, protesters across the Arab world began to rise up against autocratic rulers, forcing several from power. These revolutions have led to the region's biggest upheaval in decades. It's still not clear how these seismic changes will play out, and so far, the results have been mixed. In a six-part series, NPR is taking a look at where the region stands today. In the second installment, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports on how Islamists in Libya, long suppressed during Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule, are now able to operate freely.
Kolo Street in Tripoli is unpaved, potholed and lined with crumbling concrete and mud brick homes. The residents here complain of decades of neglect under Moammar Gadhafi.
But now, after Libya's revolution, there's a sudden interest in their plight, and it's not coming from the transitional government.
On a recent day, a man answered questions about his family's situation from members of an Islamic charity that just started operating in the neighborhood. The group is promising to help him and the six members of his family with food and financial support.

More In This Series

Part 1: Turning Elections Into Democracy
Today: Islamists On The Rise
Part 3: Syria — A Looming Civil War?
Part 4: Bahrain — An Uprising Suppressed
Part 5: Turkey's Expanding Role
Part 6: The U.S. And The Arab Spring

One of the men, Shukry Jualy, who started the Helping Hands charity, says he is a Salafi Muslim — part of an ultra-conservative movement that exists in a number of Muslim countries.
While Jualy says his group has no political affiliation, Salafist parties have done well in neighboring Egypt's elections. Much of their support came through grass-roots community work that translated into votes.
Unlike in Egypt, though, Islamists in Libya are starting almost from scratch. Gadhafi was much more aggressive in stamping out Islamist influences in Libya. For example, his security forces arrested anyone with a long beard, a sign of Muslim piety. And attending the early morning prayers at mosques, a timeless ritual in most every Muslim country, was actually forbidden in Gadhafi's Libya.
But now that the dictator is gone, Islamist groups are wasting no time as they try to spread their influence.
'Rehabilitation' In Misrata
The men in this makeshift prison in Misrata are from all over Libya, captured in various battles, all purported to be Gadhafi fighters. At prayer time, they line up in a covered courtyard, kneeling and pressing their heads to the floor.
One of the striking things is that all of the men have uncut beards.
A prison guard calls the prison a "rehabilitation center." He says the men are required to pray five times a day and they are taught Islam.
Guard Haitham Mohammed says when the prisoners arrive, they have no idea how to read the Quran or how to be properly observant Muslims. The guards then begin teaching them, he says.

Timeline: The Major Events Of The Arab Spring

A look at the most important developments in the Arab world over the past year.

But what they are being taught is the Salafist strain, which the men who run the prison follow.
The prisoners say they are obligated to pray and leave their beards uncut, and they're forbidden to smoke. Anyone caught breaking the strict code is whipped.
Fattah Abdulsalam Dares runs this facility. Like many things in Libya these days, his appointment was haphazard. He had no prison guard experience. He's a businessman who became a rebel fighter and then took over the prison.
Dares' story is similar to that of many Islamists in Libya. Charming and voluble, he recounts how he was arrested and tortured under Gadhafi in the very same building he oversees as a prison now. His crime, he says, was simply sporting a long beard. Now, he encourages all of the prisoners to wear one.
"We Islamists want to show people our real face, not the evil one painted on us by the former regime," Dares says. We believe in charity and honesty, he says.
Islamists Becoming More Prominent
The Islamist message has resonated across the region in the wake of the Arab Spring.
"There's no doubt that this is the moment for Islamist politics and Islamist movements," says Samer Shehata, an assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University.
Michael Hanna, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive, nonpartisan think tank, adds that the decades of repression have actually helped push Islamist groups toward their strong position now.

There's no doubt that this is the moment for Islamist politics and Islamist movements.

- Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University

"This is a reckoning that was a long time in coming," Hanna says. "The postponement of the integration of political Islam into the political process, and the opening up of democratic potential probably exacerbated the current situation."
Still, it's something that makes many in the West uneasy. In the case of Libya, the fear is that NATO's intervention will clear the way for hard-line Islamists to take power, as happened in Afghanistan in the 1990s after the Soviets were driven out.
Already, many of the most powerful Islamists in Libya have a complicated relationship with Western nations. Britain and America often colluded with Gadhafi's regime against Islamist militants in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Among the most infamous cases is that of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who headed the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. It was deemed a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida, though Belhaj has denied belonging to Osama bin Laden's global terrorist group. Belhaj is now the powerful head of the Tripoli Military Council.
In an interview with NPR, he told of his rendition back to Libya from Malaysia in 2004.
Belhaj is now suing the British government for what he says is its complicity in his kidnap and torture at Gadhafi's hands. Documents recently discovered seem to support his claim that Britain's MI6 organized his transfer back to Tripoli.
Belhaj now has political aspirations, and he's been in talks with other prominent Islamists since last April. He plans to start a political party, but infighting has delayed a formal announcement.
Divisions Among Islamists
There are many different kinds of Islamists in Libya, and there are deep divisions among them. The Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, which was initially slated to join the group, has now backed out.
Libya's Islamists are worried about their reception in a country with no history of political parties for 42 years and relentless propaganda by the Gadhafi regime against them. So, they have been trying to attract other groups to what they are branding a nationalist party and calling the National Assembly.
The party's manifesto, though, was written by one of the leading Islamist figures in Libya, Sheik Ali Sallabi.
In an extensive interview with NPR, Sallabi said the new party will be inclusive and independent in nature. While Islam and Sharia law will be the basis for any Libyan constitution, he says, he looks to models like Malaysia and Turkey instead of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He talks of a moderate Islam that is open to the outside and democratically minded.
It's a speech intended to ease concerns of critics in the West and in Libya. Recent polls show that while Libyans are pious and believe in Islam's role in society, they are extremely leery of Islamist parties.
"I think they are going to limit our freedom," says pharmacist Nouri Ghariyani. "Of course, we are Muslim but not Islamic. It is different; personally, I don't like them."
In many street interviews, people from all walks of life reiterated that fear.
And so Libya's Islamists are treading gingerly for now, waiting to see if, after 40 years under the shadow of a dictator, they can seize what seems to be their day.

More From This Series

 

The Arab Spring: One Year Later

Bahrain: The Revolution That Wasn't

After a crackdown, the government has promised reforms. But so far, little has changed.

The Arab Spring: One Year Later

Syrian Uprising Raises The Specter Of Sectarian War

Upheavals in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East have left minorities feeling vulnerable.

The Arab Spring: One Year Later

In Post-Gadhafi Libya, Islamists Start To Rise

Moammar Gadhafi long suppressed Islamists; with his death, Islamists are now starting to organize.

Strength of Egyptian Islamists proves a test for Obama’s pro-democracy policy in the Middle East

 By Karen DeYoung and Leila Fadel
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/strength-of-egyptian-islamists-proves-a-test-for-obamas-pro-democracy-policy-in-the-middle-east/2012/01/05/gIQAbvDjdP_story.html 

The strong electoral showing of Islamist parties in Egypt has provided the first major test of the Obama administration’s pledge to support democratically elected governments in the Arab world, even when its preferred candidates lose.
U.S. officials described recent outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, which appears destined to win the largest share of parliamentary seats, as a chance to put in practice policies President Obama first outlined nearly three years ago in a major speech proposing a new relationship of mutual respect with the Muslim world.
Last May, three months after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned in the face of massive public protests and U.S. abandonment, Obama reiterated the theme, while acknowledging that “not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short-term interests don’t align perfectly with our long-term vision for the region.”
For now, White House officials said they are taking the long-shunned Brotherhood at its word, accepting promises of respect for the rule of law and civil rights and waiting to see how it governs.
“We have . . . had some good reassurances from different interlocutors, and we will continue to seek those kinds of reassurances going forward,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive talks, said that U.S. interlocutors are “not just in a listening mode; we are actively making clear that we want to see an inclusive Egypt that respects women and minorities, as well as the importance of regional stability. We’re hearing the right things, but the proof will be in their actions.”
The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday night, told a Cairo news conference that the United States has “no more important partner in the Arab world than Egypt.”
Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey D. Feltman is expected to meet Friday and Saturday with Muslim Brotherhood leaders and other political figures. Those discussions are likely to be easier than the talks that began his four-day visit, with the current military-led government that replaced Mubarak.
Tensions between the two governments have been high since Egyptian security forces raided at least 10 pro-democracy civil society organizations, including three American groups, as part of a crackdown on dissent ahead of the crucial transition to elected governance.
The ruling military council had promised U.S. officials that the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House — all Washington-based democracy-building groups that receive U.S. government funding — would be reopened and their confiscated equipment returned.
But the offices remain closed, and Egyptian government officials have publicly defended the raids and vowed to continue investigations into what they believe is illicit foreign funding.
After meeting with Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamal Amr, Feltman said he was “encouraged” that the organizations would be legally registered and allowed to operate.
U.S. influence with longstanding allies in the military will be further tested in the coming weeks, as civilian groups move to form a government they expect to take over sooner rather than later.
Although final results of the last round of elections this week are not yet known, “it’s clear now that the Muslim Brotherhood will have a very large plurality, over 40 percent, in parliament,” said Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Jordanian foreign minister.
“One thing to watch is whether they will choose to have a coalition with the Salafists,” the radically conservative Islamists who have so far won a surprising 20 percent of the vote, Muasher said, “or with liberals” in the secular parties the United States had hoped would make a stronger electoral showing.
Some conservative Republicans, including a number of the current GOP presidential candidates, have denounced Obama’s Muslim outreach as indicative of what they call his international “apology” for the actions of previous administrations.
But Muasher and other experts on the region have described it as a pragmatic realization that “the option of not dealing with the Islamists is simply not there. You cannot say you’re not going to deal with them, because that would in effect be saying you’re not going to deal with a very large number of countries in the Middle East, including Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia,” where a moderate Islamist party in October won the region’s first democratic election following the Arab Spring uprisings.
That recognition, he said, also requires a more sophisticated understanding of divisions within the Islamic world. “People in the West think political Islam is either al-Qaeda or Hamas and Hezbollah,” Muasher said. “The overwhelming majority of political Islam in the region belongs to the Brotherhood, and the last time they carried arms was in the 1960s.”
Meanwhile, Feltman also met in Cairo with members of the Cairo-based Arab League to discuss continued unrest in Syria and brutal crackdowns on protesters by Syrian security forces.


Fadel reported from Cairo.

Major Ron Paul Supporter Favors Death Penalty for Gays 29DEZ11

IT seems Rep ron paul r TX would have loved living in hitler's third reich, and would feel very comfortable in iran, saudi arabia, sudan, afghanistan, and pakistan, countries that did not and do not recognize human rights and freedom of religion. Wait, wait you might say, these countries aren't Christian so there is no way ron paul would be comfortable living there. OH HOW WRONG YOU ARE!!! These countries are basically theocracies, and sharia law isn't all that different from the laws ron paul and the reconstructionist want to impose on the rest of us. Not only are these people a greater threat to the American Republic than the taliban and al queda and home grown terrorist, they, just like Muslim radicals, are perverting Christianity. As Christ and the Apostles warned us, beware of wolves in sheep's clothing and "prophets" who will lead you astray. From Alternet.....

Paul's endorsement from a pastor who wants the death penalty for gays exposes his links to radical Christian Reconstructionists.

Photo Credit: AFP

At first it seemed like the moment of triumph for the Ron Paul for President campaign. The Texas congressman had won the endorsement of Rev. Phillip G. Kayser, a prominent right-wing Nebraska pastor, just as momentum built toward a possible big win for Paul in next week's GOP caucuses in neighboring Iowa, where evangelicals comprise a majority of voters.
The campaign issued a press release lauding Kayser and trumpeting his endorsement, citing "the enlightening statements he makes on how Ron Paul's approach to government is consistent with Christian beliefs." Then came word of Kayser's "Christian belief" in applying the death penalty for gay male sex, and the Paulites got busy scrubbing their press release from the campaign Web site. (The text of the release and a screen shot can be seen on the Web site Outside the Beltway.)
What reporters Pema Levy and Benjy Sarlin of TPM uncovered when they scrolled through Kayser's writings on his Web site, Biblical Blueprints, were not simply the rantings of a random fringe preacher, but a "blueprint" for the philosophy of Christian Reconstructionism, which seeks to make manifest biblical law as the law of the land. That would include the death penalty not only for the practice of sex between men, but also for adultery and insubordination by children.
Coming on the heels of recent revelations by a former aide that Ron Paul would not use the bathroom in a gay man's home or shake the hand of a gay supporter, and the homophobic and racist utterances attributed to him in a series of newsletters published under his name in the 1980s and '90s, news of Kayser's death-to-the-gays theology was hardly a boon to the campaign.
In one of the many pamphlets authored by Kayser, the TPM reporters unearthed this from a tract on the biblical validity of the death penalty:

It is not just the sinfulness of homosexuality that is known, but also the justice of the death penalty for homosexuality. In verse 32 Paul says, "Who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

The mere threat of the death penalty for the sin of gay sex, Kayser wrote elsewhere, can be "restorative" to those so threatened. When questioned by reporter Sarlin and Levy, Kayser confirmed his beliefs.
Paul's Long History with Christian Reconstructionists
The campaign can scrub its embrace of the Christian Reconstructionist preacher, but it can't scrub Ron Paul's long ties to the Reconstructionist movement, from which the more broadly accepted dominionist strain in right-wing evangelical Christianity flows. As we reported, when Ron Paul exited the GOP presidential race in 2008, he chose to endorse neither Sen. John McCain, Ariz., the Republican nominee, nor former Rep. Bob Barr, Ga., the Libertarian Party nominee. No, Ron Paul threw his support to Pastor Chuck Baldwin, who ran on the ballot of the Constitution Party, sort of the political arm of the Christian Reconstructionists. (Baldwin parts company with Reconstructionists on his idea of how the end-times will go down, but is otherwise well-aligned with the Reconstructionist agenda.)
Founded in 1992 by Howard Phillips, a follower of Christian Reconstructionism founder Rousas John Rushdoony, the Constitution Party offers this in the preamble to the party platform:

The goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.

Hard-core Christian Reconstructionists like Kayser and Phillips (who is also a founder of the modern religious right and a close ally of Ron Paul) aren't easy to come by, despite the profound but often undetected influence of Reconstructionist thought on right-wing evangelical churches. One area of difference between Reconstructionists and more garden-variety evangelicals is toward Israel and the vision of the end-times. The more common position among evangelicals is premillennialist, meaning that Israel must be constituted as a nation before Jesus will return to rule the righteous. As we reported last August, Reconstructionists adhere to the view expressed by Ron Paul at a "Pastor's Forum" at Chuck Baldwin's Pensacola, Fla., church -- that Christians are the new "chosen people," and the righteous must rule for 1,000 years before Jesus will return.
In his address to the segregationist John Birch Society's 50th Anniversary Gala in 2008, Ron Paul spoke in the code he knew would be understood by Christian Reconstructionists, who have long ties to the Birch Society. Reconstructionists refer to the righteous who reside in a land swept by evil as "the remnant." (A prominent Christian Reconstructionist publication is called The Remnant Review.) "The remnant holds the truth together," Paul told the Birchers, "both the religious truth and the political truth.'"
Good Reconstructionist Friends
After news of Kayser's death-wish for gays swept through the blogosphere, the pastor, in an apparent act of solidarity with the Paul campaign, removed the link to his pamphlet, "Is the Death Penalty Just?" (It remains available, at press time, in PDF form here.)
Other publications available from Kayser via his Web site include a bibliography of resources, titled Worldview Reading List, which firmly roots Kayser in the Christian Reconstructionist ideology, citing Rushdoony's seminal Reconstructionist text, the Institutes of Biblical Law, some 28 times.
In the Institutes, Rusdoony wrote that "deliberate and mature warfare against God marks the homosexual." Consequently, he continued, "God's penalty is death, and a godly order will enforce it."
In his Worldview Reading List, Kayser also cites Reconstructionist author Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law, seven times. In 1978, Ron Paul hired Gary North to serve as his congressional aide, though North lasted only through Paul's first term. (See Julie Ingersoll of Religion Dispatches for more on North and his relationship with Ron and Rand Paul.)
Another close associate of Ron Paul's is Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips, whose conversion to Christianity was inspired by Rushdoony himself. Rushdoony, Phillips told me in September, made the conversion of Jews his special mission. (Phillips is of Jewish heritage.)
At a 2008 rally convened by Ron Paul in Minneapolis in the shadow of the Republican National Convention, Phillips appeared as a keynote speaker. Ron Paul has appeared with Phillips at Constitution Party events, and served as the keynote speaker of the 35th anniversary gala of the Conservative Caucus, another of Phillips' groups. Together with Phillips and John Birch Society president John McManus, Paul has spun a conspiracy theory about an imminent threat to U.S. sovereignty under the non-existent North American Union, which the three contend is a European Union-style plan already under way, designed to erase America's national borders and eradicate U.S. currency. Ron Paul's demand for a return to the gold standard for U.S. currency, as well as his disdain for the Federal Reserve, align perfectly with the "biblical" monetary policy positions espoused by Rushdoony in the Institutes.
Live and Let Die
A common misconception about the Ron Paul agenda is that he is a libertarian who just wants to let all humans live as they please. But Ron Paul is no libertarian; if not a Christian Reconstructionist himself, he is truly the best enabler a Reconstructionist could hope to have.
Ron Paul seeks to shrink the federal government to minimal size not because it intrudes in the lives of individuals, but because it stands in the way of allowing the states and localities to enact laws as they see fit -- even laws that govern people's behavior in their bedrooms.
Here's what Paul published on the Web site of Lew Rockwell -- allegedly one of the authors of his racist, homophobic newsletters -- about the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas that struck down the state's anti-sodomy laws, which prohibited sex between men:

The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the 14th amendment "right to privacy." Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the Constitution. There are, however, states' rights — rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards. But rather than applying the real Constitution and declining jurisdiction over a properly state matter, the Court decided to apply the imaginary Constitution and impose its vision on the people of Texas.

This plays neatly into the hands of Paul's Christian Reconstructionist friends, who seek the destruction of the federal government for the opportunity to implement "God's law" on earth. Via Warren Throckmorton's invaluable Web site, comes this quote from the Christian Reconstructionist Bojidar Marinov, who writes of why "theonomists," as Reconstructionists define themselves, should root for Ron Paul:

The theonomic solution to the problems of sodomy and abortion can not be achieved at the Federal level because at that level liberals outnumber conservatives 20 to 1. And theonomic Christians are almost non-existent at that level. It is only when the socialist state is dismantled and power returned back to the states and the counties that we will be able to successfully deal with the other social and moral issues. As long as sin is protected at the Federal level, our political job as Christians is to dismantle the Federal bureaucracy and return all power to the local communities. Therefore, the great battle is against the socialist state.
Given that, Ron Paul is the man with the best position to work for that goal on the national level.

Ron Paul's Christian soldiers march on -- perhaps straight to victory in Iowa.

GOP Tea Party Debate: Audience Cheers, Says Society Should Let Uninsured Patient Die 12SEP11

THIS IS SICK, and the people who advocate turning away from those in need, even to the point of letting them die rather than provide the care needed should be ashamed. Such is the state of American politics today.....
A bit of a startling moment happened near the end of Monday night's CNN debate when a hypothetical question was posed to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
"What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn't have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? Are you saying society should just let him die?" Wolf Blitzer asked.
"Yeah!" several members of the crowd yelled out.
Paul interjected to offer an explanation for how this was, more-or-less, the root choice of a free society. He added that communities and non-government institutions can fill the void that the public sector is currently playing.
"We never turned anybody away from the hospital," he said of his volunteer work for churches and his career as a doctor. "We have given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves ... that's the reason the cost is so high."
The answer may have struck a truly libertarian tone, but it was clearly overshadowed by the members of the crowd who enthusiastically cheered the prospect of letting a man die rather than picking up the tab for his coverage.

Republicans and Teabaggers Finally Embrace Big Government 5MAI10

For more than a year now, we've been hearing from Republicans, tea party people and Glenn Beck's chalkboard about how big government is destroying American liberty and freedom. Much of the shrieking is literally accompanied by the yellow Revolutionary War "Don't Tread on Me" flag.

Every tea party lawn concert and misspelled sign regatta features people dressed in colonial drag with tea bags dangling from their tri-corner hats, waving banners in support of tax cuts, liberty and freedom and against the allegedly tyrannical Obama government. They're really scared and they want their country back from the (somehow) black liberal Nazi.

We've heard about how the "czars" are unconstitutional, even though the name "czars" was invented by the press as clever pseudonym for "advisers."

We've heard about how the Recovery Act, which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, is unconstitutional and an attack on states' rights and individual liberty. We've heard about how it's "generational theft" for the government to spend money to solve an economic crisis. We've heard about how the tax cuts in the Recovery Act are just a scam and should be returned to the government in protest.

We've heard about the crazy conspiracy theories involving the IRS invading our neighborhoods with armed goon squads -- rounding up anyone who purchased one of Glenn Beck's dozens of McBooks. Of course this meme turned out to be entirely untrue as there is no enforcement mechanism in the health care reform law should you simply choose not to pay the tax penalty for not buying insurance.

Republican attorneys general across the nation are challenging the health care law in court because, they say, it's unconstitutional. House minority leader John Boehner once called the bill "Armageddon" because of the tax penalty for Americans who choose not to buy insurance. Armageddon!

Throughout all of the misinformed and contradictory right-wing antics of the past year, I've been wondering how post-Bush Republicans and conservatives can possibly square all of their newly found affinity for freedom, liberty and the Constitution considering their eight year support for Bush era policies. Policies like illegal wiretaps of American citizens, the USA Patriot Act, suspension of habeas corpus (it's in the Constitution) and all the rest of it.

Have they at long last abandoned their support for these obvious trespasses against liberty and the Constitution? In fact, Glenn Beck said recently that he failed to speak out back then but, "It doesn't matter. I'm here now." Convenient timing. History appears to have skipped the first decade of the 21st century.

Put another way, are the Republicans suddenly joining up with civil libertarians to denounce policies that infringe upon basic constitutional rights? Maybe Rush Limbaugh teaming up with the ACLU during his drug case was a sign of things to come. A civil liberties-oriented conservative movement, eh?

Not a chance in hell.

This week, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said about the failed Times Square car bomb suspect, "Did they Mirandize him? I know he's an American citizen but still."

I know he's an American citizen but still. This easily catapults to the top of the list of awful, creepy, dangerous things Republicans have said in the context of terrorism since 9/11 -- the same list that includes: "None of your civil liberties matter much if you're dead," and, "I have had it with members of your party undermining our troops, undermining a commander in chief while we are at war."

Republicans from King to John McCain to John Cornyn and Jon Kyl are engaged in some sort of weird penis-measuring contest over the Faisal Shahzad case, each attempting to prove how quickly they can subvert the basic rights of American citizenship in order to appear "tough" on terrorism.

Marco Rubio, who is the tea party favorite for the U.S. Senate from Florida, said, "If this individual has information that could help us prevent future attacks and loss of life, nothing should stand in the way of that, including Miranda."

So nothing except, again, the basic rights of American citizenship.

Pseudo-Republican Joe Lieberman wants to change the law in order to strip would-be terrorists of their American citizenship. Hey, why not expand that to encompass all violent crime. Before long, we're not going to need Amendments Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight and Fourteen.

Liberty! Freedom! Constitution! Except when we're scared.

At the same time, a new poll from the New York Times and CBS shows that a narrow majority of Americans support the Arizona anti-immigration law even though a wide majority also believes that it will involve racial profiling. Concurrent to this poll, a Gallup survey shows that 75 percent of Republicans support the Arizona law with only 17 percent opposed.

Knowing full well that American citizens who happen to be brown will be swept up in the law enforcement dragnet, regardless of whether or not they've actually broken the law and regardless of whether or not they've lived in Arizona longer than many of the white people there, the Republicans and tea party people appear to be perfectly comfortable with the idea of government overreaching and engaging in a clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, among other things.

Liberty! Freedom! Constitution! Except if you're brown.

And finally, as the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico rapidly buries any previous records for oil spills, dumping perhaps as much as 25,000 barrels of oil per day into the sea -- dooming jobs, wildlife and natural resources for decades to come, suddenly big government spending and "redistribution of wealth" isn't so bad after all.

Republican lawmakers are quickly stashing their "Don't Tread on Me" banners and tea bag hats in the nearest closet and demanding that the federal government come to the rescue of the Gulf States.

As documented by Dana Milbank this week, Republican David Vitter worried that BP couldn't do the job alone and that "federal and state" government agencies pitch in.

Talk radio and Fox News, meanwhile, lied about the administration's allegedly slow response, implying that the government should be doing more -- even though we've been told by everyone of Ayn Rand to Sarah Palin that the free market ought to be able to handle these things on its own. (For the record, the administration has been on the ground and at sea since day one of the BP crisis.)

The governors of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, all run by small-government Republicans demanded more support from the National Guard. Small government senators Shelby and Sessions promised the full support of the federal government.

Bobby Jindal, who famously joked about federal spending for volcano monitoring and tried to stop any Recovery Act money from entering Louisiana, isn't so concerned about federal spending now. He issued a statement demanding "critical" federal government resources.

I think you get the idea.

But maybe we should just slow things down. Before we spend any government money, before we spread the wealth around and engage in generational theft, maybe we should start over. I know there's a crisis here, sort of like the one in which the economy was rapidly sinking into another Great Depression or the one in which American families are filing for medical bankruptcies every 30 seconds or the one in which there are 9/11-level deaths every month due to a lack of health insurance, but let's just slow down and start over.

In his University of Michigan commencement address in front of 92,000 people last weekend, President Obama made a rational, reasonable case for government. It was a far cry from Reaganomics and President Clinton's declaration about the end of big government. He said, "There are some things we can only do together, as one nation... So what we should be asking is not whether we need a 'big government' or a 'small government,' but how we can create a smarter, better government."

Perhaps, despite the inchoate rage of the tea parties and the posturing of the Republicans, they really do understand that we live in an era of unprecedented national crises and that with many of these problems only the federal government is adequately suited to repair the damage. If we could all meet up on these terms, on the terms of "smarter government," I think we'd be able to accomplish anything and mitigate any crisis.

After all, how bad can it be. The grandfather of the tea party movement, libertarian Ron Paul, receives government Medicare benefits.