No Frothy Mix To Kick Around Anymore

“It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog.”

DonkeyHotey

Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination.  Hallelujah.

The common wisdom has been that the longer Santorum remained in the race, the better for Obama because Team Romney would have to protect its right flank with money, advertising and messaging that would otherwise be used to go after the President on his left.  But even without Santorum, Romney still needs to talk the right-wing crazy talk so as not to alienate his right-wing crazy party as he pivots to general election mode.  And, in any event, in terms of what is best for the country and what remains of rational political discourse, we are far better off not having to listen to Santorum's nonsense anymore.   

As I've said before, if his bid was successful, Santorum would have been the creepiest GOP candidate since at least 2008.  (A nice compilation of Santorum's greatest hits can be found here.)

It is rather shocking that a potential nominee with Santorum's extreme views about women, about the role of religion in the public sphere, and about  human-jelly fish hybrids made it this far.  What does it say about a major political party in which Rick Santorum is the preferred candidate for more than 25% of their voters.  (Not to mention that Newt Gingrich is the favorite of another 11%.)

Perhaps, more importantly, what does it say about Mitt Romney (with still only 40% support from his party) that it has taken him this long to vanquish such a weak opponent?

Romney, Santorum And Goldman Sachs: Their Values Are The Same

By Mike Lux, cross-posted from Crooks and Liars

Robbie Conal

Everyone is buzzing — and the Goldman Sachs PR team is desperately spinning — about the powerhouse op-ed in the New York Times this morning by the (as of this morning, apparently) former Goldman Sachs exec Greg Smith who resigned in protest because of their “toxic and destructive” environment. It is a painful reminder of how out-of-control Goldman has become, but this isn’t just about one company or one set of immoral executives; it’s about the Wall Street system and its allies in the political and media world.

Stories like Smith’s, along with a Mack Truck-load of books and articles written since the financial panic of 2008 about Wall Street greed and corruption, are a reminder of the breakdown of basic morality in the entire culture and structure of Wall Street, and of the destruction and potential destruction this lack of ethics causes the rest of our economy. According to virtually all the reporting, writing, and research we have seen in the last four years, this kind of short-term greed and willful corruption — and in many cases outright law breaking — has been baked into the Wall Street system, so that the honest players like Smith are systematically discouraged, punished economically, and driven from the companies. Only the people obsessed with short-term greed remain. The events of 2008 demonstrated in way too dramatic a fashion the incredible harm that does to the entire economy.

You have to be amused by the massive irony of all this, as these pillars of our society and their close allies in government and the media go on and on about what is moral and what is not. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, with its $75 trillion in toxic assets and its terrible track record of heartless foreclosures, talks of the moral hazard of writing down mortgage debt for homeowners. One of Wall Street’s biggest defenders in the media is Rush Limbaugh, who calls young women sluts and prostitutes when they disagree with him. Goldman Sachs’ closest political ally, Mitt Romney, wants to shut down Planned Parenthood because they are apparently so immoral.

The irony is deep because the conservatives who are such fans of Wall Street and so worshipful of free markets say that they are the ones who are for traditional morality. The problem is that the kind of greed they defend gets its morality from a very untraditional place: Ayn Rand, who argued that selfishness was not only a virtue, but really the only one that mattered, and that generosity was immoral because it helped society’s leeches. When a company like Goldman encourages its executives to, as Smith put it, “callously talk about ripping their clients off,” they are simply following Rand’s twisted version of a morality based on greed and selfishness.

When Republicans like Romney, Santorum, Limbaugh, or GOP budget author Paul Ryan (who openly sings Rand’s praises and speaks of her as his biggest influence) speak of morality and values, they seem to never talk of things like companies not cheating people, or fairness, or kindness, or generosity. I suspect that is because they agree with Rand that those are false values that don’t actually matter. But maybe the not cheating/fairness set of values is somewhere on their list but not high enough to mention or think about as much as, say, stopping people having sex.

The other rich irony here is that the man these guys claim to worship as their savior, Jesus of Nazareth, cared a whole lot more about the fairness and kindness stuff. He despised greed and wealthy people taking advantage of the poor, and preached over and over about generosity, kindness, helping others less fortunate, and that whole set of values. The sex thing, not so much. Jesus never condemned homosexuality even though it was common in ancient Greek and Roman culture, and never mentioned abortion even though it was a very common practice in that era. He mentioned adultery a few times, mostly in a long list of other sins to avoid, and told the authorities about to stone a woman to death for committing adultery that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. He openly socialized with prostitutes. This was not a man obsessed with sexual sins.

These modern day followers of his sure seem to be, though. Wall Street is brazenly ripping off its clients and tanking our entire economy, and the Romney/Santorum/Limbaugh team has no time to castigate them, but they sure seem to have all the time in the world to talk about the sinfulness of gays and abortion and birth control.

Maybe we should try to reorient their thinking about morality. My organization, American Family Voices, has put up a petition calling on Mitt Romney to call on Lloyd Blankfein to step down as CEO of Goldman Sachs. I think Romney should be the one to lead the charge on this because Goldman is his single largest source of money, and if I were Romney, I would want to do everything I could to make clear that my values were not identical to Blankfein’s values.

It is amazing we live in a culture that allows the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the country to cheat their clients and the public at large with impunity, and that their closest political allies aren’t held to account as well. Help us shine a spotlight on this by signing our petition.

In Health Care -- Affordability Is Accessibility

By Tina Dupuy, cross-posted from her blog

Conservatives really wanted a fight about religious freedom. It appeared to be an easy win: Make an ObamaCare mandate that insurers cover birth control into a war on religion. The GOP, void of any ideas Obama hasn’t contaminated by agreeing with, finds itself in an election year frantically looking for a bold battle cry. That sweet hot button issue that can excite their party and (hopefully) win them the White House (or maybe the Senate).

Their old standbys have fallen flat: Iran, abortion, climate change, child labor laws, and even gay marriage don’t have the sparkle they once had for the Grand Old Party.

Republicans can’t seem to get excited about Mitt Romney as their ‘80s-teen-movie-smug-rich-guy-stock-character nominee. Worse yet, he’s Mormon, which makes evangelical leaders grumble. So having a common enemy is the best way to bring everyone together for the proverbial good fight: Freedom.

“It’s important for us to win this issue,” Speaker John Boehner told reporters last week. “Our government for 220 years has respected the religious views of the American people and for all of this time there’s been an exception for those churches and other groups to protect the religious beliefs that they believe in. And that’s being violated here.”

Is Boehner coming out against anti-Sharia laws?! Or is he just conveniently forgetting the government isn’t always so deferential to the pious? Mormons had to forsake polygamy to gain statehood, for one. In 1862 the then-General Ulysses S. Grant expelled Jews from his district of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. And there were plenty of states where you couldn’t hold public office if you didn’t swear to believe in God (as opposed to Allah, Buddha or a flying plate of spaghetti) until the Torcaso v. Watkins decision in 1961.

This whole charade of religious freedom collapsed under the girth of Rush Limbaugh. He pivoted what was supposed to be a church and state issue into snickering about young women having sex. For three days Limbaugh railed on law student, Sandra Fluke, who testified for congressional Democrats, calling her a prostitute and a slut for speaking in public about the need for birth control coverage. So the GOP was trying to take the high (read: holy) road and there was their mouthpiece driving them all off a cliff demanding Ms. Fluke post sex videos on the Internet.

Now here’s the thing: Even Rick Santorum who (oddly) thinks birth control leads to more teen pregnancies – who has previously said states should have the right to ban contraception – now tells Piers Morgan, “It should be available.” This was tempered with the now irrelevant point about religious freedom. But even the way-out, cringe-inducing, extremist-in-a-sweater-vest has to confess birth control should be available.

Affordability is accessibility. If it’s out of your price range – it’s out of your grasp. It doesn’t matter if the pill is offered over-the-counter or in vending machines – if you can’t afford it – you can’t have it. Fluke’s testimony was not about the legality or morality of contraception – it was about students not being about to shell out over $1,000 a year for a medication in addition to purchasing medical insurance.

If Republicans admit they think birth control should be available – that means they believe it should be within price range.

The conservative talking point on health care reform was summed up by Rep. Virginia Foxx: “There are no Americans who don’t have healthcare,” adding, “Everybody in this country has access to healthcare.” In other words: Everyone has access to cake!

We don’t say everyone accused of a crime has access to a lawyer without providing one. We don’t say everyone has access to police protection but charge more than anyone can pay. We don’t say every child has access to education but require an outrageous tuition. Access is not abstract … unless you’re a Republican lawmaker.

No, when you’re a Republican “access” gets muddied with whatever sham controversy they hope will help them. This week it’s basic health care services for women.

Tina Dupuy, award-winning writer, investigative journalist and managing editor of Crooks and Liars 

12 Republican Myths That Are Killing Us

GOP Clown College

 Alan Grayson was a U.S. Representative for Florida's 8th Congressional District from 2009-2011.  He was defeated for re-election, but while in the Congress was one of the few progressive voices who spoke out forcefully against the right.  Most notably, during the health care debates he had the audacity to describe the Republican health care plan as "'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly."  He is running for Congress again, and it would be great to have him back.  (Click here to help.)  Here's a taste of his wit and wisdom.  -- Lovechilde

By Alan Grayson, cross-posted from Reader Supported News

As the Republican demolition derby rolls on, I continue to be amused by how each remaining contender tries to assume the "small government" mantle.

Mitt Romney wants a government so small that it provides universal health care.

Newt Gingrich wants a government so small that it will establish a permanent base on the moon.

Rick Santorum wants a government so small that it will fit inside a woman's uterus.

The only real remaining advocate of small government is Ron Paul. Dr. Paul appears to be disqualified from the Republican presidential primary, however, because he is unwilling to drench himself with the blood of our imagined enemies, like Gerard Butler in the movie "300."

But what about that Jon Huntsman guy? This week three different people told me, quite independently of each other, how sorry they were that Governor Huntsman never gained any traction in the Republican presidential primary.

I told them that they should get over it. Huntsman wasn't any better.

It somehow counts as an act of courage for Huntsman to have tweeted: "I believe in evolution." Of course, it would have been more courageous if Huntsman had said that to a Tea Party audience, and then they tore him limb from limb, thereby disproving the theory of evolution right before our eyes.

And evolution is not something that you "believe" or "disbelieve." Evolution is like gravity; it's not like Santa Claus or the Abominable Snowman. (Question: Why do they both live at the North Pole?)

Be that as it may, neither Huntsman nor any other Republican presidential candidate has been willing to take on the hard myths. The myths that are killing us. Here are a dirty dozen, right off the top of my head:

1. The government can't create jobs. (Tell that to FDR, who created four million jobs in three months.)


2. Tax cuts reduce the deficit. (Doesn't it bother them that a man named "Laffer" came up with this one?)


3. A fetus is a baby.


4. The poor have too much money.


5. Cutting the federal deficit will end the recession.


6. The rich are incentivized by tax cuts, while the poor are incentivized by lower wages, no benefits, an end to the minimum wage, and unemployment.


7. An unwanted child is God's will.


8. Everyone who wants health insurance has it.


9. The problem with education is the teachers.


10. The "free market" satisfies every human need.


11. There is no discrimination in America anymore.


12. The distribution of wealth and income are irrelevant.

I don't remember Jon Huntsman disputing any of these myths. And these are the ones that do the real damage. Show me a candidate who is willing to take on these myths, and I'll pay more attention.

Courage,  Alan Grayson

Republican Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

Being self reflective, expressing remorse, apologizing for causing harm.  These are characteristics of an evolved, mature person.  Right?  We certainly would want our political leaders to have the strength and confidence to be able to admit their own and the nation's mistakes, shoulder blame when warranted, and change course when necessary.  Wouldn't we?  Unfortunately, these qualities are not a part of the Republican DNA.  For them they are signs of weakness, hewing too close to what Jeanne Kirkpatrick criticized as the unforgivable sin of "blaming America first."

The last Republican Administration lied and manipulated us into a war based on grounds that proved illusory, approved torture and other human rights abuses, unnecessarily cost our country billions of dollars, caused untold numbers of casualties, and undermined their own avowed goal of thwarting the terrorist group responsible for the 9/11 attacks.  Did they ever admit their mistakes much less apologize for their monumentally destructive conduct?

On the contrary, since leaving office Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice have bragged and boasted about their policies, and have tried to take credit for whatever success President Obama has had.  And when they were still in power we were treated to this, um, awkward moment:



It doesn't get any better with the current crop of Republican leaders.  Mitt Romney's book is actually called "No Apology," in which he falsely accuses President Obama of going around the world apologizing for America, a dubious claim he repeats often on the campaign trail.  ("Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined.")

President Obama did apologize for the burning of copies of the Koran by American personnel at a NATO military base in Afghanistan.  In the wake of increasing violence over the incident, Obama  expressed "deep regret," extended his "sincere apologies" to Hamid Karzai and the Afghan people, and promised "to take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible."

This was too much for the GOP. 

Newt Gingrich is not one to apologize for anything.  (Recall his rationalization for an extra-marital affair -- that it was due to his excessive patriotism.)  He said Obama's apology was an “outrage,” and  later gave this advice to the Afghans, “You know, you’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life… Because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable."

Mitt Romney was also troubled, saying that for many people the apology "sticks in their throat."  According to Romney, since we have done so much for the Afghan people in helping them "achieve freedom," to "apologize at a time like this is something which is very difficult for the American people to countenance."

And then there was Rick Santorum, spewing his typically illogical and sanctimonious claptrap

I don’t think the president should apologize for something that was clearly inadvertent. What you should lay out is the president saying this was inadvertent. This was a mistake and there was no deliberate act, there was no meant to disrespect. This was something that, that occurred that, that should not have occurred, but it was an accident and leave it at that. I think you highlight it when you, when you apologize for it. You, you make it sound like it was something that you should apologize for. And there is not—there was no act that needed an apology. It was an inadvertent act and it should be left at that and I think the response has—needs to be apologized for by, by Karzai and the Afghan people of, of attacking and killing our men and women in uniform and, and overreacting to this, to this inadvertent mistake. That, that is, that is the real crime here, not what our soldiers did.

I'll leave it to Amy Davidson to expound:

Maybe Santorum and his fellow-candidates have been trapped in the kindergarten-delinquent classroom of the Republican primaries for so long that they think the same rules, and illogic, that help decide who the not-Romney of the week is apply everywhere. But Afghanistan is a real and dangerous place; more than two dozen people have died in the violence, including two Americans, who were assassinated in the Interior Ministry. (The Afghan government reportedly did apologize for that.) The senselessness of the response does not take away from the necessity of an apology, or from its grace.

U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, stated what should be obvious:  "We admit our mistake, we ask for forgiveness, we seek to move on."  And, as Amy Davidson concludes:  

In apologizing, we remind ourselves who we are. We also learn more about where we are, who we are talking to, and our circumstances. Having done so—done the right thing—we may reasonably conclude that we can make our apologies, and leave.

Hillarious Republican Primary Hypocrisy Alert

by FuzzyOne

Santorum attacks Romney for attacking fellow Republicans.  Everything else aside I would think that the drippy mud image is one Santorum would want to avoid.

The Frothy Mix Of GOP Candidates

DonkeyHotey

Shows how much I know.  I assumed that Rick Santorum was only staying in the race so that he could garner enough publicity to alter the Google rankings and get his name back.  But Creepy Rick has now won four states, including two -- Minnesota and Colorado -- that Romney won in 2008.  Maybe his latest surge stems from Pat Boone's coveted endorsement.  More likely, it is because the base of the party continues to look for a more conservative candidate than Mitt Romney, but a less toxic one than Newt Gingrich.

The common wisdom is that Romney has the money, the organization and the GOP establishment support to eventually secure the nomination.  But the possibility of defeat remains a risk he can't afford to ignore.  If Santorum does well on Super Tuesday, things could get very interesting.

Here's what Nate Silver has to say:

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas. Instead, much of his support has come from the wealthy areas that Charles Murray calls Super ZIPs — few of which are in swing states in the general election.

And so Romney and his uncoordinated Super PACS must continue to devote their resources to slapping down Santorum and Gingrich, rather than honing in on President Obama.

In addition, the interminable primary battle (remember when Michele Bachmann won something in Iowa and Rick Perry was taken seriously?) with its fifty or so debates (but who's counting) has not sparked much excitement from the Republican faithful.  On the contrary, as Silver notes, "polls show that a large number of Republicans have tepid enthusiasm for their field. And this has been reflected in the turnout so far, which is down about 10 percent from 2008 among Republican registrants and identifiers." 

Bill Clinton once said that "Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line," but the distaste among the Republican rank-and-file for Romney has got to be deeply worrying to the Grand Old Party. 

Greg Sargent wonders "whether Romney’s weaknesses as a general election candidate have been papered over by the far more glaring weaknesses of his rivals."  And really, if Romney can't handily beat these clowns, how does he have a chance against Obama?

Santorum's 'Freedom' Is Pretty Much Slavery

By Rick Perlstein, cross-posted from Crooks and Liars



Rick Santorum got high marks for his near-victory speech in Iowa. In the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne called it "by far the best speech Tuesday night." Santorum's address impressed me, too, but for a different reason: his astonishing endorsement of feudalism, wrapped up in a soaring tribute to something he called "freedom." A sharper illustration of the bad faith of at the heart of conservative rhetoric I never have seen in all my life.

He began by doing what conservative presidential candidates always do in this season of economic privation: talked about his family's one-time economic privation. It wasn't off the cuff. "As you know," he said, "I do not speak from notes, but there's a couple of things I want to say that are a little more emotional, so I'm going to read them as I wrote them." And what were the words he so carefully wrote to read at this, his moment of triumph? That his grandfather came to the United States from Italy in 1925: "because Mussolini had been in power now three years, and he had figured out that fascism was something that would crush his spirit and freedom and give his children something less than he wanted for them." He came because—why else?—he loved freedom.

(Brief digression: he says his grandpa came in 1925. Someone should look into this. The racist Immigration Act of 1924 had the previous year made it very, very difficult for anyone from such a dirty, disgusting, non-Anglo Saxon place like Italy to emigrate to the U.S. Maybe Santorum got the date wrong. In any event, the very fact of the 1924 law is another disturbance marring the official Republican cult of America-Is-And-Always-Has-Been-Perfect that I will be discussing below. End of digression.)

So, from the unfreedom of Mussolini, he marched into the rosy-fingered dawn of American freedom—which Santorum described thusly:

"He left to the coal fields of Southern Pennsylvania. He worked in the mine at a company town, got paid with coupons, he used to call them."

Let us dwell on that. Grandpa Santorum lived in a company town where he was paid in "scrip" in lieu of cash. That means what his grandson calls "freedom" was, well and truly, something more like slavery.

Rick Santorum Would Be Creepiest GOP Candidate Since 2008

“It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog.”

Rick Santorum is one weird dude.  ThinkProgress provides some of the supporting evidence. 

He is obsessed with and afraid of same-sex relationships.  He believes they “destabilize” society, and has "frequently compared [them] to inanimate objects like trees, basketballs, beer, and paper towels and even tried to blame the economic crisis on gay people.  He sees gay marriage as a threat:  ''It threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages."

When he thinks about gays in the military, he thinks about them taking showers.  Thus, he defended his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by arguing "that gay soldiers would disrupt the military because 'they’re in close quarters, they live with people, they obviously shower with people.'”

It isn't exclusively homosexual relationships that he worries about.  In his view, states should  "outlaw birth control, insisting that 'it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.'”  Hmmm.

When it comes to abortion, Santorum is against exceptions even in life-threatening situations, calling an exception for the health of the mother "phony."

And then there's race.  Talking about abortion, again, Santorum said he was surprised that President Obama didn’t know when life began — given that he is African American:

He can’t answer that simple question, which is not a debatable question. I don’t think you’ll find a biologist in the world who would say that is not a human life. The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the constitution? Barack Obama says no, well if that human life is not a person then…I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.

And at a recent campaign stop he criticized government benefits programs for helping African Americans, stating that he doesn’t want to “make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

He also wants to cut the food stamp program arguing that the nation's obesity rates make the program unnecessary:  “If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?”

 Until his recent rise (I don't want to say "surge"), Rick Santorum has not been taken very seriously as a candidate and thus, his views have not be subject to much scrutiny by the mainstream media.  The question is will his strange obsessions, bizarre statements and his desire to turn us into a White Christian Nation finally be, shall we say, exposed?