I had some concerns for Rick Santorum before last night's three GOP primary results came in. My concern for the theo-connic candidate was that he would not get his turn driving the Clown Car this election season. Even though Santorum actually beat Mitt Romney in the first caucus in Iowa….the vote count was so tight that Serious Political and Media Experts simply mentally chalked up Iowa as a Romney win….assuring that the Clown Car keys would not be handed over to Santorum.

But now….thank you Jesus….after Rick Santorum won all three state's primaries/caucuses/beauty pageants last night…..the ex-Pennsylvania senator will don his rubber nose and curly red wig, dab on a bit of makeup, put on his big floppy shoes….grab the Clown Car keys away from the Mittster, and take the GOP-mobile out for a spin. Good on Rick. Theo-cons can drive Clown Cars too. So there.

How confused are GOP voters this year? Very.

In 2008 Mitt Romney won the Colorado GOP caucuses 60-18% over John McCain. Last night, Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in Colorado by 40-35%.

In Missouri, Santorum beat Romney last night 57%-26%…..even though the vote doesn't really count.

But the embarrassment to Mitt Romney last night came from Minnesota Republican voters. Santorum 45%, Ron Paul 27%…Mitt Romney 17%. Romney received about 1/3 of the number of votes that Santorum did in Minnesota last night, despite the fact that ex-Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, T-Paw to his closest friends, is Romney's national campaign chairman and has often spoken out in favor of Romney's candidacy.

The Anyone-But-Romney conservative voters are alive and kicking…..and this morning the Mittster's shins are black and blue.

The DNC Chair issued a painful reminder to Republicans describing how the Clown Car Drive-a-thon has been going…

“In state after state, turnout among Republican voters is lower than it was in 2008, and they are increasingly dissatisfied with their choice of candidates.”

Not enthusiastic about voting this year….AND….dissatisfied with their candidates. Not exactly encouraging stuff for voters hell-bent on taking their country back from the Dark Knight.

Naturally, Rick Santorum will not be the GOP presidential candidate in November. Rick's desire for the federal government to take control of American's sex lives….I'm taking a wild guess…..won't catch on like wildfire with voters. Could be wrong, of course…but let me remind readers about Santorum's….well….creepy thinking…

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country,” the former Pennsylvania senator explained. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

That's not a political candidate talking…..that's a religious nut talking.

It is more than likely that Super Tuesday, March 6th…..will cement Mitt Romney's candidacy. However, book-and-DVD-seller, Newt Gingrich, says he's taking his book selling all the way to the convention in Tampa at the end of the summer. Here's what Gingrich thinks about Romney….

“His (Romney's) record as governor is very clear: He was pro-abortion, he was pro-gun control, he was pro-tax increase, he ended up third from the bottom in job creation,’’ Gingrich said. “The combination of Romneycare and tax increases made him a very weak governor in terms of job creation.’’

Just imagine the Obama ads against Romney this fall focusing on Newt's comments.

The clouds are starting to darken for Republican ambitions to retake the Oval Office. Rasmussen, not to be confused with a progressive polling group, has Obama beating Romney 48%-42% nationally. 51% of all voters say they "somewhat approve" of Obama's job performance.

What's a dazed and highly confused political party, without a popular frontunner candidate, to do?

When in doubt….take more hostages. With the GOP's frontrunner trailing to Obama….what better way to damage Obama's lead than to do damage to the national economy, just like Republicans did in the debt ceiling standoff.

So, in the House….where Tea Freak Flags fly daily….GOP plans are under way to damage the economy through denying an extension of the payroll tax. Hey, if it hurts Americans, if it hurts the economy…..it hurts Obama and helps Republicans.

Based on the latest data….Republicans need all the help they can get.

It seems as if the American Catholic Bishops are oh-so-upset with President Obama's decision to mandate all employers to cover contraception in all health plans, even those provided by religious institutions to employees.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

No Cardinal-designate Dolan……Catholic Bishops burnt out their consciences when they decided to participate in covering up for child rapists under their employ. So, Obama isn't giving Catholic Bishops a year to "figure out how to violate" their own consciences. That steamboat done sailed. Obama is giving Catholic leaders a year to….comply with the laws of the nation……secular laws that those Bishops have been ordered by their Messiah to obey. Render unto Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar.

Through our nation's democratic process, Congress and the President passed into law a new national health care insurance program conservatives lovingly labeled ObamaCare. Health insurance exchanges are being structured right now….and so the details of what would and wouldn't be required to be covered by insurance companies to qualify for those exchanges are being ironed out.

Obama has ordered HHS Secretary Sebelius to include contraception coverage, without co-pay, as a requirement to qualify for the exchanges. All of the insurance plans made available on the exchanges in 2014 will include coverage for contraception. Contraception is legal to purchase in the U.S., and has been for decades.

The problem Catholic Bishops are having…..not Catholic parishioners, because 3 out of 4 Catholics simply ignore their Church's directives on the evil of contraception……is that Obama has ordered all employers, except for 100% sectarian employers, to make those contraception-including health care plans in the national exchanges available to all employees. The Catholic Church in America employs a lot of people. Many of whom are not Catholic. The Catholic Church in America also receives a lot of tax dollars from the federal government to assist them in their charitable operations.

All that said….here is where Catholic Bishops, most conservatives and even a few misguided quasi-progressives miss the mark on this alleged controversy….under the title "U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict", we find…

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

Compare that claim with this…

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Did the Founders use the words "respect for conscience" in the first amendment? No. If the Founders would have included a provision in the 1st which stated that all citizens could disobey federal mandates which they deemed didn't "respect" their individual "consciences"…..Americans would be able to withhold their tax dollars from Washington on the basis that the use of those tax dollars violates their consciences. Do American citizens have the legal right to withhold their tax dollars from the federal government because, for example, their consciences are violated through the use of those tax dollars going for the wholesale killing of Muslims in Muslim lands? Of course not.

What U.S bishops claim as their right is not a right at all…..and that non-right is certainly not found in the 1st amendment. Congress is ordered by the 1st amendment to NOT make any laws which "establish" religion. The word "establish" means "institute, build, or bring into being". The U.S. Congress is prohibited from passing laws respecting the "building or bringing into being" of religion.

At the same time Congress is prohibited from respecting the establishment of religion through legislation…..religious citizens are guaranteed that government will honor the "free exercise" of religion without interference.

With Obama's new order to include contraception in all employer health plans….how are Catholics being denied their "free exercise" of religion? Catholics are not being forced by government to buy or use contraception. Catholics can still practice their religion as they wish. What Catholics cannot do….under Obama's order….is compel those who do not practice Catholicism….to practice Catholicism against their will.

The noise conservatives have been making on this Obama order has nothing to do with some Mother Goose version of a non-existent "protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics." Nothing could be further from the truth. The whining we're hearing is all about a misplaced sense of entitlement which many religionists are confusing with the 1st amendment.

When religious groups decide to enter the public arena, secular-government laws apply. Not religious laws, not conscience laws….secular-government laws. Religious groups are not forced into the public arena. Government does not compel religious groups to do charitable work for the public. They choose to do that work voluntarily.

But when Catholic groups enter the public arena…..offering health services to the general public while employing non-Catholics…..Catholic leaders insist that THEY still get to make the rules, or disobey any rules that government has imposed. That is a misguided sense of entitlement which the 1st amendment knows nothing about.

Question: Under Obama's recent health insurance plan order, are Catholics forced to buy, or use contraception?

Answer: No.

How, then, are Catholic "consciences" being "violated"?

If Newt Gingrich has made himself famous through oratorical bomb-throwing…and he has….then Mitt Romney has become famous for his willingness to take both sides of any issue.

Romney said this January 22nd…

What unfortunately happens is with all the multiplicity of federal programs, you have massive overhead, with government bureaucrats in Washington administering all these programs, very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them.

The larger message Romney is seeking to convey is one of a bloated, inefficient, failed European-style socialistic government….all imposed on Americans in just the last 3 years by a president who really down deep….is not one of us. "Big government" is written all over Romney's comment here. And of course, only the "Democrat" Party is in favor of big government….because liberals, progressives, Democrats….want America to fail.

Problem is….what Romney said….I know this will come as a total surprise….is not factual.

As Paul Krugman pointed out in his column here….

"…between 90 percent and 99 percent of the dollars allocated to safety-net programs do, in fact, reach the beneficiaries."

Romney: "very little"…"reaches them".

Truth: 90% plus reaches them.

But that's only the half of it. A couple days ago, the GOP front runner…..as you've probably already heard….had this to say about the poor….

"I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it," Romney told CNN Wednesday morning. "I'm not concerned about the very rich, they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."

On January 22nd, Romney tells us "very little" from "government bureaucrats" actually "reaches" the poor who need help. On February 1, Romney tells us he's not concerned about the poor because "we have a safety net there." I don't think both can be true at the same time. Either the safety net for the poor is broken almost beyond repair because "very Little" of designated government funding ever "reaches" those who are in need of it…..OR…..there's nothing to be overly concerned about when it comes to the poor because "we have a safety net there."

This is what I mean by Romney taking both sides of basically any issue. Yes, politicians promise stuff they know they won't be able to deliver on….but I don't ever recall a major candidate taking both sides of virtually every question he's asked.

Even though Romney added that if the safety net needed fixing….he'd fix it as president….in reality, as Krugman says…

Mr. Romney, however, wants to make the safety net weaker instead.

How so?

….the candidate has endorsed Representative Paul Ryan’s plan for drastic cuts in federal spending — with almost two-thirds of the proposed spending cuts coming at the expense of low-income Americans. To the extent that Mr. Romney has differentiated his position from the Ryan plan, it is in the direction of even harsher cuts for the poor; his Medicaid proposal appears to involve a 40 percent reduction in financing compared with current law.

So Mr. Romney’s position seems to be that we need not worry about the poor thanks to programs that he insists, falsely, don’t actually help the needy, and which he intends, in any case, to destroy.

And is it really true that Mitt Romney is "not concerned about the very rich"? Is that true? If Mitt is not really concerned about the very rich, like him, because they are doing just fine….then why does Romney's economic policy contain a provision to lower taxes on millionaires by another $145,000 per year?

If it's true that Romney is "not concerned" about the very rich because they're doing "just fine"….then why would the rich need an additional $145,000 per year? If I know someone who is very rich…and I do…how not concerned would I be about that very rich person if I wanted to give that very rich person another $145,000 every year?

The question becomes then…..can Americans believe anything that Mitt Romney says?

Palm Beach Post, January 17, 2012…..

Florida Republicans say the latest voter registration and absentee ballot figures point to a GOP enthusiasm advantage over Democrats heading into the 2012 presidential election.

The election "enthusiasm gap" talk is a relatively new entry in the game of bullsh*t played by the Very Serious People every 2 years. How does one actually measure enthusiasm? For my money, the way to measure how enthusiastic voters are is to, pardon the simplicity, count the number of votes after the election. Even then, any claims of higher or lower enthusiasm on behalf of voters is nothing more than pure speculation.

In Florida, before Tuesday's primary, 446,000 Republicans had requested absentee ballots compared with only 307,744 in the 2008 primary….140,000 more. In 2012 the gap between Democratic registration in the state and Republican registration found Democrats leading by 4.3%. In 2008 Democrats led by 5.8%.

Those numbers were seen as evidence that Florida Republicans were hot to trot to get out to vote and get on with the business of taking their country back from the foreign President Obama. The "enthusiasm gap", it is being called…..and by jimminy, this year Republicans are really, really enthusiastic about the upcoming election. You may have heard something about all this from one of the millionaires reading a teleprompter while pretending to be a journalist on teevee. The oft-repeated messaging?…Republicans, when we're talking this fall's general election, are 'roided up on enthusiasm.

So how did all that enthusiasm work out in Tuesday's Florida primary? Using The Reverend's enthusiasm measuring stick….how many Republican voters actually voted in Florida on Tuesday…..we find that 1.660,000 Floridians voted in the GOP primary. In 2008's Florida primary 1,940,000 registered Republicans voted in the GOP primary. I suppose 15% fewer GOP primary voters in 2012 as compared to 2008 could, somehow, demonstrate greater GOP voter enthusiasm this year than 4 years ago…..but you'll have to forgive me for not seeing it.

Furthermore….even though I concede that Republicans in 2012 are really, really, really angry, angry, angry at Obama and the Communists he brought in with him to the White House….exit polls from Florida's Tuesday GOP primary demonstrated that 38% of those enthusiastic GOP voters down in Florida would like "someone else to run for the nomination." Someone else other than Romney and Gingrich, the candidates who finished first and second, respectively, on Tuesday.

To boot, only 51% of Florida GOP primary voters who voted for the eventual winner, Mitt Romney, said that they were "satisfied with the Republican candidates." All chubbed up on enthusiasm and nowhere to go, I suppose. Or as Jimi Hendrix once put it…"I know what I want but I just don't know."

So, once again, whatever this "enthusiasm gap" Republican voters are supposed to have opened up on Democratic voters……color me skeptical. I'm not seeing it…..no matter how many times conservative-pumping teevee anchors and guests repeat it.

What I see is a political party in peril. At war with itself. Teetering more closely to the edge of fragmentation each and every month we go forward. Out of touch with the American public yet still holding on for dear life to their shredded, rotted, and proven-failure-policies of out-of-touchness.

Republicans are experiencing their own little civil war this primary campaign. That's why Johnny Mac McCain called recently for an end to any more GOP candidates debates. Too embarrassing to the party. Too divisive. Making the GOP look as if they are not united.

For the last number of years the GOP has been purging their party of candidates who have shown a willingness to compromise with the Communists Democrats in order to promote the general welfare of the American people. The clamor from the Tea Party has advanced that purging process.

Eventually….I'm hoping this election cycle…..the Republican Party will implode from their misguided, self-imposed purification process….and start to rebuild their party by jettisoning their extremist elements.

Contrary to Village lore….America is not a conservative-right nation. A conservative-right nation would not be in favor, by 70-75%, of increasing taxes on only the rich. A conservative-right nation would not prefer, by 54%, to have abortion remain legal. A conservative-right nation would not be moving ever closer to legalizing marriage for gays.

Republicans and angry conservatives can insist all they want that America is a conservative-right nation…..just as they have been insisting that Republican voters are way more enthusiastic than Democratic voters about this year's election cycle.

But just like in Tuesday's primary down in Florida….it's only the evidence that counts.

In 2002 when neo-cons within the U.S. military and inside the Bush White House worked hard to deceive Congress and the American people into cheering for an unprovoked attack against the non-threatening nation of Iraq, steady and repetitive neo-connish messaging cleared the pathway to aggressive war.

Not only was Saddam Hussein's Iraq not a threat to the U.S. in 2002-2003….after a decade of harsh sanctions mainly affecting non-military Iraqis….but Hussein's military capabilities had never returned to pre-Iraq War I levels. The con by the…umm….neo-cons was to convince Americans who didn't know any better, and were still filled with vengeful hate from 9-11, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were about to devastate the east coast of the U.S., as well as Israel and Europe…or all three simultaneously.

In 21st century America, it's all about the messaging. Veracity has nothing to do with any of it.

The Iraq Sequel.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that sanctions so far had not caused Iran's leaders to change their pursuit of nuclear capabilities.

But he said some Iranian officials appear more willing to conduct an attack in the United States if they feel threatened, citing last year's alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime," Clapper said in his Senate testimony.

"We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas," he said.

Insert 2002 Bushie claim here. "Smoking gun-mushroom cloud", "grave and gathering danger", "there's no doubt Saddam is reconstituting blah, blah effing blah"…..you know how it works, or should by now. But Americans in the beginning of the 21st century have become a caricature of a "short attention span theater" skit…..can't recall what happened last week, let alone what happened almost a decade ago.

And so the deceptive and duplicitous neo-con message machine cranks up again. This time in order to dupe U.S. citizens into accepting yet another military assault on yet another middle eastern sovereign nation.

How it's done.

In October of 2011, U.S. officials launched a new propaganda message against Iran claiming that Iran planned an assassination attempt of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Why Iran would risk nuclear annihilation at the hands of the U.S. and/or Israel over some cockamamie Mexican drug cartel/Quds Force story of clusterf*ckness…..was never explained.

Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation, found it "difficult" to believe that Khamenei or Suleimani would order such an attack that "would put all of Iran's objectives and strategies at risk".

Reza Sayyah from CNN questioned the plausibility of the claim by asking, "Did an elite branch of Iran's military handpick a divorced, 56-year-old Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas to hire a hitman from a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador to Saudi Arabia by blowing up a bomb in a crowded restaurant in Washington?"

Sure it's ridiculous…but then Saddam Hussein plotting to spray anthrax down on the eastern seaboard of the U.S….was a ridiculous notion as well…and yet that deceptive and ridiculous story reached the homes of millions of post-9-11, still-feeling-vengeful Americans.

See how DNI Chief James Clapper carefully constructs his misleading message meant to gin up support for a U.S. attack of Iran?

"The 2011 plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,"

Using the laughable, really, claim that a used car salesman from Texas, allegedly hiring a Mexican drug-cartel hitman, was about to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S…..and that the highest leaders in Iran were behind the laughable story….using that as his springboard of disinformation, Clapper then implies that Iranian leaders are…"probably", "more willing"…to do what?

"conduct an attack in the U.S."

See? Just like Saddam was about to do in 2002.

Of course, when disinformation…like Saddam spraying anthrax over New York using small prop planes…. doesn't carry quite the deceptive punch neo-cons are looking for…any DNI can always fall back on the old American standby….

"We're doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them. And of course for them, this is, as they have characterized, is an existential threat," Clapper said.

I wonder if Iran considers the 200 nuclear-tipped warheads the Israeli government has pointed in their direction to be, you know, "an existential threat"?

The WTF-ness of this latest propaganda salvo ginning up support for an eventual military attack against Iran is found in this Clapper comment….

"We assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so," he said in written testimony. "We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons."

Iran does not have a nuclear weapon right now and Clapper admits that he and his smart guys don't know if Iran will "eventually decide" to make one or not, but those wily Iranian leaders are, you know, keeping their "options" open…..so who knows, right?

All I can conclude about this clumsy, juvenile attempt to rah-rah the nation into another act of pre-emptive military aggression….is that the militaristic neo-cons who work so hard to deceive us into slaughtering more Muslims…..are in need of better script writers.

According to Wikipedia, the United States has 413 billionaires. The world's total number is 1210.

The U.S. Supremes have ruled that money equals free speech and that free speech, understood as spending money on political advertisements, cannot be limited by government. That is our new national paradigm…at least until the whole enterprise comes apart at the seams.

New paradigms, built on rational thinking about the first amendment and democracy of, for and by the people…or, you know, not,…..nevertheless create new opportunities.

413 billionaires in the U.S. is way more than our country needs to launch an entirely new process for electing presidents and what not. So, I'm proposing a new league…like a sports league….made up of only billionaires. Money equals free speech….free speech is a guaranteed right….so what better way could there be to celebrate how free we are than by having our most successful free speech earners choose not only our presidential candidates every four years, but the president as well?

I think Chief Justice John Roberts would consider such a league the pinnacle of American political freedom.

For those of us who don't have enough free speech in the bank to participate any other way than passively….it will be essential to make our new league as entertaining and fun as possible so that the free speech/bank account-impaired stay engaged. This is vitally important because America, by god, is a nation of, by and for the people.

The league should be made up of 16 billionaires….allowing room for expansion of course….with 4 billionaires making up each of four divisions…a northwest, a northeast, a southwest and a southeast division each with four billionaire "teams." The 16 billionaires will be selected, rightfully, by all 413 current billionaires….because….well….they've stored up more free-speech over their lifetimes than the rest of us have ever earned, and would be, therefore, the most qualified.

Once the 16 billionaires were chosen and "team" logos, uniforms, banners, cheerleaders, and network and cable teevee rights determined….my proposal would feature a four year long process of elimination. The day after Inauguration Day would mark the beginning of each new season.

Each divisional billionaire league "team" will choose a presidential candidate….all behind closed doors and, naturally, in total secrecy so as not to compromise the greatest example of pure democracy the world has ever known. Once the candidates are selected, each candidate will be matched against another in a series of 800 primetime debate/talent show extravaganzas spread over the 40-odd months between general elections.

The format for these debate/talent shows would be similar to the highly-intellectualized, reality teevee programs that Americans have come to love and cherish so much. Each billionaire candidate, in turn, would choose whether to sing, dance, play an instrument, drink a beer with a handful of the unwashed, recite a poem, scratch his/her ass while pledging allegiance to the flag, challenge another candidate to a live duel on stage….or anything else that would help maximize the democratic-entertainment experience.

The audience would text in their choices after each "debate" night's fun. Texting would only be permitted once per debate night….with the punishment for cheating being a first class, expense paid trip to Guantanamo. DHS officials, not coordinating with the CIA, would oversee security of the voting process.

At the end of the "season" the four billionaire divisional debate leaders…think the Final 4 of NCAA basketball….would draw lots for the playoffs. Single elimination matchups would take up the month of October before the general election with the Super-Freedom-Democracy Bowl scheduled for the first Tuesday of November. What a night that would be.

So glorious would be the American display of freedom and democracy on that night that the roar from the national audiences just might cause the Framers to roll over in their graves…no doubt signifying their approval.

Think about all the new jobs and enterprises that could be spun off. The Fantasy President League alone would move billions of dollars and how about the growth in greasy and sugary junk food sales….through the freaking roof.

My proposed league would also eliminate the huge conservative effort necessary now to suppress voting, shorten the voting window, and pass complicated ID laws. In effect making the democracy league more efficient than our current system.

Just think….if my proposed league was fully operational today….we could be voting texting our choices for either Northeast Corporate Raider Mitt (sponsored fully by a hedge fund to be named later) or Rambler Gambler Newt (sponsored by the Adelson chain of casinos). Mitt could sing a Mormon ode written by one of his three grandmothers (on his father's side) and Newt could mime out, in full blackface, his impression of current President Obama.

I'm talking riveting, must see teevee here.

And really, when you give it some thought as I obviously have, what better way could there be to honor our Founders than to make a total entertainment mockery of the democratic process?

For the past few years, I've been explaining to readers how congressional Republicans will move to impeach President Obama…should he win a second term. One doesn't have to be Nostradamus to understand the modern GOP playbook. All one has to do is review the 2nd term of our last Democratic president. Something which Esquire's Charles Pierce does for us.

In the February issue of Esquire, Pierce reports on a recent interview with Bill Clinton……

…Clinton talks about a change of heart experienced by a former GOP congresscritter named Bob Inglis, who lost in a primary in 2010 because he said disrespectful things about Glenn Beck but who, in the giddy years of the late 1990's, wielded his pitchfork most enthusiastically in the cause of impeaching Clinton, an effort for which he recently apologized, according to the former president, who nonetheless told us:

"I had a fascinating meeting with Bob Inglis the other day. Bob Inglis was an extremely conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina. He was a three-term-pledge guy in the nineties…. So he came to me and he said, "I just want you to know, when you got elected, I hated you. And I asked to be on the Judiciary Committee in 1993, because a bunch of us had already made up our minds that no matter what you did or didn't do, we were going to find some way to impeach you. We hated you. You had no right to be president."

If that sounds a little like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's number one priority for Republicans today…..making Barack Obama a one term president…..it is because both are taken from the same chapter of the same GOP playbook. That particular political playbook, incidentally, was partially written and implemented during the 90's by the world renowned moral values champion, Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was the architect of modern conservative wingnuterry….and also the lead morality cop in the GOP's fevered witch hunt ("We hated you.") against President Clinton.

Today, Gingrich (newly reborn moral values champion) is drawing "true conservatives" to his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination…..a nomination he will never win….in the hopes of debating President Obama before a national audience, where Newt, in his troubled mind at least, can really put it to conservatism's latest presidential object of hate, Democratic President Obama. But, sigh….it is not to be, because the Mittster has a train car load of money that the former disgraced Speaker does not….and establishment Republicans don't want to lose the presidential race AND both houses of Congress.

I'm starting to get the feeling that both sides now realize that Obama will win a second term. National polls show Romney trailing Obama by as much as 7 points right now. Sure, the race will tighten and blah, blah…but Romney is no match for Obama and I think both sides know it.

The only question left, then, is Congress. Who will control the houses of Congress after Obama wins a second term? And what is likely to happen if Republicans control Congress?

The person, if in fact he is truly of the human species, whom "three term pledge guy" Bob Inglis made his pledges to…Grover Norquist….let's us in on what the Republican plan will be should a 2nd Obama term become reality.

First…if Republicans should happen to win the presidency and Congress…

If the Republicans have the House, Senate, and the presidency, I’m told that they could do an early budget vote—a reconciliation vote where you extend the Bush tax cuts out for a decade or five years. You take all of those issues off the table, and then say, “What do you want to do for tax reform?”

Then, the question is: “OK, what do we do about repatriation and all of the interesting stuff?” And, if you have a Republican president to go with a Republican House and Senate, then they pass the [Paul] Ryan plan [on Medicare].

Tax Pope Norquist, the divine man whom all but a handful of congressional Republicans have bowed before and saluted as their infallible tax policy commander…reminds us of what Republicans will do if they control the whole shooting match next January. Tax amnesty for untaxed overseas corporate loot re-entering the U.S., (amnesty is fine for tax dodgers, just not Hispanics) making permanent the Bush era tax cuts and gutting privatizing Medicare. All followed by tax "reform" which will lower tax rates even further on America's privileged rich. Oddly…Grover doesn't mention anything about the gargantuan mountain of new debt his popish policies will create.

But what if Democrats still have control come next January…..what then Grover?

Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

Same playbook. Different Democratic president.

To Republicans, impeachment is not a severe tactic reserved for the most egregious presidential behavior. Impeachment is what the GOP playbook states after the question: What to do when there is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress? Answer: Impeach the Democratic president.

On what grounds? On the grounds that Barack Obama is president while being a Democrat.

Question from last night's CNN GOP debate in Jacksonville, Florida:

My name is Lynn Frazier and I live here in Jacksonville. And for the Republican presidential candidates, my question is, I'm currently unemployed and I found myself unemployed for the first time in 10 years and unable to afford health care benefits.

What type of hope can you promise me and others in my position?

No job, no health care. These are the two most critical concerns for average Americans….not the critical concerns of many conservative politicians….but of average Americans.

Ron Paul: Well, it's a tragedy because this is a consequence of the government being involved in medicine since 1965.

….

But your medical care should go with you. You should get total deduction on it. It would be so much less expensive. It doesn't solve every single problem, but you're — you're suffering from the consequence of way too much government and the cost going up because government has inflated the cost and we have a government-created recession, and that is a consequence of the business cycle.

See an answer in any of that? Paul tells the woman that government has caused the woman not to have health insurance, or something….reminding her of something she already knows….health care is expensive.

No kidding Doc. I have no idea what "your medical care should go with you" even means. The problem being that health insurance and health care costs more than tens of millions of Americans can afford. Offering an unemployed person the idea that she can take her health insurance along with her if she can figure out a way to pay for it…or that she should be able to deduct all of her health insurance costs on April 15th….is one of the least compassionate and most out of touch answers I've heard the Old Doc give.

Gingrich: The largest challenge of this country is to get the economy growing so she can have a job so it's easy for her to have insurance.

So far, so good. Get that economy growing. How would Newt go about doing that?

We need to have a program which would start with, frankly, repealing Obamacare, repealing Dodd-Frank, repealing Sarbanes-Oxley.

Gingrich would get the economy going again for people who lost their jobs and health care by adding millions more people to the uninsured rolls through repealing ObamaCare (something a president cannot actually do). Strange answer, I thought….but Newt is a strange character….much, much more advanced in thought than your average American.

Repealing regulations that, at the very least, make a stab at trying to rein in the richest white collar crooks this nation has ever seen in finance and accounting….is Newt's solution to getting that "economy growing again", so the unemployed woman can find a job. Again….a very odd answer. Encouraging white collar crooks to continue cheating to further enrich themselves by stripping the meager regulations now in place to keep them in check….equals….new jobs and a growing economy.

The solution to a woman in Jacksonville losing her job and health care, according to Newt, is to set free big time accountants and money shufflers in Manhattan to do what they want without oversight while nixing the only national program we have to expand medical insurance to more Americans.

Romney agrees with Newt…

..we know what it takes to put people back to work….. — lowering corporate taxes, lowering regulations, opening up all of the above in energy,….

Lowering taxes on the powerful even further……..stripping back layers of regulations from behemoth corporations, some of whom actually created our current downturn…and drill, baby, drill….are Romney's solutions to putting people back to work. Romney wants to go back to, yes, the "failed policies of the past" to find solutions for the future. Like rummaging around at the landfill to find materials to build a new home.

But here's one that has been bugging me.

Romney:

…if an individual wants to own their own insurance, they're not part of a big group, and so as a result they get a very high rate. What we should do is allow individuals to own their own insurance and have the same tax treatment as companies get. You do that and people like this young woman would be able to own her insurance. The rates would be substantial lower for her buying it individually than if she had to buy it individually today.

First….doesn't it seem odd to you talking about "owning your own insurance"? I have no idea what that even means. How can you own something which, in itelf, is intangible? But Romney's larger answer is where the cat gets out of the bag.

One person going to purchase health insurance pays a higher rate because, according to Mitt, she is only one person, and doesn't get that all-important bulk discount pricing that group plans offer. So Mitt would give individuals the right to purchase health insurance, individually, yet pay bulk pricing…..because a larger insurance pool of customers dilutes risk lowering costs.

If Mitt believes what he is saying…then it follows that the larger the health insurance pool….the lower the individual costs. That, my friends, is one of the arguments for single payer, government run health insurance. If a larger pool equals lower overall costs, then the LARGEST pool, all Americans, would be the most efficient way to insure for medical care, the most direct way to lower insurance costs.

Santorum went on to add "health savings accounts" as a solution. Giving an incentive to people who can't afford health insurance right now to save money to pay for their own health care. Not an answer for those who can't afford any of it, but a great new tax shelter for the already-rich who can.

So, what do you think? Did these 4 GOP candidates offer up genuinely reasonable, credible or practical solutions to our jobless recovery or unaffordable health care problems?

Mitt Romney has been paying taxes at a rate of 13.9%. The Romneys are in the top 1% of the top 1%. Romney's tax policy, should he be elected president, promises to cut tax rates on people like himself by an additional 1/3. If candidate Romney set forth a tax policy which made people like him pay more in taxes, then that would be one thing. But Romney's policy is meant to give families, like the Romneys, a 33% reduction in their already-low tax rate.

In the fever swamps of the conservative movement, people like Romney deserve to pay lower tax rates than, say, policemen…..because people like the Romney's are "investors." In this way of thinking, very rich Americans who, you know, "invest", should have lower tax rates than policemen.

You see, policemen….we are also told by conservatives…are, in reality, "takers." It is only the very rich in America, we're also told, who are the "makers." In a conservative's world, much of it borrowed from Aesop's Fables and what not, America is made up of "makers" and "takers." Those sorry Americans who work at a job provided by someone else are "takers" in conservative legends. Those great Americans who "invest" their riches in business and thus create jobs are "makers."

Conveniently, during a time of historically low tax rates on the rich, conservatives see Americans as either "makers" or "takers." You are either a "maker"….self-employed, wealthy and duh…a jaaabs creator. Or, you are a "taker"…..someone who is not rich and just works a job. Rather than being an outrageous insult to millions of "taker" Americans, conservatives see this "maker-taker" dichotomy as an accurate reflection of reality. Oddly, these same conservatives argue that they do not participate in the nasty, communist art of class warfare, like the awful President Obama does. Class warfare, you see, is the blood-sport of only the "takers."

Which brings me back to Shake & Make Mitt's tax rate. The very reason that Mitt Romney's tax rate has been at 15% or under is because Mitt doesn't work for a living. His fortune "works" for him so he doesn't have to. That is the exact reason why the GOP presidential candidate can say he is, and has been, "unemployed."

At issue here is the capital gains tax rate. Romney's ongoing income while unemployed, income which he doesn't work for, comes from the "work" his fortune does. With little exception, a capital gain is a profit made by not working. Income classified as capital gains income is considered "passive" income. Meaning that the income recipient didn't do anything to earn it.

Ever since Dick Cheney's "due" was passed in 2003 in the form of 15% capital gains and dividend tax rates, Mitt Romney and other alleged "makers" have been enjoying a lower tax rate on their passive "investments" than policemen and other middle class "takers" enjoy on their earned income, income derived from actually working, as opposed to being unemployed like Mitt.

The justification for lower tax rates on passive income of the very wealthy, as conservatives have explained it, is because the very wealthy "invest" their fortunes in jaaab creating ventures. Makers, it is alleged, put their money to work while remaining passive themselves….so that a host of new business ventures with their newly created jaaabs can be exploited by America's "takers."

How has that justification panned out from 2003 forward? This specific period has been accurately described as the lowest private sector job creation period in modern American history. Apparently, the "makers" from 2003 forward, basking in the lowest "maker" tax rate in modern history, didn't do much making, as it were.

Why is that?

Because today's "investors" don't do much investing. Instead, today's passive unearners….unearn their money the new fashioned way….they gamble. Well, the rich "investors", themselves, don't do the gambling…..others do it for them.

Capital gains unearned by buying and selling stocks, options, and other securities are gains unearned by removing money from one person's account and placing it in another's. The market in Wall Street paper shuffling is a zero sum game. For every winner there is a loser. In this, "investing" is not investing at all…not in it's traditional meaning. It is purely a game of speculation where assets are transferred from one person to another. There is no investment….nothing is produced….no new business ventures are begun….no existing businesses are expanded….and no jobs are created.

David Stockman, former Reagan administration official, put it this way recently…

….a massive amount of resources are being devoted, being allocated or being channeled into pure financial speculation that has no gain to society as a whole, has no real economic contribution to the process by which GNP is created, GDP is created and growth occurs.

Here's the disgraceful part of all of this: Conservatives, still today, insist that those very rich Americans who participate in what Stockman calls "pure financial speculation that has no gain to society….no real economic contribution…"….like how Mitt Romney operates…..should pay tax rates on all their non-contribution-to-society speculations at a lower rate than a middle class person who works instead of speculating passively.

This issue is not about "fairness"….as Obama suggests. This issue is about morality. Pushing the notion that rich non-workers should pay lower tax rates than a middle class worker and earner….for being non-productive, for not contributing anything to our economic society……..is immoral.

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels gave the response to President Obama's SOTU address last night. Really smart GOP insiders wanted Mitch Daniels to run for president against the Dark Knight, however, Mrs. Daniels said no. No biggie, really…..Daniels is an unknown. But what Mitch Daniels is doing to the state of Indiana is kind of a big deal.

Like John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Daniels knows that crushing unions takes away Democratic assets…making it easier for Republicans to win elections and hold onto power at the same time that Americans are turning away from the divisive, intolerant and rich-serving GOP.

So, Daniels and his GOP legislature are right now trying to force a "right to work" law onto the citizens of Indiana. As we have learned in Ohio and Wisconsin, right-to-work laws are, in reality, union disintegration and destruction bills.

But right-to-work laws pushed by Republicans are much more than just attempts to finish off 30 years of conservative war against unions. Right-to-work laws are a frontal attack on democracy. In Indiana, Republican state legislators just defeated an amendment to the proposed right-to-work bill that would allow voters in Indiana to vote on whether or not they wanted such a new law. The vote was 59-39 to keep such a decision away from being made by Indiana voters…proving once again that the will of the people and right-to-work…have nothing in common.

In Indiana's not-yet-passed bill, the goal is transparent….

Under the bill, companies and unions could no longer negotiate contracts that require employees to either join a union or pay fees for representation.

In other words…..if Indiana's bill would pass, democracy and the democratic process would be totally eliminated for workers in that state. Workers would no longer be permitted to organize a union in their place of work…unless those workers first rejected the democratic, majority-rules provisions of any such process.

The majority rules, with rare exception, in our American democratic republic. Republicans want to make one more exception. Republicans in Indiana are pushing to eliminate majority-rules democracy in the workplace….and what's worse….replace it with a new entitlement program, a new welfare program. The cynical irony here is that while these same Republicans claim that "freedom" and "liberty" are at the core of their right-to-work legislation……nullifying the democratic process inside the workplace is their real goal.

Anti-union conservatives are telling us if a majority of workers vote to unionize a workplace, that vote doesn't apply to any workers who disagree with the vote. That's modern GOP "liberty" in action. If we applied this undemocratic thinking to, say, bills passed by a majority of the U.S. Congress…then any citizen who didn't like those bills, could feel free to violate any and all provisions of said bills.

That would be the active nullification of the democratic process….not "liberty", but total chaos. Every citizen could choose, cafeteria style, which laws applied to them and which didn't. The Confederacy tried this undemocratic approach to the U.S. republic…..and it didn't work out all that well.

What Republicans describe as "freedom" and "liberty" in the workplace…is simply the nullification of democracy and the spawning of an "every man can do as they see fit" form of chaotic tyranny.

The kicker about this new push by anti-democratic Republican governors, like Mitch Daniels, is the fact that "right-to-work" is a conservative welfare program. The same political party that prides itself on bashing liberal welfare programs they say creates "brainwashed" dependency, are pushing for the power to establish a brand new welfare program for, I guess, anti-democratic misfit workers.

Mitch Daniels longs for the time when a new employee at a union shop in Indiana is entitled to all the benefits of a union agreement…without having to be a part of that union. All gain, no pain. That sense of workplace entitlement is what Daniels, and others, deem as "liberty" or "freedom." That seems odd, especially when you consider how Republicans constantly berate Americans who receive some form of government "entitlement" as hopeless dependents "enslaved" to government dependency.

Wouldn't anti-democratic, right-to-work misfits in Indiana be taking something for doing nothing should they be granted the "liberty" to benefit from a union contract while rejecting any union provisions? Wouldn't right-to-work employees simply be cowering behind the same government fiats they criticize for making the poor and minorities hopelessly dependent on government handouts?

Of course right-to-work is anti-democratic. Of course right-to-work, at it's core, creates a new anti-democratic form of government dependency….a reliance on government power to create an entirely new exception to majority rule in the workplace.

Mix all of that stuff in with the Republican Party emphasis on American workers needing to work for less money…..and it's relatively easy to see why today's GOP is seen as the Party of the 1%.