Republican Neo-Hooverism is Primary Cause of Deepening Depression

I think this detailed front-page article in the The New Republic — which is accessible only to subscribers so I’m reprinting it in full rather than linking it here — best explains the current economic situation:

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Do Republicans Hate Poor People?

This great discussion, mostly with conservatives, on whether or not we should let poor people have food stamps was begun on FOX news and continued on my facebook page and on this show.

Are we our brother’s keeper?

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Letter to Conservatives

I didn’t write this, but I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thank you, Karen.
I’m going to discuss this when I guest-host the Leslie Marshall Show tonight at 7 pm ET.
(I’ll be hosting Thursday and Friday at 7 pm ET as well.)
_________________________________________________________
I have a very, very conservative brother. (Actually–full disclosure–I have two. And a father. I don’t know what is wrong with the men in my family.) 🙂 The brother in question owns his own business down in Florida, and my son, in his mid-twenties, has been having difficulties finding a job (like everyone). I had never asked before, but I decided to impose upon my brother to see if he might be able to help, though I doubted if, in today’s economy, he would.
In his response (negative, of course), he took the opportunity to make some pretty blunt statements about “the mess that your president has made of the country’s economics.” He went on to say,
I only wish that someone in the administration at sometime had enrolled in a college course of Economics 101… Apparently, they all studied “Greek Economics” instead…
He closed by inviting me to “vote conservative please” in the midterms. I do not usually engage any of these men in political discussions because it is usually the verbal equivalent of repeatedly hitting my head into a granite wall, but this time I just couldn’t help it. Follow me below the fold to see my response.
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Again with Immigration?

I was on (National) Fox News today.

Talk about beating a dead horse!

FOX wants me on again today to talk about the two Arizona immigration laws and why they/it poll(s) well. (Rasmussen failed to let people know there were two versions of the law–the first law which allowed racial profiling and random stops of law-abiding people was repealed by the second–and since most folks thought there was one version of the law, not two and Rasmussen didn’t even specify which law the poll was referring to, the poll is inherently flawed.)

One day soon, I hope to move on to the oil spill, financial reform, and a foiled terrorist plot in NYC. But here, briefly, are my thoughts on the subject:
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Rush Limbaugh Doctors Audio to Slander Mark Levine

“A Glittering Jewel of Colossal Ignorance”

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh called me a “glittering jewel.”
Actually he called me a “glittering jewel of colossal ignorance.”
But I no more took his quotation about me out of context just now than he took mine.

First, the Rush clip, in its full context:

Now, what I actually said:

See a difference?

OK, it may be hard to spot in the unedited clips. So here’s the same thing tightly focused.

Rush playing me on air (without mentioning he intentionally tampered with the audio to remove a crucial sentence):

What I actually said:

Let me spell it out.

Rush claims I said:

“If you heard Rush Limbaugh today, he specifically compared Barack Obama to Hitler. This is not rhetoric that’s coming out of nowhere. People understand the tea party activists are drawing Hitler mustaches on Obama. They’re doing it for a reason”

What I actually said was this:

“David, if you heard Rush Limbaugh today, he specifically compared Barack Obama to Hitler. He said in fact that Bart Stupak was the Neville Chamberlain to Barack Obama’s Hitler. This is not rhetoric that’s coming out of nowhere. People understand the tea party activists are drawing Hitler mustaches on Obama. They’re doing it for a reason”

Why do you think Rush removed that sentence that specifically showed where he compared Obama to Hitler then went on a long rant saying, “Adolf Hitler was not mentioned on this program yesterday” ?

Maybe it’s because he mentioned the Obama/Hitler comparison on the program the day before yesterday and thinks his dittoheads are too stupid to remember two days ago?
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Sources of Right-Wing Anger

From the “birthers” to the town hall mobs to those stocking up on guns…
Where does right-wing anger come from?
Is it racism or some other deep-seated fear?
Fear of what?
Higher Quality Audio Clip (24 MB)
a
Lower Quality Audio Clip (< 10 MB)

The Murder of Dr. George Tiller

Guests: Sara Robinson Fellow with the Campaign for America’s Future specializing in extreme right-wing violence; and
Dr. Burt Humburg, a medical doctor and personal friend of Dr. Tiller
The Kansas medical doctor gunned down in his church last Sunday did not do late-term abortions in order to “kill fetuses.”  He did them in order to save women’s lives.
Fewer than 1% of abortions that are late term are only allowed under Kansas Law when, without them, a woman would otherwise suffer “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
But I guess the radical “pro-life” movement doesn’t care much about the life of this doctor or the life of the woman who is a mere “holding vehicle” for the all-important fetus (whose health care Republicans want to deny after it is born).

Debate Monday

Mark takes on the President of the Young Republican Alumni, Terry Campo, a former counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee and former Reagan Administration official.

• * What kind of Justice should sit on the Supreme Court?
• * What should be done to improve America’s health care system?
• * Should the District of Columbia have “states’ rights”?
  (representation in Congress, its own gun and marriage laws)
• * What should be done in Pakistan/Afghanistan?

Does Anybody Give a Damn About Arab Civilians…Murdered and Beaten by Hamas?

Sorry.
Stupid question.
A dead Palestinian Arab is a meaningless statistic.
Unless he/she is killed by Jews.

Here are some disturbing images of Hamas mistreatment of Palestinians (narrated by a Christian Arab Israeli):

Note how the Los Angeles Times buried the lead in its recent story. This interesting nugget is found in middle of paragraph 7:

Days and nights are spent attempting to outmaneuver Israeli forces and to control Fatah sympathizers or alleged collaborators, scores of whom are under house arrest or have been systematically shot in the legs.

Systematically shot in the legs? Funny. I didn’t hear that on CNN. But ya know what? It’s not near the worst of it.

Read The New York Times.

There’s a lot more:

Executing at least 35 Palestinian opponents of Hamas

Shooting at least 75 of them in the legs. Breaking their hands. (Hamas officially confirmed this!)

Commandeering Shifa Hospital as its central meeting place, paying salaries of its terrorists there and practically daring Israel to bomb it. They wear doctors’ robes and kick medical teams out of rooms so they can hold meetings. Since Israel can’t bomb a hospital for moral reasons, it is the safest place for Hamas to meet to plan its executions, torture, and military strikes. The United Nations has refused to deny that Hamas meets in its hospitals and underneath them in a huge underground bunker in the center of Gaza City.

“Palestinians being held at gunpoint in order to put them at the front, in order to increase the number of Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side.”
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Pat Boone for KKK Grand Wizard

It’s hard to find greater hatred or idiocy than the recent statement by Pat Boone comparing the Mumbai terrorist murders with gay people demanding their constitutional right to equal protection under the law. But believe it or not, he did it:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82830
For combining blinding hate with astounding stupidity, I nominate Pat Boone for the Grand Wizard of the Stupidest, Most Hateful Organization in America: the Ku Klux Klan. Way to go, Boone. You’re a shoo-in.
I hereby challenge Boone to a debate. Which is kind of like challenging fish in a barrel to a shoot-off where I hold the gun and they lack water. Somehow I don’t think he’ll show up.
All people of discerning taste and good will should boycott Boone’s “music”.
Except it won’t work. 🙁
Because we already do.
PLUS Greed and Corruption in Chicago