Kevin Shaw's blog

http://stephenviewsthenews.blogspot.com/

In his swan song, Romney makes it clear that he and his elites want to continue pressing their "shock therapy" on the American people as well, rolling back the very mild attempts in the past to ameliorate, slightly, some of the worst excesses and inequities of unhinged corporate greed. In fact, Romney identifies these tepid measures as dire threats to "American culture" itself:

The threat to our culture comes from within. In the 1960s, there were welfare programs that created a culture of poverty in our country. Now, some people think we won that battle when we reformed welfare. But the liberals haven't given up. At every turn, they tried to substitute government largess for individual responsibility. They fight to strip work requirements from welfare, to put more people on Medicaid, and remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever. Dependency is death to initiative, risk-taking and opportunity. Dependency is culture killing. It's a drug. We've got to fight it like the poison it is.

The ignorance -- and inhumanity - of this statement is breathtaking. Think of it: there was no poverty in the United States until "liberals" came along in the 1960s and "created" it with their welfare programs. (Before this "culture of poverty" was created, apparently, the few poor people in America just died off discreetly, like Russians, instead of hanging around a bit longer on government handouts, the way they do now, the shiftless, no-good wretches. Oh yeah, and they breed a lot too, more than white folks.) And even though Bill Clinton (uncredited here, of course, but the elite are well aware of his sterling services) finally drove the stake through the welfare program, these evildoers will still not rest. Just look at what they want to do: "put more people on Medicaid," and "remove more and more people from having to pay any income tax whatsoever." (Wait a minute; I thought red-meat-chomping CPACkers were in favor of people paying no taxes. I guess that only applies to the right sort of people.)

Charles Pierce subbing for Erica Alterman on Media Matters does a good job of voicing the reasons for impeachment:

Interested in who the Democratic party has to challenge U.S. Rep. Phil English, Erie, for his 3rd Congressional District seat in the fall? The first nearby debate is next week.

Sharon, PA residents wil have an opportunity to hear from all the Democratic candidates for Phil English's PA-3 seat on Saturday, Feb 9...

At 2 p.m. Feb. 9 in Slippery Rock University’s Advanced Technology and Science hall’s auditorium, four Erie-based candidates will have a chance to show district voters what they’re all about.
Erie County Councilman Kyle Foust, lawyer Tom Myers, lay-minister Mike Waltner and businesswoman and arboretum director Kathy Dahlkemper will be answering to Greenville’s Mayor Dick Miller, debate moderator.

Wireless company gives liberals new outlet

By: Aoife McCarthy and Ryan Grim
Jan 31, 2008 06:07 AM EST

Cell phone users can now choose a company that will donate some of its profits to liberal causes (courtesy DFA).

If ever there was evidence that the nation is becoming increasingly polarized, it’s this: Cell phone users can now choose a company that will donate some of its profits to liberal causes — and refuse to cooperate with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program.

Credo Mobile, a division of the liberal firm Working Assets, has partnered with Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee born of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, to create DFA Wireless.

When subscribers make a call on a DFA Wireless phone, 10 percent of their monthly charges will go to Democracy for America.

The Federal Election Commission signaled approval of the transactions because they are considered individual political contributions.

The struggle for the soul of the Democratic party is nothing new. It's been contested for over forty years. Eric Rauchway in The New Republic debunks a notion recently put forward by Tom Brokaw on a History Channel program that the FDR coalition and by extension, the Democratic Party, was broken by supporters of left-wing causes and hippes protesting the Vietnam war. He explains that the real split in the Democratic Party was over race.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, started a ruckus in the Senate yesterday by referring to the Senate Republicans as "Bush's 49 puppets." He was referring to the continual roadblocks the Republican minority throws up to prevent floor consideration or voting on almost anything calling it "filibuster on steroids."

Our own Arlen Specter was not about to take that lying down and questioned Reid's ability to lead the Senate majority. He accused Reid of violating Senate Rule XIX that states “No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

Well, once everybody's tempers cooled, the Senate got back to business. The first order of business was the long overdue budget bill regarding transportation and housing.

Guess what...the Republicans objected to bringing it to a vote. Guess who stood up to voice the objection...our own Arlen Specter.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to see the irony in this.

Well, OK, so maybe the murder of hundreds of thousands isn't a reasonable case for impeachment, but maybe grand larceny is. Our penalties for crimes against property have always been more harsh than those for crimes against persons .

In The Great Iraq Swindle Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi reports on how President George W. Bush-appointed contractors in Iraq are exploiting American tax payers.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam ­Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient.