Welcome to today's RedState Morning Briefing Summary. If you're wondering what that is, there's a FAQ.
Today is Yom HaShoah and Texas Independence Day, so there should be plenty of fresh wingnuttery for tomorrow's Morning Briefing, but today's does not disappoint.
If you listen to us pinko commies here as Daily Kos, you'd think that "conservative Republicans" have nothing to offer the country but mindless, reactionary politics steeped in fear and ignorance. Well, today's RedState Morning Briefing may be short, but it... well, it basically supports that claim. Let's take a look.
Cheney Doubles Down on ‘torture’ memos.
More details here and here. This is not an unreasonable request... if you accept that the primary purpose of the Obama administration was to actually inform the voting public about the program. Alas, it’s not, particularly. They’re actually looking to obscure the matter: after all, it’s not as if they’re really planning to change the original program to any significant, non-cosmetic degree. If they were, they wouldn’t be trying to reassure the CIA that this White House wasn’t planning to treat them as domestic enemies. Which I personally believe, if only because pragmatically speaking the CIA can leak Obama to political death over this, particularly when rendition kicks into high gear.
"Alas, it's not, particularly." Who writes like that?
In case you missed this, Cheney claimed that Obama only released the bad stuff and isn't releasing the papers that show what we gained. This challenge might be hard to meet if there were no victories attributable to torture. What we do know is that detainees were tortured repeatedly for an extended time, which pretty much indicates that the torture wasn't working.
Look for more insightful analysis of Cheney's gambit by others here on Daily Kos, but expect to here this version of the story all week on Fox News.
The Natural Evolution of the Party of Death
I noted last month that Senator Jay Rockefeller hinted strongly at the direction healthcare reform in America would take. He said the Democrats’ plan for healthcare reform would be to deny Americans choices — not everything everyone wanted treatment wise would be given by the government.
In other words, if the government thinks you won’t substantially benefit, screw you.
...
I don’t know about you, but I know people who were thought to have very poor odds of beating a life threatening condition, but were able to get extraordinary treatments that did, in fact, save their lives.
It's like Stupidpalooza™. First stop: scare people with "government rationed healthcare." Finally, cap this off with vague and anecdotal claims about people who were saved through "extraordinary treatments."
Now, ignore the fact that your health care is currently rationed by insurance companies answerable only to their shareholders, and that you don't even get these grudgingly-provided health benefits unless you are lucky enough to be able to afford insurance.
These people live in a vacuum.
What's going on here is that anyone with a functioning brain (and sorry, that didn't include Terri Schiavo, Dr. Frist) has realized that out-of-control health care spending is eating our economy alive. There is bipartisan support for some kind of health care reform, and once we move in that direction, we're not coming back. Thus, the Corporatists are doing whatever they can to stop it.
Before I leave this topic, I have to wonder if this "Party of Death" crap works outside the hardcore wingnut-o-sphere. The basis for this epithet is that Democrats generally support abortion rights, and some support euthanasia and "right to die" platforms. While these positions can be reconciled with a position that all life is sacred (see Catholics for Choice) many "conservative" positions cannot. Top examples are support for unjust wars (Iraq) and the death penalty. Although opposition to these are part of my pro-life agenda, I can also point to the fact that they are part of the Vatican's pro-life agenda — an inconvenient truth for the theocrats at RedState.
Rasmussen: Majority of country worries government will do too much.
When the economy went into a tailspin last fall, the current administration presented itself as the best choice to repair our financial problems. When they were elected, the expectation was that they would actually engage in activities that would repair our financial problems, and in a nonpartisan, inclusive manner. Instead, we got: Never Waste A Crisis. I Won. The Democratic Party’s Pork Wish List. It’s Not Our Fault. Tax Hikes On The Lower Class*. The Great Expanding Budget Deficit. Let’s Repeat That Last One Again. One More Time, So That It Sinks In.
Poll after poll after poll shows strong support for Obama and his policies. Every so often, well-respected, but partisan, pollster Rasmussen produces a poll that kinda sorta indicates that Americans are somewhat weaker in their support, maybe. This poll is waved about by the wingnuts for what seems like an eternity.
Here's what RedState omitted from their excerpt: the reason why people are looking for the government to step back from its hands-on economic management is that they thing the economy is getting better. The paragraph I quoted above tries to spin these new numbers as proof that America is souring on Obama, when, in fact, the numbers are driven by a belief that he is succeeding.
The "Tax Hikes on the Lower Class" is footnoted because it's about the cigarette tax. The cigarette tax is a luxury tax, and luxury taxes are easy to defend (although they can go too far). What's interesting to me in the repeated flogging of this particular tax hike is how terribly concerned the wingnuts have suddenly become about regressive taxes. Now, if we're talking about a "fair tax" proposal that gets rid of the income tax and raises taxes on food (to any wingnuts reading this: food is not a luxury) then they're all for it.
The Let’s-Hogtie-the-American-Economy-and-Throw-It-In-the-Ditch Act of 2009
On March 31st, a bill co-sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-People’s Republic of Beverly Hills) and Edward Markey (D-MA) was filed in the House. Called the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), a more appropriate title might be The Let’s-Hogtie-the-American-Economy-and-Throw-It-In-the-Ditch Act of 2009. </span><span class="standardcontent">Waxman chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Markey leads the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee.
ACES contains all the expected Lefty prescriptions for dealing with Energy Security and Climate Change: green jobs, rebates, CAFE standards, Cap’n'Trade, and - get this - carbon tariffs. There is concern from some quarters that it creates an individual right to sue companies, based on "harm", or the expectation of harm, from Global Warming. What it does not do is deal with real concerns about energy security or supply while we transition to the Brave New World: there is no mention of nuclear power generation or an increased role for natural gas.
This article is kind of a rambling mess that tries to promote the counter-intuitive idea that investment in green technologies will destroy the economy. The article quotes liberally (yuk yuk) from a Heritage Foundation Report filled with numbers and what sounds like analysis. The Heritage Foundation is really skilled at releasing things that sound like analysis when you excerpt them, but when you read the whole thing and check the numbers they're totally full of shit.
I know this is intellectually lazy, but I'm going to assume that these claims are bullshit.