Fall seven times and stand up eight

(John Deering)

I've seen a number of political cartoons about the recent earthquake/tsunami disaster in Japan, but I think I like this one best.

It takes nothing away from this tragedy to believe that Japan will recover from it. Just the reverse, in fact. The spirit to overcome such setbacks is what makes us more than simple victims of circumstance.

And they've done it before. After all, Japan rose from complete devastation in World War II to become an economic powerhouse and a world leader.

"Fall seven times and stand up eight." Yes, indeed. You have to admire that kind of spirit, even as we certainly all sympathize with them right now.

God is not great

Yeah, I don't usually post music videos, but this one caught my attention.

Contempt for the working man

(Ed Stein)

Ed Stein's commentary:

The Republicans in Wisconsin finally found a way to impose their will without Democrats in attendance. Of course, everyone knows that the suppression of collective bargaining rights has nothing to do with the economy. This is about destroying unions, the largest source of funding for Democrats in the country. The lousy economy has given Republicans in Wisconsin the excuse they needed to achieve their long-sought goal of undermining the power of public unions, and other states with Republican governors and legislatures are sure to follow.

Funny, the same folks who cried foul when health care reform was passed on a strictly partisan vote are silent when Republicans eviscerate collective bargaining without a single Democrat voting with them.  I was tempted to make the elephant in the cartoon a caricature of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, but given that Republicans in other states can’t wait to do the same, I decided to make the cartoon more general. What I wanted to show here was what unions have accomplished over the years, not to mention the contempt the GOP appears to have for the working man. Without collective bargaining, we’d still have six day work weeks, no workplace safety rules, no child labor laws, no overtime, etc. I worry that we’re heading back to the nineteenth century, when robber barons ruled and workers served at the whim of their lords and masters. Where’s Charles Dickens when we need him?

But there's another possibility here, too. Maybe working people are finally starting to wake up:

(Mike Luckovich)

QOTD: The real problem

Quote of the Day:

There are plenty of problems with these hearings into 'Muslim Radicalization' being held today under the sponsorship of Rep. Peter King (R) of New York. High on the list, however, is the fact if you are seriously interested in combatting terrorism and inroads of extremism in the Muslim-American community, this is probably right up there on the list of things you would not do. ...

Given that the problem still appears extremely small in numerical terms, is the most productive use of our time and resources more deeply engaging the American Muslim community -- both to diminish feelings of estrangement and build cooperation with law enforcement that will provide tips on violent extremism? Or are we best served by further marginalizing American Muslims and creating a deeper climate of tension and suspicion?

Stated like that, the question really answers itself.

This is actually one of the reasons we've provided such close coverage to the growth of socially-sanctioned Islamophobia in recent years in the United States. For the sake of conversation, set aside principled opposition to racism, religious bigotry and systematic violations of the constitution. Let's say we want the biggest counter-terrorism bang for our buck on the domestic front? How much do you think we accomplish by harassing the local Muslims in Tennessee when they want to build a mosque or a local community center with a swimming pool? Or passing laws outlawing Sharia? Again, stated like that, it seems pretty friggin' obvious. - Josh Marshall

Newt Gingrich wants to screw America

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Newt Gingrich Wants to Screw America
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I had to post this, if only for the title. :)

I'll skip the next segment, about Tim Pawlenty, but that's well worth your time, too.

Actually, the entire show last night was really good. His guest, Reza Aslan, the Iranian-American writer and scholar, was quite interesting.

Radical Republican hearings

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Radical Muslim Hearings
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Crazy, isn't it? How could we possibly have been dumb enough to put the GOP back in control of the House? What has happened to America?

And here's The Daily Show's second video segment, which continues their look at Peter King's hypocrisy.

A hero of 9/11

Sounds like a membership application

(Joel Pett)

QOTD: Why is Washington obsessed with the deficit?

Quote of the Day:

With the entire political world focused on the dangers of the national debt, it's worth stepping back and thinking about how this came to be. After all, I think a very solid case can be made that climate change presents a more urgent problem than the national debt. The damage from climate change, unlike the the damage from the debt, is irreversible. Moreover, while climate science is being treated as speculative and budget forecasts as hard fact, the reverse is closer to reality: budget forecasts are highly unreliable. I have a hard time believing that a highly informed person transported from the future to the present would analyze the problems facing the United States and conclude that the political class should focus like a laser beam on the budget deficit while largely ignoring climate change.

What, then, accounts for this odd state of affairs? It seems to be a classic triumph of agenda-setting. You have well-financed groups like the Peterson Institute promoting the view that the national debt is a uniquely vital issue. This view comports with the ideological preconception of Washington elites, both inside and outside of elected office, as well as financial elites. Thus you have things like this:

An indication of where the Senate may be headed occurred on Feb. 1. Nearly 40 senators from both parties gathered in the Capitol Visitors Center to listen to two hedge-fund managers, one a Democrat, the other a Republican. Their message: Soaring debt threatens growth, job creation and America's preeminence in the world. Asked what single thing Congress could do to relieve the anxiety of financial markets, their answer was "fix Social Security."

...which reflect a fairly twisted understanding of fiscal reality -- Social Security representing none of the medium-term fiscal shortfall and a small part of the long-term fiscal shortfall -- but a perfect encapsulation of the elite consensus.

Now, I want to be clear about this. I am not saying the medium-term deficit is a non-issue. Nor am I arguing that we can't solve any problem until more important problems are solved. Failing to solve an urgent crisis is not a reason to ignore a somewhat smaller crisis. The point is that we've constructed an entire set of assumptions around the notion of the national debt as the singular problem facing America. Even the mainstream press has adopted the anti-deficit movement's euphemisms, employing terms like "leadership" to mean "cutting social entitlement benefits." - Jonathan Chait

Supreme conflict of interest

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Bench Press
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Yes, I already posted one clip from The Colbert Report today. But surely you can understand my problem. Giving up Catholicism for Lent was hilarious. How could I pass up that one?

But this clip was great, too. After all, it's a serious issue. This is a serious conflict of interest for Clarence Thomas. $700,000 isn't chicken feed, even if it's apparently too small for Clarence Thomas to even remember.

Of course, this assumes that Thomas thinks of himself as a judge, rather than a right-wing political operative. So far, we've seen little sign of that.

I really like Rep. Anthony Weiner here. How about that segment where he refuses to let Fox's Megyn Kelly push him around? Good stuff, huh? Watch that, and then try to tell me that Megyn Kelly is a journalist. Ha! She's just a political operative herself.

She refuses to let Weiner answer, because she's not a journalist. She's a propagandist who's trying to push the right-wing Republican line. (Unfortunately, there's no code of ethics for Fox "News" employees, either.)

And here's the follow-up clip, with Anthony Weiner himself. No, I'm not going to embed that one. But it's well worth watching.

Giving up Catholicism for Lent

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The Republican family way

(David Horsey)

The new McCarthyism in America

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sharia?
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"We've tried pelting Muslims with metal crosses while they pray. Or, engaging them in reasoned discussion." Heh, heh. Yeah, how stupid is that?

But not, as it turns out, nearly as stupid as what comes next. No, whenever you think these lunatics have hit rock-bottom, inevitably they sink even lower.

And it's not just a mob of dim bulbs on a street corner. No, we've actually got a new McCarthyism in the U.S. House of Representatives, courtesy of Rep. Peter King. Jeebus, didn't we learn enough from the first McCarthy era?

(Peter King's support for IRA terrorists is just icing on the cake. Yeah, of course he's a hypocrite. All of these people are. But his McCarthyism would be shameful even without that. Every American should feel deeply embarrassed by his antics.)

(David Fitzsimmons)

But ignorance, fear, and bigotry never go out of style, I guess. And although unions make a great GOP scapegoat, I suppose they just aren't scary enough for effective fear-mongering.

And maybe it's a matter of nostalgia, too. I know the right-wing has really missed the Commie menace. No doubt it feels comforting to have someone new to hate and fear.

As an atheist, I hardly admire Islam. But that's not the point. The point is freedom - freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association. The point is understanding that we're a diverse nation and accepting that not everyone has to think and believe and look exactly as I do.

Seeing these Christian lunatics makes me even prouder to be an atheist. I'm reminded of Christopher Hitchens in God Is Not Great:

I leave it to the faithful to burn each other's churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can always be relied upon to do. When I go to the mosque, I take off my shoes. When I go to the synagogue, I cover my head.

Weak Republican contenders

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Indecision 2012 - Indecision Edition - Reagan OS 911
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This is the follow-up to Jon's opening segment about weak Republican contenders to the 2012 presidential contest. But "weak" is hardly strong enough. Yeah, George W. Bush was a light-weight, but we really hadn't seen anything yet.

At any rate, I thought the birther conundrum here was a good one. But I guess I sympathize with Reagan OS 911. The whole existence of "birthers" tends to blow my mind.

Keeping them honest

(The Far Left Side)

QOTD: The contribution scam

Quote of the Day:

David Cay Johnston has a terrific piece up about the nonsense of comparing government workers to private-sector counterparts by claiming that the government pays for more of their benefits. As he says,

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin’ s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the “contributions” consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services. ...

The labor agreements show that the pension plan money is part of the total negotiated compensation. The key phrase, in those agreements I read, is: “The Employer shall contribute on behalf of the employee.” This shows that this is just divvying up the total compensation package, so much for cash wages, so much for paid vacations, so much for retirement, etc.

So the right question — the only question — is whether government workers are getting an overall good deal compared with private-sector workers. Why, then, are we hearing so much about the meaningless contribution comparison?

The answer is simple: it’s because doing the comparison right doesn’t yield the desired answer. The new report by the Times gets the same answer as other studies: low-paid government workers do a bit better than their private-sector counterparts, but others if anything do worse.

Luo and Cooper report this as a “mixed answer” — but in terms of the political debate, it’s a body blow to the union-bashers, whose whole position is that public-sector workers are welfare queens in Cadillacs. They need to show outrageous overpayment, not rough equivalence at best.

And so they turn to a meaningless comparison that, to the unwary, sounds as if it supports their case.

Yes, some public-sector workers are overpaid. So are some private-sector workers. Doesn’t anyone read Dilbert? But the whole idea that union excesses are at the core of state and local fiscal problems is false, and only deliberate obfuscation keeps that from being obvious. - Paul Krugman

Seduced by the Templeton Prize

(Jesus & Mo)

We wouldn't want class warfare, would we?

(David Horsey)

QOTD: Women, it's all your fault

Quote of the Day:

Several readers have noticed that lately we've had a plague of whiny, entitled, childish Men's Rights Activists in the comments. They're usually clueless and petty and annoying…and now I've found out why. And the source of my information is unimpeachable: it's Whirled Nut Daily.

According to Kay Hymowitz, whose new book, "Manning Up," was featured prominently in the Wall Street Journal in February, "legions of frustrated young women" are dealing with a new crisis in America: modern men refuse to grow up.

It appears the 21st-century male is living a kind of extended adolescence. In the past, it was assumed men would receive a high-school diploma or college degree, then get married and settle down to the responsibilities of work and family life. Today, young men "hang out in a novel sort of limbo," keeping adulthood at a distance as they enjoy a lifestyle that demands few, if any, obligations.

Exactly! Well, not all men…but the spoiled ones who demand that everyone respect their privileges and pay attention to their problems, which are the only problems of any importance, certainly are infantile. And they're always turning around and blaming their shortcomings on someone else, especially the women.

Of course, since it is WND, you know exactly where it is going.

The question is why — and how — did this happen? And the answer is simple: feminism.

Why have some men turned into whiny bitches who blame women for everything? Easy. Blame the women. - PZ Myers

Television needs more warnings like this

(Savage Chickens)