Tag Archives: Congress

August 5, 2011 · 12:43 am

Daring to Say the F Word…

President Obama & Vice President Biden share a moment of relief after the Debt Ceiling was lifted.

Now that the debt ceiling fight is over, the newspaper scribes in the Washington press corps and the pundits on television (“the dunderpates”, as my wife calls them) prattle on about the winners and losers in this sorry showdown.

President Obama is the loser because he caved to the Tea Party minority. Obama’s the winner because he showed Americans that the GOP is ruled by its radical Tea Party minority. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the winner because he sidestepped Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the final negotiations with The White House. Speaker John Boehner is the loser because he couldn’t control his caucus in the House. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Lost in all this claptrap is the biggest loser: the American people. It’s a sad commentary on our news media that the reporters and talking heads who dominate the public discourse are so insulated from normal working lives, so infatuated with politics-as-sport, that they cannot see outside their own sandbox.

However, if the media ever managed to crane their craven heads above the Beltway, they might be forced to tell a story too complicated and nuanced for front-page headlines and television sound bites. The American people, it appears, can actually sort through GOP bullshit – even if smug, self-satisfied hacks like David Gregory (Meet the Press) and paid flacks like Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday) can’t or won’t. According to the latest CNN poll, a large plurality of the American electorate were not swayed by the GOP-Tea Party’s no-taxes, cuts-only Siren song.

Yet, somehow, despite the fact that 60% of Americans agree with President Obama about his oft-stated “balanced approach” to deficit reduction, the bullhorns in the mainstream media keep blaring the Big Story of Tea Party success. (We’ll keep FOX out of the discussion. It’s not a news organization: it’s a propaganda arm of the GOP.)

GOP Congressman Walsh was a big cheerleader for default. Turns out, he had already defaulted on his own kids.

The more nuanced story is that, while the Tea Party fanatics may have won a political victory by moving the debt ceiling deal far off to the right – it looks like they’ve lost the larger battle for American hearts and minds. And that could cost them dearly in the 2012 elections. Not to mention the wrench these Tea Party bomb-throwers and their enablers in the Republican Congressional leadership just threw into the works of the GOP’s normally cozy relationship with Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce. Something tells me you won’t see too many Tea Partiers backed by the Chamber in 2012.

Looking ahead to 2012, the Conventional Wisdom is that President Obama has been grievously wounded in the debt ceiling fight. And it’s clear that he took a hit to his approval rating and his reputation for political cool. Yet, according to the latest CNN poll, the American people have judged that Obama came out of the debt ceiling debacle well ahead of Congress – and far ahead of GOP Congressional leaders. In fact, nearly 70% of those polled disapprove of how GOP leaders behaved during the rancorous debt ceiling negotiations — a scathing indictment of Sen. McConnell, whom the Beltway intelligentsia has declared the winner in this fight.

Now, if you (like me) are a regular reader of left wing-Democratic-progressive websites like Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo and The Huffington Post (which isn’t all that progressive anymore) – you’d think that every Liberal is frustrated and angry — and that all Democrats are up in arms, feeling betrayed by Obama’s capitulation to Tea Party brinkmanship. Calls for a Democratic primary challenge to the President have gone out – and a general alarum has been sounded. However, the latest Gallup poll provides a very different perspective on how left-of-center folks feel about the debt ceiling agreement.

Shocking, huh? A plurality of Democrats and Liberals approve of the debt ceiling agreement — and Republicans and Conservatives (those the mainstream media claim were the victors in this battle royal) don’t like the deal at all.

Of course, this poll reflects something most of us already know: liberals and Democrats have a more positive and realistic attitude toward American government. (At least we don’t hate it.) But these poll results also signal peril for the Tea Baggers. Usually, when political leaders make a big deal their constituents don’t like, it’s a bad sign for them in the next election cycle.

We don’t hear much in the media about how this debt ceiling debacle has damaged the right-wingers. The Beltway Wise Men say it’s all doom and gloom for Obama and the Democrats. But at least at this moment, the American people aren’t buying that bullshit narrative.

Now, please forgive me. I’m going to use the F-word.

I suggest that there’s a larger political narrative in America that we (and the national media) should be focused on right now — something that David Gregory and Chris Wallace wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. I know it’s not nice to use the F-word in polite political discourse — but since Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, The United States has been creeping towards fascism. The post-9-11 environment and the cynical exploitation of misguided Tea Party populism has accelerated our fascist drift.

I know that intelligent, dignified and reasonable people shouldn’t throw the term “fascist” around lightly — and the “fascist” label has been seriously misused, mischaracterized and misunderstood.

After all, the Tea Party-GOP crowd has alternately lambasted President Obama as both a left-wing Socialist and a right-wing Fascist: mutually exclusive condemnations.

But, I ask you to consider the definition of “fascism” found in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, and written by Sheldon Richman.

“As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.

The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie.”

“Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture…The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export.”

“Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography…Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.”

Here’s a simpler definition…

Fascism: “The merging of state and corporate interests.”

Modern American Fascism is more subtle than the Mussolini version in the mid 20th Century. Corporate interests exert their control over the U.S. government in less overt ways than they did in Italy in the 30’s and 40’s. In today’s American strain of fascism, it’s not the U.S. Government that’s in charge. Instead, through campaign donations, lobbying and revolving door cronyism, Corporate Oligarchs exert their control over a Government that increasingly serves corporate interests.

The problem is bad and getting worse. Since the Scalia-Roberts-Thomas-Alito axis on the U.S. Supreme Court established corporate personhood and opened the sluice gates for billions of corrupting corporate dollars to flow anonymously into our electoral system, the slide toward oligarchy by U.S. CEOs and their Congressional minions has advanced with scant resistance by what passes for an American left. (Though we saw vigorous resistance to the fascist agenda in Wisconsin earlier this year.)

And what of this union-bashing, union-busting agenda that a cabal of GOP governors are pushing? What about all these bipartisan “Free Trade” deals that have benefitted the bottom lines of multi-national corporations while hollowing out our U.S. manufacturing base and driving our wages lower? This agenda is clearly not in the best interest of the American People, so who does it serve? Corporate fat cats. That’s who.

Just this week, the paychecks of thousands of airline employees, FAA employees, and construction workers on airport improvement projects were held hostage when the GOP-led House, at the behest of Delta Airlines, tried to attach an anti-union provision in the bill authorizing funding for the FAA. Delta wants to bust their employees’ labor unions and Delta’s toadies in the GOP House stood ready to do their bidding — even at the risk of thousands of American jobs in an already-bad economy: not to mention threatening the safety of the traveling public. Again. Who are John Boehner and Eric Cantor serving with this dangerous game of political chicken? Corporate Big Money. That’s who.

Maybe it’s time to call these guys what their actions reveal them to be: American Fascists.

Author and radio host Thom Hartmann has been concerned about creeping American Fascism for quite a while. In his article, The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: “It Can Happen Here”, Hartmann writes about the warnings of Vice President Henry Wallace, who served with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the early years of World War Two.

Here are some enlightening passages from Hartmann’s article. I urge you to read the whole thing:

In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, “write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?” 

Vice President Wallace’s answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. 

”The really dangerous American fascists,” Wallace wrote, “are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word “fascist” – the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.) 

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” 

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this.

V.P. Wallace and the great Pete Seeger.

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings,” Vice President Wallace wrote in his 1944 Times article, “then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. … They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.”

“American fascism will not be really dangerous,” Wallace added in the next paragraph, “until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information…”

“Still another danger,” Wallace continued, “is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.”

As Wallace wrote, some in big business “are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage.” He added, “Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”

Wallace continued: 

”The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice.”

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact,” Wallace wrote. “Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy.”

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, “They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

For another view of Vice President Wallace, you can check out this link and draw your own conclusion.

When you pause to consider it, the Fascist agenda that Wallace warned about — as championed by most of the Republican Party (and too many conservative Blue Dog Democrats) — is making frightening progress. Let’s evaluate where we stand today against these clear warning signs…

Heck, this looks like the Unofficial Republican Party platform!

Are the Tea Party extremists fascists? Are today’s Congressional Republicans fascists? Are “Free Trade”-supporting Democrats fascists? Is President Obama a fascist? Do you think I’m completely off-the-wall for even raising the possibility of American Fascism? Can it really happen here? You decide. But, before you dismiss this article as the ravings of a Liberal loon – please do some research. You might be surprised by what you’ll learn.

We don't want these guys to get reinforcements, do we?

One thing to consider: the President elected in 2012 will probably have the opportunity to appoint two justices to the U.S. Supreme Court — and it’s likely they’re be replacing old liberals who have stood as a bulwark against the Fascist Faction on the court. Whatever else you want to say about him, President Obama’s two picks (Sotomayor and Kagan) have been reliable votes in opposition to Scalia and his gang of black-robed corporate shills.

I hate to use the F word again — but if we don’t turn out the progressive vote for President Obama and the Democratic Party in 2012 — our democracy will be in F-ing trouble.

Pete Seeger's buddy Woody Guthrie knew who America's enemy was. (Check out the sticker on his guitar.)

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August 1, 2011 · 4:24 pm

A Vote for Healing…

Whatever else you think about today’s vote in the House of Representatives to approve the Debt Ceiling bill – there’s one thing from which we can all draw a truly bipartisan measure of joy: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ return to Congress for the first time since she was shot in the head on Jan. 8, 2011.

I was watching the vote tally on C-Span when sustained bipartisan applause rang out. At first, I couldn’t understand the celebration: the vote had not been settled at that point. Then, the C-Span announcer told us what the fuss was all about. Gabby Giffords had arrived on the floor to cast a vote in favor of the favor of the bill to raise the debt ceiling.

“I had to be here for this vote,” she said. “I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy.”

Some might take issue with whether today’s vote will ultimately help or hurt our economy – but setting politics aside for a moment, let’s simply marvel at this woman’s strength, resilience and grace.

I’m sure she didn’t mean to steal Speaker John Boehner’s thunder – though he’s probably very glad she did. In a chamber that had seen weeks of escalating rancor and polarization, colleagues from both sides of the aisle embraced her.

May her remarkable healing continue – and let our national healing begin.

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July 27, 2011 · 10:57 pm

Babes in Government-land…

I’ve had enough. I’m tired of dealing with babies.

This whole Debt Ceiling “crisis” has made it clear to me that, with the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, we are dealing with political babies.

As a parent of three grown children, I know what a pain it is to deal with babies.

First of all, babies don’t know anything. All they know is what they want. And when they don’t get what they want, they cry.

Wahhhhh! Wahhhhh! Wahhhhh!

I will never understand why so many working class Midwestern Americans voted for these Tea Party-GOP babies in 2010 – but they did.

And now, political adults – both Democrats and Republicans – find they must contend with all these whiny, itty-bitty, small minded ultra-conservative babies in the U.S. House of Representatives who have no clue what it is to govern the greatest democracy in the western world.

As though they were simply playing with blocks in the safety of their padded playpens, these know-nothing GOP babies have no clear idea of the impact that their actions will have outside of their playpen.

I hope that the Government Adults – President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Minority Leader Mitch McChinless, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker “Boo-Hoo” Boehner – are finally able to quiet the Tea Party babies and put them down for a long nap, just in time to raise the Debt Ceiling and move on with the grown-up business of government.

Ssssshhhh. Don’t wake the Tea Party-GOP babies.

Government is way to complex for infant children.

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July 22, 2011 · 1:02 pm

The (New) American Crisis.

American patriot Thomas Paine served in George Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War as an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene. In the desperate winter of ’76, the war was going badly — and Washington’s valiant, weary, and ill-equipped troops were in retreat.

The revolutionary cause was in dire jeopardy, when Paine took up his pen to rally his nascent nation’s flagging spirits.

Realizing that “it was necessary that the country should be strongly animated,” Paine wrote a series of popular pamphlets collectively titled The American Crisis. The first of these broadsides was published on December 23, 1776 – and General Washington found it so inspiring that he had it read to his soldiers at Valley Forge.

Today, as we suffer through this trumped-up Debt Ceiling crisis, it is once again “necessary that the country should be strongly animated.”

Therefore, with apologies to Thomas Paine…

These are the times that try Progressive’s souls. Some summer Liberals and sunshine Democrats will, in this crisis, shrink from their core values; but he that stands by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid now, deserves the love and thanks of every working man and woman in America.

The GOP-Tea Party, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. The Grand Debt Ceiling Bargain we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is Tax Fairness – with increases on the Wealthy, Big Business and Wall Street only — that gives Shared Sacrifice any real meaning.

Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon The Common Good; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as The Full Faith and Credit of The United States should not be highly rated by Standard & Poor’s. (Though such a Downgrade looks increasingly possible.)

The GOP, with Fox News to enforce its Bullshit, has declared that they have a right (not only NOT to TAX) but “to BIND all working people in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” to economic slavery, for so unlimited an economic power can belong only to George Bush’s God of Prosperity, the Koch Brothers, Republicans, Millionaires and Billionaires.

We have none to blame but ourselves, but no great deal is lost yet. All that Boehner, McConnell and Cantor have been doing for these past few months is rather a Ravage than a Conquest. They have over-reached and will be quickly repulsed by the voters. By 2012, with a little resolution on the part of working class Americans – resulting in a Democratic landslide — we will soon recover.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up the American People to Economic Destruction by Tea Party Fools and GOP Corporatist Greed, or leave President Obama and the Democrats to perish who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of Default by every decent method which wisdom could invent.

Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that The Almighty has relinquished the Government of The United States, and given us up to the madness of small-minded religious zealots like Michele Bachmann and Jim DeMint; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds McConnell, Boehner and Cantor can hold Americans over an economic barrel.

‘Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic (like this artificial Debt Ceiling Crisis) will sometimes run through a country. Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their peculiar advantage is that they are the touchstones of sincerity (Democrats) and hypocrisy (Republicans), and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. They sift out the hidden thoughts of Conservatives, and hold them up in public to the world.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our negotiations with the GOP; suffice it for the present to say, that the Democratic Party and President Obama, though greatly harassed and fatigued, bore these Debt Limit negotiations with a manly and bipartisan spirit. All their wishes centered in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the Republicans out come the Election of 2012.

I have been tender in raising the cry against the Tea Party radicals, and have used numberless arguments to show their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice our country either to their folly or their baseness. The Time of Decision is now arrived, in which either Tea Party Republicans or Democrats must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall.

And what is a Tea Party Republican? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to stand with a hundred brave, steadfast Democratic Union Men against a thousand Tea Partiers. Every GOP-Tea Party member is a dupe or a coward; for servile, slavish, and corporate-interested fear is the foundation of Tea Partyism; and a man under such misguided influence, though he may be selfish and confused, can never be brave.

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between American Liberals and Conservatives, let us reason the matter together: FOX News is as much rejected by reality as the American cause is injured by FOX News. Rupert “Phone Hacker” Murdoch and his Corporate Paymasters expect you to take up arms and flock to their standard. Your opinions are of no use to The Right, unless you support them without thinking, for ’tis Zombies, and not Thinking Men, that they want.

I once felt that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Republicans. “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have prosperity.” But today, let every Progressive American awaken to his duty. For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to flare, the embers can never expire.

I call not upon a few, but upon all Progressives: not on this Blue State or that Purple State, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the heat of the summer of 2011, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.

If President Obama and the Congress cannot avoid the ignominy of National Default, it matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil will reach you all. The far and the near, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike.

The blood of Democratic children will curse their cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the Liberal that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little GOP minds to shrink; but the Progressive whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto Election Day.

Let them call me Liberal and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to GOP politicians who are stupid, stubborn, worthless and brutish — and fleeing with tax-cutting, budget-slashing terror from the orphan, the widow, and the unemployed of America.

There are cases that cannot be overdone by language, and there are persons who see not the full extent of the evil that threatens them. It is the madness of folly to expect statesmanship from Republicans who have refused to do political and social justice. The GOP’s first object is, partly by threats and partly by false promises, to fleece the American people before agreeing to pay their lawful debts.

I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. The sign of fear has not been seen in our Liberal Camp. Our new Progressive Democratic Army is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the 2012 Campaign with tens of millions of voters, well educated and mobilized.

By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils — a ravaged country — crumbling cities — infrastructure without repair, and a shrinking Middle Class without hope — our homes turned into foreclosures, and our children to provide for, whose American Dream will be less than our own. Look on this picture and weep over it! And if there yet remains one thoughtless FOX viewer who believes it not, let him suffer the consequences unlamented.

Awake, Senate Democrats! Arise, President Obama! The GOP is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction (in a bipartisan fashion, of course), and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

Let the Bush Tax Cuts expire! Cut the Pentagon’s bloated budget! Let Medicare negotiate deals with the Drug Companies! Collect a fair share of taxes from Corporations and Wall Street Financiers that have reaped such an ungodly percentage of our National Treasure! Leave Social Security and our National Health alone! Do these things, and the blessings of Prosperity will be upon our Nation once again.

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January 16, 2011 · 4:17 pm

“I’m Stickin’ to the Union…”

“If I went to work in a factory, the first thing I would do is join a union.” Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In the mid 20th Century, back in the day when the postwar United States was the preeminent world power, we could boast a robust and growing organized labor movement which improved conditions for working Americans — union and non-union alike — and helped to build the great middle class in this country. But the labor movement – union men and women alike – paid in blood to give generations of their fellow workers a share of the American Dream.

Big Business didn’t just give Americans the 5-day working week, the 8-hour workday, and vacation and overtime pay. The Robber Barons didn’t give up Dickensian child labor without a fight. Do you think you’d have a pension today if your union brothers and sisters hadn’t fought for it? Many brave men and women in the Labor Movement died to win these basic workplace conditions. We take for granted so much of what organized labor earned for us over nearly two centuries of heroic struggle.

But the battle for workers’ rights didn’t end back in the 1930’s and 40’s. There’s been no final victory. Rather, the struggle for economic justice in the workplace is ongoing. And for the past three decades, American workers have been losing what little we’ve gained.

Ever since President Ronald Reagan broke the air traffic controllers strike in the summer of 1981, the right wing has mounted a steady counter-attack against organized labor. In 1983, 20% of U.S. workers were union members. By 2009, only 12% of American workers were unionized. Today, 30 years after Reagan renewed the right wing assault on labor unions, only one in 10 workers are union members. That’s right. Union membership has been cut by half since Reagan took office.

And the anti-union drumbeat continues.

Today, revenue-strapped GOP governors complain that hard-earned public employee pensions are generous boondoggles we can’t afford. Teachers unions are constantly under attack — as though earning about $40 thousand dollars a year for heroically schooling America’s youth (while working most weekends grading papers and spending personal funds for school supplies) is too high a price to pay for an educated electorate. Right wing politicians call out nurses and firefighters as overpaid unionists with luxurious benefit packages. Meanwhile, in the halls of Congress, contemporary union-busters are taking steps to weaken unions and limit American workers’ ability to bargain collectively.

Greedy elitists have been working very hard for the past three decades to give unions a bad name.

The Republicans and their corporate overlords have managed to confuse a shockingly large percentage of blue-collar lunch-bucket working Americans to buy into their anti-union rhetoric – despite the fact that the gap between executive and worker pay has become truly obscene.

In 1965, American CEOs earned 24 times what the average worker in their company took home. By 1978, the CEOs got paid 35 times more than their average employee. That figure rose to 71 times more in 1989. By 2005, CEO pay had risen astronomically.

Blue collar, Joe the Plumber Republicans might be shocked to learn that the average American CEO in 2005 earned 262 times the pay of their average worker. In other words, CEOs earned more in one day than an average worker earned in 52 weeks. And in the last five years, it’s only gotten worse. Today, according to the accounting firm, Towers Perrin, the average CEO is paid 500 times more than the average worker.

And that’s only half the story. Working class fans of conservative supply side economic theory should know: nothing trickled down.

While the top corporate executives were lining their pockets, the wages of working Americans declined in real dollars.

In 1979 the average hourly wage in the U.S. was equal to $15.91 in 2001 dollars. By 1989 it was only $16.63 per hour: a gain of just 7 measly cents a year for the entire Reagan decade. (In case you already forgot: CEO pay during that same period rose from 35 times what workers earned to 71 times what the guy on the line made.)

During the Clinton years, there was a slight up-tick in workers wages. Between 1995 and 2000, the average wage rose to $18.33 per hour, driven in part by higher pay for college-educated workers in the tech and service sectors.

But for the more than 100 million laborers without a college degree, average inflation-adjusted hourly wages at the end of 2000 were less than they were in 1979.

That’s what blue collar Reagan Democrats got for switching their allegiance from a union-friendly party to a union-busting party. Reagan and his corporate cronies waved the flag at hardworking blue collar Americans, puffed them up with pride about that “shining city on a hill”, riled them up about abortion and gay marriage – and then robbed them blind. The right wing is still doing it. And working class people are still falling for it.

The shameless profit-grab at the top of the corporate food chain has taken place while for the past 30 years U.S. worker productivity rose steadily as wages remained flat.

Since Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, American worker productivity has increased by nearly 40%. Yet, I remind you, real hourly wages for workers have declined since Reagan’s inauguration.

So who got the reward from all that increased worker productivity? Who got the big performance bonuses? The CEO’s, upper management and Wall Street middlemen did. (Of course, today’s grease monkey, shipping clerk, loading dock foreman, or self-styled Joe plumber can dream of one day becoming a CEO or stock trader himself himself. Or he can play the lottery.)

Workers have fallen behind while the fat cats stuffed record profits into their bulging pockets. (All the while crying that the unions were making it impossible for their companies to compete.) Yet the corporate elite aren’t satiated with their outsized slice of the economic pie. So, their right wing tools in government are stepping up their attacks on organized labor.

In my own home state of Ohio, newly-elected Republican Governor John Kasich proposes to deny the right of 14,000 state-financed child care and home care workers to unionize. He also wants to ban strikes by teachers, much the way some states bar strikes by the police and firefighters.

“If they want to strike, they should be fired,” Mr. Kasich said in a speech. “They’ve got good jobs, they’ve got high pay, they get good benefits, a great retirement. What are they striking for?”

By the way, this is the same Governor Kasich who has complained (rightly) that white-collar state employees are not paid enough to attract the best candidates to public service in Ohio. (In the GOP worldview, what’s good for college educated white-collar workers need not be shared by lowly blue-collar workers. Yet they have the nerve to call Democrats “elitists”.)

The right wing attacks the labor movement to convince blue collar Americans that unions are simply greedy and corrupt. This anti-union calumny is promoted by the GOP and bankrolled by big business execs and Wall Street moneymen whose own greed and corruption was manifest in the final years of the Bush administration. (BTW, it was blue-collar working Americans whose hard-earned payroll and income taxes bailed these A-holes out.)

Of course, there have certainly been some illegal shenanigans now and then in the annals of organized labor. (We still don’t know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried.) But that doesn’t change the fact that the union movement in America has been a force for good in this country. And that union men and women paid for what we now take for granted in the workplace with their freedom and their lives.

Listen up, my working class friends who vote Republican: I’m talking to YOU. It’s time for a history lesson. A history, alas, that you can no longer read about in most public school textbooks, thanks to conservative members of your local school board.

April 27, 1825: Carpenters in Boston are the first to strike for a 10-hour workday.

July 1835: Child laborers in the silk mills of Paterson, New Jersey strike so they only have to work an 11-hour day — 6 days a week.

July 1851: Two railroad strikers are shot dead by the state militia in Portage, New York.

January 13, 1874: Unemployed workers demonstrating in NYC’s Tompkins Square Park are attacked by mounted cops who charge into the crowd, beating men, women and children with billy-clubs. There are hundreds of casualties, but the Police Commissioner says, “It was the most glorious sight I ever saw.”

July 14, 1877: The “Battle of the Viaduct” in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Protesting members of the Chicago German Furniture Workers Union are put down by federal troops (recently returned from an Indian massacre) killing 30 workers and wounding more than 100.

September 5, 1882: 30,000 workers march in the first Labor Day parade in New York City.

May 1, 1886: Bay View Tragedy. About 2,000 Polish workers walk off their jobs in Milwaukee in protest of the ten-hour workday. They march through the city, gathering other workers until they are 16,000 strong and gather at Rolling Mills, sleeping in nearby fields. Wisconsin Governor Jeremiah Rusk calls out the state militia, and on May 5th, as the workers chant for an eight-hour workday, the commanding officer of the militia orders his men to shoot into the crowd (some of whom were armed with sticks, bricks, and scythes) killing seven, including a child.

October 4, 1887: The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of “prominent citizens,” shoot 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage. They also lynch two strike leaders.

May 11 to July 10, 1894: A nationwide strike against the Pullman Company begins when workers walk off the job after their wages are drastically reduced. On July 5, the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago is set ablaze, and the mobs begin burning and looting railroad cars and fighting police in the streets. On July 10, 14,000 federal and state troops succeeded in putting down the strike, killing 34 American Railway Union members. Strike leaders, including Eugene Debs, are imprisoned for violating injunctions, causing disintegration of the union.

September 1897: The Lattimer Massacre. 19 unarmed striking coal miners are killed and 36 wounded by a county sheriff’s posse for refusing to disperse near Hazelton, PA.  Most of the victims are shot in the back.

March 25, 1911: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, occupying the top three floors of a ten-story building in New York City, is consumed by fire. 147 people, mostly women and young girls working in sweatshop conditions are killed. Greatly adding to the death toll was the incredible fact that Triangle bosses had locked the factory doors from the outside to keep the ladies from taking breaks.

June 11, 1913: Cops gun down three maritime workers (one of whom is killed) who are striking against the United Fruit Company in New Orleans.

1914: According to the Commission on Industrial Relations, approximately 35,000 workers were killed in industrial accidents and 700,000 workers were injured in the U.S.

April 20, 1914: The “Ludlow Massacre.” In an attempt to force strikers at Colorado’s Ludlow Mine Field to go back to work, company “guards” (hired by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and other mine operators) attack a union tent camp with machine guns, then set it afire — killing five men, two women and twevlve children.

January 9, 1915: The famous labor leader Joe Hill is arrested in Salt Lake City and convicted on trumped up murder charges. Despite worldwide protests and two attempts to intervene by President Woodrow Wilson. Hill is later executed. In a letter written shortly before his death, Hill urged his supporters, “Don’t mourn – organize!”

August 19, 1916: Strikebreakers attack picketing strikers in Everett, Washington, while local police refuse to intervene.

Three days later, 22 union men attempting to speak out are arrested. On October 30, vigilantes force union speakers to run a gauntlet, whipping, tripping and kicking them, and impaling them against a spiked cattle guard at the end of the gauntlet.

In response, the union calls for a meeting on November 5 – but when the union men arrive, they are fired upon. Seven people are killed in The Everett Massacre (also known as Bloody Sunday) and 50 are wounded. An unknown number wind up missing.

March 15, 1917: The Supreme Court approves the Eight-Hour Act under the threat of a national railway strike.

August 26, 1919: United Mine Worker organizer Fannie Sellins is gunned down by mining company goons.

March 7, 1932: Police kill striking workers at Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan plant.

October 10, 1933: 18,000 cotton workers go on strike in Pixley, California. Four are killed before the workers win a pay hike.

1934: During the Electric Auto-Lite Strike in Toledo, Ohio, 1,300 National Guardsmen including three machine gun companies are called in to break up as many as 10,000 strikers and protesters. Two strikers are killed and over two hundred wounded.

September 1-22, 1934: A strike in Woonsocket, Rhode Island results in the deaths of three workers. Over 420,000 workers ultimately go on strike.

1935: The National Labor Relations Act is passed. It guarantees covered workers the right to organize and join labor movements, to choose representatives bargain collectively, and to strike.

May 30, 1937: Police kill 10 and wound 30 during the “Memorial Day Massacre” at the Republic Steel plant in Chicago.

June 25, 1938: The Wages and Hours Act passes, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. It establishes minimum wages and maximum hours for all workers engaged in covered “interstate commerce.”

That’s the basic progressive history of labor unions before Ronald Reagan (himself a former Screen Actors Guild union president) began his successful counter-attack against organized labor.

The fact is that unions have a positive impact on the wages and working conditions of unionized and non-unionized workers alike.

Unions raise the pay of unionized workers by roughly 20% — and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by 28%. Plus, unions raise wages more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers — and more for workers who do not have a college degree. Unions force nonunion employers to follow suit. Organized labor’s impact on total nonunion wages is almost as big as its impact on union wages.

Wake up, working class Americans! Conservative GOP anti-union politicians are not on your side. Organized labor is on your side.

As Woody Guthrie sang, “You can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union!”

Here’s the legendary Pete Seeger (who I’ve had the honor to interview and see perform) with Woody’s son, Arlo Guthrie singing “Union Maid”.

And finally, here’s old Pete throwing down the gauntlet. “Which Side Are You On?”

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December 15, 2010 · 3:47 pm

Happy Birthday Bill of Rights!

Today, December 15th 2010 is the 219th birthday of the Bill of Rights.

And while constitutional scholars — from former constitutional law professor President Barack Obama, to Supreme Court Justice Antonin “Original Intent” Scalia, to Christine “Really? Separation of Church and State is in the First Amendment? It says that? Really?” O’Donnell – may differ on their interpretations of the Bill of Rights, there is little debate that the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution (ratified by three-fourths of the states on December 15, 1791) provide Americans with freedoms and protections that have inspired the world and made American citizenship a privilege.

And that previous sentence is just about as long-winded and complex as many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to free assembly, the right to petition the government for redress – and the little clause that stumped the failed Delaware Senate candidate/witch: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

The Second Amendment gives us all the right to keep and bear arms. In other words, we can all have guns, right? Now, what the amendment actually says is, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” So I guess we must all be part of a well-regulated militia, right? Is the NRA a well-regulated militia? I know the Aryan Nation is. (So glad those boys have automatic weapons, aren’t you?)

The Third Amendment prohibits the government from quartering troops in your house without your consent. I know we’ve all dealt with this problem at one time or another — usually around the holidays. Your house is already filled with visiting relatives – and a battalion of Marine infantry shows up at your door hoping to squeeze into your guest room for the night. Thanks to the Bill of Rights, you can point them in the direction of the nearest Holiday Inn.

The Fourth Amendment provides protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Unless, of course, you are a poor young non-Caucasian male suspected of having drugs in your home, or you’re on a terrorist watch list, or your electronic mail is swept up in an elaborate intelligence gathering effort, or… (Let’s face it. After the Patriot Act, the ‘ol Fourth Amendment has taken a beating.)

The Fifth Amendment provides due process in legal proceedings and protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination. This is another amendment that conservatives don’t like. They think it’s too soft on criminal suspects and suspected terrorists. Unless, of course, conservatives are the ones under indictment. (Which happens a lot.) Then due process is a good thing to observe.

The Sixth Amendment provides for trial by jury and enumerates the rights of the accused. But what about victims rights? I can hear Rush Limbaugh now. “Those damn bleeding-heart liberal Framers!”

The Seventh Amendment provides for civil trial by jury. It is the most boring amendment. (In fact, I feel asleep writing that last sentence.)

However, you gotta love that the Seventh Amendment actually says, “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved…”

Did I mention they ratified this thing in 1791?

The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive bail and bars cruel and unusual punishment. This is another amendment that’s been taking a beating lately.

Actually, it’s been waterboarded.

The Ninth Amendment is a catchall. It protects rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Like the right to enjoy macaroni and cheese in church without having to share it with a soldier who is reading a naughty magazine. Stuff like that. I think.

The Tenth Amendment is another grab bag. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Read that ten times fast. C’mon, Justice Scalia. I dare you.

So, happy birthday to our poor, beleaguered, bloodied-but-still-standing Bill of Rights!

Hopefully, it can survive for another 219 years.

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August 4, 2010 · 9:42 pm

Common Cents

I’m not as good a student of the American Revolution as I’d like to be, but what I do know about the founding of our nation — the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the Federalist Papers, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and, yes, the Boston Tea Party — makes it all the more infuriating when I hear the intellectually bankrupt, morally confused, and hopelessly misinformed, misguided, and myopic blather of today’s self-styled Tea Party activists.

Bankrolled by right wing think tanks aligned with corporate interests, former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s fabricated Tea Party pretends to be a grass roots movement – and the mainstream media (also controlled by multinational corporate masters) plays right along. Good-looking empty-headed figureheads like quit-term Governor Sarah Palin and GOP Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann help gin up anti-Washington fervor among an eclectic collection of the frustrated, frightened, and fanatical. (And more than a few racists who just don’t cotton to a black man in the White House.)

These new Tea Party “patriots” appropriate American Revolutionary iconography and add their own individual touches of Libertarian orthodoxy, anti-tax “drown government in the bathtub” zealotry, neo-Know Nothing nativism, New World Order conspiracy theory, and a gun-worshipping, survivalist militia mentality. It’s a toxic and combustible mix, stirred up by those who seek to divide the American body politic into opposing camps – and enlist struggling working people in a righteous war against their own best interests.

As we approach the critical mid-term elections of 2010, these are once again “times that try men’s souls”. Where is Thomas Paine when we need him?

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…” Thomas Paine

If Paine, the influential Revolutionary patriot and pamphleteer, were living today he would, no doubt, be a blogger. After all, there aren’t that many time slots available on MSNBC. (Though I’m sure Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow would have Tom on as a guest.) If he were alive in this moment of crisis, Paine would certainly be rallying his fellow citizens to battle against the real enemy they face: the steady, stealthy loss of their 234-year old democracy to the selfish, greedy, power-grabbing interests of multinational corporations.

Paine would tell these misguided Tea Party tools that their elected government isn’t their enemy. Our representative government is what stands between us and the rapacious depredations of a corporate oligarchy that’s been amassing money and power at a clip not seen since the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons. Our common fight isn’t against Big Government, which protects our water, food and air — and provides a host of other services and protections that individual Americans cannot provide on their own. Rather, we must be vigilant about the rise of corporate personhood and power. The man who wrote “Common Sense” would tell us to be wary of big money. It’s time for “Common Cents”.

In his classic 1776 pamphlet, “Common Sense”, Tom Paine made the patriot’s case against the authority of a royal monarchy. Today, an elite royal monarchy rules from the boardrooms of mega-corporations solely devoted to profit as they offshore American jobs, lend money to hard-pressed wage earners at usurious rates, gamble our pensions away on risky market speculation in the hope of a fat bonus, and continue to pollute our environment — unless they get caught by those pesky government people and their “anti-business” regulations. Educated and aroused by the plain, inspiring language of Thomas Paine, a new generation of American patriots might finally hear the alarm that should have been sounded from sea to shining sea on that fateful day, January 21, 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case.

In their landmark 5-4 decision in the case of Citizens United v The Federal Election Commission, the right-leaning Supreme Court led by Chief Justice and corporate shill, John Roberts, held that the First Amendment protects the right of corporations to plow unlimited funds into independent political broadcasts during candidate elections. Thus, the sluice gates were opened to a torrent of dirty money to flood the airwaves with attack ads, sponsored by big money interests.

Do you think your $5 and $10 contributions to your favorite Congressional candidate can compete with the millions that Target or BP can spend to slime your candidate if he opposes building a shopping mall on your local forest preserve — or if he’s fighting against Big Oil’s right to pollute your shoreline with minimal environmental protections?

In deciding that corporations have the same free speech rights as human individuals – that corporations are, in essence, persons with the same inalienable rights as you and me – the five “conservative” Justices conveniently overlooked the fact that corporations are granted their existence by We the People through licenses issued by our government. As Bill Cosby used to tell his kids on TV, “I brought you in – and I can take you out!” Corporations aren’t persons. We the People grant them license to do business – and we can limit what they’re allowed to do under that license. That’s what the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act attempted to codify in the area of corporate contributions to political campaigns. Alas, the Citizens United decision blew McCain-Feingold to smithereens.

Siding with the corporate elite against the interests of average American people, the Roberts Court has paved the way for Big Money to buy our elections. You’ll hear a lot of screaming on Faux News and in the Right Wing echo chamber about how the Supremes have also allowed those dreaded labor unions to buy elections. But seriously folks, who’s got more money to spend — Citibank, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs — or a labor union? It’s not even close…

And our faux populist friends in the GOP, Faux News and Right Wing Talk Radio – the same blowhards who pretend to support the interests of hard-working, pro-American Tea Party members – don’t even care if foreign companies can buy our elections. Explain to me, my “conservative” friends, why wax-figure Mitch McConnell and teary-eyed, tanning bed addict John Boehner are opposing legislation that would prevent foreign companies from pumping money into U.S. elections? And why would these same GOP leaders be against public disclosure of who is paying how much for all these campaign ads? Don’t We the People have an inalienable right to know who’s behind these million-dollar ad buys?

Tom Paine would have these companies’ names posted on the commons for all true patriots to see.

I’ll end with a final word on the pernicious doctrine of Corporate Personhood: this dubious notion that a corporation is a person entitled to basic human rights. The fact is – corporations are entities created by government (AKA We the People), and thus, can be limited by government (AKA We the People). So, given that the John Roberts-led Supreme Court is so confused (read “bought and paid for”), perhaps we must amend the U.S. Constitution to make it clear that only human beings (We the People) are “persons” with constitutional rights.

It’s We the People vs. Big Money. That’s the battle that is going on right now. And whether or not you’re disappointed that the Obama administration has been progressive enough, try to imagine if McConnell and Boehner crawl back into power. Try to imagine if Dick Armey’s absurd, unenlightened Tea Party is able to set the political agenda for the next six years. Are you ready for the ascendancy of Queen Sarah and her corporate overlords? (Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Maybe.)

Get out the vote this November.

And when your “conservative” friends say something snarky about President Obama or Senator Al Franken or our progressive agenda — smack them down with inarguable facts and the force of your well-reasoned opinion.

And call on the timeless words of Tom Paine…

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman…What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated…”

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March 21, 2010 · 9:17 pm

A Healthy Change

Congratulations to President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats on passage of a landmark Health Care Reform bill.

It was worth a long, long day watching C-Span to see history (much like sausage) being made on Sunday night, March 21, 2010, as a major Health Care Reform bill passed the House of Representatives. While it’s true that this bill doesn’t go as far as I’d like in reforming the health care system in America – I’m a single-payer guy myself – it’s a giant step in the right direction. At the very least, it stops the most egregiously greedy, hard-hearted practices of the insurance industry.

But seriously – why do we need these health insurance companies anyway? All they are is a money-grubbing middleman between patients and health care providers. The entire industry is a money-skimming scheme writ large. Their business is making billions of dollars in profit – which they make by not providing health care. Someday, I’d like to see them out of the game altogether.

Of course, Republicans, in lock step, opposed this historic legislation — despite the fact that over 200 Republican amendments had been incorporated into the bill. Clearly, the GOP has no interest in true bipartisanship. At least Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) was completely honest when he said that defeating President Obama’s health care reform initiative would prove Obama’s “Waterloo”. Senator DeMint and his colleagues’ only agenda was to damage Obama, not to help Americans in need of a break from fast-rising insurance premiums, or who lost their coverage because they were sick, or were denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Sorry, Senator DeMint, if this was Waterloo, it looks like you’re Napoleon. (Hope you enjoy your stay on Saint Helena.)

After all the lies, fear-mongering and demagoguery – it’s nice to see the dark side licking their political wounds.  And now, with health care reform soon to be the law of the land, they can get their wounds treated in an improved health care system.

Next up: financial regulatory reform.  It’s time to give the Wall Street Banksters a taste of progressive change, too.

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March 12, 2010 · 2:57 am

A Congressional Flush

Five Jokers make a flush right?

Let me begin by setting the record straight. The mainstream media would have you believe that President Obama is in desperate straits and his support among the American people has plummeted. However, in the 2008 Presidential election, Obama won with 52.9 percent of the vote – and the same pundits and Washington wise men proclaimed this a sweeping victory. This week, the latest Associated Press-GfK poll put public approval of President Obama’s job performance at 53 percent. Virtually unchanged since his “sweeping” win on Election Day.

So, while President Obama experienced a nearly unprecedented spike is his approval rating right after his inauguration, and while he’s endured a bruising first year in office confronting the disastrous condition of American economic and foreign policy in the wake of the long Bush-Cheney nightmare, and even though he’s disappointed a lot of progressives like me in various ways – Obama’s managed to retain essentially the same level of public support he had on the day he was elevated to the Presidency.

But Americans don’t feel the same way about Congress. According to the same AP-GfK poll, fewer people approve of Congress now than at any point in Obama’s presidency. In fact, the job approval rating for Congress is an anemic 22 percent. That’s pretty much what George Bush’s ratings were when Obama was elected.

Congressional Republicans get lower ratings than their Democratic colleagues – but not by a very comfortable margin. And that’s as it should be, because Congressional Democrats, especially in the Senate, have managed to squander their majority. GOP filibuster threats become de facto filibusters. Somehow, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe and Independent turncoat-gasbag Joe Lieberman are allowed to become power players. And small state “Conservadem” Senators like Max Baucus of Montana are allowed to write critical Health Reform legislation with the help of insurance industry lobbyists and GOP obstructionists like Iowa’s Chuck Grassley who were never going to allow Obama a legislative victory on anything – let alone an epochal Health Care reform bill.

Weren’t Congressional Democrats listening when Republican Senator Jim DeMint said a defeat on health care would be Obama’s “Waterloo”? Jeez! If an NFL quarterback telegraphs his intentions that obviously he usually gets intercepted.

So, there are plenty of valid reasons to be fed up with Congress. And after shuffling my deck of Congressional playing cards, I dealt myself five Jokers right of the top. Alas, I know there are a lot more in the deck…

Note: All italicized language in quotes is taken from the official websites of the legislators in question.

Joker #1: Senator James Inhofe (R, Oklahoma)

Oklahoma’s senior U.S. Senator, Inhofe is one of the biggest tools in Washington. “Simply put, no one consistently represents common sense, conservative Oklahoma values more than Jim.” Of course, that means the guy loves oil, oil, guns, oil, homophobia, and oil.

“Jim has been a strong advocate for the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.” Senator Inhofe may be into personal responsibility – but corporate responsibility not so much. He’s the leading climate change denier on Capitol Hill, and a sure vote against financial regulatory reform.

Here’s all you really need to know about Inhofe. He won the “Lifetime Service Award” from the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Spirit of Enterprise” Award, and an “A+” rating from the National Rifle Association.

Joker #2: Senator Mitch McConnell (R, Kentucky)

First elected to the Senate in 1984, Mitch McConnell is the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Kentucky history. He’s also made entirely of wax. For many years, Senator McConnell was on exhibit at Madame Tussaud’s in Hollywood, but the election of Barak Obama inspired him to return to Washington and do whatever he could to block the new President’s agenda.

McConnell is the Senate Minority Leader, which means he gets up every morning ready to say “no” to everything Obama and the Democrats propose. In McConnell’s caucus, such unrelenting negativity is called “bipartisanship”.

When McConnell was reelected to the Senate in 2008, he won nearly a million votes, the most ever received by a Kentuckian in a statewide race. Gee whiz, nearly a million votes statewide? Big deal. There are 1,596,165 registered voters in the city of Los Angeles alone. Barbara Boxer needed nearly 7 million votes to win her California Senate seat. Hell, her opponent, Bill Jones, lost with more than 4.5 million votes! And this wax puppet McConnell gets to sit high and mighty in the Senate, working to deny the Public Health Insurance Option that millions of California voters are demanding?

Joker #3: Representative John Boehner (R, OH-8)

House Minority Leader and tanning bed addict, John Boehner was elected to a 10th term in November 2008. And this is a guy who likes to talk about term limits! He’s “a national leader in the fight for a smaller, more accountable government.” Unless, of course, there’s a Republican in the White House – in which case Congressman Boehner is just fine with turning a Democratic administration’s budget surplus into a multi-trillion dollar deficit.

“Throughout his time as a small businessman, state legislator, and Member of Congress, John has been a straight-shooting and relentless advocate for freedom and security.” Unless, of course, a lying, obfuscating Republican Presidential Administration wants to hype false charges of Iraqi WMD to justify a war in Iraq that took our eye off Bin Laden in Afghanistan, handed Iran a potential satellite state in Iraq, and inflamed anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East. Feeling more free and secure now? Thanks, John. Your tan is fading almost as fast as your credibility.

“John is fighting to eliminate wasteful spending, create jobs, and balance the federal budget without raising taxes. He has challenged Republicans in the 111th Congress to be not just the party of “opposition,” but the party of better solutions to the challenges facing the American people.” Oh man, where to start? My head hurts. Oh, wait, I get it now. His website must be written for laughs – you can’t say Boehner has challenged his caucus “to be not just the party of opposition” unless you’re kidding. See? I told you Boehner was a Joker.

And now in the true spirit of bipartisanship…

Joker #4: Senator Blanche Lincoln (D, Arkansas)

Blanche Lincoln made history in 1998 when she became the youngest woman ever elected to the United States Senate at the age of 38. Good for you, Blanche. But what have you done for us lately?

Lately, Blanche Lincoln has proven herself to be aptly named – because so many things she’s done have made me blanch. If she wasn’t so deep in the pocket of corporate interests, and the health insurance industry in particular, she might be a useful player in the Senate Democratic caucus, but instead, she’s been a thorn in the side of progressive reform efforts since Obama’s election. And she’s been a total drag on Health Reform. Conservative Democrats like Blanche Lincoln are the best argument for legislating by reconciliation. She makes a mere 51 votes look real, real good.

“Senator Lincoln is at the forefront of efforts in Congress to end partisan bickering and get results for the American people. She helped form the Moderate Dems Working Group, a new coalition of moderate Senate Democrats who work with Senate leadership and the new administration to craft common-sense solutions to our nation’s most-pressing priorities. In addition, she co-founded and currently co-chairs “The Third Way,” an organization dedicated to crafting practical and creative solutions to old problems.” In other words, she’s an obstacle to progress: the queen of watering down truly progressive initiatives to mollify conservative voters in her home state. She’s not a Democratic party leader, she’s a timid, frightened, ambitious, bought-and-paid-for small state pol. If she’s not, she’ll have plenty of chances to prove otherwise. I won’t be holding my breath.

Joker #5: Representative Bart Stupak (D, MI-1)

Bart Stupak was first elected in 1992 – but nobody outside of his Michigan district ever heard of the guy until he hijacked Health Reform legislation this year, holding it hostage to his self-serving, caucus-splitting, hot potato abortion amendment. It didn’t matter to Congressman Stupak that the Health Reform bill the House was ready to pass did NOT provide federal funds for abortion – it was too good an opportunity to grandstand for his pro-life constituents and grab his share of the headlines at the expense of reforms that could save the lives of the nearly 45,000 people who have already been born – that die every year for lack of health insurance. What’s pro-life about that?

Ironically, Stupak was named the 2007 National Rural Health Association’s “Rural Health Champion” His website says that, “In his 14 years serving the 1st District of Michigan, Representative Bart Stupak has been a tireless advocate for his rural constituents, rural health care providers and the patients they serve.” Unless, of course, Bart has the chance to scuttle better health care for his rural constituents – and everyone else – as he gins up the culture wars by exploiting one of the most divisive issues in America.

If Bart is truly interested in promoting rural health, what’s he done with his infamous Stupak Amendment is, well, stupid. Or maybe just Stupak.

So there you go, 5 Congressional Jokers. It’s a flush worthy of flushing.

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