harikari.com

I’ve been watching Republican congressmen on TV talking about how they can’t vote for the Democrats’ stimulus plan because there’s too much spending and not enough tax cuts.  I stare at my TV with incredulity and wonder if they are certifiably insane. 

Republicans are now the minority party, and in a big way:  59-41 in the Senate and 251 – 173 in the House.

Why did they lose so badly?  BECAUSE THEIR ECONOMIC POLICIES DON’T WORK!

I was going to write a lengthy post about their failed polices that give billions of dollars in tax cuts to the richest one percent, and do nothing to raise the incomes and improve the standard of living for the middle and lower classes.  Then I read Bob Herbert today, and found he already wrote pretty much all I was going to say.  So read Bob Herbert.

What’s up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?

The G.O.P.’s latest campaign is aimed at undermining President Obama’s effort to cope with the national economic emergency by attacking the spending in his stimulus package and repeating ad nauseam the Republican mantra for ever more tax cuts.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of this package and all the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work,” said Representative John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who is House minority leader. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Boehner said of the plan: “Put me down in the ‘no’ column.”

If anything, the stimulus package is not large enough. Less than 24 hours after Mr. Boehner’s televised exercise in obstructionism, the heavy-equipment company Caterpillar announced that it was cutting 20,000 jobs, Sprint Nextel said it was eliminating 8,000, and Home Depot 7,000.

Maybe the Republicans don’t think there is an emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John McCain’s economic guru, who told us last summer that the pain was all in our heads, that this was a “mental recession.”

The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the millions. The stock markets and the value of the family home have collapsed, and there is virtual across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II.

The Republican answer to this turmoil?

Tax cuts.

They need to go into rehab.

Read the rest of the column here.

George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket. For much of the time since then, the madmen of the right have carried the day. They were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.

These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.

This was the crowd that cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in myriad other ways gleefully hacked away at the best interests of the United States.

Now we’re looking into the abyss.

The rest is here.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Fashion companies have discovered a lucrative new marketing vehicle: Sarah Palin.

Since John McCain chose her last month as his running mate, Gov. Palin’s personal style has sparked a buying frenzy. Many women are snapping up her choices of shoes and eyeglasses and blogging about which brand of lipstick she wears. Hairstylists and wig sellers report sudden demand for her trademark up-dos. Indeed, the brands behind Gov. Palin’s fashion taste have gone into overdrive seeking to cash in on the association.

If you hop over to The New York Times, in Bob Herbert’s column, you’ll find evidence that this celebrity may be intelligent enough, but she doesn’t have what it takes to lead our nation.  Herbert says she may have traits that would suit her well in the American Idol contest, but she’s a reckless choice for Vice President.