Yesterday I spoke about the fallacy within the media in not calling out the Republican Party for their obstruction and intransigence.

If you are fooled into get­ting your infor­ma­tion from Network or Cable Television you will even­tu­al­ly become, well.. a fool, not because you were born with a debil­i­tat­ing learn­ing dis­abil­i­ty, but because the lame stream media will even­tu­al­ly turn you into a bum­bling ignaramus.

If you don’t believe me just step back and look at what comes out of the mouths of peo­ple who get their news from Fox, and Right-Wing talk Radio. I mean one would have to be liv­ing under a rock for the last cen­tu­ry to har­bor such thoughts and ideas as some on the right does.

What is hap­pen­ing in Washington DC today with the so-call fis­cal cliff is seri­ous business. 

There real­ly is not much to fig­ure out, at the cen­ter of this debate is the need to cut spend­ing and increase rev­enues into the Federal cof­fers with a view to bal­anc­ing the bud­get and reduc­ing the nation­al debt.

The pres­i­dent cam­paigned on elim­i­nat­ing the Bush Tax-cuts, (not sure why they are still called the Bush tax cuts since Obama was cor­nered by Republicans into extend­ing them last year).

The pres­i­dent won re-elec­tion and believes there is nation­al con­sen­sus for him to raise tax­es on the top 2% of the top wage earn­ers, those mak­ing over ¹⁄₄ mil­lion annu­al­ly. Polls con­duct­ed based on the pres­i­den­t’s assump­tion bears out his argu­ments, with 68% of respon­dents agree­ing with the president.

From my per­son­al per­spec­tive, there is no need for polls, the President cam­paigned on this very issue and won re-elec­tion, case closed.

Republicans argue disin­gen­u­ous­ly, that rais­ing tax­es on the rich, or more accu­rate­ly return­ing them to the Clinton years when almost every­one did extreme­ly well would kill jobs and send the coun­try into anoth­er recession.

The truth is actu­al­ly the reverse of that posi­tion , dur­ing the Clinton years when tax rates were high­er on top wage earn­ers, the econ­o­my cre­at­ed 20 mil­lion jobs, and the coun­try cre­at­ed the most mil­lion­aires ever.

Contrast that with the Bush Presidency when tax rates were low­ered to where they are present­ly for top wage earn­ers, the econ­o­my went into a deep reces­sion , mil­lions of jobs were lost. There is absolute­ly no cor­re­la­tion between tax cuts and job growth.

The truth of the mat­ter is that Republicans pledged to a Washington Lobbyist Grover Norquist that they would not raise tax­es under any cir­cum­stance. The top wage earn­ers and rich­es Americans are the most loy­al part of the Republican base.

Tea-Party Senator Rand Paul KY:

This is at the heart of the conun­drum in Washington DC today. Despite years of low tax­es for the rich­est Americans, and two unfund­ed wars, Republicans in Washington, par­tic­u­lar­ly those Tea-Party fund­ed lunatics in the House of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, are will­ing to hold up a tax cut for aver­age work­ing peo­ple and poten­tial­ly push the coun­try and the world into anoth­er reces­sion to demand that the rich­est 2% be not only allowed to keep their tax cuts , but that they be made permanent.

Conversely they are also demand­ing that the argu­ment be shift­ed to what they char­ac­ter­ized as enti­tle­ments. Generally what that means is that they want to cut school lunch for poor and indi­gent chil­dren, they want to dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce food-stamps. The want to reduce and in some case elim­i­nate Pell grants to col­lege age kids, they want to gut every pro­gram that ben­e­fits the most needy in society.

They want Medicare cut even though Medicare does not add a sin­gle pen­ny to the nation­al debt. What Republicans do not want to touch is the Defense Department, this sacred cow has long been untouch­able for Republicans for decades, and for weak-kneed Democrats afraid of being called weak on defense they sim­ply do not bring up cut­ting the over bloat­ed Pentagon Budget.

Rank	Country	Spending ($ Bn.)[3]	% of GDP	World share (%)	Spending ($ Bn. PPP)[4]
—	World total	1,735	2.5	100	1562.3
1	United States	711.0	4.7	41	711
2	Chinay	143.0	2.0	8.2	228
3	Russiay	71.9	3.9	4.1	93.7
4	United Kingdom	62.7	2.6	3.6	57.5
5	France	62.5	2.3	3.6	50.1
6	Japan	59.3	1.0	3.4	44.7
7	Saudi Arabiaz	48.2	8.7	2.8	58.8
8	India	46.8	2.5	2.7	112
9	Germanyy	46.7	1.3	2.7	40.4
10	Brazil	35.4	1.5	2.0	33.8
11	Italyy	34.5	1.6	2.0	28.5
12	South Korea	30.8	2.7	1.8	42.1
13	Australia	26.7	1.8	1.5	16.6
14	Canaday	24.7	1.4	1.4	19.9
15	Turkeyy	17.9	2.3	1.0	25.2

^ SIPRI estimateWikipedia 

This is the heart of the mat­ter, Republicans are quite will­ing to see the coun­try default on its debt oblig­a­tions, see the tax­es of ordi­nary strug­gling Americans go up expo­nen­tial­ly, and the econ­o­my thrust back into anoth­er reces­sion to pro­tect the rich­est Americans, many of whom have said they are more than will­ing to pay more, they believe in shared sacrifice.

There is an almost demon­ic obsti­na­cy which seem to char­ac­ter­ize the posi­tion of House Republicans, yet many of these white men who form the Tea-Party wing of their par­ty will read­i­ly tell you that they are patriots.

As I argued in the pre­vi­ous blog, the Media takes com­fort in talk­ing about the dys­func­tion in Washington, there is no dys­func­tion in Washington DC. There is a dys­func­tion­al Republican Party which has gone so far to the right out of hatred of Barack Obama , it does not know how to get back to the cen­ter, and would­n’t rec­og­nize the cen­ter anymore.

That hatred is pal­pa­ble, it has awak­ened and ener­gized every res­i­dent racist and embold­ened them to emerge from under every rock and out of every hole in which they were hid­ing. Those who did not share those extreme view points were pri­maried and forced out, oth­ers kept their mouths shut, the rest sim­ply joined the pitch-fork bear­ing throng.

Mitch McConnell more than doing his sworn duty, cared only that Obama be made a one term President, that was his only goal. The record num­ber of Senate fil­i­buster is proof pos­i­tive that Mitch McConnell meant to obstruct every­thing, coun­try be damned.

So noth­ing gets done because pledges to Washington Lobbyists, loy­al­ty to Rich Industrialists and racial ani­mus now take prece­dent over the nation’s busi­ness. All this is hap­pen­ing while the mealy-mouthed Press seek to make it a two-par­ty prob­lem, rather than report it for what it is.

Jim DeMint want­ed to make the Affordable-Care-Act Obama’s Waterloo, he pre­dict­ed it would break and destroy Obama. That did not work so well for DeMint, he has announced he is leav­ing the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation a Right Wing Think Tank. Please don’t let the door hit you Senator.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell KY: Tea-Party Senator Jim DeMint :SC

No need to wor­ry where there is no vision the peo­ple per­ish, Republicans are doing a lot to stop peo­ple from vot­ing or hav­ing their votes count­ed, but when it comes down to it they are not the ones pulling the levers in vot­ing booths and elect­ing Republican Governors or State and Federal Legislators.

No mat­ter the amount of mon­ey Charles and David Koch pours into an Election it would not move me to cast a vote for a Republican can­di­date. The rich­est 2% of Americans amounts to rough­ly 6 mil­lion peo­ple scat­tered over the entire United States, it requires a lot of poor peo­ple vot­ing against their own self-inter­est to give the 2% the pow­er they have.

The infor­ma­tion reg­u­lar Americans are seek­ing will not come from the lame stream media which is owned lock, stock and bar­rel by the very rich.