Santorum: Poster Boy of the American Taliban

There is no ignorance more intractable than faith-based ignorance. A pox on all these religious peacocks who shout their prayers for all to hear, and expect all Americans to follow them down the road to a dark, dark future.

In the case of Santorum , Gingrich, Romney et al, I for one wish we could make birth control retroactive.

The Parade America Needs to See

The parade we need to see is of the neocons who deliberately misled the American people into a needless war that cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s have George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle et al marched down Wall Street in Guantanamo jumpsuits, so that all of us can see the perpetrators of one of the greatest disasters in American history, and resolve never to let this happen again.

Susan G. Komen: Racing for the Dark

Pinch-minded ideologues never give up in their quest to take America back to the dark ages. Shame on Komen for caving in to them. I predict enormous loss of funding to Komen as a result.

The “Carried Interest Con”: Mitt Romney’s Capitalism

Steve Jobs epitomized the kind of capitalism that made America great: creative genius, passionate attention to design and innovation, cutting- edge products that please tens of millions of consumers around the world. Mitt Romney epitomizes the no-sweat, no- risk rigged game of the private equity player: “strip and flip” profiteering on companies that others have built, with deal-terms that are fixed to return handsome profits to private equity investors even when companies they invest in fail. The game at Bain resembles nothing so much as well-heeled hunters at a private reserve, where “beaters” guide the prey into convenient spots to be shot by the “hunters”, yielding trophies with none of the messy trudging through the muck and cold.

Private equity executives and their conservative apologists assert that this activity is a necessary element in the process of “creative destruction”, delivering efficiency to the markets. It is nothing of the sort. Creative destruction is Craigslist overturning the newspaper classified advertising business; it is Dell Computer changing the landscape in the personal computer business; it is Amazon, Google , Facebook and the hundreds of tiny upstarts in Silicon Valley or Seattle or Boston that will one day break the oligopoly of big oil or big pharma with discoveries springing from the sweat and toil of true entrepreneurs.

Adding further insult to we commoners, Romney and other private equity and hedge fund managers enjoy extraordinarily preferential tax rates (only 15%) on their income from this business, in what must surely be the greatest corporate welfare tax scam in history.

But all this privilege is not enough for Mr. Romney, who dismisses critics of Bain as whining socialists promoting the politics of envy. No, Mr. Romney, not envy. What you are hearing is the sound – growing louder every day – of derision. And contempt.

The Bain of Romney

At Bain, Romney showed us all his rigged version of capitalism: perfectly legal, but utterly immoral. Perhaps that should be his bumper sticker…

“Lookatmevangelicals”: God’s Own Peacocks

Rick Perry, Rick Santorum (what is it about “Ricks”?), Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and now Tim Tebow: religious peacocks all, compelled to shout their prayers for all to hear. Whatever happened to quiet faith?

Fox News and North Korea: More alike than you think

This article reminds me of the brilliant quip by Mark Twain: It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, its what you’re sure you know that just ain’t so. I imagine a similar survey in North Korea would yield similar results: a population that has for over 50 years been indoctrina­ted by the single radio and TV station they are permitted to watch, spouting endless propaganda and magical thinking. If North Korea were liberated tomorrow, the entire population would be like Neandertha­ls stepping out of a time machine in 21st Century Silicon Valley. So it is with the GOP and its propaganda arm, Fox: an ignorant electorate is a conservati­ve’s dream. Perhaps not too outrageous to imagine that this has been the plan all along…