The GOP's biggest problem with the undocumented aliens -- illegal immigration -- problem, whatever you want to call it, is that someday it might be solved. After all, the current legislation was put in place by a GOP President, Reagan. The last GOP President couldn't get immigration "reform" passed when his own party was in control of the Congress because bunches of them voted against his proposals. No, the "immigration problem" is one of the GOP's favorite "dog whistles" to use Truthout's William Rivers Pitt's wonderful term -- the ways they have dreamed up to camouflage their fundamental racism. They simply don't want it go away and they will do everything they can to make sure that it doesn't. For them it is the gift, created first and foremost by one of the GOP mainstays, corporate agribusiness indeed back in the 1980s, that keeps on giving.

TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH

Card players who reveal what they’re thinking

All gamblers know all too well

Accidentally put their cards on the table

Because they have a “tell.”

 

Maybe they scratch their nose or blink a lot

Maybe it’s a cigarette they’re puffing.

Whatever it is manages to reveal to others

The times when they’re just bluffing.

For most of its existence since the end of Reconstruction following the election of 1876, the Republican Party has been the party of reaction in the United States.  In fact, the only reason that Rutherford B. Hayes, the GOP candidate in that disputed election, won was that he agreed to end Reconstruction, essentially turning over the Southern states to the former slaveholders and the Ku Klux Klan.  There was one bright exception to this rule, Theodore Roosevelt.  There were two other exceptions, although not on the scale of the great reformer (and imperialist too).  One was Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, at the end of World War II did not know to which party he belonged.  In fact, Harry S. Truman tried to recruit him to be the Democratic nominee in 1952.  "Ike" chose the Republicans and defeated Robert Taft for the nomination. 

This is the seventh installment of a project that is likely to extend over a two-year-period from January, 2010.  It is the serialization of a book entitled The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022.  Under the pseudonym Jonathan Westminster, it is purportedly published in the year 2048 on the 25th Anniversary of the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy in the Re-United States. It was actually published in 1996 by the Thomas Jefferson Press, located in Port Jefferson, NY. The copyright is held by the Press.  Herein you will find Chapter 6.  In it you meet Jefferson Da­vis (J.D.) Hague, a Sara Palinesque character who was the 45th President of the old United States.  He was a great grand nephew of the pre?World War II Mayor of Jersey City, NJ, Frank Hague, a man who once said: "You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press.  Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!'  You never hear a real American talk like that."

There are "...already rumblings that the GOP would try to repeal significant portions of President Obama's agenda -- including health care reform, the stimulus, and financial regulatory reform -- and take the country back to the days of the Bush administration."  Yessirree bobtail, they want to go back to all that got us in this mess in the first place. It's come down to a Party for the people, versus a Party for corporations.  And if it's a job you're looking for, forgettabout it, Repuglican Corporations are looking for a 25 cents an hour labor force, so the CEO's can make more gazzillions in profits, putting more in their personal bank accounts as well as bigger more lucrative "golden parachutes." Only in a Repuglican America can a CEO make millions for getting fired.  Unfortunately for America, the Repuglicans support this kind of corporate madness.  After all, it puts more money and more perks in Repuglican pockets.

I just saw “Inception” -- a great, highly imaginative movie about the alternate reality of dreams.  And so I got to thinking.  Suppose the barons of the Fed and Wall Street had been able to do just a bit more of their behind-the-scenes legerdemain (which, we continue to find out, goes on all the time) and postpone the September 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers meltdown until, let’s say, November 7, 2008.  That would have been a couple of days after the 2008 election and, funnily enough, on the Gregorian calendar the 91st anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  As it happened, McCain had overtaken Obama in the polls by mid-September 2008, when the bankruptcy did occur, with the subsequent collapse of the real estate bubble, the subsequent collapse of the economy, the Paulson/Bush first bank bailout, and so forth and so on.

NIKOLAS KOSLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH

            As I discovered in the course of researching my book, No Rain in the Amazon: How South America’s Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), the oil industry has had a poor record when it comes to protecting aquatic sea life.  Take for example the manatee, which has been put at risk from the Amazon to the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the oil industry.  One of the most outlandish creatures on the planet, the shy and retiring manatee, which gets its name from an American Indian word meaning “Lady of the Water,” was first described as a cross between a seal and hippo.  The creature has a wonderfully round body, mostly black skin the texture of vinyl, a bright pink belly, a diamond-shaped tail and a cleft lip.

            In the wake of BP's disaster, the manatee could be in for a rough patch. Indeed, oil could ultimately result in death or significant injury in the event that manatees are exposed to petroleum. The docile sea creature, which can be found along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, could ingest oil-damaged sea grass beds and other vegetation.  Because manatees need to surface to breathe air, they could become exposed to oil on the water. If they ingest oil, manatees could develop lesions and erosions of the esophagus, liver toxicity and kidney problems. Ingestion could kill the organisms in manatees' stomachs which aid in the digestion of sea grasses consumed by the animals.

            Though the case of the manatee is certainly tragic, could we be missing the larger marine picture?  For sure, surface petroleum provides easy photo ops and for weeks we’ve been subjected to countless images of oil washing up on local beaches.  What’s been sorely lacking in the coverage, however, is any discussion of mysterious and inaccessible deep sea marine life.  Take, for example, the enigmatic giant squid which will be placed at risk by BP’s methane emissions.

"Michele Bachmann: Obama Is Turning America Into 'A Nation Of Slaves' "  In psychological terms, crazy people "project" their own wants, needs, and desires on to someone else.  "Pro·jec·tion---Psychology -the tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself...Psychoanalysis . such an ascription relieving the ego of a sense of guilt or other intolerable feeling." 

And now you know exactly what Michele Bachmann and the radical-right really want to do to the American people! If you vote Repuglican, you do so at your own peril!

NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH

            As the dreaded hurricane season starts to ramp up, many wonder what kind of impact a perfect storm might have upon the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  The first hurricane of the Atlantic season, Alex, just recently pushed oil onto Gulf coast beaches.  To the dismay of local residents, some tar balls were as large as apples.  Though Alex has now cooled off, ridiculously warm oceans and still air mean that storms like Bonnie, Colin, Danielle could continue to plague the Gulf. 

            While future storms might mix up and disperse water and oil, which would in turn make it easier for bacteria to break down and consume larger clumps, hurricanes could also push the BP spill westward into marshlands.  Indeed, by their very nature hurricanes move counter-clockwise and as a result will tend to move oil from east to west (up to now, the BP spill has generally been moving from west to east).  What’s more, hurricanes could complicate any relief effort since they give rise to storm surges, elevated water levels and big storm waves.  Those waves spell danger, since they reach farther inland as they crash onto beaches.  As a result, oil could be spread over a much wider area.  

For those who might not be familiar with the term, "fuhgeddaboudit" is one of those three-into-one Noo Yawk words that puts the final stamp on the subject with which it is concerned.  Yes, folks, good folks like Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa can present very logical arguments for getting rid of the most anti-democratic rule crippling the functioning of any legislature in any of the "Western Democracies” (see his "Fixing the Filibuster" of June 30, 2010).  However, as long as the Democratic Losership Council (love that name, applied by a commentator on an earlier commentary of mine) controls the Democratic Party, it ain't going to happen.