Of all the disasters left behind by the Bush administration – two wars, a banking system that teetered on the edge of collapse, an economy in steep decline – the Bush tax cuts have proven to be a sleeper that may be the biggest disaster of all.

Republican strategist Dan Bartlett smugly said in a recent interview that the tax cuts were a trap for Democrats designed by Bush and the Republicans to detonate on someone else’s watch.

“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.”

President Obama produced a firestorm of controversy within his own party when he decided to extend the Bush tax cuts in a compromise with Republicans to get a year’s worth of unemployment insurance for more than 2 million people who are out of work, though nothing for the 99ers, those without incomes who have been  unable to find work after almost two years of being laid off.

Fearing the tax increases that would arise when the bill runs out at midnight 2011, Obama decided to breathe new life into Bush’s poison pill tax cut monster, giving it two more years to wreak havoc, which will then force Obama and the Democrats, with the help of the Tea Party, to take painful chunks out of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment compensation and probably many of Obama’s hard won healthcare reform measures that are only just beginning.  It will be up for renewal again right in the middle of the next presidential election.

The Bush tax cuts failed to produce jobs, and it continues to fail at producing jobs.  It has succeeded in giving the wealthy extra money to move offshore, or to simply save for later investment. It does not circulate through the economy or even trickle down.

But over years, people came to believe the tax cut theology, and besides, who wants to pay more taxes anyway? Its not like roads, bridges, highway, tunnels, electrical grids, transportation or police, fire fighters and teachers need to be paid for. That’s someone else’s responsibility. Many states are poised to jettison such jobs in the new year.

Obama knows – or at least he believes – that  Americans will be in an uproar if the Bush tax cut monster died, and taxes went up.  Half of the tea bagger crowd already thinks Obama and the Democrats have raised their taxes, even though they have not.

With a new lease on life, the tax cut monster is likely to be even bigger and stronger next time around. It will probably become a permanent fixture of the tax code, as  running -scared Democrats will be too afraid to challenge its existence any longer, and Republicans will revel in the compromises Obama or the next president will have to make to continue to  feed  Bush’s monster, which will now belong to them.

With the hours ticking by and legislators eager to go home where they will enjoy a prosperous holiday season,  the House and Senate members are scrambling to keep the monster alive.

Of course, there is a way out – letting the Bush tax cuts expire, killing the monster once and for all. This would force legislators to do their jobs, which is to write (and rewrite) new  tax code legislation.

And there may be hope (if you pardon that word) on the horizon. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has emphatically vowed to filibuster the tax cut compromise. South Carolina senator, “demented” Jim DeMint, unhappy with the scraps thrown to students and the unemployed, want them cut out of the deal altogether, and he too has also pledged to filibuster the compromise.  With both sides finally working together the spirit of bipartisanship,  could Bush’s tax cuts finally end?

Rick Sanchez, host of  Rick’s List on CNN, got immediately fired one day after veering into “the Jews run the media,” territory while complaining about jokes at his expense by comedian Jon Stewart.

On a Sirius radio show, Sanchez , who called Stewart “a bigot”  also claimed that the media is run by an elite Northeast Jewish elite who look down on people like him:

” I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they — the people in this country who are Jewish — are an oppressed minority? Yeah.”

Sanchez had become an affable, but sometimes prickly, CNN personality with his signature show that was rising in popularity, and doing well enough to temporarily replace Campbell Brown when she went down in flames.

Sanchez, a Cuban American,  played a particularly important counter-balance to the nightly racist anti-Mexican diatribe of Lou Dobbs, whom CNN allowed to broadcast vitriol and unsubstantiated stories for years before finally getting fired earlier this year.

While Sanchez remarks revealed him to be thin-skinned and shallow-thinking,  he was not allowed to apologize on-air his remarks. At this point, Sanchez has not issued a public statement in regard to his firing. CNN’s one-sentence “We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well,”  reveals CNN executives to be rather thin-skinned as well.

Sanchez, who came through the ranks from a local TV reporter to a network staffer to a host of national cable news show, apparently never overcame the insecurity he appears to have felt as minority journalist in a white male dominated industry.

As with many high-profile people in the media and elsewhere, Sanchez was routinely skewered by Stewart for his various on-air gaffes. His demonstration of being tasered during a CNN segment was a staple of Stewart’s show, and he also became famous for wondering how there could be “volcanos in Iceland.”  Sanchez once called President Barack Obama a “cotton-picking president.,” and accused any Hispanic reporter working for Fox News as “a sell-out.”

Sanchez did not seem to realize that he was fair game to be poked fun at by Stewart because of his national profile, just like Glen Beck or Bill O’Reilly or other talking heads.  It will be interesting to hear what Sanchez and others close to the situation have to say, if anything, in the weeks to come. It seems that though Sanchez had finally arrived, he didn’t seem to realize it.

A proposal to build an Islamic Center two blocks from the World Trade Center site has galvanized those who blame all Muslims for the 911 attacks. It now  seems the whole country has chosen to weigh in on a  lower Manhattan zoning issue.

Republican senators and other right-wing leaders have decided in recent days to make the construction of Cordoba House a fall campaign issue.  While many leaders , such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg have taken pains over the years to say that America is not at war with Islam, these leaders determined to wage that war against Muslim Americans.

If  Muslim New Yorkers were more sensitive, the argument goes, they would accept blame for the actions of terrorists, and  at least keep out of sight.  They should be more aware of the painful reminder their presence inflicts on people across the country who have chosen to rush to the barricades over the planned  demolition of a dilapidated building that once housed Burlington Coat Factory.

The New York Landmark Preservation Commission decided that the  decrepit Park Place building did not qualify as a landmark and decided to allow the construction of Cordoba House, which would house a cultural center, an auditorium and a mosque.

Rep. Peter King King has been in the forefront of the right’s attempt to demonize all followers of the Muslim faith.

“It’s insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero,” said King, who in the past has referred to Muslims as ‘the enemy living among us,” and claimed that “we have too many mosques in this country already.”

Republican political leaders who see an opportunity to create yet another polarizing issue to run on to regain their power in November. King, Newt Gingrich, John Cornyn, and Sarah Palin are ready bring their war out into the open, regardless of the consequences.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan are leading the Cordoba House project. They have been outspoken representatives of moderate Islam. “Park 51 will be a home for all people who are yearning for understanding and healing, peace, collaboration, and interdependence,” the couple said in a recent statement. ” We are creating a new space where fresh stories of cooperation and service will reflect the living vibrancy of inter-connected communities.”

Rauf has lead delegations to the Muslim world on behalf President George W. Bush to talk about Islam in America, in an attempt to showcase America’s religious tolerance, and to show that our wars in two Muslim countries are not intended to be an attack on Islam itself. Thanks to King and others, Rauf is running out of time to make that argument.

“When your enemy is bent on committing suicide, just get out of the way.”  Thanks to the call for a repeal of the 14th amendment, Republicans are handing the Democrats a gift that could keep on giving through  a generation of election cycles.

In deference to tea-party activists, Republican leaders now claim they want to debate possible changes in the 14th amendment of the Constitution, with the goal of denying birthright citizenship to children of illegal Mexican immigrants who are born in the U.S.

Hispanic voters present and future, will not likely forget the rhetoric that accompanied the debate, with talk of “anchor babies” being “dropped.”

Even far-right ideologue Alan Keyes knows this is a risky turn in the debate, and he chastised the once-sober Lindsey Graham for jumping on the bandwagon. ”

“Now let me see, if birthright citizenship is not a birthright, then it must be a grant of the government,” Keyes said. “ And if it is a grant of the government, then it could be curtailed in all the ways that fascists and totalitarians always want to.”

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and many others do not confer birthright citizenship on immigrants to the country, particularly those who go there to work.  The effect is to have a group of citizens who never receive full rights under law, who are entitled to work but to little else, even for generations.

That is the situation that faced the US, when the 14th amendment was being considered to give citizenship to freed slaves and their descendants.  Despite racist fears of the “yellow peril,” posed by Chinese immigrant workers, the Congress passed the amendment in 1868. Since then, every person born in the U.S. regardless of their parent’’s country of origin- except diplomats – are American citizens.

Now. in 2010, we have constitutional scholars like John Boehner, John Kyl,  Mitch McConnell and John McCain calling for a “review” of the 14th amendment in an effort to deny citizenship to the children of illegal Mexican immigrants.

John Kyl says illegal immigrants are being “rewarded,” with American citizenship of their children.  Since when are children held legally responsible for the actions of their parents before their birth?  And aren’t undocumented workers still undocumented after the birth of their children? And how does denying citizenship to  US born children of Mexican immigrants keep employers from hiring undocumented workers?

Rachel Maddow recently pointed out that politicians know constitution is very hard to change, and this “review,” should it happen, will not make it very far. The idea instead seems to be to get people to accept a different interpretation of the amendment. That might work on the teabaggers, but the rest of know they are just blowing smoke.

Shirley Sherrod has gotten apologies from the Obama administration, the NAACP and even Bill O’ Riley.  The Sunday morning talk shows predictably lamented the situation. and pointed fingers at the racist propagandist Andrew Breitbart.

But the networks that ran the footage all day – until CNN finally decided to do some fact-checking – have yet to formally apologize to Sherrod or to their own viewers for presenting a completely bogus, doctored video as news.

A reporter who came back to the TV station or newspaper newsroom  with a story and said ‘ I can’t tell you where I got this or who edited it,”  wouldn’t last long.

But an Internet blogger with a known political agenda, who has been caught using doctored video in the past? No problem – it goes straight to the airwaves or page one.

The old adage “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is,” has been replaced by “who cares if its true? this is great stuff!”

The media’s inability to own up to its role in the debacle means they will just keep blaming others instead of doing what only they can do, which is to  subject  an unsourced video  or story to same scrutiny that they would give to one produced by their own staff, and to fight everyday to uphold journalistic standards during a time of declining staff and revenue and professionalism.

To this day, virtually none of the networks or major newspapers who breathlessly pushed the “ACORN pimp” story have run a correction, or posted the uncut video which has been available for months on the California attorney general’s website.  Since ACORN is dead and buried, the media decided to bury its mistakes along with it, and hope no one notices.  They continue to whistle past the graveyard and live with the illusion that their credibility has not suffered a significant blow.

This unwillingness of the MSM to hold itself accountable means they will be duped again in the not too distant future by Breitbart or someone else  with another “too good to be true”  story or video that just happens to line up neatly with the most racist and irrational assumptions a certain segment of the population holds.

Ironically, this segment of the population hates the MSM as much as they hate  Mexican immigrants, the NAACP, or a black president, and no amount of pandering will ever change that. This being an election year means its a guarantee we’ll see another Sherrod type case in the media before the year is out. The MSM will get fooled again.

After declaring the war in Afghanistan to be  ”a war of Obama’s choosing,” RNC Chairman Michael Steele appears to have again foiled his critics by surviving yet another round of calls by Republican party apparatchiks for his ouster.

Calling on Michael Steele to resign has become a recurring theme almost since the day he was elected to give the Republican party a veneer of diversity.

This time, during a Connecticut fundraiser for Senate candidate Linda McMahon, Steele can be heard claiming that Afghanistan War, begun by George W. Bush following the 9/11 attacks, “was not something the U.S. has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”

Its a fact that Bush had no strategy for the war, and took resources away from Afghanistan to conduct his military adventure in Iraq, but Steele almost sounded like he was calling on Obama to rethink Afghanistan.

“if [Obama] is such a student of history,”Steele  during the backyard shindig, “he has not understood that …that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?”

William Kristol, executive editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, got out front as the first person to call on Steele to resign (again.)

“I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican party,” Kristol wrote in an open letter to Steele.

Let’s never forget that Kristol and his neo-con cohorts at Project for a New American Century are responsible for the deaths of thousands of US soldiers and millions of Iraqis because of their campaign of lies that under-pinned the Iraq war.

Kristol does not seem to be aware that even many Republican’s don’t care what he thinks, and that Steele actually has more credibility at the moment than he does. Liz Cheney, another discredited neo-con holdout, has also called on Steele to resign.  Thanks to low caliber of his critics, Steele seems likely to survive as chairman until the next call for his resignation.

It’s official: the state of Hawaii can ignore  requests from wing-nut birthers to see President Obama’s birth certificate.

Republican Gov. Linda Lingle signed the bill into law. which allows the state health department and other agencies to ignore repeated requests from the same groups or individuals who refuse to accept Obama’s birth certificate  -which has been posted online since 2008 – as legitimate.

The state health department has endured months of harassing repetitive requests from  the anti-Obama industry, and the new law allows officials to ignore these requests.  Health Department director Dr. Chiyonne Fukino verified in 2008 that the state of Hawaii holds Obama’s original birth certificate.

As we all know, this will not stop the birthers, because nothing will.  No amount of “proof,” will ever be enough for them.  Almost 18 months after the election, these people refuse to accept Obama as the legitimate president of the United States.  They want “their” country back, and they fervently wish for a return of the days when a black president of the United States was unthinkable and impossible.

On some level, birther’s must know everyone thinks they are crazy, but they can’t stop. Their irrational and racist fears took over long ago,  and have been driving them ever since.

“I know – it seems nutty to Bill O’Reilly and Anderson Cooper and  Glen Bcck and Rachel Maddow. I don’t care what they think – or if they think,” Joseph Farrah, a chief wing-nut at WorldNet Daily wrote.

Farrah claims the state of Hawaii has a ” cultural tradition” of issuing “bogus’ birth certificates  for decades.  In other words, he  apparently doesn’t accept the legitmacy of any person born on Hawaii because of Obama.  Aside from his birth certificate, Farah and others claim Obama never attended Harvard, is using a false social security number, is a British subject etc. The fact that the losing presidential candidate, John McCain, was born in Panama has never been an issue for these folks.

In a nation of 300 million people, we’re entitled to 300 million opinions. But it becomes a serious problem when even a relatively small percentage of people stop living in reality.

Epic oil spill should end Obama's offshore drilling compromise

Just a few short weeks ago,President  Obama lifted the ban on offshore drilling.  Though environmental activists in his base were disheartened, the move was seen as typical of the president’s centrist, pragmatic approach.

Now, as a massive oil spill slowly creeps toward the Gulf Coast bringing environmental and economic disaster, the idea of lifting the ban on offshore drilling  looks plainly like the short-sighted political compromise that it was.  To deprive Republicans of their  idiotic “Drill Baby Drill,” slogan, the administration figured they’d let a couple oil rigs go up, and in the meanwhile move forward on green energy and climate change legislation.

Of course, the “Drill Baby Drill” folks are silent now, and Gulf coast politicians like Sen. Mary Landrieu, Gov. Bob Riley and Gov. Bobby Jindal are looking for big government help as the massive oil slick approaches their shorelines.

As recently as last November, Landrieu was poo-pooing the notion that the U.S. could experience an oil rig spill similar to one in Australia that dumped more 800,000 gallons into the sea, comparing it to the amount of water in the Reflecting Pool in DC.

“The gallons are so minuscule compared to the benefits of U.S. strength and security, the benefits of job creation and energy security,” Landrieu said. ” So while there are risks associated with everything, I think you understand that they are quite, quite minimal.”

Obama has halted any new offshore drilling projects unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent another disaster. It should be halted forever, because the environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico will last decades longer than the than oil we receive.

Congress is planning to hold hearing on  BP’s actions in the disaster. Let’s hope the Congress  examines its own role in allowing the company operate without the safeguards that are required in other parts of world.

And as Bill Maher would say;”Every asshole who ever chanted ‘Drill Baby Drill’ should have to report to the Gulf Coast today for cleanup duty.”

You’re suffering from bladder cancer, urinary incontinence or even erectile dysfunction. If that were not bad enough, when you arrive for your appointment, there’s sign there’s a sign on your doctor’s door that reads “If you voted for Obama, seek urologic  care elsewhere. Healthcare reform begins now, not in four years!.”

That has been the experience of patients who went to the office of Dr. Jack Cassell, a urologist based in Mount Dora Florida. Prior to his sudden outburst of fame  as a new right-wing hero,  Cassell was getting  mediocre rating of  2 out 4 stars on a physician website from his patients. Now his ratings are up, as thousands who oppose Obamacare register their support.

Basking in his 15 minutes of fame, Cassell has smirked his way through interviews on CNN, Fox News, and other media outlets, claiming he’s not turned any one away, but acknowledging that some decided to go away.

Since healthcare reform doesn’t go away just because some of his patients do,  Cassell’s intent is not to inform but to intimidate, to use his medical practice for politics and as a way to spread healthcare reform misinformation.

A doctor who wanted to inform his patients about important legislation would take a completely different approach. He might provide specific information in a waiting room brochure on how the new law relates to his specialty. The patient can read the information, or choose to read Time magazine instead.

As with most tea-baggers, Cassell’s opposition to  reform is based on fear of regulations that do not even exist in health-care reform law, but do appear in right-wing talking points on health-care reform. The fact that his wife is a  conservative candidate running for local office could also be a  factor in his disinformation campaign.

Cassell claims to be concerned about alleged cuts to hospice care. Scaring the elderly about health-care reform has been a main goal of those fighting reform. Cassell clearly hasn’t  spent a single moment checking his facts before appearing on  television.

“Did you have — did you realize that hospice, you know, which is the end-of-life caring, that that’s going to be totally cut in 2012? I mean, not only do they want you to die at a younger age, as they — as they basically ratchet down care, but they want you to die a slow and painful death as well — it’s horrible,” Cassell told Fox & Friends, who of course accepted his statement as fact.

It turns out that hospice care is virtually untouched by reform laws and a range of hospice care associations have praised the healthcare reform legislation.

Rep. Alan Grayson has filed an ethics complaint against Cassell on behalf of a patient who  walked away after reading the sign on Cassell’s door.

“It’s a clear violation of AMA ethics rules- its inhuman to treat another person like that,” Grayson told Countdown host Keith Olbermann. “What’s he’s doing is trying to tear up the social contract..where does it end? When right-wing doctors only treat right-wing patients..?”

Some right-wing doctors have threatened to leave medicine as a result of  healthcare reform. Cassell hasn’t said that, but perhaps one of the unintended consequences of reform would be to eventually weed out doctors like him,  and gradually replace them with physicians with compassion for human beings, and who choose medicine for the right reasons.

After 40 years of working in the trenches to empower low-income people, ACORN – the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now –  is closing its doors.

The organization has declared bankruptcy, staffers across the country have been laid off, offices are shuttered.  Many of its chapters have disbanded and the few remaining will go forward as  independent community groups without a national voice or affiliation.

You would think that the announcement that ACORN was closing its doors would be enough for the right-wing noise machine that has made the organization’s destruction a top priority for years. So far, that’s not been the case.

“ACORN is not dead or even dying – its just transforming itself into something else,” writes right-wing blogger, David Horowitz calling ACORN”s demise, ” a hoax in progress.”

Glenn Beck warned his empty-headed followers not to believe that ACORN is gone. “The press reporting that they are going out of business. They’re bankrupt. Don’t fall for the silly ruse that ACORN is out of business.”

Though ACORN is gone, the fear-mongering goes on.  Louisiana Sen. David Vitter even tried to attach another defund ACORN amendment to the health-care reconciliation bill  the same day the group was  declared bankrupt. The Congress passed a bill last year to defund ACORN, which was later ruled unconstitutional, but the damage had already been done.

Apparently unaware their foe has been vanquished, some tea-partiers at the Capitol carried anti-Obama/ACORN signs while screaming every kind of epithet at congress members during the healthcare reform vote.

Instead of uncorking the champagne bottles, the right-wing appears haunted by the idea that somewhere out there, low-income people may still have the capability to fight disenfranchisement and stand up for their rights as working people.  This victory  over ACORN does not appear to comfort them. In an odd way, the right wing still appears to need ACORN to demonize.

A barn that takes months to build can be kicked down  in minutes by a jackass, the old saying goes.

ACORN’s demise was aided by its own internal problems, such as was a  non-existent communications staff which left them no way to get their side of the story out, and a national staff too busy fighting each other to handle the threat coming.”What took 40 years to build was destroyed by a 20 minute video tape,”  Maud Hurd, ACORN’s president said recently.

The media certainly did its part to  help destroy ACORN. The New York Times belatedly announced last week that it may have gotten the ACORN story wrong, but oh well, maybe next time we’ll get it right.

There are other groups out there that will pick up the tasks of voter registration, organizing against the banks and fighting foreclosure. Only a few can do the shoe-leather work of organizing in America’s poorest neighborhoods that ACORN did.  Perhaps what the right-wing fears most is that poor and working class people simply can’t afford to just give up.