Despite dropping in the polls, Michele Bachmann is undeterred. God will, evidently, perform a miracle and vault her to the White House, no matter what.

In a town hall appearance Thursday in South Carolina, Bachmann answered a question from "undecided voter" Nikki Haley about the NLRB and Boeing (video above), and then made a couple of astonishing claims, even for her.

Politico:

The Minnesota congresswoman struck an urgent tone, issuing dire warnings to voters of the consequences of not electing a Republican who will repeal Obama’s health care law in 2012.

“I have wept in Washington, D.C., watching what’s happening to our country,” Bachmann said.

Speaking in hushed and sometimes pleading tones, she warned that the implementation of Obama’s health care law would be a death knell to conservatism in America. “You can’t put socialized medicine into a country and think that ever again you can elect as president a Republican or conservative or even a tea partier and think somehow we’re going to get back to limited government. It won’t happen because socialized medicine is the definition of big government,” she said.

“That’s why this is it — 2012 is it,” she added, calling it a “last-chance election” for the country.

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The recent war over the federal budget and debt ceiling were simply the latest in a long line of skirmishes where Democrats - the self-described practitioners of "good faith" and seekers of compromise - found themselves in a pitched policy battle with recalcitrant Republicans. Right-wingers so high on radical, Randian, tea-party-brewed, Kool Aid, that anything short of dismantling the Federal Government and requiring universal tattooing of Milton Friedman where-the-sun-don't-shine was treason.

After its humble beginnings as an astroturf, Koch-Brothers-funded revival aimed at mobilizing ill-informed, reactionary, mostly older white Americans against health care reform and psychologically-constructed monsters under the bed, the tea party has become an malignant force that now holds the Republican Congressional Caucus - and with it the country - hostage.

While the Stockholm Syndrome may not have quite set in yet among all Republicans, the tri-corner-hat crowd seems to behave much like the giant Brain Bug in the movie Starship Troopers, jamming a claw into the heads of their fellow GOPers and slowly sucking out cerebral tissue until only the brainless body remains.

Most problematic, most of the tea partiers, private citizens and elected officials alike, seem to possess just slightly less understanding of the Federal budget or tax code of than say, Mater from Cars. Yet, these are the people in the driver's seat as the country heads for what might be Act II of the Great Recession, unless progressives, centrists, and others edified with high school civics adopt a new strategy to counter them.

And counter them we must, for they and their ilk are nothing new, but representative of a recurring and quite dangerous political strain that has always been with us. Their undermining of the traditions, culture, and give-and-take necessary for any democracy to function has had destructive results on free societies in the past, and taken down a Republic or three.

This is what President Obama seems constitutionally unable to grasp. That even if they are a sometimes useful foil, and (sadly) sometimes equally useful in getting him the policy results he wishes, by definition the Tea Party brigade sees any compromise as evil, because everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan is viewed as a mortal threat to their imagined perfect society, which looks a lot like Utah.

With fewer minorities. And a lot more Jesus.

None other than former Secretary of State and one-time Republican wunderkind Henry Kissinger understood this to be true. In his first book on the Napoleonic wars, Kissinger offered an almost perfect description - on the international stage - of what can happen when an entity with no interest in compromise and no problem destroying the current order gains control of major political party or country:

"It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is 'good faith' and 'willingness to come to an agreement'"; in a revolutionary situation "each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. In such circumstances many will see the early demands of a revolutionary power as 'merely tactical' and will delude themselves that the revolutionary power would actually accept the status quo with a few modifications."

Kissinger concluded that, "Coalitions against revolutions have usually come about only at the end of a long series of betrayals ... for the powers which represent legitimacy ... cannot 'know' that their antagonist is not amenable to 'reason' until he has demonstrated [that he is not]."

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Just imagine there was a giant swarm of super-super liberal freshmen in Congress. They had given the President a “shellacking,” secured a large number of seats in the House of Representatives and had been on the job for eight months. Just a bunch of lockstep liberals clogging up the Capitol. In that time, they’d done amazingly little work while cashing their government paychecks. Sure, they’re supposed to represent a nation still wounded from the worst economic disaster in two generations, instead they spend all of their time debating and passing symbolic go-nowhere bills while going on television to blame the economy on the President. That’s when they’re not on recess. These freshmen hate Washington so much they’re almost never there.

Oh, and their battle cry while doing nothing which keeps the government from functioning? “Washington is broken!”

These imagined liberal freshmen are extremists. They’ve already signed a pledge with a liberal lobbyist saying that they will not – under any circumstances whatsoever – cut, alter or in anyway change social safety nets. So whatever burning national issue of overriding importance comes up their only solution is to adhere to their lobbyist’s pledge.

The Smurfs use the word “smurf” for all verbs. As in: “I’m going to smurf you!” These extreme no-lawmakers use “social security.” As in: “We can social security our way out of this crisis.”

And they want to re-write the Constitution. Yes, they say it’s a great document (blah blah blah) but it would be much better if it were amended to suit their sole goal of bringing down the incumbent President. So since the last amendment took 203 years from proposal to ratification – they decide no one can do anything until we have another amendment.

Then the polls say that Congress’ approval rating is at an all time low. The margin of error looks more favorably on the Congress than the American public. As a direct result of the brazen incompetence and blind ideology - a rating agency downgrades the country’s Treasuries. The stock market tumbles. These liberal tea party-like folks are caught on video cheering at the news of the chaos they’ve caused.

If they were liberals - Fox News would run headlines: “Liberals Hate America.” Well, basically Fox News would say pretty much the same stuff, but in this case it would be warranted.

These liberal obstructionists would be called terrorists. Not just maybe once in a private off the record meeting with the VP – but on the record and all the time. Since these liberal freshmen would seem to have the same economic goals for the U.S. as Osama bin Laden – that would be pointed out repeatedly. They’d be accused of treason. Their loyalty would be questioned: “Are they upholding the Constitution or their pledge?” There would be calls to deport them. People would tell them to leave the country and go wreck some other economy. They’d be dubbed a hoard of Neros fiddling with their pledges while Rome burned.

If liberals were doing to the country what extremist tea party Republicans are doing – it would be called unpatriotic. A whole tsunami of sound bites would sweep the country calling for the sabotage to stop.

Liberal dissent is akin to a security breach but conservative economic calamity is given a pass. We’ve treated the tea party like they are our country’s kooky, graying, drunken uncle at Thanksgiving dinner spouting some non sequiturs he picked up on AM radio. When really they are well-funded economic saboteurs who refuse to participate in the democratic process. Their goal of causing the executive branch of government to fail means our entire country goes with it.

The media likes to pretend it treats the political spectrum as opposite equals. The right is the same as the left – the other side of the same argument. Politics is not symmetrical nor is the coverage of the partisans. Nothing makes this clearer than the coverage and tolerance of the brinksmanship-happy tea party.

If liberals did this to their own country they’d be called criminals. The tea party did do this to their own country and they are treated like avant-garde Civil War reenactors.

The difference between a documentary and a reality show is staging. A documentary tells a story about real life. The subjects are normally not paid, not actors and the story is non-fiction. It’s a quiet, illuminating and thoughtful genre (read: boring).

Reality shows are like life, in that people on these programs do things people do in real life, (i.e. travel, date, lose weight) but the circumstances are contrived. The contestants are put in artificial situations with heightened rewards and it’s put on camera. The stakes are fake. The participants pre-screened. The episodes are scripted. It’s “reality” television.

It’s like reality…only augmented for drama and ratings.

Enter the United States Government. Civics and public servants are usually a snooze fest. Rules and procedures and suit-fillers giving long speeches are not all that interesting. Sure there was the occasional duel involving a member of Congress in the last 235 years. Bill Clinton’s enemies brought us a primetime sex scandal. But for the most part politics was watching history in the making, which is like watching anything else being made…slow and tedious.

Think documentary.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment politics crossed over into full reality show mayhem. These things usually happen in a “perfect storm” situation. Meaning: it wasn’t just one thing. It was a couple of unforeseen events happening all at once – all horrifying to Republicans. One was the meltdown of the financial system in 2008. It was the moment Bush had to “abandon free market principles to save the free market system” with TARP. The other was McCain’s concession. Go ahead and watch the speech again. The homogeneous crowd looks like they’re at a wake for a Ralph Lauren and L.L. Bean murder/suicide as their candidate says Barack Hussein Obama will be his president.

If deregulation and tax cuts had done what they was claimed they would do and not wreck the world’s economy – then maybe having a guy whose middle name was the same as a Middle Eastern dictator we’ve spent trillions to take out, as the new president – wouldn’t have seemed so drastic.

But this is the moment when politics went from CSPAN to Jerry Springer. What happens when a guest on Springer gets accused of something and he’s clearly at fault? He gets louder and starts throwing out desperate accusations. “How do I know you didn’t give it to me?!”

So instead of contrition – they opted for defensive blustering with something vaguely foreign-sounding to blame.

This is the tea party: Freaked out Republicans. Lovers of unpaid-for tax cuts, unpaid-for wars and saturnalia on Wall Street were faced with the evidence that their ideas, when implemented, are terrible. So they took a cue from reality shows – they went full bombast. Then it was Obama (whose name also sounds like Osama) who passed TARP and doubled the debt (when that actually happened under the “compassionate conservative” Bush with a GOP Congress).

And just like when reality show producers figured out backstabbing and borderline psychopathic contestants meant ratings – during the health care reform debate the Republicans learned anything chanted by old people on television (no matter how nonsensical) dominates the debate. “Keep the government out of my Medicare!”

For the last two and a half years politics has been trash television. We’ve had right-wing stars staying relevant through mudslinging and shamelessness. The tea party wouldn’t be satisfied with just one Snooki. We’ve had fake stings by phony pimps and ideology-driven hoaxes. Astroturf is being sold as organic outrage.

In short: it’s staged. It’s over-produced indignation by interest groups that don’t do as well in the dullness of documentary style politics and need the chaos of the ridiculous to keep progress at bay.

Cutting government spending (think government jobs) during record unemployment? More tax cuts for the top 1% during record low tax rates and unprecedented tax exemptions? Do these ideas sound like something people come up with when they’re not just cynically throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks?

How many times do the cable news networks need to have a countdown clock up for congressional dustups that could shut down the government?

We’re being held captive by stunts. Choreographed stunts. This is not what deliberative government looks like.

This is what deliberate turmoil looks like.

Re-printed with permission

Not very many people seem to have caught the drift of this recent Glenn Beck rant, which was noted at Media Matters for its classic Beckian illogic, with the Mad Hatter declaring that if we can't use Hitler analogies in "logical conversation," then "We are going to be a society of gas chambers!"

What he and his sidekick were talking about, though, was comparing the Obama administration to Hitler and the Nazis in the event the president decides to simply invoke the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling by executive order. Because then, you see, he would just be a dictator.

This is the narrative that's gradually building on the Right as a counter-narrative to the obvious point that if Obama uses the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling, it will be because Republicans in Congress failed to act. No, instead, it will be because he is intent on seizing dictatorial powers.

And for that, they will then argue, he must be impeached.

Andrew Sullivan lays it out:

Here's the scenario. The House GOP pushes for completely unserious Boehner plan (including a balanced budget amendment) that they know will be vetoed; they then filibuster the Reid plan in the Senate, forcing Obama to invoke a 14th Amendment executive prerogative, which they will then turn around and impeach him for.

Far-fetched? I hope so. But every time you think you have reached the end of Republican extremism, they manage to move further out of the solar system.

It's not really that far-fetched, considering that Republicans have been mouthing the I-word with great lust for some time now. Last we heard, they wanted to impeach him over Libya.

If he resorts to the 14th Amendment, they are already lining up to impeach him. Right-wing talk-show host Mark Levin said it explicitly two weeks ago:

If Barack Obama attempts to destroy the Separation of Powers doctrine, if he intends to seize Congressional power when it comes to borrowing and spending despite the plain wording of Article 1 Section 8 Clause 2. In other words if he’s going to violate his oath of office…then he needs to be impeached.

…

Should he attempt to seize explicit Congressional power, we’ve got to make a case that we don’t like dictators in this country and that we will not accept dictators in this country. There’s not even a colorable argument that can be made that justifies the President of the United States seizing for himself the authority to “borrow money on the credit of the United States.” And should Chuck Schumer continue to urge this and should the President do it, then Chuck Schumer should be expelled from the United States Senate when the Republicans take it back over as they will.

We already know that Republicans believe it's smart political strategy to destroy the economy so that it can be blamed on Obama. They're willing to throw the country into economic ruin just in the hopes that it will work to their political advantage.

And if the president stops them? They will make him pay.

Anyone remember what it was like to work in the late 1990s? The memories are fading fast as the years of persistent joblessness pile up -- years that began well before the big crash in 2008, when it was already self-evident that the Bush administration's claims that massive tax cuts for the wealthy were the sure route to full employment were an epochal load of hooey. Now even that seems like a quaint and distant memory.

In 1998, it was a workers' market: Everyone I know had a good job, and a lot of them were in the tech sector. Good benefits were a given, as were good salaries. If the working conditions sucked, there was always someone else who offered a better environment and maybe better pay too.

That was before the tech bubble burst in 2001. I spent that year working in investment journalism in a newsroom that primarily revolved around the stock market.

I remember remarking on a number of articles we published in which corporate honchos bitched bitterly about the fact that they had lost the ability to control their workers, to ignore their workplace demands, and to short-change their benefits, or whatever other steps they might take to shore up their corporate bottom lines and make their shareholders happier. I remember thinking at the time that the economic tides would inevitably turn, and the next time these folks wound up on top and it became, once again, an employer's market, they would make certain that they never found themselves in that position again.

We used to joke, back in the '90s, that a recession was the Republican way of shortening the lift lines. It's a truism that the wealthy despise having to share too much of their space with too many other people. And in the late '90s, they were having to share their space with a whole lot of freshly well-to-do people.

Well, that isn't an issue now. Problem solved. I imagine the wintertime lift lines at Sun Valley are pretty wide open these days.

Because the reality, of course, is that while the average CEO now makes (as of 2009) only 263 times what his average worker makes (down from a high of 525 times in 2000), they almost never in fact take the windfalls they reap from those huge tax breaks and actually invest the money in employing people. Instead, they ratchet up their bonuses and salaries another notch or two, buy another yacht or another condo in the Bahamas, and tuck the rest away in a tax-free account in the Caymans.

They're currently proving, by sidelining all this cash, that giving them tax breaks doesn't do a damned thing for job creation -- perhaps it does exactly the opposite.

Moreover, they continue reaping large salaries while worker payrolls are slashed. Now people just cling to whatever jobs they can, keep their heads down, and count their lucky stars if they still have work. Either that, or they join the ranks of the eternal jobless.

A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the ongoing hoarding of large sums of cash by corporate CEOs was "not sustainable". But instead, not only have they sustained it, the hoarding and resulting joblessness have soured whatever faint signs of a recovery we saw in 2000-2010.

Another bit of conventional wisdom we keep hearing is that 9 percent unemployment may be with us for quite awhile. They seem to be institutionalizing the joblessness -- and are quite content to do so.

This was what my late friend Frank Church used to tell me:

One comment in particular, however, stands out in my mind these days. We were talking about America's future, and where the conservative cadre that was then taking over the Republican Party intended to take us. His expression darkened, and it was clear that he had a good deal of foreboding in this regard. "What I fear most," he said, "is the Latin Americanization of America."

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Here's a dirty little secret: While there's a wealth gap in general, it is a gaping maw when it comes to minorities and the rest of the world.

Pew Research:

The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.

Unsurprisingly, it's a combination of Bush era policies and the recession, which caused higher rates of unemployment working in tandem with plummeting home values in Hispanic and black neighborhoods.

As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth (assets minus debts) in 2009, the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth and the typical white household had $113,149.

Moreover, about a third of black (35%) and Hispanic (31%) households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15% of white households. In 2005, the comparable shares had been 29% for blacks, 23% for Hispanics and 11% for whites.

It's the "why" that's concerning. Plummeting home values took a far higher toll on minorities. Jack and Jill Politics:

What the study makes clear is that the wealth of most black folks and Hispanics is in their homes, whereas the wealth of whites is much more diversified in stocks and other things. So when the value of a black or Hispanic family’s home goes through the floor, that pretty much wipes us out financially because we have nothing else to fall back on. Now add to that a bit of history, referring of course to all those vicious subprime loans that screwed so many families who wound up losing their homes to what was essentially a Wall Street invention.

Minorities are also subject to exploitive financial schemes, like payday lending and ridiculous car loans. Colorlines reports:

But that’s still more symptom than root cause. Black and Latino families are also far more likely to live in places crawling with expensive, deceptive consumer lending of all sorts, from car loans to refinance mortgages. They are more likely to turn to that lending because they make less money and because they already hold less wealth to cushion themselves in tough times. It’s an ugly cycle: inequality across the economy creates demand for predatory credit to bridge the gap, which in turn worsens inequality.

Is it any wonder Republicans are taking aim at any regulation of the financial industry, given how they've benefitted from it? It certainly casts a shiny light on their efforts to gut the CFPB.

Sidenote: TheGrio has an article with ideas for how minorities can take control of their finances and fight back on their own. And as long as I'm linking it, I'd like to give a big congratulations to my friend Joy-Ann Reid of The Reid Report for being hired as The Grio's managing editor, which will also involve appearances as an analyst on MSNBC. Congratulations!

At least there's some hope emerging out of this idiotic, Republican-manufactured "crisis" over the public debt ceiling. They're getting hammered in the polls over this.

PPP says momentum is swinging back the other way in House races:

Democrats lead this month 46-44 on the generic House ballot. That's a 9 point shift from the Republicans' 7 point margin of victory on that measure in November's election and although it might not be enough to give them back control that margin would almost definitely translate to Democrats winning back a lot of the seats that they lost last fall. The GOP does maintain an 8 point advantage with independents at 41-33, but that represents a significant decline from their 19 point victory with them according to last year's exit polls.

John Boehner is not proving to be popular with the American public. 33% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 37% who disapprove, with independents splitting against him by a 34/37 margin almost identical to the overall numbers. He does have one thing going for him though- with Republicans he's at 55/15, suggesting there's not too much opposition to him within the party. We also found on our GOP primary poll earlier this week that 41% of Republican voters have a higher opinion of Boehner to just 18% who picked Eric Cantor so there's not any appetite for a change in leadership at least with the public at large.

The House landscape has shifted dramatically in the last 9 months.

Awww, poor John Boehner. I'd love to hear what the numbers are on Eric Cantor.

Other results from the poll (and this is not a joke):

Though Congress is hardly popular, it can take solace in that voters like Rupert Murdoch a whole lot less. With a phone hacking scandal engulfing News Corp, voters don’t appear to consider Murdoch an innocent party. Only 12% of voters hold a favorable opinion of Murdoch compared to 49% who view him unfavorably. Unsurprisingly, those who identify as very liberal see Murdoch unfavorably, giving him a 9-60 rating, but even very conservatives don’t like Murdoch, rating him 23-27. Though not the most popular figure PPP has polled, if God exists, voters are prepared to give it good marks. Voters approve of God’s performance by 52-9 margin, making God about as popular as Murdock is unpopular. When asked to evaluate God on some of the issues it is responsible for, voters give God its best rating on creating the universe, 71-5. They also approve of its handling of the animal kingdom 56-11, and even its handling of natural disasters 50-13. Young voters are prepared to be more critical of God on natural disasters with those 18-29 rating it 59-26 compared to 47-12 among those over 65.

Full report here. (PDF)

The combination of this Washington Post article, with its references to Grover Norquist’s sacred texts, and the Jon Stewart clip below had me highly entertained today:

Far-right Republican fundamentalists have led their party straight into a concrete dead end. No one except their own tiny minority of no tax/no government churchgoers is buying their shtick anymore, and they are trapped. No fact can reach them, because their dogma is too thick. No argument or logic will sway them. Polling showing them losing the issue debate by big numbers doesn’t matter. Appeals to their morality fall on deaf ears.

But now they are in even deeper trouble, because their corporate masters have come calling. The bankers on Wall Street know that while most Americans would feel the effects of the economic consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, they would be the first to feel the pain, and that isn’t acceptable to them, so they are calling in their massive amount of chits. John Boehner being willing to cut a deal with Obama on taxes was the first sign of it; Mitch McConnell turning tail and crying uncle with his rather strange proposal was the second signal. There’s a problem, though: the Republicans have dug themselves so far in with the tea partiers on the lunatic fringe, they are having trouble returning to the land of reality. In the 30 years I have been involved in politics, the Republicans have been one of the most disciplined, lockstep political machines in American history, but today they are in complete disarray. It’s called meltdown, and it isn’t pretty. Caught between crazy tea partiers and big business guys used to having their orders followed to a T, they are in a very bad place.

I have plenty of complaints about Democratic politicians, but at least most of them are sane. The Republicans have locked themselves in a big building that looks increasingly like an asylum, and they are in deep trouble. We’ll see what happens next, but it doesn’t get more interesting than this.

This sneering, preening performance by the new Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, yesterday on Fox News really set me off, for some reason. As you can see, it's all about blaming Democrats for the state of the economy, insisting that they are somehow responsible for the ballooning federal deficit and the need to raise the debt ceiling. That's the thrust of the RNC's latest round of Obama-bashing ads.

You certainly can't say they lack for chutzpah.

Look, this meme has been building ever since the Tea Partiers started raging about the deficit and the debt, and now it's the official Republican talking point. It all makes me want to ask:

Where do you guys get the balls to lecture Democrats about deficit spending and the state of the economy?

Seriously.

The previous Democratic president -- a guy named Bill Clinton, who Republicans hounded with a meaningless sex scandal -- handed off to his Republican successor a $46 billion federal surplus after having erased the deficit for three successive years.

That surplus disappeared the first year George W. Bush was in office, even before the 9/11 attacks happened, in no small part because Bush began slashing taxes for the wealthy immediately upon taking office. And then he and his Republican allies running the Congress proceeded to ring up the deficit to unheard-of heights, thanks largely to a needless invasion of another nation under false pretenses.

Where were all these Republicans in the years 2001-2006, when they were setting new records for federal deficits and destroying the economy along the way?

And then blaming Obama and the Democrats for lost jobs really takes the cake. It's undoubtedly true that Obama's policies have not restored jobs in anything near an adequate fashion. But those millions of jobs were destroyed on Republicans' economic watch, as a result of Republican economic policies.

Fixing the economy is indeed a much bigger uphill climb than the Pollyannas on the White House economic team reckoned. But Republicans have done nothing but make it harder, by obstructing every Democratic initiative to stimulate the economy and improve our economic competitiveness (which was what the health-care debate was largely about), not to mention the employment picture generally.

Indeed, it's now becoming crystal clear that they are perfectly willing to wreck the American economy entirely in order to defeat Obama's economic policies, such as they are. And at the same time, they not only plan to blame Obama for the wreckage, they are already doing so.

Remind me again why our president is deluded into believing he can bargain in good faith with these people.

OK, rant over.