The Republican faith in free markets has always struck me as being odd given that in every other place, man has long concluded that randomness is definitively inferior to things guided by intelligent beings. Given how many Republicans believe in "intelligent design" it seems ironic that when it comes to economics, Republicans are strict evolutionists. The economy is like a garden. If you just let it run wild and free, eventually it'll get taken over with weeds and the best part of it will ...

The melt down on wall street is exactly what happens when you have a Republican and a Republican congress. Their faith in letting the market decides means that everyone else, the hard working Americans who make life in this nation possible, suffer the consequences for the greed at the top. Republicans always claim that communism doesn't work because it doesn't work with human beings. Humans are too greedy and selfish for communism to work. But Democrats never argue in favor of Communism. They...

The CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have driven their companies into the ground, costing tax payers billions of dollars, but don't worry, they won't be leaving empty handed. The two CEOs will walk away with a combined exit package of $13 million on top of the $30 million combined salaries they "earned" last year while driving their respective companies into the ground. This is what we mean by excessive compensation for CEOs. Even when they utterly fail, they are richly rewarded. ...

For the last 8 years we've seen a President brings new meaning to the term croneyism. Bush may not be an evil man but he's going to go down in history as one of the most inept Presidents of all time. The complaint about Obama's experience is largely irrelevant. Obama has what it takes to lead this nation. We don't need an administrator, we need a leader and between McCain and Obama the choice is clear.  McCain's choice of Palin highlights McCain's lack of a consistent vision. Is he a ...

McCain's speech has proven a couple of things. Number one, he is not a great speaker. Number two, his prescription to solve America's ills are to do more of the same. McCain, who votes with Bush 90 percent of the time, thinks the solution to our problems is to give the rich more money, keep spending the country's blood and treasure in Iraq, and hope everything turns out okay. That's the definition of insane. McCain calls for lower taxes. Taxes were higher in the 90s and that seemed to work...

Despite the Republicans doing nothing but damaging the economy, ruining the reputation of the United States across the world and getting us into a disastrous war in Iraq, the Democrats may still lose the Presidency. Obama needs to take the bold step and tell the American people the real facts that conservative America have distorted of the years. We don't live in a democracy or a republic. We live in a corporate controlled obliarchy. The laws and rules are set up to ensure that a tiny perc...

A rich man earns 3 apples a week by selling his products to consumers. The rich man demands that he keeps all 3 apples for himself and pays what he arbitrarily decides to pay his workers. But too many of his potential customers can no longer pay for his product because their jobs have been moved overseas and the infrastructure is falling apart. Soon, the rich man is only earning 2 apples and then 1 apple and then no apples. If only the rich man had been willing to give up one of h...

Conservatives like to say "We just want to be left alone". Except when they don't want to be left alone. Without the government you would be a slave to someone else. It is only because of the government that people have any rights at all. Leave capitalism unchecked and one corporation ends up controlling everything.

Radio host Shawn Hannity today complained about how Democrats abuse the power of government to try to control what people do. His complaint centered on the thought that if we had government managed health care that the government might start telling people that they shouldn't eat junk food and excercising more. He used this as an example of how the Democrats are always trying to use government to tell people how they should live. And then moments later without irony, Hannity discussed how the...

Is the world still dangerous? Yea. What are the Republicans doing about it? Not much.  After leading us to a distractive war in Iraq, the Republicans have little to show for the last few years. Let's look at the record. 1... While the deficit boomed, Republicans provided the wealthiest 1% with a massive tax cut. Yes, it was technically across the board. But the richest who pay the most got a huge windfall even as the deficit grows. Who gives tax cuts in a time of war? The rich did well in t...

Today Bush outlined that US interrogators need to be able to use torture in order to get information out of captives. A lot of interrogators say that torture isn't effective, they'll just lie.  What torture does do is erode the already low standing that America has in the rest of the world.

Any non partisan person who visits JoeUser long enough will get the feeling that the site is a right wing leaning site. They'd be right. Part of the reason has to do with many of the better writers here just happen to be conservatives. But another reason is that some of the right wingers act like packs of predators, baiting and chasing off anyone who dares espouse other points of view. The way they do it is simple, they piss them off. Whenever a progressive post is written, a pack of mean-spi...

In an era where Republicans paint their foes with the big brush of "liberal, terrorist-loving, unpatriotic, welfare supporting losers" these same folks have remarkably fragile feelings when Howard Dean points out the obvious. Republicans, by and large, are predominantly the party of white Christians whereas the Democrats represent everyone else. Fox News and other conservative media only manage to trot out one meaningful statistic, that Bush got 40% of the hispanic vote. Does that mean what D...

Listen to Rush Limbaugh or any prominent "conservative" these days with an open mind and you'll start to notice a change in what they're all about.  It's not about principles. It's about winning. Period. The Republicans control the house, the senate, and the Presidency. They've got everything they want. And what are they doing with it? Squandering it.  What ever happened to all the big, principled ideas that the right always claimed they had? Remember the Contract with America? How ...

Those who think that the right of American politics is all about Jesus should think again. Conservatives have a religion they are much more faithful to despite far more evidence that it's a fraud. That religion is free trade. Free trade as a concept is fine. Eliminate trade barriers between countries to allow both parties access at the other's market.  But in practice, it doesn't work so well when one party's par capita GNP is massively higher than the other. That's where you get Ross Pe...