What an irony it was that the very person who cheer led the high priest of voodoo economics at a different point in political time nailed it down precisely as the danger it constitutes.

Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush, or Bush the Elder, sought the Republican nomination in 1980 at a time when the eastern Republican Party establishment was on its last legs.

This was not the same Bush we saw eight years later exploiting through communications mudmeister Lee Atwater bogus issues like Willie Horton and the pledge of allegiance while solidly touting his membership in the National Rifle Association.

The George Bush of 1988 positioned himself in many ways like his son 12 years later as a grand Texas cowboy, a good old gun touting American buttressed by God, Mom, apple pie and the flag.

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(from The Paragraph) During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, Republicans latched onto three theories that allowed them to hand out tax cuts and pile up debt. One theory is “Starve the Beast“, which says to cut taxes now, so to bring on a budget crisis that would force cuts in social spending later. As one Republican consultant put it: “[W]e have to ‘starve the beast.’ Cutting their allowance is the only way to put politicians on a spending leash. And that means tax cuts, tax cuts and more tax cuts.”¹ A second theory is “Voodoo Economics“, which says that tax cuts — especially for the rich and corporations — would heat the economy and actually boost tax revenue.² When Ronald Reagan touted this policy in the 1980 presidential race, George H. W. Bush, his opponent in the Republican primary, argued against it — and coined the term: “[I]t just isn’t gonna work … this type of what I call a voodoo economic policy.”³ A third theory is the “Two Santa Claus Theory“, which tells Republicans to play the tax-cut Santa so to rival the Democratic social-spending Santa. The author of the theory, Jude Wanniski, wrote: “The political tension in the marketplace of ideas must be between tax reduction and spending increases, and as long as Republicans have insisted upon balanced budgets, their influence as a party has shriveled …”⁴ These three theories came to a boil with the presidency of George W. Bush, which pushed through big tax cuts for millionaires and big spending hikes for the military.⁵ Seven months into his term, when a report showed that the surplus left by President Bill Clinton was quickly dwindling, Bush called it “incredibly positive news.”⁶ Later, Vice President Dick Cheney hit the same note, saying: “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”⁷ After eight years of Bush — helped along by millionaires pumping their tax cut money into the Wall Street bubble, and the Bush regime borrowing gobs of money to waste on war — the economy crashed.⁸ Now, a year-and-a-half later, the country is still reeling from the Bush Crash — with one-in-five persons without full-time work, and cities and townships cutting teachers,firefighters and police.⁹

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Thanks to some current national polling the faux Tea Party movement has been exposed even more.

Skepticism on the part of many progressives that the movement is nothing more than the same old right wing Gingrich, Norquist, Rove, Armey, DeLay crowd dressed up in a phony label to make it sound refreshingly new and patriotic have been vindicated.

How nauseating it is to listen to those earnest pronouncements that this is a grassroots populist movement historically extending from Boston Tea Party resistance. These are supposedly individuals concerned about the impact debt is generating on American society. They are determined to do something about it, and so this line of argument proceeds.

Recent national polling strips more bark from the fallacious Tea Party tree. There appear to be two active levels of the Tea Party. The first group is comprised of a mentality akin to Storm Troopers that got rough on Berlin’s streets when they had superior numbers and passed out literature in the period before Hitler’s securing of power. These individuals were manipulated by the likes of Goebbels and other Nazi high command figures.

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Sarah Palin is the same type of dream come true for media spin control operatives as was Ronald Reagan.

As a trained actor Ronald Reagan was accustomed to doing as directors told him. He was easily manageable for the Kitchen Cabinet of millionaires that launched him into politics in sixties’ California for his first run for governor along with his political strategy guiding hand, seasoned professional Stuart Spencer.

Spencer in concert with other handlers Reagan obtained when moving from state to national politics in a successful run for the presidency, resulting in two terms served, sought to turn a potential negative into a positive.

When skepticism was voiced over Reagan’s experience deficiencies in the political realm Spencer’s spin control campaign was to turn him into a “citizen politician” able to rise above partisan political considerations.

In the case of Reagan there was an effort made to make him look like the poised and responsive man in the neatly tailored suit, always ready to act on the people’s business and representing a sharp corporate style team.

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President Barack Obama just announced that the U.S. government "must stand against torture wherever it takes place," but it’s clear that his pledge does not apply to torture committed by officials from the Bush administration.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Obama quietly released a statement on Friday in which he said, “My administration is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims.”

Obama's statement left out his decision to “look forward, not backward” on the issue of Bush-era torture or how he has discouraged any investigation of former President George W. Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials involved in sanctioning and practicing torture, brutal tactics that human groups claim killed at least 100 prisoners in U.S. custody

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George W. Bush's Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn't even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case - which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later - was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.

The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers - Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury - for violating "professional standards."

Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury also shocked many who have read their memos in the last week by their use of clinical and legalistic jargon that sometimes took on an otherworldly or Orwellian quality. Bybee's August 1, 2002, legal memo - drafted by Yoo - argued that waterboarding could not be torture because it does not "inflict physical pain."

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