Ayn Rand has become something of a resuscitated icon of late, certainly within the ranks of the Tea Party who have embraced her Extreme Capitalist and Anti-Government theories with almost romantic fervor.

In 1971, as part of the Comment series on NBC , Rand was asked to deliver an essay on her views regarding the Ecology movement.

Ayn Rand: “Ecology is the war on abundance, fought by the same people who are fighting the war on Poverty. The Ecologists claim that local pollution affects the whole world and threatens the survival of all living species. There is no scientific proof of this claim and none has ever been offered, on the grounds of nothing but arbitrary projections and panic mongering slogans, the ecologists are urging mankind to commit suicide by paralyzing industrial production. Their immediate but not ultimate goal is the destruction of the last remnants of freedoms of capitalism in our mixed economy and the establishment of a global dictatorship. In order to protect our natural environment, this means to enslave mankind on order to protect weeds, birds and reptiles.”

Her views were, at best, extreme and she has certainly not been without her detractors, nor fans in high places. Alan Greenspan has claimed to be a great follower of her ideals. That she paints everything in the most dire and dystopic of terms probably speaks more to her Russian background than anything else. As was once pointed out, her style was reminiscent of "philosophy as it's written in the Soviet Union" and has been challenged, debunked and left quietly as an antique of history over the years, until recently.

History is forever astonishing and baffling and it's jammed with contradictions, just like Ayn Rand.

I don't think HuckaJesus is actually going to run for president this time around because he's enjoying his good-paying gig over at Fox too much, but if he surprises me and does run, add this to the long list of items that should make him unelectable.

Mike Huckabee Says He Wants Americans To Be Indoctrinated At Gunpoint:

Did Mike Huckabee just flush his presidential aspirations down the proverbial toilet? Well, if American mainstream media has an ounce of journalistic gumption remaining the answer most certainly would be “yes”. Huckabee has just been caught on video, at a Christian supremacist conference, stating that Americans should be forcibly indoctrinated at gunpoint. The organization which hosted the “Rediscover God In America” conference, United in Purpose, has edited Huckabee’s comment from footage of his speech, but not before People For The American Way’s Kyle Mantyla captured the unedited footage, in which Mike Huckabee states, “I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”

David Barton is the leading promoter of a brand of falsified American history altered to support the claim that America was founded as a Christian, rather than a secular, nation. As Chris Rodda, who has authored an entire book debunking Barton’s brand of pseudo-history, writes,

I was quite surprised… to come across a video clip from this conference on the People for the American Way (PFAW) Right Wing Watch blog with the headline “Huckabee: Americans Should Be Forced, At Gunpoint, To Learn From David Barton.” I had watched Huckabee’s speech. How on earth could I have missed a statement like that? Well, I didn’t. It had been edited out of the webcast that I had watched.

Kyle Mantyla over at PFAW’s Right Wing Watch had recorded Huckabee’s speech when it was streamed live on Thursday, and posted the ‘forced at gunpoint’ clip on Friday. By Saturday, when I watched the webcast on the United in Purpose website, that part of Huckabee’s speech had been edited out.

More there so go read the rest. Our own Dave Neiwert has more on Barton and Glenn Beck and Huckabee's promotion of him on Fox here -- Beck's 'Plan' will feature fake history on church-state separation from David Barton

h/t Digby who wrote this about the AlterNet article:

Here's the latest on the GOP field:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would go toe-to-toe with President Obama if he sought the presidency in 2012, according to a new Fairleigh Dickinson University survey. Among registered voters nationwide, 46 percent said they'd vote for Huckabee and the same number would re-elect the president.

That's good. I think Huckabee would be a terrific president. In hell. [...]

If you read this blog you are familiar with David Barton. So are all the Tea partiers who think of Barton as the Commander in chief of Glenn Beck's Black Robed regiment. He is not just a socially conservative preacher. He's a full blown propagandist who's created an alternative history of the United States. It's not a good one.

He's a very dangerous man. And so, apparently, is Mike Huckabee.

h/t Susie. Anthony Weiner is hilarious at the Congressional Correspondence Dinner. Later, Ben Quayle? Um, not so much.

Open thread below....

I've been digging on IFC's new comedy series Portlandia,featuring SNL's Fred Armisen, and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame. I also like the theme song, so I looked it up and here it is. There have been many great T.V. theme songs over the years, and many existing songs used as theme songs. Whats' your favorite?

No end to drama or news on this day in 1971. Starting with Sentencing of Lt. William Calley for his role in the My Lai Massacre to life without parole at hard labor and a mass outpouring of support for Calley and suggestions he was scapegoat for an even more sinister involvement to the U.S. Military view of the Vietnam war. Aftershocks continued over Southern California with the latest registering between 4.0 and 4.5 after the big earthquake in February. The Senate Sub-committee, looking into the pension funds of 87 corporations found that only 10% of employees who participated in them ever saw any money (surprise). Jimmy Hoffa was denied parole from prison for a second time. Fighting was continuing in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam while the Pentagon came out with the (sort of) good news that the May draft call-up would be only 15,000, which was 2,000 less than the previous month and lowest for the year so far. A Bill introduced in the Senate to abolish the Draft was defeated by 73-11 and the National Association of Broadcasters released the results of a Roper Poll on People's Attitudes Towards TV News with the findings that most people still got their news from TV, with newspapers, radio and magazines following in that order. 49% thought TV news was most believable (?) - almost 50% believed no more government control was needed than was in place in 1971. And (get this . . .) a whopping 69% believed TV news was fair as far as political stances were concerned.

And . . .Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst said the Nixon Administration was against limiting political contributions. Fancy that.

All in a days news - this one via NBC Nightly News for Wednesday March 31, 1971. And the word for today is - "Pucker Power".

I've been digging on IFC's new comedy series Portlandia,featuring SNL's Fred Armisen, and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney fame. I also like the theme song, so I looked it up and here it is. There have been many great T.V. theme songs over the years, and many existing songs used as theme songs. Whats' your favorite?

Good grief. Looks like wingnut Louie "Terror Babies" Gohmert is at it again with the conspiracy theories.

Rep. Gohmert: Libya Goal Is To "Deplete The Military" So Obama Can Call Up Private Army:

Last night on the House floor, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) offered a bizarre new theory about President Obama's decision to intervene in the Libyan crisis. In the midst of a rant about health care reform, Gohmert nonsensically suggested that Obama might be trying to "deplete the military" in Libya, so he can call up the Commission Corps established in the Affordable Care Act:

GOHMERT: It's a bad bill. And then when you find out that the prior Congress not only passed that 2,800 page bill with all kinds of things in it, including a new president's commissioned officer corps and non-commissioned officer corps. Do we really need that? I wondered when I read that in the bill. But then when you find out we're being sent to Libya to use our treasure and American lives there, maybe there's intention to so deplete the military that we're going to need that presidential reserve officer commissioned corps and non-commissioned corps that the president can call up on a moment's notice involuntarily, according to the Obamacare bill.

Despite the claims in right-wing chain emails, the health care law did not give Obama some sort of "private army." The legislation did create the Ready Reserve Corps, a new component of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, but there was nothing nefarious about it. The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is simply to make the Public Health Service — which previously "did not have a reserve component to call upon" in times of crisis — better prepared to respond to emergencies.

As you can imagine, Fox News was all over the massive Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill today:

A small but vocal group of Tea Party activists gathered outside the Capitol on Thursday to urge House Republican leaders to hold the line and push for deeper spending cuts in the federal budget.

Chanting, “Cut it or shut it” and “We want less,” the activists directed their ire at Senate Democrats, arguing that the cuts they have demanded are not “extreme,” but necessary to right the nation’s fiscal ship.

As you can see, there were at least 8 million people there! Give or take about 7.9998 million.

Dave Weigel reports that there were about 200 in attendance, though he tartly adds: "If there's much media focus on how small the rally was, I think that would miss the point. There was a total sense of victory on display."

Yeah, not to mention a total sense of having a strangely mixed message. The Tea Partiers wanted to blame the Democrats for shutting down the government -- while simultaneously demanding a shutdown!

But some Senate Democrats have suggested those Tea Party principles are to blame for the current budget stalemate, saying they have led to infighting among House Republicans that is complicating negotiations. Republicans at the rally laid the blame for a potential shutdown square at the feet of Democratic leaders in the Senate.

"House Republicans have run headlong in to Harry Reid. Harry Reid actually took to the floor of the senate and said that our modest down payment on fiscal discipline was reckless, irresponsible, mean-spirited," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., told the boisterous crowd. "If liberals in the Senate would rather play political games and shut down the government instead of making a small down payment on fiscal discipline and reform, I say shut it down."

Not to mention the total sense of victory Tea Partiers are enjoying with the general public:

The public's approval of the conservative Tea Party has reached a new low, according to a poll released Wednesday.

A CNN/Opinion Research survey showed that only 32 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, while 47 percent view it unfavorably. Seven percent said they have not heard of the Tea Party, and 14 percent said they have no opinion.

No doubt this has nothing to do with the fact that Tea Partiers are increasingly over-the-cliff-batshit-crazy -- to the point that longtime mainstream conservatives are distancing themselves from them:

The Tea Party movement is brewing up a far different ideology that the country’s traditional, so-called “mainstream” conservatives, according to a new multi-state survey conducted by University of Washington political scientists.

The UW survey found Tea Party activists more likely to believe President Obama is a Muslim, less likely to believe he is American born, and far more likely to want the 44th president to fail.

The survey found that just 6 percent of mainstream conservatives believe President Obama is “destroying the country: 71 percent of Tea Party conservatives believe this to be true.’

Would-be Republican presidential candidates have “good reason” to court them, because people who support the Tea Party are “incredibly more political active than those who don’t,” said Christopher Parker, a UW associate professor of political science who led the survey.

“It will be hard to mollify them,” said Parker, adding in an interview: “We are seeing a split in the Republican Party right now.”

Among the differences between mainstream conservatives and Tea Partiers the survey found:

–Sixteen percent of mainstream conservatives believe that President Obama is a practicing Muslin: 27 percent of Tea Party conservatives believe that;

–Forty-six percent of mainstream conservatives believe Obama is a practicing Christian; but just 27 percent of Tea Party conservatives believe that;

–Fifty-five percent of mainstream conservatives believe Obama was born in the United States, compared to just 40 percent of Tea Party conservatives;

–Forty percent of mainstream conservatives believe Obama’s policies are pushing America toward socialism, but 75 percent of Tea Party conservatives say he is;

–Thirty two percent of mainstream conservatives want Obama’s policies to fail, but 76 percent of Tea Party conservatives want this to happen.

Of course, Fox's Megyn Kelly featured an interview with a Tea Partier making exalted claims on behalf of the movement -- in this case, Kitchen Table Patriots' Ana Puig, claiming that "the Tea Party movement is strengthening in numbers."

Sure they are. At least 8 million of them today, right?

From Democracy Now -- Jeremy Scahill and Ex-DIA Analyst Joshua Foust on "The Dangerous U.S. Game in Yemen" & CIA Ops in Libya:

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Yemen on Wednesday as part of the unwavering protests for the resignation of U.S.-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh. We speak to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, who argues the U.S. secret war has unintentionally played a significant role in weakening Saleh’s regime, and Joshua Foust, who recently left his post as Yemen analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency. We also get their reaction to the latest news CIA operatives are on the ground in Libya as part of a covert Western force to aid the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

Guests:

Jeremy Scahill, Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute and the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He blogs at TheNation.com.

Joshua Foust, fellow at the American Security Project and a former analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency specializing in Yemen.

You can read the full transcript at their site. Very good informative interview with Scahill and Foust unlike last night on Ed Schultz's show where he basically talked over Jeremy the the better part of the time he had him on. I know we've got a lot of varying opinions about whether it was a good decision to go into Libya or not, but we don't learn anything from people talking over each other.

And from Scahill at the end of the interview:

JEREMY SCAHILL: I also just wanted to say that for people who want to follow Yemen very closely, I would highly recommend checking out the blog of Professor Gregory Johnsen, who’s widely considered to be the leading U.S. expert on Yemen. It’s "Waq Al-Waq," but if you google Gregory Johnsen’s name, you’ll see. And he just has an incredible English-language update of the on-the-ground situation in Yemen.

AMY GOODMAN: And we will link to that at democracynow.org.

Ed Schultz talked to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich about the potential impasse we're looking at now and whether our government might be shut down if we can't get both sides to come to some agreement on our budget. Reich laid out pretty plainly just how dangerous it is to be talking about cuts at all while our economy is still so fragile.

I'm glad to see someone like Reich out there attempting to change the political dialog on these budget cuts and Ed Schultz having him on because for the most part our media is just accepting the Villager common wisdom that the poor and working class must suffer because our country "is broke" and we can't ever in a million years ask the ones holding more wealth in our country that has not been seen since the Gilded Age to ever have to suffer the horrible fate of paying more in taxes.

The fact that political games are being played in order to demand more from the working class while we have the largest income disparity since the Gilded Age is just disgusting, but it's not surprising given the fact that our political class for the most part has been bought and sold by their campaign contributors.

Ed did a nice job of laying out pretty plainly just how many people it’s going to do harm to if the government is shut down. You want a passport, forget about it. Want to take a vacation at a national monument, they’ll be closed. You’re a veteran who relies on the VA for assistance, don’t count on it. You work for a government contractor or one of their suppliers, your orders might not be coming in any time soon. You were expecting your Social Security or Medicare checks, well maybe not. Want to be warned by the National Institute of Health on disease control, never mind that.

Reich went on to explain how cutting the deficit right now is just insane and rightfully slammed President Obama for not leading on this issue and calling out Republicans for just how harmful their demands are going to be to our economy. I agree with Reich and instead of using the bully pulpit when he’s the one person in this country who’s got it, he’s instead giving them credibility that somehow slashing spending is going to cure our economic woes and our budget battles have turned into an argument over who’s going to cut more instead of whether cutting at all instead of raising taxes is what we ought to be doing.

Here's more from Reich on where we're headed and it's not a pretty picture. Until our politicians decide that the American voters they're supposed to represent matter more than their campaign donors, we're in a world of hurt and it's not going to change until more of us start demanding that they start representing their constituents instead of those donors. It would be nice to see campaign finance reform as a theme at more of these protests around the country since that really is the heart of the problem with the corruption in our politics. It's not just greed. It's that greed being allowed to buy off our politicians to perpetuate it at the expense of the rest of us.

The Truth About the Economy that Nobody In Washington Or On Wall Street Will Admit: We’re Heading Back Toward a Double Dip:

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