Obama Takes the Gloves Off

To the extent that he can, anyway.

On taxes:

There's been a lot of discussion about revenues and raising taxes in recent weeks, so I want to be clear about what we're proposing here. I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, and I want to extend those middle-class tax cuts. The tax cuts I'm proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires; tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.

It would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we've got to make some tough choices here if we want to reduce our deficit. And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we've got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden. Those are the choices we have to make.

So the bottom line is this: Any agreement to reduce our deficit is going to require tough decisions and balanced solutions. And before we ask our seniors to pay more for health care, before we cut our children's education, before we sacrifice our commitment to the research and innovation that will help create more jobs in the economy, I think it's only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys. I don't think that's real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that.

I really don't know why he diddled around with the Biden talks and all of the behind the scenes chicanery for so long. This is a winning message. It's a populist message. The polls pretty much scream just this - no one wants to cut Social Security Medicare, everyone wants to cut defense, everyone thinks the uber rich and corporations ought to pay more in taxes (if some of them pay any at all). No one gives a shit about Obama's post-partisan-change-the-tone-of-Washington dreck. It was good for a campaign, but really - no one cares once you're in office. People want tangible results that they care about, not a warm fuzzy because Obama is trying his best not to hurt the Republican's fee-fees. And it's an easy contrast to draw too. Republicans want no tax increases ever because they are wholly owned subsidiary of the plutocrats and corporate elite. They just act like higher taxes kill jobs for the low information types to have a rationale to believe in their blindly ignorant anti-tax dogma.

And he savages Congress too:

And I've got to say, I'm very amused when I start hearing comments about, well, the President needs to show more leadership on this. Let me tell you something. Right after we finished dealing with the government shutdown, averting a government shutdown, I called the leaders here together. I said we've got to get done -- get this done. I put Vice President Biden in charge of a process -- that, by the way, has made real progress -- but these guys have met, worked through all of these issues. I met with every single caucus for an hour to an hour and a half each -- Republican senators, Democratic senators; Republican House, Democratic House. I've met with the leaders multiple times. At a certain point, they need to do their job.

And so, this thing, which is just not on the level, where we have meetings and discussions, and we're working through process, and when they decide they're not happy with the fact that at some point you've got to make a choice, they just all step back and say, well, you know, the President needs to get this done -- they need to do their job.

Now is the time to go ahead and make the tough choices. That's why they're called leaders. And I've already shown that I'm willing to make some decisions that are very tough and will give my base of voters further reason to give me a hard time. But it's got to be done.

And so there's no point in procrastinating. There's no point in putting it off. We've got to get this done. And if by the end of this week, we have not seen substantial progress, then I think members of Congress need to understand we are going to start having to cancel things and stay here until we get it done.

They're in one week, they're out one week. And then they're saying, Obama has got to step in. You need to be here. I've been here. I've been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let's get it done.

Here, here. I have never seen a bigger bunch of piss pants whiners than the 111th/112th Congress, or more sternly worded letters written to the President asking him to hold their collective hands on this issue or that. You didn't consult us on Libya, we need more leadership in the government shutdown talks, we need you to step in on the debt ceiling. You are legislators. You were elected to do a job. Put on the big boy pants and legislate. This was long overdue.

And finally, just like any time a Democrat calls Republicans on their bull shit, the media clutches their pearls in shocked horror:

I'm not going to go into the implications of a Drudge's cabana boy Halperin calling the President a dick on national television. See Greg Sargent for a comprehensive take down of why this obfuscates the real problem with our tabloid media. I will just note that Republicans are allowed, or even expected, to strut around preening and saying all kinds of ridiculous and often objectively false statements about the President and the Democrats, and the second any one Democrat says something to the contrary (or FSM forbid, forceful), the GOP and their media stenographers lose their shit over the lack of "civility" in our discourse. 

Also too, Halperin was well aware of the fact that there was no tape delay, and spewed his childish, pedantic comment anyway. I am willing to bet that he is angling for a Juan Williams style departure to Fox News. MSNBC eventually fires him, or Halperin leaves citing irreconcilable differences, he picks up an enormous contract as a Fox host/contributor, and voila, it's a victory for the Fox News Channel and a triumph over the meanie liberal media that punishes and censors people that take a position against the President. Just watch.

Whatcha Gonna Do When They Don't Come For You?

I am sure you are as shocked as I was to learn that there is, at a minimum, a loose correlation between the number of cops on the beat and the crime rate:

It was 162 officers who were let go, out of more than 1,200. And NPR obtained internal crime data for the city for six and a half months since the layoffs took effect. If you compare those statistics to the same time period last year, murders are up 52 percent. Car thefts, 33 percent. Robberies, 16 percent. And the number of shooting victims saw a 66 percent increase. During all this, cops performed about 4,000 fewer arrests.

But you know, we should probably keep laying off these union thugs, with their fat cat pensions busting the budget and all. Teachers too, because kids these days aren't dumb enough as it is.

Bankster Justice?

I got excited when I read this Greenwald headline. I should have known better. There will be about as many criminal prosecutions from the financial crisis as there have been from the explosion of the national security state and all of the atrocities associated with it.

Which is to say - zero.

Bleh

Have not felt like blogging lately, let alone the poring over current events for hours that it requires. I'll be back in a few days. In the meantime, Mia will eat your f-ing face off Hannibal Lecter style, because that is how she rolls.

Wilfred

Really excited for this show.

Evil Liberals Are Making Us Dumb

Let's be honest - Rick Santorum is pretty much a crazed asshole lunatic. But sometimes crazed asshole lunatics say things so crazy that you can't help but notice:

We don’t even know our own history. There was a report that just came out last week that the worst subject of children in American schools is — not math and science — its history. It’s the worst subject. How can we be a free people. How can we be a people that fight for America if we don’t know who America is or what we’re all about. This is, in my opinion, a conscious effort on the part of the left who has a huge influence on our curriculum, to desensitize America to what American values are so they are more pliable to the new values that they would like to impose on America.

Just so we're clear - the national party that overwhelmingly believes that the world was created by a magical being in 7 days and rejects evolution as an unproven theory, that claims that only man can end the earth and that climate change is based on junk science, that idolizes ignorance as a virtue and elevates complete dumb ass know-nothings as candidates and prominent figures that have no grasp of basic American history, that believes in disaster capitalism and fantasy economic models that have been repeatedly refuted, and who would always reflexively gut education funding and teacher salaries rather than ever raise taxes - this is the party that believes the Left is making us dumber.

Well played.

Austerity Now

Turns out the bond vigilantes and confidence fairies don't want to buy what Congress is selling:

Both parties, in fact, are moving to anti-Keynesian policy orientations, which deny additional stimulus and make rather awkward and unsubstantiated claims that if you balance the budget, "they will come." It is envisioned that corporations or investors will somehow overnight be attracted to the revived competitiveness of the U.S. labor market: Politicians feel that fiscal conservatism equates to job growth. It's difficult to believe, however, that an American-based corporation, with profits as its primary focus, can somehow be wooed back to American soil with a feeble and historically unjustified assurance that Social Security will be now secure or that medical care inflation will disinflate. Admittedly, those are long-term requirements for a stable and healthy economy, but fiscal balance alone will not likely produce 20 million jobs over the next decade. The move towards it, in fact, if implemented too quickly, could stultify economic growth. Fed Chairman Bernanke has said as much, suggesting the urgency of a congressional medium-term plan to reduce the deficit but that immediate cuts are self-defeating if they were to undercut the still-fragile economy.

I really don't know who else we have to come out and say these things before people realize how completely fucked our current "debate" about fiscal policy has become. The constant Beltway/Village obsession with deficit reduction is ill advised, stupid, and contagious. Our stupid country will believe pretty much anything, because the people can't be bothered to, you know, do some basic research and critical thinking to form their own opinion. As Digby notes, there is now a close correlation on belief that the deficit is the reason for the prolonged economic hardship and unemployment. 

Companies are not hiring because there is a lack of aggregate demand, and with the specter of 9% unemployment looming, they can pretty much get their current employees to do anything out of fear that they will end up as part of that statistic. Shrinking the deficit will not create jobs; creating policies that stimulate demand will create jobs.

I don't know why I bother though. If our Congress critters won't listen to Nobel laureates or the Fed chairman or incredibly successful institutional investors like Gross, then I'm not really sure much can be done to change their minds.

ThomasGate

I am sure that this will be afforded the same level of breathless media frenzy for that accompanied WeinerGate. You know, because having IM conversations and tweeting dick pics is a serious problem that demands weeks of coverage. Judicial conflicts of interest in highest court in the land? Meh. BOOOOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIING.

No Country for Grumpy Old Men

Mean Old Man McCain is at it again:

“There is substantial evidence that some of these fires are caused by people who have crossed our border illegally,” McCain, said at a press conference Saturday after touring the Wallow fire [...]

“They have set fires because they signal others, they have set fires to keep warm, and they have set fires in order to divert law enforcement agents and agencies from them,” McCain said. “The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border.”

Except that's not really what happened:

When asked if there is substantial evidence that some fires were caused by undocumented immigrants, as McCain said at a news conference Saturday, Berglund said: “Absolutely not, at this level.”

“There’s no evidence that I’m aware, no evidence that’s been public, indicating such a thing,” he said.

Maverick! So principled and willing to stick to his deeply held convictions in order to buck his party and the Beltway! Or maybe like his fellow senator from Arizona, this too was just not intended to be a factual statement.

Lovers of Freedom & Democracy

Yup, Republicans love to endlessly flog their real murkin Jebus lovin' patriot cred, except they're really only interested in their version of democracy whereby only their base makes it to the polls.

American Exceptionalism

A friend pointed me to this article a while back, and for whatever reason I hadn't really paid any attention to it until now. It's a quite lengthy expose on America's decline amidst the shadow of a rising Chinese superpower. The article inevitably strikes a conciliatory tone to America's future, but I am of the opinion that we are otherwise at the beginning of a spiral of irreversible decline. 

I think one of the most frustrating aspects of American politics is that the imperceptive belief in America's perpetual status as the Greatest Nation Ever is an absolute prerequisite for holding public office. It's an entirely dangerous line of thought that is firmly entrenched in our political system, and it blinds us from realizing effective national priorities. We are so terrified of terrorism such that we will sacrifice anything and pay any cost in pursuit of Absolute Safety, yet we are perfectly fine with the rest of the world outperforming us in healthcare, education, infrastructure, and even life expectancy. And it has become so reflexive that our politicians believe we can continue doing what we have done in the past and expect superior results. 

I think a much more salient political position might be, "Hey - we spend all of our damned money on our military while the rest of the world is running circles around us in pretty much everything else. This is a greater threat to our country than scary brown people hiding in the mountains in the AfPak region. We probably ought to do something about it." I realize the President is trying to do this through his WTF (Winning the Future) slogan, but it is pretty tepid messaging and lacks the urgency which the situation requires. No one gives a shit about spending money on community colleges to re-train workers. Maybe it's great on policy, but on the politics it sounds awful, shortsighted, and ill equipped to deal with the magnitude of the situation we face. 

The fact that our political system is so completely polarized and unable to effectively unite on this front will probably be viewed by historians as one of the greatest modern American failures. That we continued to plow 5% of our GDP into defense spending while our infrastructure crumbled and our education system floundered, or that we insisted on keeping taxes for plutocrats at record lows while we balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly, or that we relied on the private sector to "self-police" while they dumped carcinogens into our lakes and rivers - I believe all of these things will be viewed with much chagrin and as utter insanity as we confront the realities of a vastly different global landscape. It doesn't take very long for these introspections to occur; we are already reeling from the fiscal  and other qualitative effects of the Bush tax cuts and two wars funded, as the article states, by our Chinese credit card. The real challenge is having the intellectual maturity to make these judgements in the moment and not a decade and trillions of dollars in lost opportunities later.

Not All Republicans Are Racist

But if you're racist, you're probably a Republican:

A comedian impersonating President Obama who was hired to perform here on Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference delivered racially tinged remarks about Mr. Obama’s heritage and offered a mocking assessment of the Republican presidential candidates.

The impersonator, Reggie Brown of Chicago, opened his act by joking about Mr. Obama’s family history, referring to his white mother from Kansas and his black father from Kenya. He said that he was born in Hawaii, adding, “or as the Tea Partiers like to call it, Kenya.”

He said that Michelle Obama, the first lady, enjoys celebrating all of February, Black History Month. He said the president celebrates only half the month.

“My mother loved a black man and, no, she was not a Kardashian,” Mr. Brown said later, referring to the family that stars in reality shows. Khloe Kardashian, who is white, is married to Lamar Odom, who is black and plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The audience, which was nearly entirely white, watched with befuddlement as the impersonator told them to look into the future to see what the Obamas will look like when they are retired. An image of a feuding husband and wife, from the TV show “Sanford and Son,” was flashed on screens in the ballroom.

The GOP hates Obama. That much is glaringly evident. They only hired the comedian; they didn't prepare his material. But I think the fact that he instantly went to the issue of race to mock the President is pretty telling. There are countless other ways that he could have lampooned the Obamas, but he chose race. He was simply playing to his audience. 

And this quote is pretty good:

Doug Heye, a party strategist and former communications director for the Republican National Committee, criticized the hiring of Mr. Brown. As word of the performance began to spread online, he wrote in a message on Twitter: “Wonder why many minorities have problems with G.O.P.? Our own fault.”

Yes, because this incident of hiring a racist comedian for your Southern White Oligarch Conference is the primary reason why "many minorities" have problems with the GOP. It has nothing to do with the fact that since January 20, 2009 the GOP has spent every waking moment blowing racist dog whistles as they decried Obama's "otherness," that he is a Marxist socialist Kenyan secret Muslim that hates Jesus and America, that he does not believe in the same America that good ol' white folk believe in, that he has a deep seated hatred of white people, that he's secretly taking over the country through union thugs and his minority-laden election stealing army at ACORN, and the pervasive dissemination of these talking points (both explicitly and implicitly) to keep the not-at-all-racist teabaggers frothing at the mouth. But these are just principled differences! They only disagree with Obama's politics. The racially undertoned invectives being hurled at our first black president have nothing to do with his race.

There are plenty of reasons for "many minorities" to take issue with the GOP, but I would venture a guess that this barely registers as so much as a blip on how they view the GOP. This is nothing new, but rather a continuation of the modern GOP's excellent track record on race relations.

(h/t Steve Benen)

Memo to the White House

YOU MORONS ARE NOT WINNING THIS INCREDIBLY STUPID ARGUMENT:

The debate over the constitutionality of U.S. involvement in Libya's civil war has obscured what could be a far harder sale for the president. Come the end of September, the costs borne by the American taxpayer for the country's intervention in Libya will surpass $1.1 billion, according to the administration's own accounting.

In the age of austerity, this is hardly chump change. And while the major gripes with U.S. policy center on the strategic purpose of getting involved -- or the legal rationale for choosing to do so -- it is the cost that could bring it all to an end.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Thursday defended the $716 million that had already been spent on Libya by June 3.

"It is also important to note that the money that you mention is coming from existing funds," Carney said, during the daily briefing. "There is no request for a supplemental. And it is money that would have been spent on other things like training missions that are being fulfilled by the actual missions being performed. So this is not new money. And we believe that it continues to be in the U.S. interest to participate in this mission in the limited manner that we are participating in it because it is in our interest, within this multinational coalition, to continue to protect Libyan civilians, to continue to enforce the no-fly zone and an arms embargo to give the opposition the time and space that it needs to organize."

So Libya is not really a war because there are not really any "hostilities," and oh by the way guys! It's okay that it's already exceeding our initial cost estimates (because that wasn't wildly fucking obvious to anyone with a pulse). Besides! We already had this money set aside in our existing budget for freedom bombs!

I wonder if misguided, endless wars are part of Obama's vision of Winning the Future.

Free Market Protectionism

Not just for the United States:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany retreated Friday from demands that private financial institutions be pressured to participate in efforts to rescue the Greek economy, a compromise that seemed to offer some breathing space in Europe’s efforts to confront its potentially ruinous debt crisis.

Her critics in the European Central Bank and in many European capitals had argued that any requirement that private investors absorb some losses risked plunging Greece into a disorderly default on its enormous debt.

But after a two-hour meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, whose banks are among the most heavily exposed in the Greek debt crisis, Mrs. Merkel relented, saying, “We would like to have a participation of private creditors on a voluntary basis.” She acknowledged, too, that there was no legal way of forcing banks to participate.

“This should be worked out jointly with the E.C.B,” she added, referring to the European Central Bank. “There shouldn’t be any dispute with the E.C.B. on this.” 

In other words - suck it up, Greeks. The banksters are going to get 100 cents on their dollar, and you can fuck yourselves. Enjoy the austerity!

It's pretty funny, because any finance or investment academic curriculum will thump its chest proudly at the efficiency of the free market, and how it works because investors price risk and allocate it accordingly to their risk tolerance, their desire for returns, etc. It just works!

Except when it comes to public debt, that's just never how it works. The investors are never forced to take a haircut, because we have to instill confidence in stuff and things or the free market Jesus will punish us, and the public is always forced to socialize the private losses through draconian budget cuts and austerity measures.

But don't worry Greece, I'm sure the banksters will have your back after you help them out of this crisis. They were certainly most philanthropic in the United States following the 2008 bailouts. 

Tabloid Media, Continued

This week TPM (via Steve Benen) put together what is probably the quintessential statement on our media's willful abdication and complete failure to perform their responsibility of public accountability, transparency, or reporting on true crises or anything that actually matters:

They may as well have stuck their fingers in their ears and screamed BLAH BLAH BLAH JOBS MEDICARE AND THE MIDDLE CLASS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING! GOD! When is she going to talk about Weiner's dick pictures?!

These people have something seriously wrong with them.

Dumb Jocks

I am not a big sports fan, but regardless I will never understand the point of causing thousands of dollars of damage, inciting mass chaos, and risking life and limb as a celebratory reaction to your sports team's big victory. It's really fucking stupid. Also, it reinforces the stereotype that die hard sports fans are a bunch of mouth-breathing, knuckle dragging, low intelligence ogres. There are more constructive ways to show your exultation. 

There are very few causes that merit this kind of civil unrest. Your stupid team winning the title is not one of them. At least these people got it right:

That's a completely awesome picture.


**Update**

That goes to show you how much of a sports idiot I am - that I thought that Canada won and not lost. Whatever. My original statement still stands.

It Depends On What Your Definition of "War" Is

I'm a couple of days late in getting to this, but this is a joke:

The White House, pushing hard against criticism in Congress over the deepening air war in Libya, asserted Wednesday that President Obama had the authority to continue the military campaign without Congressional approval because American involvement fell short of full-blown hostilities.

In a 38-page report sent to lawmakers describing and defending the NATO-led operation, the White House said the mission was prying loose Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power.

In contending that the limited American role did not oblige the administration to ask for authorization under the War Powers Resolution, the report asserted that “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.” Still, the White House acknowledged, the operation has cost the Pentagon $716 million in its first two months and will have cost $1.1 billion by September at the current scale of operations.

This is how far we've fallen. We have now reduced ourselves to debating the legal definition of a war. Let's turn this around for a second - let's assume that a Middle Eastern/North African country decided that it had enough of the United States and started bombing random US cities for a sustained period of time Do you think for one second that we would not constitute that as 'hostilities' or an act of war? 

This is absolutely insane and ludicrous and a really stupid fucking move on Obama's part. Because this was 100% his call:

President Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department when he decided that he had the legal authority to continue American military participation in the air war in Libya without Congressional authorization, according to officials familiar with internal administration deliberations.

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.

But Mr. Obama decided instead to adopt the legal analysis of several other senior members of his legal team — including the White House counsel, Robert Bauer, and the State Department legal adviser, Harold H. Koh — who argued that the United States military’s activities fell short of “hostilities.” Under that view, Mr. Obama needed no permission from Congress to continue the mission unchanged.

Presidents have the legal authority to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice, but it is extraordinarily rare for that to happen. Under normal circumstances, the office’s interpretation of the law is legally binding on the executive branch.

Someone get the man another Nobel Peace Prize.

We're Gonna Put This On the White House Refrigerator

So we can look at it eeeeeeeeevery daaaaaay:

Mr. President, according to our own intelligence officials, al Qaeda no longer has a large presence in Afghanistan, and, as the strike against bin Laden demonstrated, we have the capacity to confront our terrorist enemies with a dramatically smaller footprint. The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits. It is time for the United States to shift course in Afghanistan.

We urge you to follow through on the pledge you made to the American people to begin the redeployment of U.S. forces from Afghanistan this summer, and to do so in a manner that is sizable and sustained, and includes combat troops as well as logistical and support forces.

We look forward to working with you to pursue a strategy in Afghanistan that makes our nation stronger and more secure.

You could, you know, put it to a vote. But in general, the situation is hopeless, and we are not leaving no matter how many strongly worded letters the Senate pens. Amurikans don't lose wars and these colors don't run - we throw soldiers and money at the problem til the job is done even as our own populace suffers the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Why is the Right So Mean to Michelle?

I'll give you a hint: because her last name is Obama. Also, she is black.

Can You Break a Twenty? I've Got Change

A funny thing happened subsequent to my post from yesterday, I got the following email from the Obama campaign:

I've set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner.

Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests.

We didn't get here doing that, and we're not going to start now. We're running a different kind of campaign. We don't take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs -- we never have, and we never will.

We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford -- and I want to spend time with a few of you.

So if you make a donation today, you'll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $25 or more today.

It's good to know now that the banksters are not considered a special interest, what with having destroyed the economy, taking close to a trillion dollars of public money, and are sitting around telling the rest of us to fuck ourselves and deal with the consequences of their actions. It's also good to know that the Obama campaign can take time out of its busy agenda of meeting with hedge fund executives and private equity investors to throw back a good ol' beer with four of us peasants, just a coupla regular guys joshin' around and keepin' it real. 

I certainly don't expect the Obama campaign to honestly make a widespread practice of having dinner with its supporters (like I said yesterday, we supply the votes, not the cash), and maybe this is just optics as they try to deal with the NYT piece from yesterday. Regardless, it's pathetic. 

I'm still going to vote for the guy, but don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. 

Freedom to Poison Yourself on the Water of the Free Market

John Cole offers the following on the GOP's increasingly strange hatred of EPA:

As chance would have it, today in my post office box (another government service that I absolutely cherish) there was a piece of mail from the local public service department, where I get my water. It was an annual EPA required report, detailing in clear English, where my water comes from. Half of it is treated surface water from the Ohio River, the rest is from deep wells along the banks of the river. The report outlined backup plans should the Ohio become contaminated (more and more likely as Pennsylvania allows drillers to simply dump whatever the fuck they want in the water), and then went on and provided the annual data on the level of contaminants in my drinking water.

I like this. I think it is valuable for a number of reasons, beyond simply keeping me informed. It also verifies that the folks who provide me my water are keeping an eye on things, and providing a safe, clean product that I and my neighbors can consume. It’s the very model of good government. This is why we band together to form government- to do things that would be impossible to do otherwise.

To Republicans, though, this is an evil thing. And this is why I get so livid at the assholes in the media who cover the Republicans and give us the he said/she said version of things. If Republicans had their way, you and your kids would likely be drinking contaminated water and no one would be around to tell you about it. That’s the facts in the case, not “Bachmann claims the EPA kills jobs, while Democrats disagree.” This is why our media is failing us. When Republicans want to end the EPA, it’s not some esoteric debate about big government Democrats and small government conservatives. It’s not he said/she said. It’s “they don’t want you to know about all the shit GE dumped in the Hudson, and furthermore, they don’t want GE to clean it up, either, and as a matter of fact, GE should not be regulated in any way shape or form and should be free to dump shit in your water” versus “we need some sensible regulations to limit the harm corporations do to the environment so we can protect the population and make sure we have clean drinking water.”

I honestly don't understand this either, or how the Republican base has become so unhinged from reality that they actually go along with this shit. It's really not a partisan issue that we ought to have some basic form of government accountability that ensures, at a minimum, that the water we drink and the air we breathe is, you know, conducive to sustaining human life.

And The Military Industrial Complex Grinds Onward

Blood and empire - as American as apple pie. We are never leaving:

American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades.

Though not publicised, negotiations have been under way for more than a month to secure a strategic partnership agreement which would include an American presence beyond the end of 2014 – the agreed date for all 130,000 combat troops to leave — despite continuing public debate in Washington and among other members of the 49-nation coalition fighting in Afghanistan about the speed of the withdrawal.

[...]

Although they will not be "combat troops" that does not mean they will not take part in combat. Mentors could regularly fight alongside Afghan troops, for example.

Senior Nato officials also predict that the insurgency in Afghanistan will continue after 2014.

And why are we staying there? Because the benefits of having a massive empire is that it provides for convenient staging grounds for advancing the national policy of additional endless wars:

There are at least five bases in Afghanistan which are likely candidates to house large contingents of American special forces, intelligence operatives, surveillance equipment and military hardware post-2014. In the heart of one of the most unstable regions in the world and close to the borders of Pakistan, Iran and China, as well as to central Asia and the Persian Gulf, the bases would be rare strategic assets.

[...]

Another is the question of US troops launching operations outside Afghanistan from bases in the country. From Afghanistan, American military power could easily be deployed into Iran or Pakistan post-2014. Helicopters took off from Afghanistan for the recent raid which killed Osama bin Laden.

Afghanistan is key for when we need a convenient logistical hub for when we decide that Ahmadinejad has pissed us off enough, or he has weapons of mass destruction, or he's being insufficiently deferent to Western oil needs. I can't even believe how fucking glibly the Guardian states this - "American military power could be easily deployed into Iran." It just rolls off their tongue, as if it's a certainty. Not that it isn't entirely likely, because there is nothing we Americans love more than a costly, protracted war in a Muslim nation. But still - it's pretty damning to see it written so nonchalantly in print, especially considering the Guardian is normally one of the better papers. 

It's also funny to read the parts of the article where the Afghans are attempting to object to certain terms of the negotiations. Clearly they have not been paying attention to how these things work. We still have troops in Japan and Germany. 

Their System Doesn't Work For You

The Obama campaign team is hitting up the banksters for some much needed campaign cash for his quest to raise a cool billion for his reelection bid:

The event, organized by the Democratic National Committee, kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health.

Last month, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, traveled to New York for back-to-back meetings with Wall Street donors, ending at the home of Marc Lasry, a prominent hedge fund manager, to court donors close to Mr. Obama’s onetime rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And Mr. Obama will return to New York this month to dine with bankers, hedge fund executives and private equity investors at the Upper East Side restaurant Daniel.

[...]

The president’s top financial industry supporters say they are confident that the support Mr. Obama needs will ultimately be there, despite the financial industry’s unhappiness over his efforts to tighten regulation of their businesses. 

So President Obama has to go back to the banksters, even after he hurt their fee-fees and called them fat cats and was so mean to them with his policies and rhetoric that their businesses have returned to record levels of profitability. This article is profound for a couple of reasons:

(1) Can there be any greater statement on how broken and corrupt our campaign finance system has become that elected officials outwardly rely on substantial donations from the very group of people and corporations that torpedoed the global economy? Or that the price tag for the presidency is now close to $1 billion? What sort of corrupt incentives do you think this implies?

(2) Can there really be any doubt that this same perverse incentive structure was even marginally responsible for the overly feeble Dodd-Frank financial reform bill? Or as Glenn Greenwald notes, perhaps in part responsible for the fact that there have still been no significant indictments coming out of the financial crisis?

And as for the rest of us, we just supply the votes, and maybe a few hand picked questions  for town hall style debates to give a nice photo-op and a folksy interaction of the candidates with the peasants. 

It's just a complete mystery why the trend in our economic policies continue to favor the ultra wealthy, you know, the unparalleled levels of low and regressive taxation, deficit paranoia, siren calls to slash the safety net, the now habitual ignoring of unemployment, decades of deregulation and a willful disregard for rampant corruption and financial fraud. I am sure when they are meeting at swanky Manhattan restaurants, soliciting donations and trading for POTUS access, that they are really just discussing how to act in Main Street's best interests.

But I Thought It Was a Humanitarian Mission?

We just heart the Libyan people so much more than the Syrians, Yemenis, and Bahrainis and couldn't bear to see the former being gunned down in the streets by their own government. The latter? Meh. Not so much.

On that note, Glenn Greenwald excerpts the following from this Washington Post article:

Yet even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured. The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies. . . .

When Gaddafi made his deal with Bush in 2004, he had hoped that returning foreign oil companies would help boost Libya’s output . . . The U.S. government also encouraged American oil companies to go back to Libya. . . .

The companies needed little encouragement. Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves -- 43.6 billion barrels -- outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects. . . . Throughout this time, oil prices kept rising, whetting the appetite for greater supplies of Libya's unusually "sweet" and "light," or high-quality, crude oil.

By the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, U.S. joint ventures accounted for 510,000 of Libya's 1.7 million barrels a day of production, a State Department cable said. . . .

But all was not well. By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism." It noted that in his 2006 speech marking the founding of his regime, Gaddafi said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son made similar remarks in 2007.

Oil companies had been forced to give their local subsidiaries Libyan names, the cable said. . . .

That's more the recent history of American-Libyan interaction. The article states this on the current state of the conflict:

But Libya's oil production has foundered, sagging to about 1.5 million barrels a day by early this year before unrest broke out. The big oil companies, several of which had drilled dry holes, felt that Libya was not making the best exploration prospects available. One major company privately said that it was on the verge of a discovery but that unrest cut short the project.

With the country torn by fighting, the big international oil companies are treading carefully, unwilling to throw their lot behind Gaddafi or the rebel coalition.

Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition. In another meeting in Washington, Ali Tarhouni, the lead economic policymaker in Benghazi, said oil contracts would be honored, Mintz said.

"Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi," Saleri said. "Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The Western companies are positioning themselves."

"Five years from now," he added, "Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in."

So essentially we have a war being waged for the sole purpose of deposing a dictator for the crime of being insufficiently deferent to the needs of Western oil consumption. That WaPo article should terrify anyone who reads it. To me, the fact that we're already a billion dollars deep in yet another war concocted practically overnight in an overwhelmingly toxic political environment, in a predictable complete defiance of public support, and in the midst of a vicious debate on the federal budget and deficit says that our energy supply is much more dire than our leaders are willing to admit. As Greenwald states, Britain and France are much more reliant on Libyan oil, but I still have a feeling that this does not bode well. 

"We Are A Center Right Nation"

As the banal old saying goes, except we're really not when you look at Americans' preferred methods for winding down the federal deficit:

Increasing the payroll tax cap for Social Security, raising taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations, ending our endless wars, all while preserving federal assistance to the poor and Social Security? What a bunch of socialist commies. 

Freedom & Democracy: America's #1 Export

Troop withdrawals should not be significant or immediate, because Afghanistan is going swimmingly and we probably just need a few more months and another trillion dollars or so and then we can win this thing, because that's what America does - it wins its wars, bitch, and these colors don't run. There is no cost-benefit analysis to war. Ever.

But hey, if anything, at least we are setting records.

We Are Broke: Defense Spending Edition

4.8 percent of a GDP of $14 trillion is a lot of fucking money. 

(arugula eating elitist librul rag The Economist, via ThinkProgress)

Hope Is Not An Economic Policy

Related to my post from yesterday, I still have a really hard time understanding how we systematically ignore the counsel of experts when it comes to doing important things like, you know, running the largest economy in the world. There have been plenty of respected economists screaming for the last two years that we were pursuing wrongheaded or overly timid economic policies and that we've learned essentially nothing from the 1930s.

I guess this shouldn't be much of a mystery. The types of people that pursue public service typically do not do so in the interests of actually serving the public's interest, but rather to feed their own narcissistic power fetish. That and there is the added benefit of the fact that holding public office essentially guarantees your status as a millionaire for the rest of your days.

So I guess I just answered my own question. Obama is damned lucky that the Republicans have already conceded an enormous advantage in 2012 by means of their inane support for RyanCare. In any other case, with the economy continuing to struggle as badly as it is, he'd be facing a significantly steeper uphill climb for reelection. 

America's Gun Fetish

Guns are one of those rare things in American culture that you just can't mess with. It doesn't matter how modest or truly conservative (not in the teatard batshit context - I mean the literal sense) the policy is; the only acceptable gun policy in America is no policy at all, or that which seeks to deregulate or fundamentally loosen the already insanely lax laws we have in place. 

That being said, we now have Al Qaida cheering jihadists to exploit the aforementioned insanely lax gun laws. The same laws that have previously been proven by Michael Bloomberg to be insanely lax and dangerous and reckless. As Digby notes, gun policy was one of the few facets of American domestic policy left untouched by the collective legislative pants shitting that succeeded the days and months following 9/11. 

It's another reminder of how completely ignorant and futile are our security policies in the wake of 9/11.  We're terrified of someone sneaking a bottle of killer shampoo onto an airplane when there are a myriad of other ways in which an attack could cause widespread terror and casualties - gun violence being prime among them. We've seen the horror caused by years of innumerate school shootings, the Mumbai attacks three years ago, and even as recently as Jared Loughner's attack in Tucson earlier this year. 

But for god's sake, whatever you do - stay the fuck away from America's firearms. Real Amurikans know you need 'em for when that day comes to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and over throwin' the tyrannical federal gubmint and not treadin' on me and stuff. And don't call them crazy either - god fearing Amurikans just really, really love Jebus, guns, and the Constitution:

h/t to Kos for the awesome pics.

Also, in true characteristic asshole fashion, the NRA opposes closing the gun show loophole, and has up until this point declined comment on the Al Qaida video.

The Budget Cuts Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Because we can't ever raise taxes to deal with deficits. It's a lot more convenient to just let people die or force them to make the choice between eating their next meal or seeking needed medical care.

The Tabloid Press Corps

Greenwald:

There are few things more sickening -- or revealing -- to behold than a D.C. sex scandal. Huge numbers of people prance around flamboyantly condemning behavior in which they themselves routinely engage. Media stars contrive all sorts of high-minded justifications for luxuriating in every last dirty detail, when nothing is more obvious than that their only real interest is vicarious titillation. Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright -- like proud peacocks with their feathers extended -- pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance. The ritual is as nauseating as it is predictable.

[...]

Can one even imagine how much different -- and better -- our political culture would be if our establishment media devoted even a fraction of the critical scrutiny and adversarial energy it devoted to the Weiner matter to things that actually matter? But that won't happen, because the people who comprise that press corps, with rare exception, are both incapable of focusing on things that matter and uninterested in doing so. Talking about shirtless pictures and expressing outrage about private sexual behavior -- like some angry, chattering soap opera fan furious that one of their best-known characters cheated -- is about the limit of their abilities and their function. And doing so is so easy, so fun, so self-justifying, and so exciting in that evasively tingly sort of way.

You know, things that actually matter, like this:

"They're saying there are more jobs. I'm just wondering where those jobs are," Lambrecht said.

About 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months - a higher percentage than during the Great Depression.

The bigger the gap on someone's resume, the more questions employers have.

"(Employers) think: 'Oh, well, there must be something really wrong with them because they haven't gotten a job in 6 months, a year, 2 years.' But that's not necessarily the case," said Marjorie Gardner-Cruse with the Hollywood Worksource Center.

The problem of course is the economy, but some industries, especially certain manufacturing jobs, are not ever expected to come back. Experts say unemployed workers need to be prepared to change careers.

Who has time to talk about the worst unemployment crisis in history when there are penis Twitter pics and deficits to clutch our pearls about?

The Opportunity Cost of the Bush Tax Cuts

It's a red letter day today - the ten year anniversary of the huge embarrassing failure that were the Bush tax cuts. Here is a sampling of all the elitist socialist shit we didn't do while shoveling over truckloads of Benjamins to banksters and plutocrats alike:

- Give 122.7 Million Children Low-Income Health Care Every Year For Ten Years

- Give 49.2 Million People Access To Low-Income Healthcare Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 43.1 Million Students With Pell Grants Worth $5,500 Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 31.5 Million Head Start Slots For Children Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide VA Care For 30.7 Million Military Veterans Every Year For Ten Years

- Provide 30.4 Million Scholarships For University Students Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 4.19 Million Firefighters Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.67 Million Elementary School Teachers Every Year For Ten Years

- Hire 3.6 Million Police Officers Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 144.6 Million Households For Wind Power Every Year For Ten Years

- Retrofit 54.2 Million Households For Solar Photovoltaic Energy Every Year For Ten Years

Also - the Iraq and Afghanistan wars factor in to be about another $3 trillion. Sure would be nice to have a cool $5.5 trillion lying around right now, wouldn't it? But I forgot - these tax cuts broadened the base and actually spurred record amounts of economic growth:

Meanwhile, all the teatards in the GOP caucus continue to tout widespread regressive tax cuts as the keystone of their economic policy and the sole path to making it rain GDP. I think one of their own had a good saying for that whole principle of not falling for the same bullshit time and again:

In Case You Forgot

Your latest reminder that Republicans do not care about the deficit and are a bunch of unhinged loonies that believe the in voodoo economics that state that cutting revenue creates more revenue. 

And the article mentions that the single greatest impasse in budget debate is that Republicans refuse to raise revenue, and Democrats refuse to reduce or cut the safety net. But therein lies the fundamental difference - there are plenty of people all over this country (corporations too, since they now seem to think they are afforded the same rights as an individual) that can afford and should pay substantially more in taxes. On the other hand, you have a significantly greater amount of people who can not afford basic healthcare or a decent standard of living in retirement. I will leave it up to you to decide which one of these groups ought to be the ones to sacrifice a little in a sane, moral world. 

And yes, I realize that our country is neither of those things.

Republican Healthcare Policy: Universal Repeal

No one could have predicted that the GOP's "repeal and replace" slogan on the Affordable Care Act was really just "repeal":

More than four months after their triumphant vote to scrap the Democrats' healthcare reform law, House Republicans have yet to fulfill the second part of their campaign pledge to "repeal and replace" the legislation.

Republicans say healthcare has taken a back seat to issues like the debt ceiling and Medicare reform but stress that they have a number of reform proposals up their sleeve.

"Our focus right now is on repealing all of ‘Obamacare’ and pieces of it where we can," said Rep. John Kline [R-Minn.], the chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, one of three panels with jurisdiction over the health policy. "And then we're working on spurring the economy and getting America back to work with jobs.

“The replacement pieces for healthcare are still on the table,” Kline said, “but we're not pushing them right now because we've got a full plate with other stuff."

God, we're busy with other stuff and things guys, okay?! We just haven't had a chance to get to the "replace" part yet!

Perhaps their "full plate with other stuff" includes Paul Ryan's budget, which again, is another "repeal" scheme without the "replace," as Paul Krugman aptly notes:

I’m seeing many attempts to shout down anyone making this obvious point, and not just from Republican politicians. For some reason, many commentators seem to believe that accurately describing what the G.O.P. is actually proposing amounts to demagoguery. But there’s nothing demagogic about telling the truth.

Start with the claim that the G.O.P. plan simply reforms Medicare rather than ending it. I’ll just quote the blogger Duncan Black, who summarizes this as saying that “when we replace the Marines with a pizza, we’ll call the pizza the Marines.” The point is that you can name the new program Medicare, but it’s an entirely different program — call it Vouchercare — that would offer nothing like the coverage that the elderly now receive. (Republicans get huffy when you call their plan a voucher scheme, but that’s exactly what it is.)

Medicare is a government-run insurance system that directly pays health-care providers. Vouchercare would cut checks to insurance companies instead. Specifically, the program would pay a fixed amount toward private health insurance — higher for the poor, lower for the rich, but not varying at all with the actual level of premiums. If you couldn’t afford a policy adequate for your needs, even with the voucher, that would be your problem.

But Democrats are meanieheads for using "Mediscare" tactics and WHAT IS THEIR PLAN FOR MEDICARE, HUH?! And it's "premium support," you jerks, which is like, totally not a voucher!

The Republican policy on healthcare across the board is that you should pretty much fuck off and hope for the best. Anyone who argues something to the contrary is lying to themselves. They are consistent on this across the board - they want nothing more than to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and any other piece of legislation that provides coverage not dictated by the supreme wisdom of the free market Jebus and the invisible hand. 

Blood and Empire

Remember how we're not in Iraq anymore? Or that the fake/pretend troops that we left stationed there are "non-combat" so we could focus on other miserably failed wars? Or something?

Five U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in an attack in central Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement. It was the deadliest single attack this year against U.S. forces in Iraq and an indication of how dangerous the country remains for American troops as they prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.

An Iraqi security source said that the five U.S. soldiers had been working as advisers on a base for Iraqi national police in eastern Baghdad when their quarters were targeted by rocket fire shortly before 7 a.m. local time.

The U.S. military declined to comment when asked about the information and referred back to their statement.

[...]

Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed in April, and two died last month in attacks.

There are an estimated 46,000 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq.

To me, the definition of non-combat would mean not actively serving in a war zone. But that probably makes me crazy. 

Also really encouraging to see that casualties continue to mount in Iraq, yet you never hear so much as word one about it anymore on any of the news networks.

Saturday Afternoon

Too hot to do anything but be at the pool or cower indoors and play Xbox, but this has been stuck in my head.

Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum!

I would never be part of a religion that required me to ride around on bicycle in a fucking shirt and tie spreading the love of Joseph Smith's racist golden tablets and Jebus when it is 102 degrees outside. There are many other reasons to revile Mormonism, but for living in Arizona, I would say the shirt/tie on a bike in the summer would be a deal breaker.