Republi-CON Obama Derangement Syndrome Déjà Vu

UPDATE II:  Republi-con paranoid hysteria is over social programs is nothing new.

"When Congress debated the Social Security bill, in 1935, hysteria on the right ran high. The business lobby, echoed by its Republican allies on Capitol Hill, charged Franklin Roosevelt with a plot to extinguish liberty in America—to establish 'socialistic control of life and industry,' as the National Association of Manufacturers put it. 'Never in the history of the world,' declared Rep. John Taber, of New York, after what one trusts was a thorough review of the history of the world, 'has any measure been … so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery [and] to enslave workers.' To another New York congressman, James W. Wadsworth, Social Security represented 'a power so vast' that it threatened to 'pull the pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants.' Still, its opponents in the House, and later the Senate, buckled in the face of popular opinion, swallowed their hatred of Roosevelt, and the Social Security Act passed by wide margins.

Another wave of panic crested on the eve of the 1936 election—an eleventh-hour attempt to seize on public anxiety about the Social Security payroll tax, slated to take effect on January 1, 1937. The Republican nominee, Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, called the program 'unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted and wastefully financed.' He and his campaign raised the specter of mass fingerprinting, of Washington snoops pawing through people’s 'life records,' and of a bureaucratic scheme to erase workers’ names and replace them with numbers. This rhetoric reached its crescendo on Halloween, fittingly enough, when John Hamilton, chairman of the Republican National Committee, stood before a crowd of twenty thousand in Boston, clutching a stainless-steel 'specimen' tag stamped 'Social Security Board'; Hamilton thrust it in the air and insisted that if F.D.R. were reëlected, tags just like it would be 'hung around the necks of twenty-seven million' working men and women. The Roosevelt Administration, he asserted, had already sought bids for machines to manufacture the tags. (Hamilton refused to divulge where he’d gotten the sample, but after the rally, he let reporters pass it around and inspect it.)"

Read The New Yorker, Shutdown: The Hysterical Style in American Politics. 

UPDATE: How do you know that Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood -- "because he put his foot on the Oval Office desk." Watch the Colbert Report, Barack Obama's Footgate & Secret Muslim Code:

The Colbert Report
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"The right’s Ahab-like determination to destroy Obamacare has so thoroughly overtaken the conservative wing of the GOP that its loyalists in Congress are about to squander an opportunity to hand Democrats a huge defeat in the fight over sequestration, and hasten the Republican crackup in the process.

Conservatives are poised — once again! — to align with progressives in temporarily handing control of the House of Representatives over to Nancy Pelosi, and protecting the poor from deep government spending cuts. All because GOP leaders don’t think suicide is a wise political strategy."

Read Salon, The right’s Obamacare obsession is destroying the Republican Party. 

The Republi-CON "The Government Should Spend Like a Family" Myth

This Republi-con analogy works only if the family can print money, "owns lots of tanks, operates a giant insurance conglomerate, can borrow money at extremely low rates, and is" immortal.

Read the Washington Post, What if a typical family spent like the federal government? It’d be a very weird family.

Invasion and Occupation or Ignoring and Hoping Are Not the Only U.S. Middle East Options

UPDATE V:  Republi-cons incoherent Syria policy: 'we don't want to take out the guy who gasses children because someone bad might take over.  "So, just to recap, Rand Paul says no diplomacy, but we can’t do nothing, but no to the president’s plan and no to regime change."  Watch the Colbert Report, America's Got Serious Reservations About This - Syria - Rand Paul.    

UPDATE IV:  "I keep reading about how Iraq was the bad war and Libya was the good war and Afghanistan was the necessary war and Bosnia was the moral war and Syria is now another necessary war. Guess what! They are all the same war.

They are all the story of what happens when multisectarian societies, most of them Muslim or Arab, are held together for decades by dictators ruling vertically, from the top down, with iron fists and then have their dictators toppled, either by internal or external forces. And they are all the story of how the people in these countries respond to the fact that with the dictator gone they can only be governed horizontally — by the constituent communities themselves writing their own social contracts for how to live together as equal citizens, without an iron fist from above. . .

In short, the problem now across the Arab East is not just poison gas, but poisoned hearts. Each tribe or sect believes it is in a rule-or-die struggle against the next, and when everyone believes this, it becomes self-fulfilling. . .

But, please do spare me the lecture that America’s credibility is at stake here. Really? Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting since the 7th century over who is the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad’s spiritual and political leadership, and our credibility is on the line? Really? Their civilization has missed every big modern global trend — the religious Reformation, democratization, feminism and entrepreneurial and innovative capitalism — and our credibility is on the line? I don’t think so.

We’ve struggled for a long time, and still are, learning to tolerate 'the other.' That struggle has to happen in the Arab/Muslim world, otherwise nothing we do matters."

Read The New York Times, Same War, Different Country. 

UPDATE III:  "President Obama’s anticipated strikes against Syria have some on the Christian right proclaiming Biblical prophecy and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Easy there, writes scholar Candida Moss, we’ve been here before."

Read The Daily Beast, Sorry, Evangelicals, Syria Will Not Spur the Second Coming, which explains "some problems with the theory" and notes that "[t]he conquest of Damascus already happened. At least seven times," and "Christians have been predicting the Second Coming and end of the world since the Apostle Paul."

UPDATE II:  And don't forget to study up on those end time delusions.

Read Mother Jones, Oh Magog! Why End-Times Buffs Are Freaking Out About Syria.  

UPDATE:  Forget 'shock and awe.  "The right strategy is 'arm and shame.'"

Read The New York Times, Arm and Shame.

"Iraq was unquestionably costly and painful to the United States — in dollars, in political comity and, above all, in lives, both of Iraqis and Americans. It hasn’t turned out, so far, as we war supporters hoped. Yet in the absence of U.S. intervention, Syria is looking like it could produce a much worse humanitarian disaster and a far more serious strategic reverse for the United States. . .

The tragedy of the post-Iraq logic embraced by President Obama is that it has ruled out not just George W. Bush-style invasions but also the more modest intervention used by the Clinton administration to prevent humanitarian catastrophes and protect U.S. interests in the 1990s. As in the Balkans — or Libya — the limited use of U.S. airpower and collaboration with forces on the ground could have quickly put an end to the Assad regime 18 months ago, preventing 60,000 deaths and rise of al-Qaeda. It could still save the larger region from ruin.

The problem here is not that advocates of the Iraq invasion have failed to learn its lessons. It is that opponents of that war, starting with Obama, have learned the wrong ones."

Read the Washington Post, What the Iraq war taught me about Syria. 

The Alabamay Al Qaeda

UPDATE:  "A rapping jihadi from Alabama who ascended the ranks of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked extremist rebels and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list with a $5 million reward for his capture was killed Thursday in an ambush ordered by the rebels' leader, the militants said.

Omar Hammami, a native of Daphne, Alabama, who was known as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, or "the American," died in southern Somalia following several months on the run after a falling-out with al-Shabab's top leader, the rebels said."

Read the Huffington Post, Omar Hammami Dead: American Jihadi Killed In Somalia, Reports Say.  

How did a small-town Alabama high school kid, "among the coolest, most gifted students in his class," grow up to become a leader in an African terror group linked to Al Qaeda?

Read The New York Times, The Jihadist Next Door.

Fear, Anger, and Hatred: It's the Republi-CON Condition

UPDATE:  "Political conservatism and serious policy analysis can coexist, and there was a time when they did. Back in the 1980s, after all, health experts at Heritage made a good-faith effort to devise a plan for universal health coverage — and what they came up with was the system now known as Obamacare.

But that was then. Modern conservatism has become a sort of cult, very much given to conspiracy theorizing when confronted with inconvenient facts. Liberal policies were supposed to cause hyperinflation, so low measured inflation must reflect statistical fraud; the threat of climate change implies the need for public action, so global warming must be a gigantic scientific hoax. Oh, and Mitt Romney would have won if only he had been a real conservative."

Read The New York Times, The Wonk Gap.  

"Hate on, haters. It was what you were meant to do."

Read the Washington Post, Researchers take on crucial question: Are haters gonna hate?

Go Argonauts?

UPDATE V:  More than four year later, read the Pensacola New Journal, UWF to field football in 2016. 

UPDATE IV: Did UWF announce a new football program, or just announce that the university is thinking about it? Justin thinks that later:

"UWF holds a massive media event, gets everyone all crazy about college football coming to Pensacola and then their big chief announces 'I am authorizing the AD to look into the feasibility of pursuing our overall athletic program including football.'"

Looks like they will 'Maritime Park' this and the university will get football in about 20 years.


UPDATE III: I tried to get Terry to discuss this yesterday. Read the Pensacola News Journal, UWF ready for football, which states:

"Today there will be no more exploring the possibility. UWF is setting a course to pursue football and become the first NCAA Division II school to sponsor the sport in the state of Florida.

According to multiple sources, Bense will announce that UWF plans to begin the process of instituting football at the school during the Argo Arrival Kickoff Pep Rally. The pep rally is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at UWF Field House.

On Wednesday, UWF distributed a news release noting Bense would attend the event, which begins the annual welcoming process to campus for students, and "make an announcement about the future of UWF athletics and student life."

When contacted Wednesday, a UWF spokesperson said Bense had no comment on the subject. Gulf South Conference Commissioner Nathan Salant did not return a phone message left at his office in Birmingham, Ala.

If the Argonauts field a football team, they would become the seventh conference school in the sport, joining Delta State, North Alabama, Valdosta State, West Alabama, West Georgia and Shorter College."

UPDATE II: The secret is out, as Stephen has found, Gulf South Conference Commissioner Nate Salant states that he expects UWF to announce the addition of football "any day now." See GSC DigiNet, beginning at about the 3:50 minute mark.

Good job to Stephen the newshound!


UPDATE: After more than two years of speculation and discussion, UWF is planning a "special pep rally," and rumor has it the university will announce a football program. Read Rick's Blog, Buzz: UWF to announce football program.


Now all they need is a new school nickname!

For years there has been talk of starting a football program at the University of West Florida. Someone should just start a club football team like a student did at the University of Vermont. See The New York Times, A Year of Toil and Sweat, Then They Played a Game.

As I said before, it would be relatively easy, quick, and cheap. And if it proves popular, it would justify a varsity program.

Go Argonauts!

P.S.

They could practice the Lateralpalooza.

The Republi-CON 'I Was For Government Spending Cuts Before I was Against Them' Con

UPDATE VI:  "At some point, even John Boehner and other GOP leaders know they’re going to have to level with their base on Obamacare (it will not get defunded) and the debt ceiling (it will get raised) and government appropriations (it will get funded) — so when will they be brave enough to have that hard talk?"

Read the Washington Post, The Tea Party tiger has no teeth.  

UPDATE V:  In 2010, "the government spent a whopping $3.457 trillion."

So after "a tea party uprising, a Republican takeover in the House and then a series of ulcer-causing showdowns in Congress" how much does the government spend?

$3.455 trillion.

Read the Washington Post, After six budget showdowns, big government is mostly unchanged.  

UPDATE IV:  Will the Republi-cons vote for a "costly and self-destructive government shutdown" or is it just part of the "insane . . . internal dynamics of House Republicans. . . [with] reckless, ridiculous promises they’ll never be able to deliver on. . . bedtime stor[ies]. A way for House Republicans to feel like they’re doing something at a time when there’s really nothing they can do."

Read the Washington Post,  A terrifying look into John Boehner’s awful job. 

UPDATE III:  "The sad truth is that the modern G.O.P. is lost in fantasy, unable to participate in actual governing.. .

How did the G.O.P. get to this point? On budget issues, the proximate source of the party’s troubles lies in the decision to turn the formulation of fiscal policy over to a con man. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has always been a magic-asterisk kind of guy — someone who makes big claims about having a plan to slash deficits but refuses to spell out any of the all-important details. Back in 2011 the Congressional Budget Office, in evaluating one of Mr. Ryan’s plans, came close to open sarcasm; it described the extreme spending cuts Mr. Ryan was assuming, then remarked, tersely, “No proposals were specified that would generate that path.”

What’s happening now is that the G.O.P. is trying to convert Mr. Ryan’s big talk into actual legislation — and is finding, unsurprisingly, that it can’t be done. Yet Republicans aren’t willing to face up to that reality. Instead, they’re just running away.

When it comes to fiscal policy, then, Republicans have fallen victim to their own con game. And I would argue that something similar explains how the party lost its way, not just on fiscal policy, but on everything.

Think of it this way: For a long time the Republican establishment got its way by playing a con game with the party’s base. Voters would be mobilized as soldiers in an ideological crusade, fired up by warnings that liberals were going to turn the country over to gay married terrorists, not to mention taking your hard-earned dollars and giving them to Those People. Then, once the election was over, the establishment would get on with its real priorities — deregulation and lower taxes on the wealthy.

At this point, however, the establishment has lost control. Meanwhile, base voters actually believe the stories they were told — for example, that the government is spending vast sums on things that are a complete waste or at any rate don’t do anything for people like them. (Don’t let the government get its hands on Medicare!) And the party establishment can’t get the base to accept fiscal or political reality without, in effect, admitting to those base voters that they were lied to."

Read The New York Times, Republicans Against Reality.  

UPDATE II:  "The key budget story since January has been the Republican Party’s rediscovery of the fact that sequestration is bad policy — and thus bad politics — for them.

Ryan’s budget tried to get around sequestration by restoring some of the money to defense and taking a corresponding amount from domestic programs. The failure of the THUD bill came because even Republicans can’t stomach cutting that deeply into domestic programs. And THUD isn’t even where they need to make the toughest cuts: That designation goes to labor, health and human services — and that bill, which was supposed to be unveiled last week, has been pulled from the schedule.

And all this is coming in the early days of the sequester. This is the low-hanging fruit, such as any exists. It will only be worse next year. And the year after that. And the year after that."

Read the Washington Post, Republicans need a budget deal. They need a budget deal bad.

UPDATE:  Three Pinocchios for Republi-con claims regarding furloughs of air traffic controllers. 

Read the Washington Post, Sequester politics: Claims about the FAA furloughs. 

"The Republican strategy on sequestration has been clear for months now: sequestration is terrific because spending cuts are good…and every specific program cut by sequestration is a terrible injustice that Barack Obama should have avoided. . .

The truth is that sequestration cuts — which are significant enough already — already represent significantly lower levels of cutting spending than what House Republicans wanted. Some Tea Partiers in the House voted against them because they were not severe enough. And don’t forget: the budgets that Republicans have been voting for, year after year, promise to entirely wipe out non-defense discretionary spending over the long term. All of it. . .

The real story here is simple: if you want massive spending cuts, that means massive cuts to government programs that people like. And one political party has been advocating those cuts, and even risking default of the government in order to get them. No matter what Republicans say now about the effects of those cuts."

Read the Washington Post, Yup: Cutting spending means … you have to cut spending.  

When Insults Had Class

From an email:

These glorious insults are from an era before the English language became boiled down to four-letter words.

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."  "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." -William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one." -George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

NoBullU Told Ya So: Benghazi Part of an Undercover CIA Operation and Republi-CONs Know It

In October 2012 I stated that "Republi-cons disclosed that the Benghazi consulate was part of an undercover CIA operation."

Read CNN, Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack.  

The Republi-CON 'Obamacare is a Failure' Myth

UPDATE IX:  "[T]here’s a palpable sense of anxiety, even despair, among conservative pundits and analysts. Better-informed people on the right seem, finally, to be facing up to a horrible truth: Health care reform, President Obama’s signature policy achievement, is probably going to work.

And the good news about Obamacare is, I’d argue, what’s driving the Republican Party’s intensified extremism. Successful health reform wouldn’t just be a victory for a president conservatives loathe, it would be an object demonstration of the falseness of right-wing ideology. So Republicans are being driven into a last, desperate effort to head this thing off at the pass."

Read The New York Times, Republican Health Care Panic.  

The article notes that "[a]lthough you’d never know it from all the fulminations, with prominent Republicans routinely comparing Obamacare to slavery, the Affordable Care Act is based on three simple ideas. First, all Americans should have access to affordable insurance, even if they have pre-existing medical problems. Second, people should be induced or required to buy insurance even if they’re currently healthy, so that the risk pool remains reasonably favorable. Third, to prevent the insurance “mandate” from being too onerous, there should be subsidies to hold premiums down as a share of income.

Is such a system workable? For a while, Republicans convinced themselves that it was doomed to failure, and that they could profit politically from the inevitable “train wreck.” But a system along exactly these lines has been operating in Massachusetts since 2006, where it was introduced by a Republican governor. What was his name? Mitt Somethingorother? And no trains have been wrecked so far."

UPDATE VIII: "If Obamacare is 'collapsing under its own weight,' then why do Republicans have to work so hard to sabotage it?"

Read the Washington Post, The core contradiction at the heart of the GOP campaign to sabotage Obamacare.

UPDATE VII:  Why are premiums paid by individuals buying health insurance on their own 'tumbling'?  A provision of Obamacare called the medical loss ratio AKA 80/20 rule, which requires more of a health insurance premium be spent on health care. 

Read the Washington Post, The Obamacare provision that terrifies insurers.

Imagine that, health insurance paying for health care, not CEO salaries and company profits.  What will they think of next.

UPDATE VI:  "In the 11 states that have released rates for next year, premiums for a middle-of-the-road plan are an average of 18 percent cheaper than the Congressional Budget Office had expected. . .

Six states have released rate filings for plans available to small businesses through a separate exchange. Those policies are also an average of 18 percent cheaper than existing coverage options, HHS said."

Read The Hill, HHS: Premiums under ObamaCare lower than expected.

UPDATE V:  "Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect."

Read The New York Times, Health Plan Cost for New Yorkers Set to Fall 50%.  

UPDATE IV:  The Affordable Care Act "is an awfully complicated piece of work . . . [but] the fact that it’s complex doesn’t mean its implementation is anything like the train wreck that conservative Republicans (and Max Baucus) like to call it . . . and when you consider the magnitude of this challenge amid the blowback and underfunding of the effort, if I’m even close to correct, that will be a very impressive outcome."

Read The New York Times, The Path to Complexity on the Health Care Act. 

UPDATE III:  "The monthly cost of health insurance under President Obama's healthcare law is consistently coming in lower than expected.

Premiums for a middle-of-the-road policy have come in below earlier estimates in all nine states that have released their initial rate information.

A new analysis from Avalere Health says the lower-than-expected prices show that the central piece of the healthcare law — new insurance exchanges in each state — is working as intended."

Read The Hill, ObamaCare premiums lower than expected. 

UPDATE II:  "The United States spends more than $8,000 a person per year on health care, well more than twice what Sweden spends. Yet health outcomes are far better in Sweden along virtually every dimension. Its infant mortality rate, for example, was recently less than half that of the United States. And males aged 15 to 60 are almost twice as likely to die in any given year in the United States than in Sweden."

Read The New York Times, What Sweden Can Tell Us About Obamacare.  

UPDATE:  "For all the speculating in Washington about how the Affordable Care Act will work — much of it, I admit, from me — there’s been too little attention given to the best evidence we have on the subject: How the extremely similar reforms in Massachusetts have worked."

Read the Washington Post, Everything you know about employers and Obamacare is wrong.

Don't be conned by Republi-con wishful thinking and fantasy

“Obamacare got some very good news on Thursday. . .

The California exchange will have 13 insurance options, and the heavy competition appears to be driving down prices. The most affordable silver-level plan is charging $276-a-month. The second-most affordable plan is charging $294. And all this is before subsidies. Someone making twice the poverty line, say, will only pay $104-a-month. . .

[Competition is also driving down health care premiums in Maryland and Oregon. ]

Texas, meanwhile, is a bit of a mess. They didn’t allow the Medicaid expansion so the state’s poorest residents got nothing. They didn’t help with the exchanges, or the outreach, so there aren’t many choices, and premiums aren’t as low one might hope.”

Read the Washington Post, Some very good news for Obamacare. 

You Better Watch Out, He's Making a List, He Knows When You've Been Bad or Good, and It Ain't Just Santa

UPDATE X:  How did your Congressman vote on an amendment to "end authority for the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act . . . [and barring] the NSA and other agencies from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect records, including telephone call records"?

See GovTrack, H.Amdt. 413 (Amash) to H.R. 2397.

UPDATE IX:  On this 4th of July, 2013, we find out that it isn't just Santa making a list.

From The New York Times, U.S. Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement: we know know that the "Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images."

Happy day of liberty, whatever that might mean now in the the so-called land of the free.

UPDATE VIII:  Hey, didn't I warn you (in December 2008) it wasn't just Santa:

From the Washington Post, The NSA is doing what Google does:  the "government was doing at least what Google was doing — and Google, I’m convinced, is the new Santa Claus: It sees you when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake. It knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake."

UPDATE VII:  "The problem [in balancing security and liberty] is that we have only one major point of reference when we debate what these trends might mean: the 20th-century totalitarian police state, whose every intrusion on privacy was in the service of tyrannical one-party rule. That model is useful for teasing out how authoritarian regimes will try to harness the Internet’s surveillance capabilities, but America isn’t about to turn into East Germany with Facebook pages.

For us, the age of surveillance is more likely to drift toward what Alexis de Tocqueville described as 'soft despotism' or what the Forbes columnist James Poulos has dubbed 'the pink police state.' Our government will enjoy extraordinary, potentially tyrannical powers, but most citizens will be monitored without feeling persecuted or coerced.

So instead of a climate of pervasive fear, there will be a chilling effect at the margins of political discourse, mostly affecting groups and opinions considered disreputable already. Instead of a top-down program of political repression, there will be a more haphazard pattern of politically motivated, Big Data-enabled abuses. (Think of the recent I.R.S. scandals, but with damaging personal information being leaked instead of donor lists.)

In this atmosphere, radicalism and protest will seem riskier, paranoia will be more reasonable, and conspiracy theories will proliferate. But because genuinely dangerous people will often be pre-empted or more swiftly caught, the privacy-for-security swap will seem like a reasonable trade-off to many Americans — especially when there is no obvious alternative short of disconnecting from the Internet entirely.

Welcome to the future. Just make sure you don’t have anything to hide."

Read the New York Times, Your Smartphone Is Watching You. 

UPDATE VI:  We live in a National Surveillance State, "one that uses bulk information and data techniques to monitor its citizens and draw inferences about their potential behavior in the service of carrying out the responsibilities that it sets out for itself. Like other parts of the state (welfare, national security), the surveillance state provides a type of security for its citizens through the manipulation of knowledge and resources. And like other parts of the state, the surveillance state fights against democratic efforts to provide accountability and transparency.

This name comes from a 2008 paper, 'The Constitution in the National Surveillance State,' by Yale law professor Jack Balkin. He provocatively argues that '[t]he question is not whether we will have a surveillance state in the years to come, but what sort of state we will have.'"

Read the Washington Post, Is a democratic surveillance state possible?

UPDATE V:  The NSA's data collection and analysis program built on similar programs first used by the military in Iraq, then "Afghanistan in 2010, where it assembled and analyzed all the data over a 30-day period on transactions that intelligence officials could get their hands on: phone conversations, military events, road-traffic patterns, public opinion—even the price of potatoes, former officials said. Changes in prices of commodities at markets proved to be an indicator of potential for conflict, they said. . .

Analysts discovered that the system's analysis improved when more information was added, so they moved to merge 90-day batches of data. The result, said a former U.S. official, was an ability to predict attacks 60% to 70% of the time."

Read the Wall Street Journal, Technology Emboldened the NSA.

Then watch/re-watch the movies Enemy of the State and Minority Report.  

UPDATE IV:  Told ya so: 

A "National Security Agency program that apparently has collected the telephone records of tens of millions of American . . . has been underway for the past seven years."

Read the Washington Post, Administration, lawmakers defend NSA program to collect phone records.

The only thing that surprises me is that it started only seven years ago.  I bet there were other 'data mining' (AKA spying) programs that involved the analysis of other types of information, including purchases and web browsing, and more. 

Read The Data Doghouse, Data Mining – From Diapers to Phone Records. (Note the date of the post: May 2005.)

UPDATE III:  "The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April."

Read The Guardian, NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.

This should come as no surprise, it been going on since 2001.  And I first mentioned it several months after starting this blog in 2008.

UPDATE II: Intercepts of Americans’ phone calls and e-mail messages are broader than previously acknowledged. Read The New York Times, E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress.

Another I told ya so from NoBullU.


UPDATE: To a post from December to say I told ya so, they listen to everybody, including a mad Congresswoman.

Read the Washington Post, Harman to Holder: Release the Tapes, and CQ Politics, Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC.

I may be paranoid but . . .

Ever wonder how the NSA electronic surveillance program, nicknamed the Terrorist Surveillance Program by Bush, spies just on terrorist. It doesn't, unless of course terrorist is a euphemism/doublespeak for citizen. Read:

• Newsweek, The Fed Who Blew the Whistle
• Newsweek, Now We Know What the Battle Was About

Welcome to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Don't Be Duped by the Birthers, An Update

UPDATE IV:  "What do a guy with a dead hamster on his head, a tooth pulling/much sanctioned attorney/real estate hustler immigrant and a gun totin' octogenarian shuruff have in common? If you said 'They are all birthers' you would be correct.

For five years we have watched as the birthers grasped at straws, outright lied, struggled with and failed to provide any actual evidence that our president was not born in the United States of America.

I thought it would be fun to go through some of the "facts" put forth over the past five years, because honestly, little has been funnier than the machinations of this group of low information individuals."

Read the Kingman Daily Miner, A Trip To Birtherville

The article notes that "[a]nother fact that must be dealt with is Congress agreeing that Obama is indeed a natural born citizen, having been born in Hawaii. In August of 2009, long before the birther loon nonsense gathered its full head of steam, the House of Representatives, by a unanimous vote, offered up HR 593 which stated in part, 'Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.'"

See The Library of Congress, Bill Summary & Status, 111th Congress (2009 - 2010), H.RES.593. 

You know who, of course, never mentions this, because it's not in the script of the very small part of The Republi-CON Media CONplex that he is allowed to play. 

UPDATE III: He has a novel-in-progress 'espousing his long-held conspiracy theory' that "no one wanted to listen to".

He is "delightful, charming, likable" at times but "delusional, narcissistic, paranoid and dangerously unpredictable when he was not taking his medication".

Read the Washington Post, Man accused in case of poison-laced letters has history of legal and other troubles. 

Sound like someone we know?

UPDATE II:  Not only has a birther lawsuit never succeeded, courts are starting to sanction the people who bring the frivolous lawsuits.  Read the New York Daily News, Brooklyn judge slams birther lawsuit as 'fanciful, delusional and irrational' and orders theorist to pay $177G.  The Judge called the allegations, "fanciful, delusional and irrational."

UPDATE I:  Another claim of 'breaking news' and soon-to-be revealed startling 'new information' from the "ever-shrinking echo chamber of conspiracy theorists convincing each other that they have finally uncovered definitive proof that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii." Of course, there is never anything new, or even true, just racist delusions.

This is an update on the birther delusion still promoted by you know who.

There is no Supreme Court case, the petition was "denied" without comment.

And not even the attorney representing a birther sanctioned by a Washington state court for filing a frivolous appeal believes in his client's 'birther nonsense'.

These updates from the RC Radio Blog, "Reality Check Radio: Providing a weekly dose of reality to Birthers since 2009".  


See also The Fogbow, "your best resource for debunking the lies of the 'birther' movement and discussing the birther antics" and WhatsYourEvidence.com, there is even a Birther Case Scorecard, now 0-195 for the birthers.

Expect a missile sighting somewhere over the U.S. to distract you from the news. 


But don't hold your breath waiting for our very own Pastor Dred Scott (you may remember the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which asserted that African Americans were "beings of an inferior order" who "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." That ruling declared that African Americans could never be U.S. citizens and therefore could never be President) (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins) to discuss these updates. 

Jesus Was a Woman

From an email;

Compelling evidence that Jesus was a woman:

1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was virtually no food

2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it

3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do

Can I get an AMEN!?!

Even More Good Ol’ Boy Shenanigans In Podunk-cola

UPDATE:  Says one commenter:  The mayor is just the "Tip OF The Bubba Berg" here in Podunk-cola.

Says another commenter:  The mayor is just   "looking for a job in Tallahassee soon. His inflated self image and egotistical personality will not allow him to stay in a small pond like Pensacola. His staff complains about him constantly behind his back to others that he is self centered, spoiled local brat who's best friend is a mirror. The people and his own staff who supported his election now see the real Hayward as someone who has no interest beyond his own, has no appreciation for those who work for him or around him, and has an ego about himself that is just embarrassing in public. He wants just be seen, waited on, has his ego stroked, and travel around Pensacola with his Entourage to look so important. We call these people Politicians."

"Lies, deception, fake identities and covert meetings in downtown bars. You can't make this stuff up. This is the tale of Pensacola politics—where the facts don’t matter, perception and gossip rule and maim, and careers and reputations can be destroyed without hesitation."


Read IN Weekly, The Upside of Corruption.

Madam President in 2016?

"From the standpoint of the party primary, it's almost as though she's an incumbent president, right, where she even trumps, kind of, the VP, who very often wins nomination after a president is term-limited," said [Nate Silver, The New York Times polling analyst], who was interviewed by Katie Couric in an evening session. "If you look at polls, you know, 60 to 70 percent of Democrats say they prefer Hillary to be the nominee. There's no kind of non-incumbent in history with those types of numbers." 

Read The Atlantic, Hillary Is the Strongest Non-Incumbent Ever.

Can't wait, she'll drive the Republi-cons nuts.

Are You Smarter Than A 60 Year Old?

From and email:

This is a test for us 'older kids'!

1. After the Lone Ranger saved the day and rode off into the sunset, the grateful citizens would ask, Who was that masked man? Invariably, someone would answer, I don't know, but he left this behind. What did he leave behind?________________.

2. When the Beatles first came to the U.S. In early 1964, we all watched them on The ____ ___________ Show.

3. 'Get your kicks, __ _________ _______.'

4. 'The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to ___________________.'

5. 'In the jungle, the mighty jungle, ________________.'

6. After the Twist, The Mashed Potato, and the Watusi, we 'danced' under a stick that was lowered as low as we could go in a dance called the '_____________.'

7. Nestle's makes the very best . .. . . _______________.'

8. Satchmo was America's 'Ambassador of Goodwill.' Our parents shared this great jazz trumpet player with us. His name was _________________.

9. What takes a licking and keeps on ticking? _______________.

10. Red Skeleton's hobo character was named __________________ and Red always ended his television show by saying, 'Good Night, and '________ ________... '

11. Some Americans who protested the Vietnam War did so by burning their______________.

12. The cute little car with the engine in the back and the trunk in the front was called the VW. What other names did it go by? ____________ &_______________.

13. In 1971, singer Don MacLean sang a song about, 'the day the music died.' This was a tribute to ___________________.

14. We can remember the first satellite placed into orbit. The Russians did it. It was called ___________________.

15. One of the big fads of the late 50's and 60's was a large plastic ring that we twirled around our waist. It was called the __________  ______________.

16. Remember LS/MFT _____ _____/_____ _____ _____?

17. Hey Kids! What time is it? It's _____ ______ _____!

18. Who knows what secrets lie in the hearts of men? The _____ Knows!

19. There was a song that came out in the 60's that was "a grave yard smash". It's name was the ______ ______!

20. Alka Seltzer used a "boy with a tablet on his head" as it's Logo/Representative. What was the boy’s name? _______

See the comments for the answer, but don't cheat, try to answer them first.

Republi-CON 'It's Not Judicial Activism, It's Judicial Engagement' Hypocrisy

UPDATE:  Recent Supreme Court give full display to judicial activism philosophy-hypocrisy. 

"So [on June 25, 2013], according to the court's conservatives, Congress had no business approving a law meant to keep states and localities from disenfranchising voters. [On June 26, 2013], though, all due deference should be given to Congress' awful attempt to render gay marriages nonexistent under federal law. Evidently, to those four justices, Congress' wishes only matter when they line up with the conservative worldview. "

Read U.S. News & World Report, A Congress of Convenience for Supreme Court Conservatives.

When the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit declared unconstitutional the individual insurance mandate of the Affordable Care Act, the Court "used the phrase [judicial engagement] on page 104 of the majority opinion, evidently for the first time in any judicial opinion. When Congress oversteps its limits, the appeals court said, 'the Constitution requires judicial engagement, not judicial abdication.'" Read The New York Time, Actively Engaged, which noted that:

"During the Kagan confirmation hearings in 2010, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, having denounced judicial activism days or even hours earlier in their press releases, worked hard to impress its virtues on the nominee when she appeared before them in person. 'The American people are concerned about their courts,' Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama lectured Ms. Kagan. 'They’re concerned about a growing expansive government that seems to be beyond anything they’ve ever seen before. And they’d like to know what their judges might like to do about it.'

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma spent nearly an entire question period trying to get the nominee to agree with him that if Congress passed a law requiring Americans to 'eat three vegetables and three fruits every day,' the court should strike it down.

'Sounds like a dumb law,' said Ms. Kagan, who understood precisely what game was afoot. 'But I think that the question of whether it’s a dumb law is different from the question of whether it’s constitutional, and I think that courts would be wrong to strike down laws that they think are senseless just because they’re senseless.'"

Sounds like what I said during the debate with Mike on the health care law.

Bachmann's Leaving, But Republi-CON Paranoia and Resentment Live On

UPDATE IV:  "Jindal has gone from diagnosing what’s wrong with the Republican Party to personifying it. The GOP’s problem isn’t that it insults the intelligence of the voters. It’s that it insults its own intelligence. It’s come up with a theory of liberal governance that has obviated the need for a theory of conservative governance. . .

Jindal’s come up with a ridiculous caricature of liberalism and is assuming its failures will win the country back for conservatism. . .

The upside of this theory is that it frees Jindal and the rest of the Republican Party from having to do the hard work of rethinking and renewing its own governing agenda. The downside of this theory is that it’s utter nonsense. And the most damaging part of this theory is that it’s utter nonsense aimed at Jindal’s own base. Jindal isn’t talking to independents or Democrats in this op-ed. This is solely about telling Republicans what they want to hear.

That’s how the GOP becomes the stupid party: Republican Party elites like Jindal convince Republican Party activists of things that aren’t true. And that’s how the GOP becomes the losing party: The activists push the Republican Party to choose candidate decisions and campaign strategies based on those untruths, and they collapse in the light of day. "

Read the Washington Post, Bobby Jindal is the Republican Party’s problem.

UPDATE III:  "Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have just released a full transcript of testimony from a key witness in the investigation of IRS targeting of conservatives — and it appears to confirm that the initial targeting did originate with a low-level employee in the Cincinnati office.

It also shows a key witness and IRS screening manager – a self described conservative Republican — denying any communication with the White House or senior IRS officials about the targeting. . .

In the testimony, the screening manager also flatly stated he had no reason to believe there was White House involvement."

Read the Washington Post, Full House committee transcripts shed new light on genesis of IRS targeting.

UPDATE II:  Republi-cons are "driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac."

Read the Washington Post, Cracking up over the GOP.  

UPDATE:  Bachmann "perfected a tactic well-suited to the current media environment: continually toss out outlandish, baseless charges, and, eventually, some of them will enter the mainstream media — if, at first, only in the form of “coverage” of what conservative radio shows, Web sites or Fox News are talking about. . .

Bachmann’s method is now common currency. And here’s the beautiful thing: Even as the regular media does some of your work for you, you lambaste the very same media. This only creates more pressure on them to cover you."

Read the Washington Post, GOP needs more Doles and fewer Bachmanns. 

Bachmann may be leaving Congress, "but her style of politics — steeped in paranoia and resentment — has become the norm for the Republican Party. Prominent figures in the party — ranging from McConnell to Ted Cruz and Rand Paul — are happy to stoke conspiracies if it means gaining a political advantage over Obama and the Democratic Party."

Read the Washington Post, Michele Bachmann is gone, but her paranoid politics has become the norm for GOP.  

Philosophy vs. Age

From an email:

Punny Things Confucius Did Not Say

From an email:

Man who wants pretty nurse, must be patient.

Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly.

Lady who goes camping must beware of evil intent.

Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.

Man who runs in front of car gets tired, man who runs behind car gets exhausted.

Man who eats many prunes get good run for money.

War does not determine who is right, it determines who is left.

Man who fight with wife all day get no piece at night.

It takes many nails to build a crib but only one screw to fill it.

Man who drives like hell is bound to get there.

Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.

Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement.

Man who live in glass house have faded furniture.

Man who fish in other man's well often catch crabs.

Finally CONFUCIUS DID SAY. . ...

"A lion will not cheat on his wife, but a Tiger Wood!"

The Republi-CON 'Regular Order' Budget CON

UPDATE:  "Republicans don’t want to enter into conference negotiations over the budget (even though they had previously insisted on 'regular order' for a long time). Instead, Ryan wants a pre-conference agreement before regular conference negotiations. He gives a bunch of procedural reasons for this, such as the fact that if conference negotiations fail, the House minority has the authority to force Republicans to take uncomfortable votes (on so called 'motions to instruct'). . .

The simple fact of the matter here is that Republicans are not willing to enter into negotiations over the budget unless they can use the threat of crashing the economy to get more of they want. . .

At the same time, it’s politically problematic to openly admit they are only willing to enter into negotiations in which they can avail themselves of the threat of something as destructive as default to maximize their leverage. So Ryan is forced into the above contortions to explain the Republicans’ strategy — or, more accurately, their lack of any coherent strategy."

Read the Washington Post, Paul Ryan admits GOP can’t govern without a hostage crisis.

Republi-cons have "spent years calling for a return to 'regular order' in which the House writes a budget, the Senate writes a budget, and the two chambers move to a conference committee to hash out their differences. This year, for the first time since 2009, Senate Democrats wrote and passed a full budget, shepherding it to passage through an open amendment process. Now various Senate Republicans are blocking the move towards conference — blocking, in other words, the move towards the regular order they demanded."

Read  the Washington Post, GOP moderates feud with conservatives over stall tactics on budget. 

Hoodwicked by the Hoodie??

UPDATE V:  It's been more than a year since the killing, and the trial starts in two weeks.  As part of his defense, Zimmerman wants to smear Martin's name.  He better watch out, character assassination cuts both ways.

Read the Washington Post, George Zimmerman’s relevant past, which notes that "over the course of eight years, Zimmerman made at least 46 calls to the Sanford (Fla.) Police Department reporting suspicious activity involving black males." His cousin is also quoted as saying "'I know George. And I know that he does not like black people.'"

UPDATE IV: It appears that "[w]hat is likely is that both men scared each other for different reasons, and one tragically overreacted." Read the Washington Post, Fear and bloodshed in Florida.


UPDATE III: What happened that night?

Watch as "Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, details what the detectives told him about George Zimmerman's account of his son's fatal shooting" at the Washington Post, Trayvon Martin's father: What the police told me:

Also see an interactive article that summarizes the evidence known at The New York Times, The Events Leading to the Shooting of Trayvon Martin.

UPDATE II: Although I think there is much to discuss about the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the way that it was discussed yesterday on WEBY's Your Turn program by the owner of the radio station was inexcusable, with attacks on Obama as a 'race pimp' for his comments on the matter.

From Politico, Obama: 'If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon', watch what Obama said in response to a question about the shooting:



As the article notes "Obama [had] come under fire from some black leaders for failing to comment on a case that has become a major national story — and brought thousands of Americans into the streets for demonstrations calling for the arrest of Martin's shooter. . .

The president was careful not to comment too extensively on an active investigation on both the federal and state levels, noting that as head of the executive branch, the Department of Justice reports to him."

This wasn't Mike's first inexcusable attack on Obama.

Mike's comments yesterday were a poor attempt to use fear, anger and hatred to pander to worst element of the Republican Party.

I challenge Mike to play Obama's comments and explain why those comments justify the label 'race pimp.' If he is unable to do so, Mike owes the WEBY family an apology for his show yesterday.


UPDATE: It should be noted that the account of the incident in the Orlando Sentinel is "entirely at odds with the account of Martin’s girlfriend, who says Martin was talking to her on his cell phone just before his death. The girlfriend says she heard Martin ask a man, 'What are you following me for,' and that the man answered, 'What are you doing here?' Then she heard Martin pushed to the ground." Read Slate, Can We Trust the Cops’ New Account of Trayvon Martin’s Killing?

Hoodwink means: "1. To take in by deceptive means; deceive. See Synonyms at deceive. 2. Archaic To blindfold. 3. Obsolete To conceal."

Has the media hoodwinked the public regarding the Trayvon Martin case?

Read the Orlando Sentinel, Police: Zimmerman says Trayvon decked him with one blow then began hammering his head, which is only now reporting that Zimmerman "had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him." The article also states that was "the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say."

For Heavy Thinkers

From an email:

1 - I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 - Borrow money from pessimists -- they don't expect it back.
3 - Half the people you know are below average.
4 - 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 - 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 - A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 - A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 - If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 - All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
10 - The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 - I almost had a psychic girlfriend,  But she left me before we met.
12 - OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13 - How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14 - If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 - Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 - When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17 - Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 - Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 - I intend to live forever.  So far, so good.
20 - If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 - Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22 - What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23 - My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24 - Why do psychics have to ask you for your name.
25 - If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 - A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 - Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28 - The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of  the bread.
29 - To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30 - The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 - The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32 - The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 - Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don't have film.
34 - If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. 
And the all-time favorite -
35 - If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

Baracknophobia aka Obama Derangment Syndrome

UPDATE III:  With foolish talk of impeachment, will 2014 be Republi-con déjà 1998 vu all over again?

Read Bloomberg, 'Obama Scandals' Could Actually Hurt Republicans.  

UPDATE II:  That old Republi-con 'blind rage' continues, they "are so focused on their bitter battles against Obama, they can’t see how little impact the 'scandals' have had on public opinion."

Read National Journal, Republicans’ Hatred of Obama Blinds Them to Public Disinterest in Scandals, which notes: "Red-faced Republicans, circling and preparing to pounce on a second-term Democratic president they loathe, do not respect, and certainly do not fear. Sound familiar? Perhaps reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s second term, after the Monica Lewinsky story broke? During that time, Republicans became so consumed by their hatred of Clinton and their conviction that this event would bring him down that they convinced themselves the rest of the country was just as outraged by his behavior as they were. By the way, what was Clinton’s lowest Gallup job-approval rating in his second term, throughout the travails of investigations and impeachment? It was 53 percent. The conservative echo machine had worked itself into such a frenzy, the GOP didn’t realize that the outrage was largely confined to the ranks of those who never voted for Clinton anyway."
 
Without fear, anger and hatred, where would the Republi-cons be.

 UPDATE:   "Welcome to the Obama Haters Book Club—a parallel universe of fear mongering for fun and profit. 

 Over the past four years, no less than 89 obsessively anti-Obama books have been published, as now catalogued by The Daily Beast. I’m not talking about cool statements of policy difference, but overheated and often unhinged screeds painting a picture of the president as a dangerous radical hell-bent on undermining the Republic by any means necessary. It is hate and hyper-partisan paranoia masquerading as high-minded patriotism.

Here’s the worst part—this steady drumbeat of incitement is having an impact on this presidential election because it has poisoned the well of civic discourse for many voters and those in their radius of damage. It has helped divide the nation beyond reason, distorting the president’s real record beyond all recognition.

By their very nature, books offer the promise of education and enlightenment. These conspiracy entrepreneurs prey on the prejudices of their audience."

Read The Daily Beast, The Obama Haters Book Club, The Canon Swells.
Like our local Pastor Egomaniacal (AKA Pastor 2+2 Does Not = 4, Pastor Dred Scott, Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators, Pastor Truthiness, and Pastor Poppins), his friends at WND just can't admit that Obama was re-elected.  Read USA Today, No, Obama can't be stopped at the Electoral College. 

The Republi-CON Government and Household Debt CONparison

"A government does not have a life cycle, does not ever expect to stop generating income to support itself, and, therefore, does not ever have to retire its debt. It must keep its debts at a manageable size relative to the economy, which the U.S. has done over that 60 year period. If the economy is growing over the long term, that means the government can run a deficit and grow the debt every year -- sustainably. . .

If the recent expansion of the public debt is a matter of overriding economic concern, why is Boehner so resolutely opposed to tax increases to pay it down? America’s economy has thrived under a variety of tax policies, including much higher top marginal tax rates than are in effect today. Shouldn’t Boehner be willing to accept tax increases, or perhaps even be eager for them, in order to fight the debt menace he cites?

Boehner doesn’t really care about the public debt, as he made clear when he repeatedly supported debt-expanding measures under a Republican president. What Boehner and House Republicans really want are excuses to cut federal spending, particularly on programs such as Medicaid and food stamps that support low-income Americans. But those cuts are unpopular, so Republicans frame fiscal debate to make such cuts appear necessary to avoid disaster."

Read Bloomberg, Boehner Accidentally Explains Why His Deficit Position Is Phony. 

The article includes a chart showing the growth of "the net debts of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. They have soared -- up 5,760 percent since 1987. By comparison, the roughly 600 percent rise in the U.S. public debt over the same period looks restrained. Is Wal-Mart mad? How long can it go on just borrowing and borrowing and borrowing?

The answer is 'as long as Wal-Mart keeps growing.' The white line shows Wal-Mart’s ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. And what that shows is that Wal-Mart’s debts have been rising to keep pace with its growing earnings. Similarly, for six decades U.S. government debt has been rising roughly in line with the growth of the economy. Over the last few years, it’s grown a lot faster because of cyclical economic weakness. The proper matter for debate is whether recent deficits are too large -- not whether six decades is too long to run them."

Why Are Republi-CONs Opposed to Immigration? In Order To Protect the 'White Native Population'

The Heritage Foundation is a CONservative think tank. 

It "made something of a splash with its study suggesting that immigration reform will cost the public trillions. Past work by one of its co-authors helps put that piece in context.

Jason Richwine is relatively new to the think tank world. He received his PhD in public policy from Harvard in 2009, and joined Heritage after a brief stay at the American Enterprise Institute. Richwine’s doctoral dissertation is titled 'IQ and Immigration Policy'; the contents are well summarized in the dissertation abstract:

The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.

Richwine’s dissertation asserts that there are deep-set differentials in intelligence between races. While it’s clear he thinks it is partly due to genetics — 'the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ' — he argues the most important thing is that the differences in group IQs are persistent, for whatever reason. He writes, 'No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.'"

Read the Washington Post, Heritage study co-author opposed letting in immigrants with low IQs.

The Republi-CON Myth of Expansionary Austerity

UPDATE IV:  "The nation’s unemployment rate would probably be nearly a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth almost two points higher this year if Washington had not cut spending and raised taxes as it has since 2011, according to private-sector and government economists.

After two years in which President Obama and Republicans in Congress have fought to a draw over their clashing approaches to job creation and budget deficits, the consensus about the result is clear: Immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery."

Read The New York Times, Economists See Deficit Emphasis as Impeding Recovery. 

UPDATE III:  "At this point the economic case for austerity — for slashing government spending even in the face of a weak economy — has collapsed. Claims that spending cuts would actually boost employment by promoting confidence have fallen apart. Claims that there is some kind of red line of debt that countries dare not cross have turned out to rest on fuzzy and to some extent just plain erroneous math. Predictions of fiscal crisis keep not coming true; predictions of disaster from harsh austerity policies have proved all too accurate. . .

And if you look at United States history since World War II, you find that of the 10 presidents who preceded Barack Obama, seven left office with a debt ratio lower than when they came in. Who were the three exceptions? Ronald Reagan and the two George Bushes. So debt increases that didn’t arise either from war or from extraordinary financial crisis are entirely associated with hard-line conservative governments.

And there’s a reason for that association: U.S. conservatives have long followed a strategy of “starving the beast,” slashing taxes so as to deprive the government of the revenue it needs to pay for popular programs.

The funny thing is that right now these same hard-line conservatives declare that we must not run deficits in times of economic crisis. Why? Because, they say, politicians won’t do the right thing and pay down the debt in good times. And who are these irresponsible politicians they’re talking about? Why, themselves."

Read The New York Times, The Chutzpah Caucus. 

UPDATE II:  "Economic debates rarely end with a T.K.O. But the great policy debate of recent years between Keynesians, who advocate sustaining and, indeed, increasing government spending in a depression, and austerians, who demand immediate spending cuts, comes close — at least in the world of ideas. At this point, the austerian position has imploded; not only have its predictions about the real world failed completely, but the academic research invoked to support that position has turned out to be riddled with errors, omissions and dubious statistics.

Yet two big questions remain. First, how did austerity doctrine become so influential in the first place? Second, will policy change at all now that crucial austerian claims have become fodder for late-night comics? . .

Part of the answer surely lies in the widespread desire to see economics as a morality play, to make it a tale of excess and its consequences. We lived beyond our means, the story goes, and now we’re paying the inevitable price. Economists can explain ad nauseam that this is wrong, that the reason we have mass unemployment isn’t that we spent too much in the past but that we’re spending too little now, and that this problem can and should be solved. No matter; many people have a visceral sense that we sinned and must seek redemption through suffering — and neither economic argument nor the observation that the people now suffering aren’t at all the same people who sinned during the bubble years makes much of a dent."

Read The New York Times, The 1 Percent’s Solution.   

UPDATE:  "For three years, the turn to austerity has been presented not as a choice but as a necessity. Economic research, austerity advocates insisted, showed that terrible things happen once debt exceeds 90 percent of G.D.P. But “economic research” showed no such thing; a couple of economists made that assertion, while many others disagreed. Policy makers abandoned the unemployed and turned to austerity because they wanted to, not because they had to."

Read The New York Times, The Excel Depression.  

Another Republi-con myth fails in the real world of factual reality:

"With all the theatrics going on in Washington, you might well have missed the most important political and economic news of the week: an official confirmation from the United Kingdom that austerity policies don’t work.

In making his annual Autumn Statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was forced to admit that his government has failed to meet a series of targets it set for itself back in June of 2010, when it slashed the budgets of various government departments by up to thirty per cent. Back then, Osborne said that his austerity policies would cut his country’s budget deficit to zero within four years, enable Britain to begin relieving itself of its public debt, and generate healthy economic growth. None of these things have happened. Britain’s deficit remains stubbornly high, its people have been suffering through a double-dip recession, and many observers now expect the country to lose its 'AAA' credit rating."

Read The New Yorker, It’s Official: Austerity Economics Doesn’t Work.

As you may remember, the myth of expansionary austerity has been the subject of numerous posts over the past several years.

America's New Religion: Market Capitolism (Pun Intended)

"Some say the moral failing at the heart of market triumphalism was greed, which led to irresponsible risk-taking. The solution, according to this view, is to rein in greed, insist on greater integrity and responsibility among bankers and Wall Street executives, and enact sensible regulations to prevent a similar crisis from happening again.

This is, at best, a partial diagnosis. While it is certainly true that greed played a role in the financial crisis, something bigger was and is at stake. The most fateful change that unfolded during the past three decades was not an increase in greed. It was the reach of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life traditionally governed by nonmarket norms. To contend with this condition, we need to do more than inveigh against greed; we need to have a public debate about where markets belong—and where they don’t. . .

Consider, for example, the proliferation of for-profit schools, hospitals, and prisons, and the outsourcing of war to private military contractors. (In Iraq and Afghanistan, private contractors have actually outnumbered U.S. military troops.) Consider the eclipse of public police forces by private security firms—especially in the U.S. and the U.K., where the number of private guards is almost twice the number of public police officers.

Or consider the pharmaceutical companies’ aggressive marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a practice now prevalent in the U.S. but prohibited in most other countries. (If you’ve ever seen the television commercials on the evening news, you could be forgiven for thinking that the greatest health crisis in the world is not malaria or river blindness or sleeping sickness but an epidemic of erectile dysfunction.)

Consider too the reach of commercial advertising into public schools, from buses to corridors to cafeterias; the sale of “naming rights” to parks and civic spaces; the blurred boundaries, within journalism, between news and advertising, likely to blur further as newspapers and magazines struggle to survive; the marketing of “designer” eggs and sperm for assisted reproduction; the buying and selling, by companies and countries, of the right to pollute; a system of campaign finance in the U.S. that comes close to permitting the buying and selling of elections.

These uses of markets to allocate health, education, public safety, national security, criminal justice, environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and other social goods were for the most part unheard-of 30 years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted."

Read The Atlantic, What Isn’t for Sale?

The Afghanistan-CON

"And so it turns out, the war in Afghanistan has been an even bigger mug’s game than we imagined. The latest blow comes from a story by Matthew Rosenberg in the April 28 New York Times, reporting that, for the past decade, the CIA has been dropping off bags of cash—now totaling tens of millions of dollars—at the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who in turn has passed it around to his cronies and favored warlords.

This is a very big deal, much more than most scandals about secret payoffs and bribes. It suggests that, in a crucial way, the war was a sham from the get-go, that the conditions for success would never—could never—be fulfilled, and that our own actions helped ensure our failure. . .

[A U.S. Army study] laid bare two important facts about the war. First, the U.S. and Afghan governments did not share the same interests. The American strategy required Karzai to reform, in order to enhance his legitimacy and thus dry up support for the Taliban; Karzai’s strategy was to stay in power, which required payoffs to a network of cronies.

Second, because of this tension, the American strategy’s two goals—to secure the Afghan people from the Taliban and to help reform the Afghan government—were themselves incompatible, or at least in constant tension with each other. For instance, the first goal sometimes required us to pay local security forces, i.e., warlords. This boosted corruption and alienated the population, which worked against the second goal.

This was known all along, certainly by McChrystal and Petraeus, who saw the dynamic of corruption—how it was interwoven with the nature and structure of Karzai’s regime—as their biggest challenge.

But now the Times story tells us that the CIA was stiffening this challenge by providing Karzai with the money to keep the network rolling.

The money was self-defeating in another way. By seeing how much money the Americans were willing to pay just to keep him in power and to support the U.S. mission, Karzai must have inferred that the war was at least as important to them as it was to him—maybe more so. As a result, when McChrystal, Petraeus, and other top U.S. officials made noises about reform, he had good reason to doubt their sincerity. Their own CIA, after all, was bankrolling the corruption; they couldn’t be too serious in their demands to end it.

Which raises a question that some congressional committee might want to probe: How deep, how high, did the complicity with Afghan corruption go? Was this a CIA rogue operation, or did everyone know about it, and, if the latter, did anyone in a position of power see—or say anything about—the contradiction between pushing for reform and abetting corruption? How seriously did the people in charge take this war?"

Read Slate, Feeding the Hand That Bites. 

So Many Republi-CON Lies, So Little Integrity, ObamaCare Edition

If a Republi-con says something that "sounds unbelievable, it’s because it is."

Read the Washington Post, No, Congress isn’t trying to exempt itself from Obamacare. and Congress isn’t giving itself special treatment on Obamacare. It’s giving itself special punishment.

So many lies, so little time to refudiate.

Refuse to Be Afraid

Q:  "What should people be thinking about in the aftermath of an attack like this?"

A: "They should refuse to be terrorized. Terrorism is a crime against the mind. What happened in Boston, horrific as it is, is theater to make you scared. That’s the point. The message of terrorist attacks is you’re not safe, and the government can’t protect you — that the existing power structure can’t protect you.

I tell people if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. By definition, news is something that almost never happens. The brain fools you into thinking the news is what’s important. Our brains overreact to this stuff. Terrorism just pegs the fear button. . .

This is a singular event, and not something that should drive policy. Unfortunately, you can’t prevent this sort of thing 100 percent. Luckily, terrorism is a lot harder than people think, and it happens rarely. The question people asked after 9/11 is what if we had three of these a year in the United States? Turns out there were none. People get their ideas on terrorism from movies and television. . .

The damage from terrorism is primarily emotional. To the extent this terrorist attack succeeds has very little do with the attack itself. It’s all about our reaction. We must refuse to be terrorized. Imagine if the bombs were found and moved at the last second, and no one died, but everyone was just as scared. The terrorists would have succeeded anyway. If you are scared, they win. If you refuse to be scared, they lose, no matter how much carnage they commit."

Read the Washington Post, 'If you are scared, they win. If you refuse to be scared, they lose.'