Re the Flynn resignation.

In tweet form: I couldn't help notice that they put a lot of emphasis on Pence being "misled" So he can be left standing when the rest crumbles. Longer: Not only has the press been operating as if it's possible that Flynn was acting without Trump's knowledge (and direction) but they've given particular credence to the notion that Flynn flat out lied to Pence about the nature of his communication with the Russian ambassador and therefore left him hanging when the media pressed him on the subject. All I can say is that when it comes time for impeachment hearings, Pence's so called innocence is going to come in really handy.

I respond to an "All politicians are the same because the corporations run everything" claim.

So your saying that Al Franken is indistinguishable from Paul Ryan? And that they're both indistinguishable from Ron Paul Jr? Nonsense. Who we vote in makes all the difference in the world and believe it or not, constituent phone calls can affect votes. But that requires that people PAY ATTENTION at all times every day to what's happening in Congress. It's not something that we should wait every 4 years to think about. The worst outcomes for America were pretty much all decided in midterm elections. Think about it.

The plot thickens:

The article may be overwrought but there's not a single word in it that I don't know to be true from other sources: Seth Abramson

Regarding fake news sites:

Just my opinion: The people I am describing have immunized themselves from the possibility of being proven wrong. Having written off all 'fact checking' sites as being corrupt, they are then free to believe whatever makes them feel good. It happens on both sides of the Political spectrum. I think the thing that unites all the people who are susceptible to such manipulation is that they start by identifying an enemy first and then filtering everything else they know through how it relates to their particular battle. If your enemy is drug companies or Monsanto, then you are susceptible to Natural news. If your enemy is Hillary, then you are susceptible to US Uncut. If your enemy is Obama, the you are susceptible to the Daily Caller and Briebart. What these sites all have in common other than spreading lies, is the fact that they regularly attack legitimate news sites as biased and incomplete.

Trump voter lost home, blames incoming Treasury secretary

I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more 'buyers remorse' stories as the term wears on: Oops

Sigh......

It's truly disturbing that we whenever Trump makes an appointment, we sigh in relief when "not insane" is among their qualifications.

Riddle me this

Q: When is a Nazi Klansman a 'controversial figure'?
A: When he's being described on CNN.

 Q: How do you know that a scandal is being manufactured out of thin air.
 A: When it 'raises questions'.

Compassion's Not In Fashion Anymore

'Spreading' Freedom

In the past, one of the most difficult quandaries the US faced was that it saw it's role as a Protector of Freedom elsewhere in the world. The problem with this is that it's difficult to impose 'self-determination' when the only tool at your disposal is weaponry. Self determination is pretty much the antithesis of the threat of force. As we enter the Trump era, however we con look forward to this problem disappearing. Seeing as his first act will be to ally ourselves with Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, we can suddenly forget about the idea of self-determination in Syria. The Balkans? Sorry. Having decided that it's now okay to not only prop up dictators, but to not even have to pretend to care about their legitimacy, we can enter into a Brave New World of Peace and Prosperity, where the only meaningful conflicts are WITHIN nations rather than between them.

Left on a thread concerning our current predicament and it's Historical roots.

Clinton's 3rd way was a direct result of Reaganism. Reagan was direct response to the Great society. The Great Society was a direct response to Jim Crow. Jim Crow was a direct response to Emancipation. You CANNOT separate the present form the past in any meaningful way.

Left on a comment thread somewhere: re Trump

Here's the deal. His announced goal is to increase infrastructure and military spending while drastically cutting taxes. He claims he wants to balance the budget but he's relying on magical growth fairies to do that part for him. And with single party control of that House, the Senate and the Supreme court, our whole system of checks and balances is now inoperable. He has plenty of time (at least 2 years) to do lasting damage and that's precisely what we can expect. In other words, the people who are going to be most thoroughly screwed over by his Presidency are the people who voted for him.

Taboos and Trump

The entire project of warfare requires that we keep certain conversations taboo. We insist on honoring the fallen but it's the survivors who actually 'win' the battle. We insist that our soldiers are defending freedom when they are in fact deployed thousands of miles away and are fighting people who themselves are defending their own homes. The inherent immorality of engaging in indiscriminate killing renders honest conversation about warfare utterly taboo. Apparently Donald didn't get the memo. But of course he's enough of a sociopath to regard indiscriminate killing to be a feature, not a bug.

I don't know whather to be upset over the blatant racism that took place in McKinney TX or heartened by the fact that anybody who comes out publicly in support of the officer gets either immediately fired or is outed as felon. Teacher fired Oops

Merry Christmas

Beware the word "Thug"

"Thug." Watch it carefully. It's only use is to dehumanize people. We humans have inalienable rights and even criminals are protected by the due process clause. But if you're a thug? Not so much. "Thug" is just a spam-filter safe spelling of "ni&&er".

Somebody help me out......

What I find fascinating is that while we all worry about the rise of the surveillance state, it's first and most prominent victims are the police. I'm not sure what to make of that.

New Republic goes after Dawkins.

The capacity and propensity for destruction goes with being human. One does not have to be religious to acknowledge this dark fact.

It's astounding how many writers get this exactly backward. As animals, we simply are.. There are no value judgments to be applied beyond the fact that living seems better than dying. It's quite unremarkable that we are capable of evil. What is absolutely ASTOUNDING is that we are capable of thinking about it. Good and Evil is a strictly human preoccupation; it does not exist in nature without our very peculiar and rare brains. It's worth noting too that all creatures on earth are equally evolved. Therefore intelligent, moral creatures are a one in a billion long shot.

I take issue

I take issue The rise of intelligence and consciousness, far from being a natural result of evolution is incredibly rare. On earth it has only been achieved by one species out of millions (all of which are equally 'evolved') You may be right about what's next for us, but you can't accurately portray it as a natural progression. Our's is a quite unique road.

Re; Upcoming ISIS operations.

My #1 concern is that our enemies in Iraq and our friends in Syria happen to be the same people. Current estimates of ISIS fighting strength is only 30,000 or the number in attendance at a typical Hockey game. Do we really think that we can muster a force that will defeat them while that force is in fact fighting the Syrian regime side by side with their alleged enemies. This whole mess is a direct result of the American reflex that insists that no matter what, we have to DO SOMETHING. It doesn't help that 'Caliphate" is one of those magic words that causes neocon's ears to bleed whenever they hear it. Obama has to DO SOMETHING and by God, he's going to do it, at least until 11/4 is safely in the rear-view mirror.

Re: McCain vs Carney

The trouble is that this clip has now appeared on every news site there is. McCain isn't going away until people start ignoring him. When I asked the folks at Time why he was always on TeeVee, they insisted that it's because he always "makes news". Unfortunately as long as we consider crap like this "news" they will continue to be right.

Ask Time Magazine

#AskTime My Grandfather was Methodist Minister, a noted leftist, and dedicated his life to helping the less fortunate as Director of the Indianapolis Goodwill for 35 years. I attended Church as a youth and was taught in no uncertain terms that Jesus's mission was one of mercy and forgiveness. I then attended a summer camp run by Wheaton College and was presented with an entirely different and (to me) alien version of Christianity. 

My question is simply this: What happened to allow the word "Christian" to become a synonym for "Right Wing"? I know for a fact that there are literally millions of Liberal Christians but any close look at the media and the words they choose, makes it seem like such people are insignificant to the point of non-existence. 

What we do to help journalists write more carefully so they aren't lazily conflating two very different concepts?

Another way "Centrism" equals dishonesty.

It appears that every news outlet that covering the Lerner story is ignoring the fact that the subject of the conversation was "the whacko wing of the GOP". That does not mean 'Conservatives". That does not mean 'Some Republicans" The fact that they are pretending that it does means that the MSM INCLUDING Time is willing to lie in order to push a false narrative. Lois Lerner's e-mails acknowledged a simple fact that is also apparent to most mainstream Republicans. The fact that they are unwilling to admit it makes them liars as well.

Reminder

Of course Benghazi wouldn't be nearly the obsession it has become if Mitt Romney hadn't made a complete a$$ of himself the night it happened. Accusing the Commander in Chief of the Armed forces of siding with the enemy is NOT something you should be doing if you happen to be a loyal American. The real cover up is the fact that no one remembers that little slip because of all the chaff that's been deployed since.

I'm posting this here and now so that my bragging rights are preserved

Today the Senate eliminated the filibuster for judicial nominees. I am therefore compelled to make this prediction: The senate is NOT going to change hands in 2014 OR 2016. There is no question that the problems with the Federal exchange will be worked out WELL before springtime and the Party of NO will be relegated to hoping to cancel policies that are written and in place.

You heard it here first (08-20-13 to be precise)

@ggreenwald If you need to avoid a law against spying on your own citizens, you can just ask a foreign government to do it for you.

— Paul Dirks (@phd9) August 20, 2013

Regarding Eric Holder's new sentencing strategies.

 It's apparently difficult for people to fully comprehend how important this is. It matters not whether it's a DOJ idea or a State idea and sniping over timing is just plain stupid. For decades, the most reliable way politicians could pander for votes is to promise to lock up more of "those" people. The strategy was always unsustainable, but the fact that people can reliably talk about reversing the trend without inviting virulent attacks is HUGE. I never would have believed I'd see it in my lifetime.

Swampland

A Republican Senate?

I want to emphasize that the possibility of Republicans taking over the chamber does NOT change my mind about the filibuster. The only way that Congresscritters are actually held accountable to their constituents is if they pass laws that they don't like. The number one argument against Republican rule is what happens when they have it.

The games people play with votes and procedure targeting nothing than opportunities for soundbites is disgusting. The best way around that is to allow whichever party is in control to actually implement their agenda. Temporary pain is the only way to actually fix what's wrong with current thinking.

Re: Guantanomo

It's worth remembering while the Right Wing rends it's garments over informing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that he has rights under the Constitution, the reason these people can't be dealt with is precisely because Bush ignored the Constitution in dealing with them in the first place. Once you've tortured someone you no longer can use the evidence they provide to try them. And since the policy going in was always err on the side of locking up anyone suspicious, what's left is a massive mess that no one wants responsibility for. 

"Blame Bush" may be regarded as a copout in some circles but anything less is gross negligence.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/president-obama-sides-with-his-guantanamo-bay-protesters/#ixzz2S2YtlojE

Re Michael Grunwald

Tread On Me 

There are two threads of though that seem to be missing from the current debate. One is the fact that private actors if they act in concert can be just as threatening to freedom as government. Though I can pee in a cup, free from fear, the fact that I need to even think of such things if I want to fully participate in society is a serious erosion of Freedom. If Government forbids employers from asking me for my Facebook password, then it's pretty clear that the government is DEFENDING my Freedom against Private sector infringement.

The second thing that seems to be severely misunderstood is Miranda. The point of Miranda is to prevent Police from beating confessions out of suspects who may or may not be guilty. It doesn't even prevent police from beating confessions out of people. It just stipulates, that if they do so, they can't use those confessions in court. 

It's a very important right to preserve for obvious reasons, but it the idea that we can't question someone without reading his rights, when we already have more than enough evidence to convict WITHOUT his statements, is to blow the problem up out of proportion. Miranda is an  important right to defend. This is not a good case on which to hang your defense.

For the record......

To make it official, I am not among the one's who's immediately clamoring for stricter gun control laws, but the people who are arguing against them might just change my mind. What a heaping pile of idiocy!

Just sayin.......

As long as news organizations think that the causes of Global Warming are worthy poll questions, misinformation will continue to run rampant. The planet itself really doesn't CARE whether people think temperature trends are caused by human activity or not. Science is not a matter of opinion.

Oops

Those of us who pay attention to the political landscape on a daily basis have trouble understanding the viewpoint of people who don't pay any attention at all. The entire Romney campaign is based on the assumption that his target audience doesn't know any better. His most severe miscalculation was thinking that Ohio autoworkers might be among those who don't pay attention.

TPM Prime

TalkingPointsMemo has a new 'prime' site up. The first thread was full of introductions. Here's mine:

I'm 54 years old. I spent 17 years working in manufacturing, working my way up from QC technician to Production Manager. In that capacity I was instrumental in helping to resist several Union organizing drives. I was convinced that Labor Unions had performed an important service in the past but had outlived their usefulness. Then the company was acquired by a much larger entity. Needless to say, within two years I was busy deciding the order to let people go as we shuttered the plant. Having no particular ties to the area, my wife and I then relocated to the US Virgin Islands where I split my time as an Office Manager by day and a Musician in the evenings. I feel very fortunate, but I nevertheless have strong opinions about how the dire state of our economy is directly related to the fact that we have allowed our manufacturing capacity to be outflanked. It's an issue that NEITHER party seems willing to address in any forceful manner.

More on Romney's tax plan.

It's no secret that I don't think that the deception inherent in Mitt's tax plan is getting enough coverage. He's refused to say how he would offset the revenue losses. But more importantly he's relying on the same "growth fairies" that the GOP has been selling for as long as I've been paying attention to politics (Hint: that's 40 years) Here's the question. If tax cuts invariably lead to growth that in turn leads to more revenue, then why aren't the Bush tax cuts doing JUST THAT for us now? They're still in place. If they worked, then they're still working. If they aren't working then what possible basis do we have to believe that we just need more of the same to make things right?

Fact check?

There's a fundamental problem with Romney's tax plan which is creating havoc among the "fact-checkers" His plan is basically this: 1 Keep all the Bush tax cuts 2 Cut all tax rates by 20 percent across the board 3 ? 4 Continue to collect as much revenue as you had been. As long as CNN et al are willing to pretend that "?" represents an acceptable enunciation of a tax policy then they are going to continue to get their "facts" horribly wrong. This is NOT an acceptable situation!

As long as national reporters are willing to believe 6 impossible things before breakfast, Romney will get away with asserting 6 impossible things before breakfast.

And the Hits keep coming.

There are many different words you can use to describe slandering 146 Million working Americans. Patriotic is not on the list. Wrapping yourself in the flag means nothing if you don't also respect that we are a Government of the People.

Why is Romney getting bad press? Because he's earned it.

The New Rupublic

But the stories about this episode have made Romney look bad because, you know, Romney looked bad. Even staunch conservatives and Republicans, like Peggy Noonan, were taken aback at Romney’s reaction. It was based on false premises and, these conservatives felt, it was wildly inappropriate. (As Sophie Quinton noted in the Atlantic, it was the very nearly the opposite reaction that Ronald Reagan had in 1980, after the failed mission to rescue the Iranian hostages.)

Found Via Eschaton

One of the most blatant paradoxes of today's Republican party is how they like to scream and moan about deficit spending but that the moment anyone mentions that increasing revenues would address the problem they utterly clam up. The following article is a long read but it explains clearly the History behind this particular brand of doublethink: PDF File The money quote comes from Milt Friedman:

There is an important point that needs to be stressed to those who regard themselves as fiscal conservatives. By concentrating on the wrong thing, the deficit, instead of the right thing, total government spending, fiscal conservatives have been the unwitting handmaidens of the big spenders. The typical historical process is that the spenders put through laws which increase government spending. A deficit emerges. The fiscal conservatives scratch their heads and say, “My God, that’s terrible; we have got to do something about that deficit.” So they cooperate with the big spenders in getting taxes imposed. As soon as the new taxes are imposed and passed,the big spenders are off again, and there is another burst in government spending and another deficit. (1978b, 11)

About those taxes.......

The problem with Capital gains taxes, is that its not their rates that determine economic activity, It's the anticipated change in their rates. If rates are scheduled to go up, a flurry of selloffs will follow resulting in stocks losing value and more cash (and cash equivalents) being hoarded. If rates are scheduled to go down, then investors will prefer to sit tight on their appreciated assets, and wait for the taxes to drop before they cash in. The resulting distortions are what cause people to claim that lowering taxes cause revenue windfalls. They're one shot deals that don't continue after the new rates are settled in. I personally find it difficult to justify that people who live on their investments are taxed significantly less than people who earn salaries. I'm all for simplifying the tax code but none of the proposals on the table do anything but make the stratifying of our society even worse than it already is.

Re: The vanishing Middle Class

What's actually killing the middle class is the disparity in standards of living between the USA we know and love and the rest of the developing world. Neither party is actually willing to discuss the problem in detail because neither party has a solution. The difference though is that Obama is at least willing to use phrases like 'investing in education' and such to act a:as if the problem exists and b: as if something can be done about it. Romney OTOH, simply wants to make sure that money earned offshore can be repatriated tax free.

Responding to the quote below:

Whether we like it or not, we're going to move away from manufacturing towards a service based economy There's the problem in a nutshell. Whenever we think of any activity that earns money, we have to ask ourselves, "How does this add value?" Measured in terms of fulfilling actual human needs as opposed to simply drawing attention and cash, the only activities that actually add value are farming, manufacturing and transportation. Everything else is a matter of trading cash for vapor. Thinking that the American economy can make do without actually producing anything is the number one fundamental problem with out current economy. It's also the number one topic that everyone refuses to talk about.

I'll need this for tomorrow.......

Some edumacation for the trolls:

There has been a five percentage-point Democratic advantage, on average, in Fox News polls this year. In this poll, the Democratic edge is nine points. That may or may not be on the high side, although it is similar to other recent national polls conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, which puts Democrats up 11 percentage points and the Pew Research Center, with Democrats up by 13 percent.

That my friends is Fox news taking away the number one excuse the Teaheads offer when confronted with a negative poll. OVERSAMLPLING!!!!!!! Link

Every Day Is Thursday.

This appeared within 24 hours of a "FactCheck" that came to the opposite conclusion. Posted here for easy access.

Quick Test

2012-07-US-Sapphire 1

The two most important counters to the Obamacare as tax increase meme:

1: In the anti-injunction section of his ruling Roberts makes clear that the Congress did not intend for the penalty to be regarded as a tax. Anyone who uses this as a basis to claim that "Obama lied" about raising taxes are themsleves, lying. 2: It's a tax that NO ONE has to pay. The mandate is not a tax. The penalty is. It results in no ones taxes going up except in the rare event that they steadfastly refuse to provide for their own medical care. Furthermore the HCR law DOES include some taxes which the Republicans are respinning as affecting earners under 250K. But in each case, the claim is based on the actual payers of the tax passing them on to their customers as higher prices. This does NOT constitute a tax. People who claim otherwise are lying

Where I can Find Them

SB 1070 falls.

No one covering the latest Supreme court ruling seems to be noticing this crucial point:

(2) It is not clear at this stage and on this record that §2(B), in practice, will require state officers to  delay the release of detainees for no reason other than to verify their immigration status.  This would raise constitutional concerns.   And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision.  But §2(B) could be read to avoid these concerns.  If the law only requires state officers to conduct a status check during the course of an authorized, lawful detention or after a detainee has been released, the provision would likely survive preemption—at least absent some showing that it has other consequences that are adverse to federal law and its objectives.  Without the benefit of a definitive interpretation from the state courts, it would be inappropriate to assume §2(B) will be construed in a way that conflicts with federal law.  Cf.  Fox v.  Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 277.  This opinion does not  foreclose other preemption and constitutional challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect.  Pp. 22–24.

In other words 2(B) stands if and only if in actual practice it is not allowed to be the basis to detain anyone.

It has become fashionable now that Obama has created a 'Dream Act by Fiat" for Republicans to complain that he 'didn't do anything about immigration" when the Democrats controlled Congress.

Senate Republicans Block DREAM Act for Illegal Immigrants"

Needless to say, this is a lie........

The Individual Mandate Circa 1993

Left on a techie thread.....

Every time I call a company have to navigate a seven layer maze in order to reach a human I am reminded that the entire rationale for the technology that businesses buy is to eliminate jobs. In a day and age when entry level positions simply don't exist, celebrating additional triumphs of robotic thinking strikes me as horribly misguided.

I'm posting this as a constant reminder that no matter how far we think we have come, the past is not too far behind us. This is a page from The Rand McNally Grammar School geography textbook published in 1899.This is what my paternal Grandfather was taught in school!

The difference between Jobs, Job losses and Job loss rates seems to confuse people so I thought I'd draw my own picture. The blue bars represent the public sector job loss data that is often published on Left leaning sites including the White House. The red line is just the sum of those job losses or if you want, just label it Jobs. The green line (with the black trendline) is the month to month variation of the red line. I only mention it because Heritage once created a graphic designed to treat it as significant that there was an inflection point in it just as HCR was passed. I hope this chart demonstrates just how ridiculous THAT chart was.

On Gay marriage and Obama's 'evolution'

I'm delighted that Obama cited the Golden Rule as one basis of his decision. What strikes me more than anything is the volume of Scripture that people have to ignore in order to justify actively opposing Gay Marriage. If the Gospel teaches us anything its that 1: Our responsibility is to keep our own House in order and concern over condemning others is itself sinful. 2:Prayer should be a private matter between you and your Creator and that public displays of piety count for naught. 3: We are ultimately judged by how we treat prisoners and beggars and outcasts. Engaging in behavior designed to create outcasts is directly contrary to Jesus's direction. It never ceases to amaze me how many people fail to notice these simple points.

Decisions, decisions......?

What I find fascinating at this point is the Republicans seem completely undecided whether Obama is a ruthless thug or a spineless pushover. Having to decide definitely throws them off their game.

The Buffet Tax.....

As an actual policy proposal, the Buffet tax is a really bad idea. It just adds an additional layer of if/then calculations to a tax code that's already virtually incomprehensible. The value it brings to the campaign though is that it demonstrates in stark terms that the Right doesn't care about deficits and in spite of all the wailing and rending of garments, they never did. The fact that it would only cover a small percentage of the deficit is NOT an argument against it. If I have a chance to save 15% on my mortgage payments by refinancing, I'm not going to turn it down just because I still have to pay the rest. The bottom line is that the entire campaign strategy being presented now, is a direct result of the debt limit battle in August. Having demonstrated that Eric Cantor's agenda has dire real world consequences, Obama's now going to run directly against it.

Old Time Rock 'N Roll (Solo Break)

Comment on the IL Primary.

Illinois is unique in that it has all the demographic elements of the entire country laid out in sharply defined geographical boundaries. The city of Chicago is ethnically diverse and solidly Democratic. The surrounding counties (DuPage and Lake) in particular are entirely filled with the sort of preserve-my-wealth Republicans who nevertheless feel comfortable with the city, actually know gay people and are mostly uninterested in the Culture wars. From I-80 south OTOH the entire rest of the State is cornfields peppered with pop. 2000 town and a few minor almost-urban areas (Champaigne, Kankakee, Peoria, Springfield, Joliet) It is there, where fear of strangers, open unapologetic racism, and religious certainty are all welcome, that Santorum is able to shine. The reason that Romney is the inevitable nominee, is that the third category is a large area but very sparsely populated. (Don't tell any of those inhabitants that they don't represent the real America though) Those are fighting words!

The biggest LLC checks to Restore Our Future in January came from entities close to one industry: short-term lenders.

It's interesting that it takes a discussion about campaign finance to finally begin a discussion about predatory lending. As the rich and the poor choose up sides in our political system and invest their best efforts aligning sympathy from those who are neither rich nor poor one simple fact gets easily lost in the noise. Being poor is expensive. It's often said "it takes money to make money". Just as true is a similar slogan. "It costs money to need money" Between the lack of credit and the lack of transportation, not having a leg-up in life ends up being a chronic condition. Of course the reason this sees little discussion is that it interferes with the notion that the poor are just parasites who deserve their fate. At the end of the day though, any business model that relies on the ignorance of its customers is NOT an example of normal Capitalism at work.

Recession?

While everyone goes back and forth arguing over what a recession is, it obscures an important point. We are not in a recession and haven't been for a long time. Corporate profits are quite healthy. Productivity is healthy. The stock market is healthy. What isn't healthy is the job market. The irony then is the fact that we can lay the blame for our current morass on one place and one place only. The Job Creators®. For a bunch of folks who insist that the government can do no right, the current crop of Republicans are sure spending a lot of time blaming the Government for a situation that's directly under the control of the private sector. But as I've said before, when you're a purchaser of labor, high unemployment is a feature, not a bug.

Re: Ron Paul

The central paradox surrounding the Republican party is that they profess to hate the Federal government as an encroachment on their freedom, yet that hatred suddenly evaporates when the portion of the Federal government in question is the one that actually has control of all the weaponry.

Another Swampland Post:

Oddly enough I just used the phrase 'the politics of bedwetting' on the Ron Paul thread. I should have saved it for here. Anytime a commenter here (of any persuasion) makes a confident statement about the impending victory of their side in an upcoming election I am reminded of the tendency of people to think that their familiar world extends much wider than it actually does. They know how their neighbors vote and assume that that viewpoint is widespread. The downside to this style of thinking though is that the outer edge of this 'sphere of familiarity' represents a much sharper border in people's minds than it is in real life. No matter how frightening or foreign or dangerous a place seems, it's home to the people who live there and people are WAY more alike than they are different. (It may not seem that way until you remember that the next closest point of comparison are apes) We often marvel at how small the internet makes the world seem, but it's still no substitute for actual travel.

Posted on a Swampland thread re: Teacher's Salaries.

I knew it would be only a matter of moments before we got crowds of people demonstrating the inadequacy of public school teachers by displaying their own ignorance proudly. The truth is that a bad teacher can't keep a motivated student down and a good teacher can only marginally help someone who's uninterested in learning. How we succeed as a nation has a lot more to do with whether we hold education as a value in the first place. The fact that an entire movement is being built up around shouting down experts, decrying elitism (except among skilled gamblers), targeting bright people as worthy of scorn and flat out denying the utility of science says 10 times more about how we are going to fare as a nation than whether schoolteachers manage to pull down 60K or settle for 40. This Heritage foundation (lying with graphs since 1973) study is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.

Saved

I was told to save this link I wonder why?

Efficiency......

Every time I make a phone call to a large company and am greeted by a robot, I am reminded of the fundamental conflict that is at the heart of our current employment crisis. There is a tipping point past which the drive for 'efficiency' is self defeating. There isn't a company on the planet who's primary purpose is "creating jobs" Creating jobs is an unfortunate byproduct, like friction. Unfortunatly creating jobs is also how one creates Consumers aka Buyers. Until we are willing to look at 'creating jobs' as a value in of itself and decide that we're willing to do what's necessary to make it happen, our 'jobless recovery' has all the makings of a new status quo.

Now that that's over.....

Now that this is over and we can "pivot" to jobs, it's time to realize that bringing back jobs is going to require significantly more effort than anyone is currently suggesting. Ever since the Clinton years (yes Clinton) there has been a concerted effort to move manufacturing jobs to places like China, Mexico, India and Brazil. As I've been documenting for a while these places are Dreams of low wages, lousy work conditions and no regulation. (Something to bear in mind whenever anyone complains that it's stifling regulation that chases companies away. They're half right, but imitating our competitors is a lousy idea.)

In the meantime, the steady erosion of manufacturing jobs was effectively masked by Home-equity-driven Consumer spending and Housing bubble-driven construction jobs. (The abrupt end of the Credit Card gravy train is part of the reason people are so confused about the Federal debt. They keep comparing it to consumer debt.)

So there are two things we have to come to grips with.
1: We are never going to compete with the Chinese by 'deregulating'. There's nothing desirable about the result.
2: Home construction jobs aren't coming back and they weren't a good way to drive the economy in the first place. We need to write them off.

Whats the solution. D@mned if I know, but I do know that the current arguments we're having don't even BEGIN to address the actual problem.

Why I am now a Liberal

See this is where your mistaken about me. I'm fully aware that the impulse to regulate can lead to ridiculous extremes. I know that Union rules can lead to ridiculous inefficiencies and be harmful to well intentioned companies. I know that investment decisions are always made with the regulatory environment in mind and that potential areas of growth can languish as a result. If Conservative arguments didn't at least sometimes have merit, then it wouldn't have been possible to end up in our current mess where people think that if a little is good, a lot must really rock.

But I'm also aware that certain industries are harmful to the Commons in ways that aren't reflected in their balance sheets unless the harm is codified as taxes and regulations. I also know that companies would gladly pay less that a dollar an hour for labor if they could find a way to get away with it.

I'm old enough to have watched the baseline of 'reasonable' in this country drift so far to the right that Gov Jim Thompson of Illinois and for that matter Richard Nixon's politics would be instantly written off a "socialist" today. (You may recall that Nixon was the one who created the EPA in the first place. The problems it was set up to address are very real and many of them have been mitigated as a result.

The problem with today's Right Wing is just like that of a substance addict. Their personal dissatisfaction just translates into needing MORE of whatever it is they think will help and negative consequences are washed away in a flood of denial.

As I've been saying all along. If the National Association of Manufacturers AND the Chamber of Commerce and NRO think you've gone off the rails, it's time to step back and reevaluate where you stand

Re. The Debt Limit......

Let me type slowly and clearly. The Republican Party does not and never has cared about debt or deficits. They only care about taxes. The current round of negotiations proves that this has not changed. In the meantime the tax cuts that have been in place for the last ten years have accomplished nothing EXCEPT exacerbate the deficit. If they were the key to job creation, then no one would be complaining about current unemployment.

The problem with employment is unrelated to the current discussion. The housing equity bubble allowed both new home construction and consumer spending to continue well past their natural due date as the actual basis of our wealth, was carefully and deliberately relocated to China, India, Mexico and Brazil.

One other thing remains certain. No matter how you feel about the ability of tax revenues to create jobs, the idea that suddenly cutting off those revenues will do anything but make unemployment worse is sheer fantasy or (more likely) craven dishonesty. The Republicans know that their current threats are designed to make the economy worse.

The opportunity is here, to intelligently address these problems but the primary impediment to the whole process is centered rather firmly in the Tea Party wing of the Republican caucus. You would think that when the same organization that sunk millions of dollars into advertising designed to sink Obamacare, goes on record as opposing your negotiating strategy, that it would be time to reconsider, but ignorance and nihilism seem to be calling the shots and the moment.

Note To Eric Cantor

When you've lost the Chamber of Commerce And The National Association of Manufacturers then you are officially off the rails.

http://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/hill-letters/110712DebtCeilingLetter_0.pdf

E-Verify Employment Check........

No one can deny that proper enforcement of employment restrictions can and will be remarkably more effective at stemming illegal immigration than the system of random harassment that we currently have in place. But I'm am also very wary of "technological" solutions to the problems. In an age of 10+ percent unemployment I still have to jump through 14 hoops if I ever want to talk to a human being on the telephone at any large company. It's time we understood that "efficiency" and "full employment" are in direct conflict with each other and stopped worshiping efficiency at all costs.
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My slogan for years has been "Never Trust A Robot". Nothing I see coming down the pike has changed that outlook.

Why "Church of Reagan" doctrine is wrong........

What activities that make money add value and which one's extract value instead? Contrary to the dichotomy Conservatives dish up about how the only the private sector adds value and the government extracts it, the real difference requires more detail to flesh out. Building roads (a government activity) clearly adds value, and reselling naked CDS's (private sector) clearly fails to add value. Yet one is a highly revered innovation and the other is a parasitic confiscation of private revenue,

You decide......

Stolen From a Swampland Comment

Paul Ryan's plan to "revitalize" Medicare is conceptually similar to the Allies plans to "revitalize" Dresden.

On the Changeover at DOD and CIA

I'm wondering how well Obama will do motivating the DFH contingent to help with his reelection, since it was clear from the moment he arrived in DC, that he would do absolutely nothing to dislodge the actual power structure that remains in place no matter who is in the White House. Empire is Big Business.

I look forward to watching Ron Paul run for President. Expect hours of entertainment as the Republicans suddenly have to decide whether they're anti-Obama Doves or double-down Hawks.

For Easter Weekend......

America's appetite for military hardware and (to a lesser extent) military intervention seems to track a similar pattern as an individual addicted to drugs or alcohol. The more one consumes, the less effective it is at solving the problem it attempts to address but the only choice that seems open is to simply consume more. We need at some point to break the cycle.

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It's now clear that anyone who thought that a vote for Obama could accomplish that was seriously mistaken.

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Salon Letters

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(link provided as evidence that I harbored no such expectations....)

Fermilab Makes Major Find: Shuts Down in September

This:

Fermilab Makes Major Find: Shuts Down Sept.

Reminded me of this:

Robert R. Wilson


In 1969, Wilson was called to justify the multimillion-dollar machine to the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Bucking the trend of the day, Wilson emphasized it had nothing at all to do with national security, rather:

It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.

Sad but True

I happen to think that the mental machinery that drives schoolyard antics and the one that drives Statecraft happens to be identical. Thats why watching Statecraft play out so often resembles a slow-moving train-wreck. You can see clear as day what is happening but remain powerless to stop it.

The Business of Business

I've always held that the fundamental problem with the US economy is that all the manufacturers who moved their operations overseas and the Big Box retailers who drove small businesses out of business by offering cheap products produced overseas utterly failed to realize that the same people they were avoiding paying labor costs to were their customer base! Easy Consumer credit only managed to mask the problem long enough for everyone to fail to see the direct cause and effect.

That's why the pathetic attempts to blame public sector Unions are so lame. We're all in this together and the failure to recognize this simple fact is leading to quite avoidable tragedy.

Until then

As soon as we've amassed 150 thousand troops in Tunisia, let me know. Then we can begin comparing Libya to Iraq. Until then............

Deficit? What Deficit?

I happened to see 10 minutes of CNN today (Bank line). They spent all sorts of time speculating on what effect turning over operations to NATO would have on the odds of the USA getting stuck in a long term conflict. Not one word was spent on odds of the USA getting stuck with the bill.

Reposted where I can find it

Interestingly Meltdown provided us with a perfect example of how Fox news cherrypicks research results to come to precisely the opposite conclusion as the study's authors.

Compare:

Muslim Americans reject Islamic extremism by larger margins than do Muslim minorities in Western European countries. However, there is somewhat more acceptance of Islamic extremism in some segments of the U.S. Muslim public than others. Fewer native-born African American Muslims than others completely condemn al Qaeda. In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are much more likely than older Muslim Americans to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified. Nonetheless, absolute levels of support for Islamic extremism among Muslim Americans are quite low, especially when compared with Muslims around the world.

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With:

The study found that among the nation's younger Muslims, 26 percent say homicide bombings can at least rarely be justified "in order to defend Islam from its enemies."

So a subset of a subset of the sample answered the question wrong.

Specifically:

Overall, 8% of Muslim Americans say
suicide bombings against civilian targets tactics
are often (1%) or sometimes (7%) justified in the
defense of Islam.

Troubling? Indeed.

A reason to attack Islam as a religion and spend hours in public forums explaining how evil it's practitioners are? Not so much.......

Perspective

One of the things I've noticed as I've grown older is that events happened in the distant past, counterintuitively seem more recent and pertinent. When i was in high school, it seemed that anything happened before the Kennedy assasination was in a different world. Now I can not only see clearly the ways we're still "fighting the civil war" but, in the current populations of the western Hemishpere, see the results of migration patterns that were laid out in the fifteen hundreds.

This perspective is helpful because it helps remind us that things we now all agree are "unthinkable" like slavery and naziism are really NOT all that far removed from our current era. We're still nowhere near as civilized as we give oursleves credit for.

Wisconsin

It pays to remember that we are just now witnessing the second shoe dropping on the long-term 'starve the beast' strategy. All the whining you hear about "there's no money", "We're broke" and "the spending is unsustainable" are a direct result of the decade long mantra of 'cutting taxes will grow the economy" and "It doesn't make sense to punish our most productive sector". The fact that cutting taxes didn't grow the economy and that corporations have been particularly stingy in the "job creation" even though profits are at pre-recession levels reminds us that if we let the Republicans get their way, we'll be right back to the stagnation that marked the Bush years (only with a higher baseline of unemployment.)

Blaming public sector workers for what's wrong with our economy is a particularly brazen crock but apparently there's no shortage of people willing to play along.

On Religion:

The number of Creators of The Universe is somewhere between zero and one. At some point we're all going to have to learn to share..........

Someone somwhere.

It never ceases to amaze me how much the notion that someone somwhere is getting something they don't deserve drives 90% of our discourse.

Re: Iraq

For me, the number 1 lesson of Iraq remains, "A large number of people believing something to be true does not constitute evidence in its favor"
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Any time anyone defends a propostion based on it's popularity, we can point to Saddam's WMD's for instant refutation.

On a discussion about the "Ground Zero Mosque"

It's threads like these that remind me that for many people, religion isn't about worshiping the Creator of the Universe but rather just identifying who you're supposed to hate. I have news. The number of Creators of the Universe is somewhere between zero and one. At some point, we're going to have to learn to share.

Original link has gone bad.

I've always kept a link to John Ashcroft's diatribe against the clipper chip, because it serves as a healthy reminder that the desire to spy on people is a fully bipartisan impulse. That link no longer works but here's a copy:

http://www.badattitudes.com/AshWeb.html

Re: any time Israel/Palastine comes up.......

I just enjoy how the same entity can be a fierce aggressor with no moral compunction whatsoever and a whimpering powerless victim cowering before it's enemies simultaneously. (Notice that I don't even need to specify which entity I could be referring to)
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Just another demonstration of the irrelevance of reality when it comes to tribal/political debates.

Re: BP CEO "I Want My Life Back"

Just as I ask those who insist that "the government is inherently inefficient" to look at the lines of accountability to determine why they might think that and to identify where the real problems lie, we can perform the same exercise on BP. There were problems with the well that caused significant concerns among personnel there. But the lines of accountability, the determination of what sort of behavior is rewarded and what sort of behavior is punished, determined that the best course of action was to shove the problems under the rug.
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The nature of Corporate organization almost guarantees the response. Would the CEO have approved had he been informed? Probably not. That's why he wasn't informed

Regarding Arizona

Everyone arguing about the law, pretends that it only affects resident aliens. This is simply false. The law as written (yes, I've read it) creates unequal treatment under the law for Hispanic citizens. This is directly counter to the forteenth amendment which guarantees equal protection under the law for all citizens regardless of race. Simply stating that the cops can't use race to base their targeting decisions when they in fact have no other basis BUT race to do so, is to deny simple reality.

Thought For The Day

The only people who participate in deciding whether a certain Military action was "worth it" are the people who survived the result. Sort of a skewed dataset if you ask me!

One of the problems with "Centrism"

One of the problems with "Centrism" as currently practiced is that you end up with either the worst of both worlds or an absolutely incoherent and unprincipled position.

To take an obvious example. Many liberals think that torturing prisoners is wrong and should be treated as a war crime pursuant to laws currently on the books in this country. Many conservatives think that torture is AOK because obviously anyone who 'wants to kill us' deserves every moment of agony that can be managed. Centrists on the other hand agree that torture is wrong and illegal but that nevertheless the people who actually did it should be rewarded for their service.

Not much in the way of moral clarity in THAT neighborhood....

Evolving thinking

Back when debate among Swamplanders revolved around whether insisting on the public option was worth holding the entire HCR effort hostage, I spent a lot of time defending Insurance companies against what I saw as a knee-jerk anti-business attitude among my fellow commenters.

Now that I have seen how Blue dog Democrats have aquired a well-honed ability to absolutely lie about their concerns and actually hold out to vote AGAINST reducing Federal outlays for health care, I now see that my loyalty was severely misdirected.

These guys really ARE in the pocket of Aetna and really ARE willing to screw their constituents in order to placate their sponsors.

Finally something new worth posting

The entire theory behind medical insurance existing is that the healthy subsidize the sick. If that weren't the case there would be no value in insurance in the first place. Everyone could keep a savings account for the money they'll need when they succumb. What insurance offers, is the opportunity for someone who gets sick unexpectedly to draw out of the pool before they've paid in fully. Insurers guarantee themselves that they collect more in premiums than they pay in benefits and pocket the difference in administrative costs and profits. Obviously the notion of a 'fair share' under a system where the healthy already pay in more than enough to cover the sick AND the overhead is absurd on its face. Yes the young pay more than their fair share. That's the whole point of insurance. Mandates don't change that one iota.

The Ridge By Fairchild Park

There's a place I often think of
And though it's just a lark
A short straight stretch of two lane road
Just down from Fairchild Park
But each and every morning as I drive over the ridge
An island vista opens to remind me where I live.

It doesn't photograph too well
Wires get in the way
But still it serves to set the mood
Of each unfolding day
And if the horizon's hazy
Well that's just the road you're on
But you know that life is looking up
When the islands meet the dawn

So if you know the North Side
You know just where I mean
And so you know just where to go
To catch that Island scene
It may be just a workday
In just another week
But past the ridge by Fairchild park
Is a whole new world to seek

Left on a Joe Klein thread.

Yesterday I refered to 'the circles you travel' in an effort to defend your gratuitous "I criticize Liberals too" disclaimer in an otherwise refreshingly candid article. Today you reward me by ignoring the fact that Charles Krauthammer is clinically insane.

I know I've been sidetracked and this is seemingly off topic but when I was looking for an example of an 'evil corporation' for a post a few days ago, I went immediately to a Rent-To-Own Site because I know they are in the business of gouging the poor. Until I went to their site, I didn't realize how thoroughly they do so. They offer a $180 two week loan at a flat fee of $30 dollars and hence charge and legally collect 521.43% APR. You thought that the 18-22% the credit card companies get was unconscionable? The point is simple. Corporations are not constrained by conscience. The only way to avoid shameless exploitive behavior is to either make it prohibitively expensive or illegal altogether.
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I think the debate often gets sidetracked when we talk about parasites and make it seem that we're seeking revenge for insurance companies greed. Like the proverbial scorpion crossing the river, Insurance companies can, should and do whatever they can get away with. Our job is to make sure that 'what they get away with' actually serves the public.

My last two health related posts:

My father passed away in 1989 at age of 62. He might not have, but a committee at the privately owned Hospital where he received his care determined that at his age, a lung transplant would not be an efficient use of a limited resource.

My mother passed in 2005 at the age of 76. She had a living will properly drawn out, and cleary spelled out DNR orders. Both died in their own homes.

Anyone who speaks cavalierly about how health care isn't rationed yet but will be under Obamacare or how there's something wrong with providing sensible counseling to people facing serious illnesses is not only hopelessly ignorant but probably heartless as well.



The sad truth is, is that there comes a time in many peoples lives where aggressive Medical treatment is indeed a waste of money. Being appalled and frightened by that fact is a symptom of being human.
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That fear is now being cruelly exploited to derail sane debate about vitally important issues.
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That is nothing short of criminal

Left on a GG thread

I like to point out that the founders were well aware of the various paths toward the abuse of power and tried their best to plug them all. And yes that includes guaranteeing a citizen's ability to defend himself in cases where 'any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends'

That is of course why Constitutional guarantees are necessary, because they run directly counter to human nature especially in times of fear. As I've said before, if the temptation to torture weren't common then the freedom from self-incrimination wouldn't be necessary to enunciate. If the temptation to railroad criminals weren't common then the right to a jury trial wouldn't have been mentioned. Each of our Constitutional guarantees stands directly in the path of the easy way out. That's why they are there.

JNS and Sarah, the condensed interview:

Q1-Why is Government bad?
Q2-Really?
Q3-Was resigning a great move or merely a good one?
Q4-Hillary's a whiner-Why aren't you?
Q5-What now?
Q6-Just can't get enough rally's eh?
Q7-Until your ready to run again?
Q8-Care to unload on Obama?
Q9-Again?
Q10-and once more?

Proceed with caution!