Signs of the Times - Part 1

Okay, the title is a cliché.

This morning I went down to the Occupy Chicago site on LaSalle St. to see what was going on. One thing I discovered is that protesters aren't, as a group, early risers. When I got there, I'd say there were 15-20 folks there. And they all smoked and had facial hair. Ugh.

But as time went by people started arriving from the suburbs, and the average age of the group increased. There is a march scheduled for 6:30 tonight, I'm told, and last week 5,000 people were there.

I'm told.

Well, I took almost 200 photos in the 4 hours I was down there, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so the next few posts will equal maybe 100,000 words to describe what I saw. The first two posts will just show signs I saw.

Remember: if you want a closer look at the picture, click on it.

I know a poly sci major when I see one. [Above]

 

The picture above is particularly interesting, I think. The plaque on the building commemorates the fact that "Standard Time" was created on this site.

A Must-See

Stephen Colbert is shocked to learn that American soldiers in Afghanistan have burned Bill O'Reilly's latest.

The Colbert Report
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Small Town Virtues

I found this post at The Reality-Based Community to be thought provoking. Even many of the comments were interesting, which is not the case at most blogs (Sempringham being a notable exception). A taste:

Sara Robinson gave me permission to post the following ... about her home town of Bishop, CA:

In my mind’s eye, I can walk up and down Main Street of my hometown as it was 30 years ago and easily name 50 thriving small businesses, each of which was supporting at least one middle-class family, often two or three (and I can usually name the families, too, because one of them was mine). On the profits they made from these businesses, these families were able to own nice middle-class houses, send their kids to college, take vacations, buy new cars, and generally live the American Dream as we understood it then.

Several things happened to put an end to that. First, K-mart moved into town, and in short order shut down several of the sporting goods stores, at least one book store, one family-owned pharmacy, two hardware stores (one of which had been in business since 1888), the local dairy, and a couple of dozen other core businesses. The result was a significant loss of middle-class, independent jobs, which were only partly replaced by the deeply inferior $6.50/hour jobs offered at the new store.

The next was that the Berlin Wall fell, which led two years later to the closing of the Union Carbide mine that was the biggest employer in town. Seven hundred union jobs in a town of 5,000 — poof. Suddenly, the US decided that having a domestic source of strategic metals like tungsten, molybdenum, and vanadium was no longer a security necessity; now, was OK to depend on Russia and China for these things, especially if their miners got paid a quarter what ours did. Losing the mine and the related jobs also cost us another big chunk of Main Street.

This one-two punch set the stage for the third plague, which of course was the meth epidemic that came along just after the mine closed.

In my small-town experience, big corporations give (as Carbide did for 50 years) and big corporations also take away (as both Carbide and K-Mart did in the late 80s). But the ultimate effect was to turn my town from a comfortable, optimistic middle-class American town to a working-class trailer-park meth-fueled hell where nobody can get a job that pays a living wage unless they’re running a lab in their garage. “Home” as I knew it has been gone for 20 years.

Read the whole thing here.

Something We Can All Agree On

Over on the conservative blogs, they're running this picture of President Obama and Qaddafi:

The idea, of course, is that Obama was good buddies with Qaddafi.

On the liberal blogs, they're running this video of Senators McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and Collins with Qaddafi:



The idea, of course, is that McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and Collins were good buddies with Qaddafi.

Well, if you want to get something done is this world, sometimes you have to shake hands with somebody you'd rather not, if you had your druthers. Move on, nothing to see here.

But we can all agree that "Clueless Marco" Rubio is a Class A jerk:



Rubio is so anxious that President Obama not get any credit for this that he's willing to ignore the role of the American military.

Anyway, number of American soldiers killed overthrowing Qaddafi: ZERO.

Worth the wait, numbskull.

It Was Only Eleven Years Ago

NPR's Planet Money program got hold of a secret government document from 2000 that contemplated the effect on the world financial system of the United States paying off its debt, which looked to be possible by 2012.

It was not necessarily a good thing! There would be no U.S. Treasury bonds, and that was the safest haven in the world. Ah, the good old days.

What the heck happened?

Oh yeah. George W. Bush. Thanks again, Scalia.

Thanks to Steve Benen for  directing me to this.

Indeed

Andrew Sullivan:

To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now.

Nine Nine Nine

Via Paul Krugman's blog, I've learned that the Tax Policy Center has crunched the numbers on Herman Cain's Nine-Nine-Nine tax plan. Here's what they found out:

A middle income household making between about $64,000 and $110,000 would get hit with an average tax increase of about $4,300, lowering its after-tax income by more than 6 percent and increasing its average federal tax rate (including income, payroll, estate and its share of the corporate income tax) from 18.8 percent to 23.7 percent. By contrast, a taxpayer in the top 0.1% (who makes more than $2.7 million) would enjoy an average tax cut of  nearly$1.4 million, increasing his after-tax income by nearly 27 percent. His average effective tax rate would be cut almost in half to 17.9 percent. In Cain’s world, a typical household making more than $2.7 million would pay a smaller share of its income in federal taxes than one making less than $18,000. This would give Warren Buffet severe heartburn.

My gosh, I'm surprised.

Social Security

For months I've been wanting to write about Social Security funding issues. There is so much BS written and spoken about it that even intelligent, well-meaning people can be excused for believing some of it.

I considered writing a four-part series, but truthfully that's more work than I can muster the energy for this year.  Lucky for you.

Lucky for me, it's not that complicated. Here it is in a nutshell:

• Under current law there is a gap between what's coming in and what's going out, and the gap is getting bigger.

• BUT the gap does not continue getting bigger forever. By about 2030 the gap levels off, and then stays constant as far as the eye can see.

• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) measures the gap at 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the next 75 years.

• And the CBO provides us with a list of Social Security change options and their size as a percent of the GDP.

Click on it to enlarge it. Then pick one or more items that add up to 0.6.

Congratulations, you've just saved Social Security and doubled your sexual desirability quotient!

Kevin Drum has written about this at greater length, and I especially recommend this post and this one. The CBO document, Social Security Policy Options, is available here.

Caveat: Somebody needs to worry about the fact that worker's FICA taxes have been temporarily reduced (2%) during this recession. It's a quick and easy way to put a little extra money in employed person's hands, so has some stimulus effect. But it has an effect on the gap described above, too. That's something to watch. Plus, there's a crowd out there that doesn't like Social Security not because it doesn't work – it obviously does – but because it's against their "philosophy." They are bound to try to use that 2% as a wedge to promote their views. Life has taught me to be very cautious of people who have a philosophy (which seems to be just about anybody who went to the University of Chicago).

Occupy Chicago

Today your intrepid reporter grabbed a camera and took the L down to the Loop to check out the Occupy Chicago protest going on in the city's financial district. I've been wondering what to make of the protest, which originated in New York City's Wall Street district and has since spread to literally hundreds of cities around the country.

From afar, the protests seemed unfocused: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

Oh.

So I went down to talk to people and take some pictures. Here they are, in no particular order. Click on any picture to get a bigger size.

I particularly liked this first one. It's the self-imposed rules everyone must abide by. People drive or walk by and bring bags of apples, sandwiches, coffee, etc. There is a central place where everything is kept.

There were a lot of people with cameras.

This captures almost everyone at the protest, including the cameramen.



"End the Fed" was a popular sign. I was getting just a little suspicious.

The guy lying on his side with his feet in the street was singing something. I agree that money is not speech.

I like the above sign, too.

These people had been there for a while. I talked to the fellow on the right for a few minutes. He was really nice, and was very articulate. He had hitchhiked in from Oregon on his way to New York City. He had to change his party registration back in Oregon in order to vote for Ron Paul. He told me he had to quit school. He was getting food stamps and the government was paying for his education, but he lost his part-time job. If I understood him correctly, he thinks the federal government should be shrunk, power returned to the states, and there should be competition among the states for citizens. He was having a good time. Two nights in a row he was picked up by attractive young women and driven to a place where he could sleep. I wouldn't keep going to New York, either.

I agree with this young man, too. We are so naive.

Well, yeah.



This is an architectural treasure in Chicago, the Continental Illinois Bank Building. According to Wikipedia:

The Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company was at one time the seventh-largest bank in the United States as measured by deposits with approximately $40 billion in assets. In 1984, Continental Illinois became the largest ever bank failure in U.S. history, when a run on the bank led to its seizure by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Continental Illinois retained this dubious distinction until the failure of Washington Mutual in 2008 during the financial crisis of 2008, which ended up being over seven times larger than the failure of Continental Illinois.

Now, as you can see, it is renamed the Bank of America building.

Heh, heh.

The second floor of the bank is absolutely gorgeous, an homage to money. You used to be able to go up there and gawk at the place, which said, very unsubtly, "MONEY LIVES HERE."

Since Bank of America took over, though, the public is not allowed in what was once a very public area of the bank. You cannot take pictures of it. You cannot even see it. A couple of years ago Bank of America bought out my bank. Now they want to charge me $5.00 a month for using my ATM card at Costco. It's part of their "Building Customer Loyalty" program.

The Masters of the House

I'm reading Michael Lewis' book about the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, which I can recommend to you. It's about how a small group of people made billions betting that the subprime mortgage market was going to collapse – which it did.

On one hand, they deserve credit for all the work they did to understand the flim-flam job the investment banks were running (if you have any doubt about that, read the book). On the other hand, they became billionaires without actually doing something worthwhile. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs pioneered an industry and employed thousands on the road to making their billions. These guys placed bets. And the investment banks' need to cover those bets just made the 2008 collapse that much worse.

One of the guys who shows up in The Big Short, John Paulson, also popped up in a revealing NY Times article the other day about how Wall Street feels about the Occupy Wall Street protests – dismissive, though usually privately. But Paulson had actually released a statement to the press.

The top 1 percent of New Yorkers pay over 40 percent of all income taxes, providing huge benefits to everyone in our city and state .... Paulson & Company and its employees have paid hundreds of millions in New York City and New York State taxes in recent years and have created over 100 high-paying jobs in New York City since its formation. [My emphasis.]

Are you surprised to learn that Paulson employees are major contributors to the coffers of John Boehner?

As I make my way through The Big Short, I can't help thinking of a passage in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. Having just given a fascinating description of the Battle of Waterloo from the French perspective, Hugo describes the scene of carnage afterward. A sunken road in the countryside...

... was filled with horses and riders inextricably heaped together. Terrible entanglement. There were no longer slopes to the road; dead bodies filled it even with the plain, and came to the edge of the banks like a well-measured bushel of barley. A mass of dead above, a river of blood below....

As night falls on the battlefield, a lone figure is seen making its way among the corpses.

He looked about. He passed an indescribably hideous review of the dead. He walked with his feet in blood.

Suddenly he stopped.

A few steps before him, in the sunken road, at a point where the mound of corpses ended, from under this mass of men and horses appeared an open hand, lighted by the moon.

This hand had something upon a finger which sparkled: it was a gold ring.

The man stooped down, remained a moment, and when he rose again there was no ring upon that hand.

This is our introduction to Thénardier, or "The Master of the House," as he's known in the popular musical made from the book.

GOP: Choose Mitt! PLEASE!

Because Sempringham's readers are intelligent and well-informed, they will already know that Mitt Romney made big bucks as head of a so-called vulture capital firm, Bain Capital. What they did was buy companies, break them up, fire their workers, and send their jobs overseas.

But Sempringham's readers may not have seen this picture of the partners at Bain Capital:

That's Mitt, front center. From the Boston Globe.

Like Kryptonite to Libertarians

Elizabeth Warren on the Social Contract:

Comic Relief

GNIS Maps

In a fit of insomnia, I stumbled upon this page of Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) maps. Fascinating stuff.

More on the Euro

Krugman's Monday column takes his blog post (see my post below) a step further:

And now it’s all coming to a head. We’re not talking about a crisis that will unfold over a year or two; this thing could come apart in a matter of days. And if it does, the whole world will suffer.

Good-bye Euro?

From Paul Krugman's blog:

Did the euro just enter its death throes?

OK, I know that sounds over the top, and I hope it is. But recent developments are really, really bad.

The best guide to recent events is actually a paper written this spring, by Paul De Grauwe (pdf). I have to admit that when I first read De Grauwe’s paper I didn’t grasp the full force of his argument about liquidity crises; but he now looks absolutely prescient.

The key point, which I’ve finally taken fully on board, is that in addition to the huge problems of adjustment created by a rigid exchange rate in the aftermath of a bubble, the fact that European nations no longer have their own currencies leaves them vulnerable to self-fulfilling debt crises – in effect bank runs on governments rather than banks (although those too).

To head off this risk, somebody – the EFSF, the ECB, whatever – has to be ready to act as lender of last resort; Eurobonds would have served much the same purpose.

By resigning from the ECB, Juergen Stark has conveyed, deliberately or not, the message that there will be no such lender of last resort, that there isn’t enough political cohesion in the eurozone to stand behind countries under market attack. And this translates directly into soaring spreads for Spain and Italy; the self-fulfilling crisis is on.

You little know, my friends, with how little wisdom the world is governed.

Krugman's summary of De Grauwe's paper can be found here. Take a look at it; it's very instructive.

Spielberg: Be Afraid

A buddy of mine started the sixth grade on Tuesday, and he did some thinking about how to make the most of it. The result was a 1-and-1/2-minute video he prepared called "Back to School Tips (sigh)," and I think it's good enough to get a much wider audience than it has so far. Please watch it and see if you don't agree:



As I'm writing this, the video has had 78 views, which is pretty good. But "Back to School Beauty Tips" has had 95,000, and "Back to School Makeup Tutorial" has had 445,000! There's even a video called "Back to School Supplies Haul + Organization Tips," in which a girl talks about what she bought at Target. That one has 22,700 views.

Now, I don't have to be critical of those videos to tell you that "Back to School Tips (sigh)" is funnier, technically more sophisticated, and has a healthier outlook.

Just by watching the video, you've helped my friend increase his views. If you liked it, please consider 1) clicking the little thumbs up symbol that says "Like", 2) leave him a comment to encourage him, and/or 3) share the link with anybody you can think of that might enjoy it, or might want a student in their house to see it. You can even add: 4) take a look at some of his other videos, including my favorites, "Random Snapping!;" "Our Little Way of Chess" in which God intervenes in, of all things, a chess game; and "Math Doesn't Suck – Jersey Shore."

My buddy is a talented guy, and I'd like to encourage him in this as long as he enjoys doing it.

Leaving the Cult

The hottest thing making the rounds in the fact-based universe is a column by a (former) Republican Congressional staffer named Mike Lofgren. I swear I did not write the column under a pseudonym. It's called Good-bye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult. A few quotes:

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy. It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

And:

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

And:

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

And:

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"

And:

Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students. This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.

And finally:

The GOP cult of Ayn Rand is both revealing and mystifying. On the one hand, Rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. On the other, Rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity. Apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction.

I swear I did not write that column. Mike Lofgren is a real person, a 30-year Republican staffer. The Republican Party is very sick right now.

Pathetic

Yesterday Mitt Romney announced his "59-step plan" to get the economy going again. It consists of – are you ready for his surprising, out-of-box thinking? – tax cuts and deregulation! Good God, have the Republicans had any new thoughts in the last 30 years? It's embarrassing.

Let's just leave aside for a minute the fact that George W.'s tax cuts were (and continue to be) a major player in the deficit and national debt, and that negligent regulation of the financial industry caused the 2008 financial crisis. Is this really all he's got?

Kevin Drum looks closer at Romney's "plan":

From Mitt Romney, explaining step 3 of his 59-step plan to get to get America back to work:

You know, of course, Greta, who has been most hurt by the Obama economy. And it's people in middle incomes. And so what I want to do is lower taxes for middle-income Americans. And so I will remove, for middle-income Americans, people earning under $200,000 a year, any tax on interest, dividends or capital gains.  Let people save their money and use their money as they feel best with education, with their future, planning for retirement. Look, we've got to reduce the burden on middle-income Americans. They're just — they're just struggling right now.

I'm not sure which is more breathtaking: Romney's suggestion that someone earning $200,000 is "middle income," or his implication that actual middle-income Americans have more than a minuscule amount of investment income in the first place.

For the record, in 2004 the Tax Policy Center estimated that a median earner would save a whopping $70 if taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains were eliminated completely. That's right: $70. Seven zero.

Of course, Romney has paired up this proposal with another one to eliminate the estate tax completely, which would save median earners zero dollars but save the super rich millions. The cynicism here is almost off the charts.

In Romney's defense, most people who make $200,000 a year think they're middle income, and would be offended if he called them anything else.

Soak the Poor

Chicago Ted showed me this episode of the Daily Show last night. If there is a hell, these Fox people are headed there. I may be there to welcome them, but they'll be there.

Sorry, but there's a 30-second commercial first.

The Daily Show - World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over
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Call Me Amazed, and Humbled

Last week the NY Times ran a front-page story about the closing of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. It was an interesting story that told some of the rich history of the facility.

The story included a photograph of the crowd at the Center's closing ceremony, watching a parachute jump. Go take a look at it. And while you're there, check out the photo credit.

The photo was taken by Joao Silva, the NY Times photographer who had both legs blown off by a land mine in Afghanistan. Previous posts about Silva can be found here and here.

Joao Silva is back at work, largely due to will power that makes me feel like a bowl of jelly and – are you ready for a little irony? – outstanding medical care received at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Mr. Silva, I salute you.

Nothing Suspicious About THAT!

Oh, this is really special.

It appears that on the Ides of March, 2011, a corporation was formed in Delaware called W Spann LLC. Said corporation, on April 28, made a $1 million donation to a Mitt Romney Super PAC called "Restore Our Future." Then, on July 12, the corporation was dissolved, without, apparently, actually doing any business. Thanks to Michael Isikoff at NBC News for breaking the story.

The names of the person(s) who formed the corporation are not publicly available (though there's a Wikipedia article that says it knows who it was).

Talking Points Memo reports:

Experts and watchdog groups say the W Spann case highlights broader disclosure problems in the post-Citizens United era. One issue is whether corporations could be used as a vehicle for anonymous donations from foreign nationals. While only Americans can legally contribute, the FEC's three Republican commissioners have blocked efforts to craft rules defining exactly how this applies to corporations, who may be partially owned by foreign entities or may be an American subsidiary of a foreign company. Politico's Ben Smith noted on Thursday that the issue is particularly relevant to "Restore Our Future" because, unlike anonymous-money nonprofits like Karl Rove's "Crossroads GPS," Super PACs only report their contributions to the FEC and not to the more aggressive IRS.

That such a donation could be made by foreign nationals – including foreigners who want to institute Sharia Law in the U.S. (snicker) – is just half the problem.

Thanks to five Bozos on the U.S. Supreme Court, this obviously corrupt activity may be perfectly legal. And just the beginning.

Look Quick! A Republican Who Doesn't Hate America!

I am not a fan of Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey. But I will give credit where credit is due. The context of this becomes apparent quickly, because he gives it himself. This is a must-watch video:



Why are scenes like this so rare?

Via Talking Points Memo.

What Is To Be Done?

Steve Benen has a thoughtful post over at The Washington Monthly called, Wanted: More American Liberals. It does a good job of laying out where we are.

A new Gallup poll says 41 percent of those asked described themselves as conservative, compared to 21 percent describing themselves as liberal.

A significant takeaway quote from Benen's post:

It’s important to keep some caveats in mind when looking at results like these. For one thing, the public’s understanding of what these words actually mean varies considerably, and not everyone who considers themselves “conservative” is on the same page as, say, Jim DeMint. For another, ideological identification often doesn’t match up well with policy positions.

And that is really true. Conservative politicians want to end Medicare and Social Security, yet I'd guess that most people who call themselves conservative would like to preserve both programs. Most people who call themselves conservative probably don't like polluted air and rivers, yet conservative politicians promote policies that guarantee both. It goes on and on.

On the other hand, it would be much better for elections if people had conservative policy ideas and called themselves liberals.

How They Fell

Let's Default

This is a post I never dreamed I'd be making. As I'm writing, Congress is considering and voting on the latest Grand Compromise.

It's a disaster. It appears to have been written by an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters. There is no sense to it. And it contains a guarantee that this madness will continue for months, maybe years.

What has happened is that a relatively small group of simple-minded people in the Republican Party, called Tea Partiers, has threatened to destroy the credit of the United States of America unless they get their way.

Technically, it's extortion.

To default on the debt is a terrible, terrible thing. We will pay for it for decades. History will call us the Worst Generation. And it should.

But this country cannot survive if a small group of morons is allowed to have their way just because they threaten to destroy us all if we don't give them what they want.

Whether this Grand Compromise passes or not, we are in for some terrible times. But we will never get ourselves out of it if we yield to extortionists. The greater evil is to allow this compromise to pass.

Addendum Aug 2: Joe Nocera sees it, too.

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.

[...]

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

A Disaster

I have to agree with Paul Krugman:

A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Jimmy Carter was called a weak president, but he was not. He was undermined by the Northeast liberals in his own party, who did not understand and snickered at his evangelical Christianity.

Barack Obama is a weak president.

God knows, I'm sick of the Clintons. But Hillary would not have caved.

Debt Ceiling

It's just amazing what the Republicans are prepared to do to this country to make sure millionaires and billionaires don't have to share the pain.

A Guilty Pleasure

I feel I can now come out of the closet about this Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush video of a song called "Don't Give Up." The video is too hokey by half, but ... well, that's Kate Bush there. And what man wouldn't want Kate Bush telling you not to give up?

There was a time when I needed this song, and it helped.



The reason I can come out of the closet is because none other than Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman posted another version of it on his blog yesterday. Only he called it, Music for the Lesser Depression.

Looks like we're going to be needing this video for a few years.

But don't give up.

Blinding You with Science

Here's another video that will give you something fun to think about, courtesy of Andrew Tobias:

Four Pernicious Ideas

My kid brother Chip tipped me off to this op-ed piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, named "Four Pernicious Ideas in Budget Debates." Well worth the read.

Good-bye Incandescent Bulbs?

Have you been hoarding incandescent light bulbs in preparation for their disappearance from store shelves next year? I've been hearing about the ban for years.

Even Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has an article today which authoritatively states:

The light bulb ban was part of the 2007 energy bill. It will outlaw the sale of traditional 100 watt bulbs starting in 2012. Many Americans dislike the new fluorescent bulbs, which give off less heat and are more energy efficient, because they don't like the quality of the lighting.

You've probably heard about the ban on incandescent bulbs, too. God knows, the Tea Party crowd has their undies in a bundle about it.

Only problem for them is: it's not true. Quelle surprise! Imagine a Tea Partier getting hysterical over something that isn't true!

Kevin Drum has the story.

Carmageddon

As I've said repeatedly, this is a high-class blog. So I don't like to use words that are not kid-friendly. But this was so funny, I had to share it:

Barking Mad

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly:

For the country’s sake, I’d ... be absolutely delighted to learn that Republicans are just aggressive poker players, but when push comes to shove, they’ll be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reason, and they’ll put the nation’s interests first.

But here we are, 20 days until a brutal deadline, and Republicans give every appearance of being downright certifiable. We know this from their own rhetoric, and we know this from every published description of Republican deliberations in this process. According to the party’s own Speaker, at least a quarter of the House GOP caucus actually wants to see the United States default. The actual number is probably much higher.

As one leading economist put it yesterday, observers around the world are saying of Republicans, “There’s no way they could possibly be this stupid.”

It’s time people start coming to grips with the fact they very well might be precisely this stupid.

A Good Question!

Those Pesky Facts

I'm in a hurry to run out and take some pictures before the sun rises too high on the horizon, but this post from Paul Krugman's blog is important.

The takeaway quote:

... we don’t have a Medicare problem, we have a health care cost problem. And Medicare actually does a better job of controlling costs than private insurers — not remotely good enough, but better.

If you look at Medicare in isolation, the cost rise looks terrible, because it is:


Source.

But it looks a bit different if you look at private insurance, too:



If Medicare costs had risen as fast as private insurance premiums, it would cost around 40 percent more than it does. If private insurers had done as well as Medicare at controlling costs, insurance would be a lot cheaper.

It’s a mystery why anyone claims that shifting more people into private insurance is a good idea.

Worth 5 Minutes

I understand there are reasons why asphalt is usually the preferred surfacing material for roadways. It provides good traction. Snow and ice melt faster than with concrete.

But there's a big problem with it: it's black, so it absorbs energy and heat from the sun. It's a big contributor to Global Warming.

Is there another approach we can take to roadways? This little video raises interesting possibilities. I recommend it. It suggests how newer technologies could be applied to the problem.

Well Said

Amanda Marcotte, writing on Slate.com, summarizes the Tea Party approach to history (see prior post):

... I think it helps to understand that, for right-wing populists, this thing we call "history" is less about real people who did real things in the real world, and more like just the Bible Part II. It's a myth that can be manipulated to suit their purpose, which is usually to establish themselves as the only Real Americans. When Palin says she got it right, I believe she believes that, because her story wasn't really about Paul Revere. Her story was a thinly veiled allegory of the Tea Party worldview, and in it, Tea Partiers are Paul Revere and the British stand in for Obama, the foreign usurper who is out to take their guns. (That Obama is a gun-snatcher is also a lie worth noting, and of course there's a bit of Birtherism going on here, too.) In a sense, Palin's mangling of history is minor compared with some of the major whoppers that have percolated through Tea Party lore, with the big ones being that the main demand of the revolutionaries was an end to taxation (in fact, the main concern was lack of representation in the government, and frankly a larger desire for independence), and that the Founding Fathers were interested in establishing a government based on Christian principles, instead of those pesky secular ones they accidentally wrote into the Constitution.

There's a Good Novel in This

My readers being the smartest people on the face of the earth, you're all familiar with George Orwell's novel, 1984. In an ironic move (you will see why in a minute) let me quote from the Wikipedia article on the book:

In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct ....

Okay, keep that thought in mind.

Now let's look at Sarah Palin's recent, addled ramblings on Paul Revere's ride:



If this was the first time you've seen that, I should apologize. Please resist the urge to bang your head against a brick wall. It's okay. She's never going to be President.

Okay, now let's move the story up to yesterday, when she was asked about this on, of all places, Faux News. Remember, she had had several days to think of how she was going to answer the question about this ... um ... unique understanding of Paul Revere's ride.

Here's what she said:

You know what, I didn't mess up about Paul Revere. Here's what Paul Revere did:

He warned the Americans that the British were coming, the British were coming and they are going to try to take our arms so we have to make sure that we were protecting ourselves and shoring up all of our ammunitions and our firearms, so that they couldn't take them. But remember that the British had already been there, many soldiers, for seven years in that area. And part of Paul Revere's ride, and it wasn't just one ride -- he was a courier, he was a messenger -- part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there that, "hey, you are not going succeed, you are not going to take American arms. You are not going beat our own well-armed persons, individual private militia that we have." He did warn the British, and in a shout-out gotcha type of question that was asked of me I answered candidly. And I know my American history.

Let's just sit here a minute with blank looks on our faces, and then say, "Uh-HUH!"

But the story doesn't stop there. Talking Points Memo reports that "Palin's supporters have apparently taken to Wikipedia, and are editing the entry on Paul Revere to better fit the former Alaska governor's account."

So we've come a long way since 1984. In the novel, history is revised to suit the centralized, collectivist state.

In the real world, it turns out, things are a little different.

It's About Time

Of the many hypocrisies that are the Republican Party today, one of the most puzzling has been the ability of the Ayn Rand cultists to coexist with the rapture-believing crazies. Rand did, after all, take Judeo-Christian morality and stand it on its head. Might makes right. Financial success makes right. It's wrong to help those less fortunate than you. It's a wonderful moral system for billionaires (read: Koch Brothers) who think they should rule the world.

Paul Ryan, author of the GOP budget, is a high priest in the cult. He reportedly requires his staff to read all of Rand's novels, and he's gathering the other True Believers around him.

I am delighted that somebody is finally going after him:



And here:



"No disrespect, sir."

Do I believe atheists are immoral? Of course not! Do I believe you need to believe the Bible is the Word of God to run for public office? To me, that is a preposterous idea.

But I sure am glad somebody is finally going after these Ayn Rand jokers. Maybe, just maybe, the right wingers who really do take their religion seriously will, like Colonel Nicholson, wake up to see what kind of bridge they've been building.



Addendum: Here's more.

How Low Can We Go?

Ed Schultz, who is what passes for a liberal commentator on cable television, called Laura Ingraham, who is what passes for a conservative commentator on cable television, a "right wing slut."

For this he will be suspended for one week.

Laura Ingraham is a despicable human being.* But Ed Schultz should have been fired before he had finished his sentence.

* Just for example, Wikipedia: As a Dartmouth undergraduate, she was a staff member of the independent conservative newspaper, The Dartmouth Review. In her senior year, she was the newspaper's editor-in-chief,[3] its first female editor.[2] She wrote a few controversial articles during her tenure, such as a piece characterizing a campus gay rights group as "cheerleaders for latent campus Sodomites". She also secretly tape recorded the organization's meetings, and sent copies to the participants' parents.[4][5] Jeffrey Hart, the faculty adviser for The Dartmouth Review, described Ingraham as having "the most extreme antihomosexual views imaginable," and noted that "she went so far as to avoid a local eatery where she feared the waiters were homosexual and might touch her silverware or spit on her food, exposing her to AIDS."[6] In 1997, Ingraham wrote an essay in the Washington Post in which she stated that she changed her views after witnessing "the dignity, fidelity and courage" with which her gay brother Curtis and his late companion coped with AIDS.[7]

Straight Out of Hollywood

Huguette Clark died on Tuesday at the age of 104. If you have no idea who she was, that would apparently have suited her just fine.

Her father was a copper barron, born before the Mexican-American War, who actually bought himself a U.S. Senate seat. Huguette was raised in a 121-room mansion on Fifth Avenue – Fifth Avenue!

121 rooms!

If you can get the NY Times, make sure you read her obituary here.

According to the obituary, "although her three palatial homes — a 42-room apartment on Fifth Avenue; an oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif.; and a country manor in New Canaan, Conn. — are fastidiously maintained, she had not been seen in any of them for decades." [My emphasis.]

Then follow the link to the "country manor" in New Canaan, which is finally for sale. It has its own web address. Take a look.

The description says,

The story of this magnificent estate is almost as striking as the mansion itself. Constructed in 1937 by a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who spared no expenses in its construction, it was sold in 1951 to an owner who never moved into the estate. It has stood unoccuppied for decades, maintained by caretakers who live on the property’s two brick gatekeeper cottages. [Again, my emphasis.]

It has stood unoccuppied for decades.

For decades.

Figure it Out for Yourself

Solving the Middle East Problem

Was Obama's recent speech, declaring that negotiations between Israel and a future Palestinian state should be based on "1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps," "the basic idea for at least 12 years" or "throwing Israel under a bus?"

It appears to depend on who you ask. I found this article interesting.

Will Michele Bachmann Wimp Out?

Or, as a City Pages Minneapolis blog puts it, is Michele Bachmann smarter than a high school sophomore?

Amy Myers, a high school sophomore in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, has challenged Michele Bachmann to a debate:

Dear Representative Bachmann,

My name is Amy Myers. I am a Cherry Hill, New Jersey sophomore attending Cherry Hill High School East. As a typical high school student, I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted. The frequency and scope of these comments prompted me to write this letter.

Though I am not in your home district, or even your home state, you are a United States Representative of some prominence who is subject to national media coverage. News outlets and websites across this country profile your causes and viewpoints on a regular basis. As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.

Rep. Bachmann, the frequent inability you have shown to accurately and factually present even the most basic information about the United States led me to submit the follow challenge, pitting my public education against your advanced legal education:

I, Amy Myers, do hereby challenge Representative Michele Bachmann to a Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics.

Hopefully, we will be able to meet for such an event, as it would prove to be enlightening.

Sincerely yours,
Amy Myers

God bless the yutes of America. We need to make sure Michele rises to the challenge. She can do some cramming with Mike Huckabee's Learn Our History course. Cartoons.

Is It Possible Fox News Doesn't Realize How Racist It Is?

No.

As Jon Stewart says in the second of the two following segments, it took longer to play examples of their hypocrisy than it did to find them.

A must-see:

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The Ridiculous and the Sublime

Thanks to Kevin Drum for pointing me to this, from The Guardian.

A couple appearing on a quiz show in England guessed that Roger Bannister, the great English runner who was the first human being to run a mile in less than 4 minutes (when they still ran mile races), was actually "the first man ever to put the toilet seat down."

Of course, I suppose there's no reason he couldn't have done both. He was that good.

Andrew and Vanessa, the quiz show contestants who made this stab in the dark, seem to be potential candidates for the Darwin Award. They should definitely take out lots of insurance.

The Guardian columnist who reported this has been keeping a file of great quiz show answers:

This may have cost them their shot at wealth, but Andrew and Vanessa shouldn't get downhearted. They've entered the immortal ranks of the all-time most stupid quiz show answers ever. Their appearance now sits alongside the time a contestant on Beg, Borrow or Steal announced that Cambridge University was in Leicester, the time someone on Wogan's Perfect Recall was asked "which Duke resides at Woburn Abbey?" and answered "Hazzard", and the time a lottery quiz contestant finished Eamonn Holmes's question of "there are three states of matter: solid, liquid and . . ." with the word: "jelly".

However, The Million Pound Drop has a long way to go before it catches up with the two biggest idiot magnets around: The Weakest Link and Family Fortunes. At least contestants on the former have an excuse for answering "what is the name of the insect which makes honey?" with "honey fly" or "what 'Z' is used to describe a human who has returned from the dead?" with "unicorn"; they are being glared at by a terrifying dominatrix.

Family Fortunes contestants – who have answered "name a Paris landmark" with "Hawaii", "name an animal with horns" with "a bee" and "name something that flies without an engine" with "a bicycle with wings" – don't exactly have that luxury.

At the other end of the stupidometer, here's a video for my friend, Ethan, who Friday night succeeded in clearly explaining why, when you have chosen Curtain One, and Monty Hall shows you what's behind Curtain Two, and offers you the chance to pick Curtain Three, you should take him up on it. Do not let your mother see this video, Ethan. I'll never get another free meal if you do.

Correspondents' Dinner Videos

I've promised several folks to give the links. Great stuff.

First, Obama's speech:



Seth Meyers' routine:

Why I Love the Tea Party (#1)

Via Gail Collins' quiz in this morning's NY Times, I learned this tidbit. A Tea Party favorite in the Texas state House has introduced a bill which makes it illegal, punishable by a fine of $10,000 and two years in jail, to hire an undocumented immigrant.

Exception: your maid and the guy who cuts your lawn.

Details here.

Geronimo!

As soon as I heard it, I flinched. The code name for the mission to get bin Laden (or maybe for bin Laden himself) was "Geronimo." What were they thinking?

I don't want it to take anything away from the great and brave job the Navy Seals' Seal Team Six did. But really. This was predictable.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

From The Writer's Almanac:

Today is Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the Mexican victory over the French in the Battle of Puebla in 1862, but is, in a more general way, a celebration of Mexican heritage and culture in the United States.

After a series of wars in the mid-19th-century, Mexico was reeling. President Benito Juarez announced that payment of foreign debts would be temporarily suspended in 1861, and the French navy showed up to demand repayment. As long as they were there anyway, Napoleon III thought it would be a good idea to replace the current government with one more favorable to French interests -- and France could also establish a base of operations to aid the Confederacy in the American Civil War.

In a David-and-Goliath battle, the 8,000-strong, well-armed French army was routed by 4,000 ill-equipped Mexican soldiers, and though it wasn't a decisive battle in the course of the war, it became a symbol of Mexican pride. It also kept Napoleon from aiding the cause of the Confederacy.

Cinco de Mayo isn't widely celebrated in Mexico outside the state of Puebla, but it has been adopted by many Americans regardless of their heritage, much like St. Patrick's Day and Oktoberfest. It's been celebrated in California since 1863, and grew in prominence in the rest of the country along with the Chicano movement of the 1940s. It wasn't until beer advertisers decided to promote the holiday heavily in the 1980s that American celebration of Cinco de Mayo became widespread.

What They Said

Via Talking Points Memo:

Donald Trump is Very Proud of Himself!

Make sure you listen to the whole thing.

More audio at MyNorthwest.com

And I liked this reply to Trump's "concern" about Obama's grades, from the remarks section of a pathetic Jake Tapper post:

I was president of my law school's law review. At most places, the president doesn't usually publish anything himself.

And all the carping about his grades? He graduated magna cum laude from HLS, where all the exams are read with the identity of the student removed. He got those marks on merit.

Just go ahead and say you think black people aren't capable of being head of the law review and he only got there because of affirmative action. It's what you really mean, right?

Update: I loved this, from Gail Collins,

Donald Trump immediately took credit. “Today I am very proud of myself,” he said. This is in contrast to normal days, when Trump is continually walking around in an existential funk, asking himself why he was ever born.

Beyond the Fringe

Via Paul Krugman, Beyond the Fringe:

Will Humor Work?

Tiresome Facts

I'll be walking to the mailbox today with a check for the IRS. It's the first time in a long time (like, maybe, forever) that I didn't get a refund. And I'm sure it's because Suellen didn't do the taxes this year. I bought TurboTax, but just didn't have the heart to sit down and work through everything. Next year should be different.

Anyway, I came across a fascinating collection of charts and graphs relating to taxes from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Here are two of them:





Take a look at the rest of the charts here.

Then decide if ending Medicare is really the only way out of our budget dilemma, or if maybe – just maybe – it's the not-so-hidden agenda of an Ayn Rand cultist.

Update: As I released the tax payment envelope and saw it flutter into the maw of the mailbox, I realized I had not put a stamp on it. Reason #79 Suellen always did the taxes.

Colbert

Jon Kyl is apparently the best that Arizona can do.

Framing the Debate

Tom Tomorrow casts his eye on Paul Ryan's budget.

This is especially spooky for me because 1) I know a little girl who calls her grandmother "Graham Cracker," and 2) I expect (and ask) that when things get too bad, I will be pointed out into the desert.

Read the cartoon, and you'll see what I mean. Make sure you click on it to get a readable version.

Running Second in GOP Polls

Don't miss the exchange between Gail Collins and Donald Trump on the momentous issue of whether Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

Gail's first column here.

Donald Trump's response here. Best line: "Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level."

Gail's rejoinder here.

Considering that Trump is now running second in GOP presidential polling, is it any wonder Republicans think Paul Ryan is a serious person?

ATM

Long-time fans of godhead will recognize at least one of the actors in this video – the multi-talented Jason Charles Miller.

Get ready to cringe every time the wife opens her mouth.



I'd love to work with the guy who did the lighting for this.

Lewis Black on Donald Trump

Priceless.

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Republican Buffoonery

Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner congratulates the GOP for taking on the pressing issues of the day.



Thanks to Talking Points Memo for calling my attention to this.

A Little Humor

First, you need to have seen this ad for Apple, featuring the singer Feist, or one like it:



Now see the latest:

Terrifying

So this is what a tsunami looks like:



I'm looking for good reporting on the nuclear reactor issues in Japan. What is the worst case scenario? How far will be the reach? Anybody know?

Here's the latest from the NY Times:

“They’re basically in a full-scale panic” among Japanese power industry managers, said a senior nuclear industry executive. The executive is not involved in managing the response to the reactors’ difficulties but has many contacts in Japan. “They’re in total disarray, they don’t know what to do.”

Feel safe?

Living Planet

Kris and Chicago Ted invited me Shabat dinner on Friday, where we had good conversation which came very close to solving the problems in the Middle East. John and Bev Elmquist were there. John is a remarkable musician-composer. His music is intelligent and often very funny. (He shares a lot of it at Hard Art Groop.)

[Sidebar: John and Bev helped out several times at St. John's Thanksgiving Dinner. Suellen, who ran the show and loved all volunteers, referred to them as "My Lutherans."]

John sent me this link to a slide show by photographer Timothy Allen. What great stuff! Don't miss it.

Leonard Cohen

Apropos of nothing, here's a very nice video of Leonard Cohen doing Famous Blue Raincoat. It does a better job than any of the commercially prepared videos of capturing what his concerts are like. Notice that the audience sings along. Notice that the concert is in Lisbon.

Portugal.

Enjoy