Hullabaloo

Thursday, July 26, 2012

 
Fluids!

by digby

Via Greg Mitchell:

For Stanley Kubrick's birthday: Yes, "Dr. Strangelove" helped changed my live as an early teen and remains my favorite film anyway. Here's the long suppressed, rejected trailer for the film, downright hysterical.

It's right up there for me too. Happy Birthday, Stanley.
digby 7/26/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
We don't do that here

by digby

I'm finding it a little bit hard to believe that this needs to be said, but apparently it does. This is from Adam Serwer at Mother Jones:

Blocking construction of Chick-fil-a restaurants over Cathy's views is a violation of Cathy's First Amendment rights. Boston and Chicago have no more right to stop construction of Chick-fil-As based on an executive's anti-gay views than New York City would have had the right to block construction of an Islamic community center blocks away from Ground Zero. The government blocking a business from opening based on the owner's political views is a clear threat to everyone's freedom of speech—being unpopular doesn't mean you don't have rights. It's only by protecting the rights of those whose views we find odious that we can hope to secure them for ourselves.

The man has a right to make odious, bigoted remarks without the government threatening his business. You don't have to think too much about the implications of that for people who say ... Rick Perry doesn't agree with. Or Scott Walker.

Obviously, if private citizens would like to boycott Chick-fil-a over its owners beliefs, have at it. (I've been inclined to boycott it purely on the basis of its sub-literate brand name, but it's up to you.)There's nothing wrong with individuals exercising their right not to eat in a certain restaurant and asking other people to do the same. But the government refusing to allow the business to exist because of something the owner said? That's not how we do things in America.

As Adam says later in the piece, they will have to adhere to all the discrimination laws which, in both states where this is a controversy, applies to LGBT citizens. And there's no guarantee that people won't protest outside the business and agitate against them. That's all fair and constitutional. But if this fellow wants to open his business there and conduct himself within the laws of the state, the beliefs of the owner is none of the state's business.

Liberals are at a big disadvantage right now because so many more rich people are conservatives (and bigots, apparently) and they are donating vast sums to elect more Republicans. It's tempting to leverage whatever state power we have to fight it --- and there may even be legitimate ways to do that. But that's all the more reason to be vigilant about the Bill of Rights. It's a bulwark against what could happen if they are successful.


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digby 7/26/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Battle of the millionaires

by David Atkins

One of the less watched stories of the Presidential election is noted foreign casino magnate/family values champion Sheldon Adelson's attempt to pry away the Jewish vote. There are some doubts that it will work: American Jews aren't really going to cozy up to a party of hate and intolerance because President Obama advocates a two-state solution and caution on Iran, and doesn't get along with the far-right Netanyahu. After all, Israelis themselves aren't terribly happy with Netanyahu right now.

Still, Greg Sargent reports that a group of Democratic-friendly millionaires is seeking to push back on Adelson's well-funded blitz:

So how seriously are Dems taking the possibility that Obama could lose Jewish votes, now that billionaire Sheldon Adelson is planning a multi-million-dollar campaign to hammer Obama over Israel?

A group of wealthy and influential Democrats is quietly putting together their own effort to raise several million dollars to counter Adelson’s efforts in key swing states, by aggressively pushing back on criticism of Obama’s record on Israel and to remind Jewish voters that he agrees with them on domestic issues they care about, I’m told.

The effort — which involves Dems like Harvey Weinstein and Rahm Emanuel — is effectively an acknowledgment that Dems need to take the possibility of Jewish defections seriously, that Republicans have gotten an early start in their efforts to peel off swing state Jewish voters, and that small shifts could impact the outcome...

Many Dems believe the key to preventing Jewish defections is that Jews are not one-issue voters on Israel, and on domestic issues are much more in sync with Democrats. So the pushback will also emphasize choice, health care, education, social justice and marriage equality.

“These are the issues we’re taught as Jews to support,” Stanley says. “Tikkun Olam — to repair the world. That’s why Jews historically vote Democratic.”

That's all well and good, of course. As long as our election laws are what they are, it's important for those with wealth and morals to counter those who have an ample amount of the former and scant regard for the latter.

But over the long run, as long as millionaires completely control our elections the rest of us are going to be mere window shoppers in our putative democracy. Campaign finance reform, including revisiting the idea of corporate personhood and the constitutionality of money as speech, is going to be key to repairing our electoral world.


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thereisnospoon 7/26/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 
How to save 250 million dollars per congressional district

by digby

Darcy Burner is one of the few candidates in this cycle talking constantly about the war in Afghanistan. She's been holding town hall meetings all over the district with General Paul Eaton, offering a sophisticated and detailed plan to withdraw, explaining the stakes and the difficulties to her constituents. She's very serious on these issues and anyone who has been to her presentations knows that she is highly informed about the issue. She says:

In 2003, when my son Henry was a few months old, my brother Jason marched into Iraq with the initial invading force. I realized that no set of choices I could make would give Henry the kind of life I wanted him to have if we didn’t change the direction of the country.

In 2007, I worked with retired Major General Paul Eaton to write A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, which was endorsed by more than 60 candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, including Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Congressman Jared Polis, and Senator Jeff Merkley.

In 2010, I worked as part of the Afghanistan Study Group on their report called A New Way Forward which laid out why and how the U.S. needs to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops and the $100 billion per year we are spending there home. That is $250 million per Congressional District per year!

People are voting in Washington right now and top-two primaries are hard to predict. She can reach 25,000 potential voters with this succinct, straightforward message and needs to raise some money to do it.

You can contribute to Darcy's campaign here if you'd like to help.

I wish more candidates would make this part of their message. There's a common sense aspect to it to which I think a lot of people can relate.


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digby 7/26/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
He just seems foreign

by digby

Colbert:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

This has to be the loudest dogwhistle since Willie Horton. I can't believe he's getting away with it. Why not just call Obama un-American and get it over with?

And at some point, some conservatives in Hawaii are going to have to speak up about this bullshit:

Rush Limbaugh:

How many people come from a background like Obama's? "Half say Obama has the background and set of values they identify with"? Yeah? Where's the hardscrabble life? Where's the growin' up in the Midwest? Where's the numerous jobs as a boy with the hardscrabble life the parents had? There's no life story that Obama has that has much in common with anybody in this country. Obama had a communist, bigamist, absentee father from Kenya. How many people in America can lay claim to that?

He was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.

He never set foot on the US mainland until he was in college and went to Howard Johnson's. He was a student of the radical left. His mentors were communists like Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky and Jeremiah Wright.

That's just a lie. There's a very famous vacation in 1971 when Obama was just 11, where he went to Disneyland and traveled all over the place on a Greyhound bus with his (very midwestern) grandmother. But so what if he hadn't? Hawaii is a state of the union even if these throwbacks (I'm looking at you Cokie) insist that it isn't really America.

But here's where ole Rush gets tripped up:

Where's the hardscrabble life? Where's the growin' up in the Midwest? Where's the numerous jobs as a boy with the hardscrabble life the parents had? There's no life story that Obama has that has much in common with anybody in this country.

Who's the last president that describes? The one he hates more than any other president in the world: Bill Clinton. Of course, he was technically Southern, but Rush probably needs to be careful with that one. It sure doesn't describe George W. Bush or his father. Or Mitt Romney. Or John McCain. It describes Ronald Reagan, but then he was born a hundred and one years ago when that "hardscrabble" story was a lot more common.

Go back through history and there are a whole bunch of presidents and presidential candidates who don't fit that mold. But you know who does? Rush Limbaugh. Oh wait. No it doesn't. He likes to think he's a self-made job creator but he comes from a long line of lawyers, judges and politicians. Still, you have to give him credit. He became gazillionaire by being the most notorious demagogue of his generation. Nobody can say he isn't an achiever.

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digby 7/26/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
The misogynist's analyst

by digby

You've already heard about this revolting tweet from Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto from David yesterday, but here's a reminder.




After much hemming and hawing about only wanting to "provoke discussion" he finally issued a lame mea culpa in which he says that the women can never repay the gift they were given so they must live good and happy lives.

I bring this up not to revel in the musings of a first class jerk for a second day, but because some of our readers responded to David's exhortations to write to the Wall Street Journal and copied us on their letters. I thought this one was particularly good:

Mr. Taranto’s comment regarding the heroic actions of of the men who saved their loved one’s lives draws unwanted disrespect to your paper and insults your readers.

I’m a clinical psychologist who’s spent my professional career trying to understand incomprehensible behavior but the reason for his unfeeling remark continues to elude me. I guess I'll give his thinking some analysis - mind you only the first and last lines would be actual ‘thoughts’, the panicked-reflexive-projection in between would be what he’s trying not to think of.

Those guys did in Auroroa something really brave
Would I have done that?
Who am I kidding - I would NOT have done that
Does that make me a coward?
I can't be a coward
I’m not a coward
If I wouldn’t do that it must be someone else’s fault
My sucky girlfriend's fault that's whose fault
If she were worthwhile I would be brave
because obviously I’m brave
she’s not worth saving.


ERGO
I hope those chicks were worth saving.

Finally, his comment makes sense.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.
Lafayette CA

Sounds right to me.

So much of the right wing response, including the sociopathic clown Ted Nugent's, seems to me to stem from this obvious insecurity. Ask any soldier and they'll tell you that even with hardcore rigorous training, nobody knows exactly how they'll react under fire and the idea that these armchair commandos believe they could have saved the day reveals a deep seated fear of their own impotence. These little men with big guns who are all pretending that they could have been the cowboy who saved the day says much more about them than they realize.

You want proof? Get a load of this:

BECK: Nobody I hear is talking about this except people like us: If you had more people carrying a weapon. If people had a gun in their back and they were -- and they were licensed to carry it, that guy wouldn't have gotten off more than four shots.

NUGENT: And I'm sure you've covered it because there was a shooting like that in a church in Aurora this year earlier.

BECK: Yep.

NUGENT: That was stopped because the guy had a gun. And I know the hysteria about teargas and it was dark in the theater. Glenn, I am not making this up. Last week my wife Shemane and I were filming a segment for our Spirit of the Wild show and we were shooting at watermelons surrounded by human silhouette targets just as kind of a competition and from 20 feet and from 20 yards and we were shooting from every imaginable angle, under SPACE cover, from sitting, from squatting, from prone position, from behind cover and from in the open, and we never hit an innocent and we never missed the watermelon. And I'm just a guitar player. If a guitar player can neutralize a watermelon from 20 feet -- and this is with live fire, by the way.

We would shoot while the other would take the target shots. So there was that tension of live fire. And this was done in a scenario -- and I understand it wasn't real bullets coming at us and it wasn't people screaming, running around.

GLENN: Please.

NUGENT: But dear God in heaven, doing nothing is not an option. Training, having a firearm to neutralize an evil gun maniac is a way to go, and we train for that. And I wish I would have been in the theater that day.

GLENN: So do I. So do I.

Sure, it wasn't in the dark and there weren't under live fire and there was no tear gas and no screaming, panicked people. But folks, he never missed the watermelon. Not once.


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digby 7/26/2012 10:30:00 AM |

 
Junior and the Mittster have something else in common

by digby

He speaks a tiny bit more clearly, but he's just as big a clod on the international stage as George W. Bush:

The US presidential candidate Mitt Romney has questioned the readiness of London 2012, saying there have been "disconcerting signs" in the buildup to the Games – but said the focus would soon switch to celebrating the athletes.

Before meetings with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband on Thursday, he told US television: "It is hard to know just how well it will turn out."

Romney told NBC News: "There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials – that obviously is not something which is encouraging."

In the interview he also called into question whether the British people were behind the Games.

"Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that's something which we only find out once the Games actually begin," he said.

What the hell is wrong with him? Does he have such a big ego that he has to put down other Olympic Games because they might interfere with his (largely phony) Olympics reputation? And does he have to do it on his way overseas to meet with foreign dignitaries?

Anyway, it didn't go unnoticed:

The prime minister has hit back at comments from the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney querying Britain's readiness for the Olympics, urging the country to "put its best foot forward" and ensure they are remembered as "the friendly Games".

On a visit to the Olympic Park with the London 2012 organising committee chairman, Lord Coe, before Friday's opening ceremony, Cameron said the Games were an opportunity to promote Britain despite the gloomy economic backdrop.

"This is a time of some economic difficulty for the nation, everyone knows that. But look at what we're capable of achieving even at a difficult economic time. Look at this extraordinary Olympic Park, built from nothing in seven years," he said.
[...]
But Cameron, who was due to meet Romney later on Thursday, said: "In terms of people coming together, the torch relay demonstrated that this is not a London Games, this is not an England Games but this is a United Kingdom Games. We'll show the world we've not only come together as a United Kingdom but are extremely good at welcoming people from across the world."

Cameron said he was going to make this point to Romney when he met him later on Thursday.

I won't go into the fact that much of Britain's current economic problems are the result of Cameron's policies because Romney is dying to replicate them here in the US. But the fact remains that despite his alleged worldliness as a Master of the Universe, he's often rude and somewhat ill-mannered. It's not an attractive quality.

Update:

Gotta Laff has compiled a full list of Romney gaffes (so far.) Impressive.

Update II:

The British press is not amused

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digby 7/26/2012 09:30:00 AM |

 
Bill O'Reilly asks social security recipients if they are "weak"

by David Atkins

Bill O'Reilly, smirking, smarmy and repulsive human being:



Anyone who can stand to watch that smug, self-assured pompous jerk tell the single mothers who work 50 hours a week and struggle to get by, or workers who take low-wage barista jobs after grad school because there are no decent thinking jobs left, or the unfortunate middle-aged Americans who get laid off at 55 years old after 30 years in the same field and can't get hired again due to age discrimination and inability to completely retrain, or people who grew up in delapidated, unpoliced virtual war zones where joining a gang often seems like the best of way of protecting oneself, to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps despite decades of wage stagnation even as all the productivity gains go to the top--well, much can be said of them but none of it good.

There is a good reason that fewer Americans were on welfare in the 1960s: a single income could support an entire family (which in turn led to fewer child care costs at the expense of women's freedom), good jobs were available right out of high school, companies tended to provide lifetime careers with job security for workers, the pace of life and work was slower and carried fewer cost expectations (just about any decent job these days expects you to have Internet and a cell phone), etc. Oh, and minorities were treated as less than human and often lived in appalling conditions, too.

If over half of this country is suffering from such Stockholm Syndrome combined with racist animosity that they're not repulsed by the arguments from this gasbag and those like him, then they deserve the grinding impoverishment they receive at the hands of the moneyed elite.


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thereisnospoon 7/26/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

 
Nice little country you have here ...

by digby

... be a shame if anything happened to it.

From Reid Cherlin at GQ:

I asked a Democratic legislative staffer for a first-person description of the NRA's power on the Hill. Here's the response I got, on the condition that I not provide any further identifying information. It's pretty breathtaking.

We do absolutely anything they ask and we NEVER cross them—which includes asking permission to cosponsor any bills endorsed by the Humane Society (the answer is usually no) and complying with their demand to oppose the DISCLOSE Act, neither of which have anything to do with guns. They've completely shut down the debate over gun control. It's really incredible. I'm not sure when we decided that a Democrat in a marginal district who loses his A rating from the NRA automatically loses reelection. Because it's not like we do everything other partisan organizations like the Chamber [of Commerce] or NAM [National Association of Manufacturers] tell us to...

Pandering to the NRA is the probably worst part of my job. I can justify the rest of it—not just to keep the seat, but because I believe most of the positions he takes are consistent with what his constituents want. But sucking up to the NRA when something like Colorado happens is hard to stomach.

I have always understood that Al Gore's victory in 2000 was the defining moment. Why this was so has never been clear to me, but I expect it was really just the culmination of the decades long quixotic attempt to appeal to rural white males. (Gun culture is pervasive throughout the country, of course, but these are the people for whom this issue is paramount.) I doubt their total and complete capitulation has bought them a single vote they wouldn't have had anyway, but it's part of conventional wisdom at this point that any attempt to even discuss guns will result in a GOP sweep so powerful that the Democrats will never again hold a majority.

I have always thought this was nonsense and what this trembling stillness under the NRA's boot heel showed most Americans was simple cowardice, but I could be wrong. It's so far gone at this point that lunatics dressed up in Robocop gear can mow down 75 people at a clip with legally purchased firepower that's only appropriate for a warzone and all anyone can do about it is express sympathy for the victims and "move on." It's embarrassing. And sick.

The NRA's hold over American politics is a perfect symbol of right wing politics in the 21st century. They're thugs.

Update: Hiyo

Good for the president.

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digby 7/25/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
Showdown over tax cuts

by digby

In case you were wondering if there was something more to the tax cut showdown in the Senate today than a set of competing spin points on the campaign trail, I think this is probably the tactical objective:

Wednesday’s development places the onus of avoiding the full expiration of the Bush tax cuts on House Republicans. They are expected to pass legislation next week to extend all of the Bush tax cuts — but the Senate has already rejected that proposition. That leaves the Senate Democrats’ bill as the only viable vehicle for preventing everyone’s taxes from increasing next year.

Republicans will object to House adoption of the Senate bill on technical grounds. It faces what’s known as a blue-slip problem, because the Constitution requires revenue-raising measures to originate in the House of Representatives. But the blue-slip problem is only an obstacle if House Republicans insist on making it one — and Democrats are confident voters will be receptive to the argument that the GOP is standing in the way of middle-income tax cuts until wealthy Americans get a tax cut too.

To that end, the White House announced President Obama’s strong support for the Senate bill. “All sides agree on the need to extend the tax cuts for the middle class,” reads a statement of administration policy. “[T]his legislation reflects that consensus, and should not be held hostage while debating the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy.”

Now, they will object on technical grounds of course. In fact, they'll exhume the corpse of Robert Byrd and Henry Clay to prove their point if they have to. But when all is said and done, the Senate vote will stand as the one that passed when we get in to the nitty gritty negotiations of the lame duck session. As everyone faces the possibility of all the tax cuts expiring, this will be hovering out there like an angel of salvation if they want to grab it.

Upshot: don't get your hopes up. But, as they say, it could happen.


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digby 7/25/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
Glass-Steagall destroyer wants it back

by David Atkins

Via DSWright at Daily Kos, this is interesting:

Former Citigroup Chairman & CEO Sanford I. Weill, the man who invented the financial supermarket, called for the breakup of big banks in an interview on CNBC Wednesday.

“What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not too big to fail,” Weill told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

He added: “If they want to hedge what they’re doing with their investments, let them do it in a way that’s going to be mark-to-market so they’re never going to be hit.”

He essentially called for the return of the Glass–Steagall Act, which imposed banking reforms that split banks from other financial institutions such as insurance companies.

“I’m suggesting that they be broken up so that the taxpayer will never be at risk, the depositors won’t be at risk, the leverage of the banks will be something reasonable, and the investment banks can do trading, they’re not subject to a Volker rule (the Volcker rule explained), they can make some mistakes, but they’ll have everything that clears with each other every single night so they can be mark-to-market,” Weill said.

He said banks should be split off entirely from investment banks, and they should operate with a leverage ratio of 12 times to 15 times of what they have on their balance sheets. Banks should also be completely transparent, Weill said, with everything on balance sheet. “There should be no such thing as off balance sheet,” he said.

This is the same guy who played a key role in getting rid of the crucial law separating normal banking activities from speculative casino games:

Sitting in his office on the 46th floor of the General Motors building in Manhattan, he is surrounded by reminders of a lifetime on Wall Street. The space is breathtaking with floor-to-ceiling windows and views stretching out over Central Park. One wall is devoted to framed magazine and newspaper articles chronicling his career. A Fortune magazine clipping from 2001 declares Citi one of its “10 Most Admired Companies.”

On another wall hangs a hunk of wood — at least 4 feet wide — etched with his portrait and the words “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall.” The memento is a reference to the repeal in 1999 of Depression-era legislation; the repeal overturned core financial regulations, allowed for the creation of Citi and helped feed the Wall Street boom.

“Sandy took advantage of changes in the industry to build a financial colossus,” says Michael Holland, founder of Holland & Company, a money management firm. “In the end it didn’t work, and we are now paying for that as taxpayers.”

It's obvious to any thinking person that we need to bring back a high Chinese wall between regular banking and speculation. Ideally it would have global reach so that bankers couldn't simply move their dangerous and destabilizing operations to less regulated nations and less regulated markets. But a domestic law would be a good start.

The power of FIRE sector money to buy elections is the only reason it hasn't already happened.


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thereisnospoon 7/25/2012 02:55:00 PM |

 
Schoolhouse Mock

by digby


Courtesy Mark Fiore, a video well worth sharing:

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digby 7/25/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
They can't handle the truth

by digby

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones reports that the gun nuts refuse to accept the idea that their insistence on allowing every lunatic in the country to get his hands on automatic weapons and Robocop protective gear has resulted in a massive death toll of innocent people. So, they are creating conspiracy theories to explain away their own responsibility:

Larry Pratt—the president of Gun Owners of America, a far-right Second Amendment group that's backed by prominent people like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—has a different theory. Pratt believes the timing of Holmes' rampage, which left 12 people dead and 58 wounded, seemed designed to coincide with the upcoming negotiation of the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. A press release sent out to radio bookers on Tuesday advertising Pratt's availability noted that, "In an article posted at The New American…one expert even outlined a theory that Holmes didn't act alone, but was possibly 'enlisted' to carry out his violent act." Pratt, the publicist stated, was free for interviews on Holmes' "impeccable" timing.

The email sources the claim to a blog post by a writer for the New American, the official publication of the John Birch Society—which, in turn, directs readers further down the rabbit hole to a website called Natural News, which breaks it down:

All this looks like James Holmes completed a "mission" and then calmly ended that mission by surrendering to police and admitting everything. The mission, as we are now learning, was to cause as much terror and mayhem as possible, then to have that multiplied by the national media at exactly the right time leading up the UN vote next week on a global small arms treaty that could result in gun confiscation across America.

…In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn't be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there's no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to "do something!" Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it's never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

You have to give them some credit here. We have a mass murder on our hands, with the blood of innocents splashed all over them. And they are evoking Hitler and Stalin. It would an admirable bit of jiu jitsu if it weren't so incredibly sick.


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digby 7/25/2012 12:30:00 PM |

 
The early Mad Men years

by digby

This excerpt from Fortune Magazine 1955 (via Brad Delong) is instructive:

The executive’s home today is likely to be unpretentious and relatively small–perhaps seven rooms and two and a half baths. (Servants are hard to come by and many a vice president’s wife gets along with part-time help. So many have done so for so long, in fact, that they no longer complain much about it.)
[...]
The large yacht has also foundered in the sea of progressive taxation. In 1930, Fred Fisher (Bodies), Walter Briggs, and Alfred P. Sloan cruised around in vessels 235 feet long; J. P. Morgan had just built his fourth Corsair (343 feet). Today, seventy-five feet is considered a lot of yacht. One of the biggest yachts launched in the past five years is the ninety-six-foot Rhonda III, built and owned by Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., of Birmingham, Alabama. The Rhonda III cost half a million dollars to build, and the annual bill for keeping a crew aboard her, stocking her, and fueling her runs to around $130,000. As Chairman Robert I. Ingalls Jr. says, only corporations today can own even so comparatively modest a craft. The specifications of the boat that interests the great majority of seagoing executives today are “forty feet, four people, $40,000.” In this tidy vessel the businessman of 1955 is quite happily sea-borne.

This was a different psychology, wasn't it? Certainly, there didn't seem to be the whining and petulance --- and angry demands for obeisance and gratitude --- that is so prevalent among the billionaires today. Humility is totally out of fashion in our culture --- success means spending more time bragging about your success than actually achieving it. We are a shamelessly self-promoting lot.

But more importantly it proves that this job creator myth is a total crock. As Paul Krugman noted:

According to modern conservative dogma, this kind of punishment of “job creators” should have brought economic progress to a screeching halt. Yet according to Fortune, executives continued to work hard — and the postwar generation was actually a period of economic progress that has never been matched.

Somehow, John Galt never made an appearance.

There was a lot wrong with this era. I have no wish to go back to it. But the hard luck years of the depression and the horrors of WWII and Korea did at least force the business leaders of their day to recognize that they weren't the modern equivalent of mythic warrior heroes. You'd hope it wouldn't require living through the worst depression and bloodiest wars in history to prove that, but from where we sit today it appears that's what it takes.


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digby 7/25/2012 11:29:00 AM |

 
At least we won't have to worry about the best and the brightest

by digby

I'm beginning to think the Romney campaign is extra dangerous and stupid, even by Republican standards:

Shortly after the candidate's speech in Reno, Nevada, the Romney campaign sent out a press release citing former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, who is listed as an Romney campaign advisor.

"The suggestion by Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that the White House was behind recent leaks of highly classified secrets, highlights the urgent need for change” Edelman said in the statement.
Edelman, however, was implicated in the country's last major national security leak investigation — the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame — during his time in the Bush administration.

Edelman served under former Vice President Dick Cheney in the 1990s. From February 2001 to June 2003, he worked as Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, where he served directly under former Cheney aide Scooter Libby. According to the Justice Department, Edelman, identified as “Principal Deputy” in Scooter Libby’s indictment, originally suggested the idea to Libby to start leaking information about Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger.

Do they think people won't remember? Have they not heard of the internet? What's the matter with them?

Now, I'd guess that Mitt Romney doesn't know the details of the Scooter Libby scandal. He doesn't seem like someone who pays much attention to details. (He's an "idea man" which is scary.) But surely someone else on his team might have mentioned to Edelman to ixnay on the eaklay stuff seeing as he was at the center of one of the most notorious White House leaking scandals in history.

Imagine if the Republicans had nominated a serious candidate.

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digby 7/25/2012 09:30:00 AM |

 
Your daily dose of right-wing misogyny

by David Atkins

Via John Cole at Balloon Juice, a jaw-dropping bit of misogynistic crap from James Taranto, Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member.



Here's a picture of Mr. Taranto:



Disgusting.

The memories of Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves deserve better than this. Let the editors of the Wall Street Journal know how you feel:

Alan Murray
Executive Editor, WSJ Digital Network
a.murray@wsj.com

Raju Narisetti
Managing Editor, WSJ Digital Network
raju.narisetti@wsj.com

Almar Latour
Editor in Chief, Asia
a.latour@wsj.com

Tracy Corrigan
Editor in Chief, Europe
tracy.corrigan@wsj.com


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thereisnospoon 7/25/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

 
QOTD: Former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY)

by digby

Speaking about the regulation moratorium bill, I think he says it all:

The right wing does not have a record of doing things simply to waste time; it is deadly in earnest. Its opponents would be wise to take it seriously. The Republican leadership is putting this bill forward as a genuine proposal, and that ought to spark sharp debate – as well as opposition that spans partisan lines. Those who understand the consequences of this bill, including business leaders, ought to feel obligated to speak out.

Atlas may shrug, but mere mortals should take note. The right wing is serious about disabling the government.

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digby 7/24/2012 06:30:00 PM |

 
Surprise! Moderate stabs Dems in the back

by digby

What a petty little man:

Wisconsin state Sen. Tim Cullen quit the Democratic caucus Tuesday — throwing a cloud of uncertainty over the party’s narrow 17-16 majority, their biggest victory from the waves of state recall elections.

Cullen announced his decision Tuesday after Majority Leader Mark Miller unveiled a list of committee chairmanships in which Cullen was the lone Democrat missing.

Cullen’s statement leaves some ambiguity as to his new intentions:

As of the sending of this email, I am no longer a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus. I will decide over the next few days or weeks whether to become an Independent. I will not become a Republican.

This entire episode makes clear to me that Sen. Miller has no time for my independent ideas and my support of bipartisan solutions to the state’s problems.

Miller disputed Cullen’s version of events, and said Cullen was indeed offered a chairmanship.

“I am disappointed in Senator Cullen and the decision he made today,” Miller said in a statement. “Senator Cullen turned down the chairmanship of the Committee on Small Business Development and Tourism. He told me that if that was the committee offered to him, he would rather chair no committee at all. It was an important committee as small business is the economic engine for Wisconsin.”

By coincidence I was just writing a post about this John Nichols piece in which he discusses the fact that Wisconsin was a victory because it stopped the Walker agenda. I had long been of the belief that the over-emphasis on Walker himself was probably a mistake and that the real emphasis should have been on the agenda.

But now, it's all just bullshit, isn't it? When everything hinges on the whims of any one perfidious bureaucrat with an ego the size of Montana, this is the sort of thing that happens. That's the real problem with polarization --- it gives all the power to supercilious crackpots like this.

The worst people in politics are often the so-called "moderates" who are only "moderate" by virtue of the fact that they believe themselves to superior in every way to the people who believe in something.

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digby 7/24/2012 05:30:00 PM |

 
The end of an era

by digby

This should be good for bringing Mexican cartel traffic home to LA:

The L.A. City Council today voted to put an end to the city's infamous and numerous marijuana dispensaries, citing neighborhood concerns and court rulings that have questioned a city's right to regulate the retailers.

Most of all, however, the council argued that L.A's for-profit pot shop scene was never envisioned by state lawmakers whom the City Attorney says wanted to legalize the nonprofit growing and sharing of cannabis among the seriously ill.

What a shame. They've been here for 15 years and the only people who object are prissy pleasure scolds who just can't stand the idea that there is a helpful, harmless drug that doesn't come from a corporation.

The good news is that maybe we can bring that crime rate up!

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digby 7/24/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 
No, they didn't build it on their own

by David Atkins

Mitt Romney really wants to capitalize on Barack Obama's statement that business owners didn't build their businesses on their own. Digby highlighted the egregious example of Gilchrist Metal yesterday. But there's even more where that came from. Romney is having trouble finding business owners who didn't receive government help, even in the most superficial sense:

The Romney campaign has spent the last couple of weeks deliberately ripping Obama's remarks earlier this month out of context, implying that Obama was disparaging business people by suggesting individual initiative has nothing to do with success. As Slate's Dave Weigel writes, conservatives have seized on this misinterpretation as "proof" Obama is actually a secret Marxist. The implication here is really twofold: Obama can't fix the economy because he doesn't understand business, and because "you didn't build that," Obama thinks it's perfectly fine to take from hardworking rugged individualists (like you) and give to a bunch of freeloaders who'd rather not work for a living (like them).

The problem is that the real-world examples Romney keeps seizing on include people who got help from the government. As ABC News' Jake Tapper reported Monday, the star of a recent Romney ad hitting Obama over "you didn't build that" had received millions in government loans and contracts. Romney stopped in Costa Mesa, California Monday to meet with a "roundtable" of small business leaders, held in front of a sign that says "We did build it!"

Naturally, it turned out that at least two of the companies represented—Endural LLC and Philatron Wire and Cable—had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government contracts. When Romney visited the Boston's historic black neighborhood of Roxbury last week, Romney touted an auto repair shop, declaring that "This is not the result of government...This is the result of people who take risks, who have dreams, who build for themselves and for their families." Except it turned out that the auto repair shop guy started out without any funds and was only able to build his business because of a bond issed by the local government.

If Romney was trying to prove that businesses only succeed on the backs of Galtian ubermensches with no external help, he's mostly proved the opposite point.

None of which even approaches the point that even if these businesses received no grants, loans or contracts to get started, they still depend on the roads, sewers, dams, education, civil protection, general social stability and other services the government provides. As I mentioned before:

Sure, I've worked hard to build a business and to stay afloat when many others in my profession have called it quits. But none of it would be possible without the framework of civilization that my taxes help to support. When I buy lunch, I depend on food safety regulators to make sure a corporation hasn't tainted the ingredients. I depend on a national transportation infrastructure for business travel and for the shipping of necessities. I depend on the post office to deliver the mail. I depend on the government to assure the stability of the Internet through which I do the majority of my work. I depend on firefighters and police to protect my property, my safety and my community. I depend on educators to ensure that the American public remains educated and affluent enough to purchase products. I depend on the social safety net that ensures relative social stability, general prosperity and an absence of armed revolutionary warlords. My own education on full ride scholarship at a state university depended heavily on government assistance. And so on and so on.

Yes, I've worked hard to earn some modest success. But make no mistake: I haven't built that. I merely stood on the shoulders of a vast network of civilization paid for by tax dollars, without which I would never have had the opportunity to succeed at all. Had I been born in Somalia or Burma, my fate would have been as dismal as the fates of most of my hypothetical compatriots.

To the right wing, the notion of collective responsibility and collective success is a dangerous idea. To the rest of us it's just common sense.

Sadly, the Romney campaign's pathetic attempt to find any business owner at all who actually "built it on their own" even in the most simplistic way won't hurt him in the polls. Few will hear about the failure and fewer still will care. Facts no longer determine elections. Values, team loyalty and gut instincts about the way the world works do. The problem is that about half of Americans have entirely the wrong values and gut instincts about the world.


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thereisnospoon 7/24/2012 03:00:00 PM |

 
Religious Right Revolutionaries

by digby

Frederick Clarkson has a fascinating piece at Religion Dispatches about the new "it" boy in religious celebrity circles. This fellow's name is Eric Metaxas:

Metaxas is not yet a household name, but this has certainly been his year. He was not only the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast where president Obama also spoke; he also succeeded the late Charles Colson—both as the voice of the nationally-syndicated radio commentary, Breakpoint, and as one of the three-member board of directors of the premier US conservative Catholic/evangelical alliance, The Manhattan Declaration.

As an up-and-coming evangelical leader, he has also been busy denouncing proposed federal regulations on contraception coverage in employer insurance packages. But he is unique in employing his status as a Bonhoeffer scholar to claim parallels between the regulations and early Nazi-era legislation, as he did, for example, in an appearance on MSNBC.

The Bonhoeffer book itself has drawn praise, but also scathing commentary, especially in the community of Bonhoeffer scholars. Clifford Green wrote in Christian Century that Metaxas is “hijacking Bonhoeffer” into the fundamentalist camp to deploy him against religious and political liberalism.

Less than two weeks after presenting a copy of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy to president Obama, Metaxas found himself discussing the implications of his Nazi analogy at the bookstore of the Catholic Information Center, the DC outpost of Opus Dei (the rightist order that was made a personal prelature of the pope by John Paul II in 1982).

“I am, as an American, offended,” Metaxas told a small audience at the Center, “by the idea that we cannot discuss certain things, and there is a kind of proto-facist—(I am being generous when I say proto)—bullying that happens in the culture” that disallows discussing the “big questions” about life and God.

Bonhoeffer’s voice, Metaxas explained, was prophetic:

“I see him as someone who like Isaiah, or Jeremiah, was saying things to call the people of God to be the people of God... In his day, clearly his voice was not heeded. His voice, if it’s prophetic, is not Bonhoeffer’s voice—it is really the voice of God.”

“This HHS mandate” situation he said “is so oddly similar to where Bonhoeffer found himself” early in the Nazi era. “If we don’t fight now,” Metaxas warned,

“if we don’t really use all our bullets now, we will have no fight five years from now. It’ll be over. This it. We’ve got to die on this hill. Most people say, oh no, this isn’t serious enough. Its just this little issue. But it’s the millimeter... its that line that we cross. I’m sorry to say that I see these parallels. I really wish I didn’t.”

I guess the same rules don't apply to "religious scholars" that apply to everyone else in public life. Comparing the ACA to Hitler is perfectly ok. If you're a wingnut preacher.

It's an interesting introduction to the new pastor on the block, but if you read further you will find that this "revolution" talk isn't anything new. There have been voices among the religious right going there for quite some time. Which is scary.

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digby 7/24/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
More and better Democratic women please

by digby

As a general rule, I think it's vitally necessary to have more women in congress. And I certainly hope that most of them are liberals. (Conservative women tend not to vote differently than conservative men.) But I have to take exception to Democratic women who adopt tactics like this to beat fellow Democrats:

EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, today announced a new WOMEN VOTE! project in Connecticut’s fifth congressional district. As the nationwide voter mobilization and education project of EMILY's List, WOMEN VOTE! will communicate with key primary voters about Chris Donovan’s fiscal record in the state legislature.

The Connecticut WOMEN VOTE! program will target more than 26,000 Democratic primary voting women who are age 45 or older. The women will receive five pieces of direct mail highlighting Chris Donovan’s record on taxes and raising his own pay. Three of the mailers will also showcase Elizabeth Esty’s commitment to Connecticut taxpayers: returning 10% of her own salary and working towards responsible budgeting in the state legislature. The first mail will be sent on July 26th.

"Chris Donovan’s 20 year record for Connecticut speaks for itself: exorbitant pay raises and the biggest tax hike in Connecticut history. Middle class families are paying the price," said Denise Feriozzi, Director of WOMEN VOTE! “Elizabeth Esty returned taxpayer money and is committed to responsible budgeting. We are confident that once voters learn Chris Donovan’s record, they’ll choose Elizabeth Esty to represent them in Congress.”

I don't think that's helpful do you? And Emily's List's obvious belief that "anything goes" is not a value that I, as a feminist, can endorse. The value of having more women in the government is not to emulate the sleazy practices of the old boys club --- it's to challenge the premise of the club itself.

If this is how Esty is going to conduct herself in office --- smearing progressives as "tax hikers" and voting as a fiscal conservative, I can't see any purpose to supporting her candidacy. We don't need any more Democrats who endorse Blue Dog and ALEC plans to slash the safety net and enable the most conservative opposition since the Civil War --- no matter what sex they are.

I dearly want to see more women in elective office. But when there is a real progressive in the race, I would no more support a ConservaDem like Esty than I would support Michele Bachman. And there is a real progressive in the race --- Chris Donovan --- the candidate Emily's List and Elizabeth Esty are trying to smear with the most hackneyed of all Republican inspired attacks --- as a self-serving (raised his own pay!) taxnspend liberal. Meanwhile, in her own state she voted to cut Medicaid and protect millionaires from tax hikes, which is something I expect from GOP women, but expect better from Democrats. (I guess all those poor women can find some third party to give a damn about them.)

Please, more and better Democratic women, please. This isn't helping either the progressive or the feminist cause.

In the meantime, you can contribute to Chris Donovan's campaign here. He's a real progressive. Right now, we need that more than ever.


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digby 7/24/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
He's on V

by digby

Uhm, I just don't know what to say:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Fair, balanced and totally insane.

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digby 7/24/2012 10:20:00 AM |

 
Taking responsibility for your actions

by digby

What a country. Not only do we live in a shooting gallery in which half the nation apparently thinks we should all dress in body armor out in public because crazy people owning lethal automatic weapons is a right endowed by our Creator, but if you do happen to forget to "protect yourself" properly from the flying bullets, you'll have to take up a collection to pay for the medical bills:

Sixteen of the dozens of people hurt in the Colorado theater massacre remained hospitalized Tuesday.

Twelve people were killed in the carnage.

Among the victims still in the hospital is Caleb Medley, who was shot in the eye. He's in intensive care, under heavy sedation, in the same hospital where his wife is in the maternity ward, due to give birth to their son.

Seth Medley says his brother is in critical but stable condition and making some improvements in small steps, but added that doctors say he's not anywhere near out of the woods.

One of Caleb and Katie's best friends is Michael West, who's known Katie since kindergarten and Caleb since they started high school. West says Caleb can "make you laugh at the most mundane things."

Complete coverage: Massacre in Aurora

Caleb's family has been told his medical bills could total $2 million. So, West is trying to raise money.

"Caleb doesn't have any insurance, so I put together a website," West says.

So far, the site has raised more than $57,000 for Caleb and his family, but much more is needed

Warner Brothers is kicking in a "substantial sum" for the victims, which is the right thing to do.

But where's the NRA? They're a hell of a lot more responsible for this horror than some comic book movie. Wouldn't it be a gesture of decency of good will for them to contribute some money to the victims of the fruits of their labors? This shooter sure as hell couldn't have gotten the job done this efficiently without them.

Update:

The logic of the American yahoo

Background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado jumped more than 41 percent after Friday morning's shooting at an Aurora movie theater, and firearms instructors say they're also seeing increased interest in the training required for a concealed-carry permit.

"It's been insane," Jake Meyers, an employee at Rocky Mountain Guns and Ammo in Parker, said Monday.

When he arrived at work Friday morning — just hours after a gunman killed 12 and injured 58 others at the Century Aurora 16 theater — there already were 15 to 20 people waiting outside the store, Meyers said.

He called Monday "probably the busiest Monday all year" and said the basic firearms classes that he and the store's owner teach are booked solid for the next three weeks, something that hadn't happened all year.

"A lot of it is people saying, 'I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do,' " Meyers said. "When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing — 'Hey, I go to the movies.' "

I think I'd probably overheat in head to toe kevlar so I'll just have wait for Netflix if all these lunkheads are going to be carrying firearms into movie theatres.

Thanks a lot.


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digby 7/24/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
It's John Galt's world. We just live in it.

by David Atkins

Normally I can read a news story and provide some reasonable perspective to give further context. But this just leaves me speechless:

Senate Republicans will press this week to extend tax cuts for affluent families scheduled to expire Jan. 1, but the same Republican tax plan would allow a series of tax cuts for the working poor and the middle class to end next year.

Republicans say the tax breaks for lower-income families — passed with little notice in the extensive 2009 economic stimulus law — were always supposed to be temporary. But President Obama had made them a priority in 2009 and demanded their extension in 2010 as a price for extending the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, and both the White House and Senate Democrats are determined to extend them again.

That sets up a potentially tricky issue for Republicans. They have said they do not want taxes to go up on anyone while the economy struggles to gain altitude, but under their plan, written by Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, about 13 million families would see their tax refunds reduced, and some would see their taxes increase.

“Senator Hatch’s amendment would extend tax breaks for the top 2 percent of Americans,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who leads the Senate’s Democratic majority, said this month. “But it fails to extend a number of tax cuts that help middle-class families get by in a tough economy.”

The tax showdown is set for Wednesday, when the Senate will vote on whether to take up Democratic legislation to extend Bush-era middle-class tax cuts through 2013. The motion will need 60 votes to pass, and only if it gets those votes will Republicans be given a chance to vote on their alternative tax plan. The House will vote next week on a similar Republican plan that also allows the 2009 stimulus cuts to lapse.

Let's be very clear here: we are still in the middle of deep economic recession and high unemployment caused by reckless casino capitalism. Economic inequality is at record levels for the modern era.

And Republicans are flat-out running on a campaign of lowering taxes on the super rich while raising them on lower and middle incomes. Rather than being an insane, devastating and unthinkable political platform, it is simply called "tricky." The political party advancing this platform has an even chance to win the Presidency, and a better than even chance to win the Senate and hold onto the House. Also, the advertisement on the right-hand side of the page is this:



Sometimes I wonder if it's worth even trying to save this country from itself. If half of the country wants to experiment with immoral Objectivist fantasies, I'm half inclined to let them as long as they leave the rest of us alone. The problem is, they won't.


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thereisnospoon 7/24/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Monday, July 23, 2012

 
The lovely Palin Clan

by digby

Gee, I wonder where he got that:

Kids do say the darnedest things. But they don't say it if they've never heard it. And there's a history in that family of the little kids saying it.

I'd be sympathetic toward a young mom dealing with a three year old if she weren't exploiting her child on a reality show. Her little sister seems more mature than she does.


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digby 7/23/2012 07:30:00 PM |

 
Ungrateful conservatives

by digby

Jake Tapper reports:

The New Hampshire Union Leader’s John DiStato today reports that in 1999 the business in question, Gilchrist Metal, “received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority ‘to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment’…” In addition, in 2011, Gilchrist Metal “received two U.S. Navy sub-contracts totaling about $83,000 and a smaller, $5,600 Coast Guard contract in 2008…”

The businessman, Jack Gilchrist, also acknowledged that in the 1980s the company received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling “somewhere south of” $500,000, and matching funds from the federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center.

“I’m not going to turn a blind eye because the money came from the government,” Gilchrest said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting some of my tax money back. I’m not stupid, I’m not going to say ‘no.’ Shame on me if I didn’t use what’s available.”

Right. Some of his personal tax dollars paid for all of that, including the roads he's been using for decades and the education of his workforce and the police and fire protection and reliable energy and water and everything else that contributes to the environment that makes it possible for his business to exist. He's quite the macho pioneer.

You know, if none of that matters to him, why doesn't he move his plant to Somalia? They don't have all these taxes and you really can do it all on your own --- including building your own roads and bridges. If what you want, however, is to make a business in first world country where all these services are so taken for granted you aren't even aware that you are getting them, maybe you ought to STFU and say "thank you" to all your neighbors who helped make it possible for you to be successful.

Oh, and offer them a helping hand as well. It's the decent thing to do.

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digby 7/23/2012 06:00:00 PM |

 
The financial elite is a lawless international syndicate

by David Atkins

David Dayen riffs on an alarming report by the Tax Justice Network:

The Tax Justice Network, an organization I frankly had never heard of until this weekend, came out with a study over the weekend alleging that between $21 and $32 trillion in global wealth is being hidden away in tax havens. This represents the total sum of the US and Japanese economies combined. Former McKinsey and Co. chief economist James Henry oversaw the TJN study.

These are assets and not earnings, but the study estimates that if the assets generated even a modest 3% rate of return, the tax revenue off of it would equal between $190-$280 billion worldwide. Instead of going toward productive purposes, that annual take remains in the hands of high net-worth individuals using tax shelters.

A good deal of this wealth, between $7.3 and $9.3 trillion, comes from rich individuals in the developing world. They have sheltered their wealth and denied their largely impoverished countries the ability to raise themselves out of debt and provide for their citizens, through simple tax evasion. Well over $1 trillion of that sheltered wealth comes from China...

If you’re wondering how global inequality can continue to rise despite advances in productivity and the promotion of democracy worldwide, it’s due to the ability for the richest people in the world to stash away their money with relative ease. And the global financial system, the executives of which have the net wealth and lifestyle of the richest of the rich, enable this behavior.

This sort of behavior doesn't just damage the economies of the affected countries: it damages the labor market as a whole. When the rich is developing countries keep their wealth in offshore havens, economic justice and equitable growth in those nations is impacted. When that happens wages stay lower, which in turn make it more profitable for companies to cheaply outsource their labor costs to less industrialized countries. The middle class suffers worldwide.

The question is what to do about it. It's highly unlikely each nation is going to pass national laws to address the issue. The solution would have to entail some sort of international ban on this type of financial activity, focused on the financial institutions receiving the deposits.

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thereisnospoon 7/23/2012 04:30:00 PM |

 

The heroic capitalists vs the pointy heads

by digby

Making a humiliating attempt at reconstructing this piece by Dylan Matthews explaining the philosophy underlying Obama's claim that businessmen didn't do it all on their own (a real treat if you've got the stomach for it) Rush proves he's not very bright and, in the process, fumbles one of the fundamental explanations as to why conservatives hate liberals:

Intellectuals hate capitalism because intellectuals are egomaniacs; they think they're smarter than everybody else. And if capitalism were just, they would be the ones who are rich, because they're the ones who smarter. And because they're the ones who are smarter than everybody else, they're the ones that deserve it! But capitalism hasn't seen fit to reward college professors and academics with billionaire status.

And so, there's something wrong with capitalism.

It's pure ego, folks. Nothing more than that. It's not hard to understand. Intellectuals don't like capitalism, and they don't like America, because they resent it. They're the smartest people in the world, and yet capitalism doesn't take care of them -- and that's why it's gotta be changed. That's Obama; that's his professors; that's the people who've mentored him. That's who they are. Hard work doesn't count for squat. It's how smart you are. In fact, in their world the smarter you are, the less hard you have to work. And that ought to be rewarded. It's a neat perversion of so many American traditions and ethics.

It's a perversion, that much is true.

Oddly, Rush seems to be claiming that smart people aren't rich and rich people aren't smart, but I don't think that's what he means. (After all, if that's the formula, at 40 million a year he would be proclaiming himself one of the stupidest men on earth.)

What he's trying to articulate is what a fair number of conservatives believe: "if you're so smart how come you're not a billionaire?" That's what any really smart person would do, right? So, you must not really be that smart. In fact, you can't possibly be any smarter than I am! You're just a lazy egomaniac speaking gibberish and trying to give all my hard earned money to the wrong people. Who wouldn't want to be rich more than anything?

Hating on the intellectuals has a long pedigree, of course. (It's one of the motivating factors in a number of revolutions, both left and right.) But the idea that the billionaire is a just a workin' guy like you and me is an idea that only exists among conservatives. Especially American conservatives.

I can understand being skeptical of elites. Especially now. What I don't get is why these John Galts and Masters of the Universe continue to get a pass despite the fact that they caused our depression and are still strutting around as if they created the world with their own two hands. Lots of elites failed in recent years, but none so obviously and catastrophically as the keepers of our capitalistic system. It's a testament to the heroic place they hold in the American popular imagination (and our fetish for individualism) that anyone has the chutzpah to argue that they literally did it all on their own.

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digby 7/23/2012 03:30:00 PM |

 
Romney's musical director

by digby


Personally, I think this is just awesome:

Lest you think this gentleman is making a joke, think again. He's got hundreds of videos on Youtube, including many songs like this. He's mostly concerned with the Rapture which is confusing since he seems to be averse to Barack Obama's plan for WWIII. You'd think he'd be all for it.

Anyway, all the songs are just great. But when it comes to campaign songs, I'm still partial to this one.

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digby 7/23/2012 01:30:00 PM |

 
To protect and to serve

by digby

... or shoot rubber bullets into crowds of women and children:

I thought this was interesting:

Four people told Jackson that police offered to buy their cell phone video.

Of course they did. And that's because something went very wrong here and they know it. If the cops can't keep their cool enough to figure out how to calm a situation like this without shooting rubber bullets into crowds of kids and sending in attack dogs to bit mothers with babies in their arms then they need to get into another line of work.

This is yet another example of the militarization of the police. Many of them don't see themselves as public servants anymore. They see themselves as soldiers in a war --- against the citizens. Just looking at that footage of police in uniform with those weapons aimed at that crowd makes my blood run cold.

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digby 7/23/2012 12:00:00 PM |

 
The grown-ups are planning a coup

by digby

Oh my dear God:

Anyone watching the Washington budget debate over the past decade must have wondered why there didn’t seem to be any grown-ups in the room — someone who could cut through what Honeywell’s Dave Cote calls the “hysteria, histrionics and hyperbole” and force the bickering children to agree on a reasonable compromise.

That’s what the voters want, what the economy demands and what country must now have to regain its confidence and its global influence.

Some grown-ups who have been noticeably absent from this conversation have been the heads of the country’s major corporations, who talk a good game about deficit reduction but haven’t invested the time, money and political capital necessary to jolt the political system from its dysfunctional equilibrium.

That’s about to change. Last week, the first battalion of CEOs showed up in Washington, reporting for duty.
[...]
During the past year, there have been quiet meetings put together by chief executives such as Cote, Aetna’s Mark Bertolini and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, and Senators Mark Warner (D) and Saxby Chambliss (R), the ringleaders of the bipartisan Gang of Six. Nudging it along and pulling it all together has been Maya MacGuineas, who for a decade has been sounding the deficit alarm from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

In addition to Cote, Dimon and Bertolini, the charter business members include Sandy Cutler of Eaton, Gregg Sherrill of Tenneco, Marty Flanagan of Invesco, Gary Loveman of Caesars, Thomas Quinlan of R.R. Donnelley & Sons and financiers Steven Rattner and Pete Peterson.

This is the "Fix the debt" group I wrote about last week. I didn't realize John Galt was going to be the front man, but the whole project is just perverse enough that it makes sense.

What's most infuriating about this piece is the blithe assumption that a) this is the biggest problem in the universe and b) Wall Street sharks like Jamie Dimond are coming to the rescue. Talk about putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse.

They aren't going to let up on this.

Dean Baker writes:

Steven Pearlstein, the Washington Post business columnist, often writes insightful pieces on the economy, not today. The thrust of his piece is that we all should be hopeful that a group of incredibly rich CEOs can engineer a coup.

While the rest of us are wasting our time worrying about whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney are sitting in the White House the next four years, Pearlstein tells us (approvingly) that these honchos are scurrying through back rooms in Washington trying to carve out a deficit deal.

The plan is that we will get the rich folks' deal regardless of who wins the election. It is difficult to imagine a more contemptuous attitude toward democracy.

The deal that this gang (led by Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles) is hatching will inevitably include some amount of tax increases and also large budget cuts. At the top of the list, as Pearlstein proudly tells us, are cuts to Social Security and Medicare. At a time when we have seen an unprecedented transfer of income to the top one percent, these deficit warriors are placing a top priority on snatching away a portion of Social Security checks that average $1,200 a month. Yes, the country needs this.

He repeats what we all know: they want to change the cost of living formula that will result in cutting social security by nearly 10% over time. If I'm lucky enough to live into my 80s, I'll be feeling it. But hey, I guess I can always get a job to make up for it, right?

Oh, and they want to raise the Medicare eligibility age. Because buying insurance in your 60s is so inexpensive. (Even under Obamacare it's expensive as hell.)

But not to worry. These "grown-ups" will reluctantly agree to close a few loopholes (yeah, right) in exchange for lowering their rates which every Very Serious Person agrees is not only a great way to raise revenue but also a tremendous sacrifice for the millionaires.

It's a balanced approach. Hallelujah.

Just so you know how much the sacrifice is going to hurt our grown-ups:

David M. Cote J.D.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Honeywell International Inc.
$37,842,723 annual compensation

Alexander M.(Sandy) Cutler
Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of Executive Committee, Eaton Corporation
$13,586,010 annual compensation

Gregg M. Sherrill
Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tenneco Inc.
$5,750,640 annual compensation

Martin L. Flanagan
Chief Executive Officer, President and Executive Director, Invesco Ltd.
$13,420,458 annual compensation

Mark T. Bertolini
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of Executive Committee and Member of Investment & Finance Committee, Aetna Inc.
$10,556,335 annual compensation

Thomas J. Quinlan III
Chief Executive Officer, President and Director, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company
$6,059,714 annual compensation

James Dimon
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Member of Operating Committee, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
$23,105,415 annual compensation

Those are all figures for 2011. There's no annual compensation info available for the rest of them.

I'm sure they're really going to feel the pinch in this deal. The 90 year old women who will have 10% less of their already meager social security probably won't suffer half as much.


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digby 7/23/2012 10:45:00 AM |

 
QOTD: Mitt Romney

by digby


Via Think Progress:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ROMNEY: You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.

Commie.
digby 7/23/2012 09:00:00 AM |

 
No control needed

by David Atkins

This seems reasonable:

Unhindered by federal background checks or government oversight, the 24-year-old man accused of killing a dozen people inside a Colorado movie theater was able to build what the police called a 6,000-round arsenal legally and easily over the Internet, exploiting what critics call a virtual absence of any laws regulating ammunition sales.

With a few keystrokes, the suspect, James E. Holmes, ordered 3,000 rounds of handgun ammunition, 3,000 rounds for an assault rifle and 350 shells for a 12-gauge shotgun — an amount of firepower that costs roughly $3,000 at the online sites — in the four months before the shooting, according to the police. It was pretty much as easy as ordering a book from Amazon.

He also bought bulletproof vests and other tactical gear, and a high-capacity “drum magazine” large enough to hold 100 rounds and capable of firing 50 or 60 rounds per minute — a purchase that would have been restricted under proposed legislation that has been stalled in Washington for more than a year.

Mr. Holmes, a graduate student in neuroscience with a clean criminal record, was able to buy the ammunition without arousing the slightest notice from law enforcement, because the sellers are not required in most cases to report sales to law enforcement officials, even unusually large purchases. And neither Colorado nor federal law required him to submit to a background check or register his growing purchases, gun policy experts said.

Of course, it's a totally unpreventable tragedy, the work of a madman over which we have no control.

Clearly, nothing could possibly have been done to throw up any roadblocks that might have stopped this massacre. Freedom, after all, isn't free. Sometimes it has to be paid for with the blood of random moviegoers.


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thereisnospoon 7/23/2012 07:30:00 AM |

Sunday, July 22, 2012

 
He stood his ground

by digby

Being armed and hyper-vigilant has a price:

A New York police officer killed his son after thinking he was an intruder and shooting him.

Michael Leach, of Rochester, was staying at the Clark Beach Motel in Old Forge, Wyoming County.

The 59-year-old and his son were part of a group of police officers who had driven to the area on motorcycles for a long-weekend getaway.

'It was just a group of guys coming to have a good time,' motel owner Dan Rivet Jr told uticaod.com.'We have very little violence in Old Forge.'

Leach was disturbed by someone coming into his room shortly after midnight.
Believing the disturbance to be an intruder Leach grabbed his police department-issued .45-caliber Glock handgun and opened fire.

After realising his error the 59-year-old called 911 and reported the shooting.
37-year-old Matthew Leach was pronounced dead at St Elizabeth's Hospital and his father was taken to St Luke's Hospital for mental support.

He stood his ground.

Why he felt he needed to have a loaded gun near his bed is a question someone would ask in a sane country. But here, it's evidently become routine to be armed to the teeth and ready to shoot to kill at a moment's notice.


Here's an interesting little bit of context on this:

In November 1975, Michael Leach, then a 22-year-old officer in the Rochester Police Department, shot and killed Denise Hawkins, an 18-year-old who was coming toward him with a knife in the basement of an apartment building.

The incident led to extensive protests from black community leaders and a grand jury investigation. The shooting was ruled to be justified.

He's got another notch on his belt.

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digby 7/22/2012 05:00:00 PM |

 
"A revolution is not successful unless it succeeds in preserving itself"

by digby

Oh fergawdsakes:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is floating legislation that would name most U.S. coastal waters after former President Ronald Reagan.

Issa reintroduced his bill Wednesday to rename the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which generally extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore, as the Ronald Wilson Reagan Exclusive Economic Zone.

I haven't written about this recently, but it's time to revisit it. Most people associate Grover Norquist with the anti-tax pledge. But his other "accomplishment" is the "Reagan Legacy project" which I wrote about some time back:

It may be apocryphal, but the bin Laden family's good friend and everybody's favorite Leninist right wingnut, Grover Norquist, is reported to have said back in the 1980's:

"We must establish a Brezhnev Doctrine for conservative gains. The Brezhnev Doctrine states that once a country becomes communist it can never change. Conservatives must establish their own doctrine and declare their victories permanent…A revolution is not successful unless it succeeds in preserving itself…(W)e want to remove liberal personnel from the political process. Then we want to capture those positions of power and influence for conservatives. Stalin taught the importance of this principle."

I think he's been damned successful so far. You can't fault the guy for thinking small.

Inspired as he is by all things totalitarian, Norquist went on to do a number of things that Uncle Joe would be proud of, one of which was The Legacy Project.

Here's what Mother Jones had to say about it:

Win one for the Gipper? Hell, try winning 3,067 for the Gipper. That's the goal of a group of a powerful group of Ronald Reagan fans who aim to see their hero's name displayed on at least one public landmark in every county in the United States.

A conservative pipe dream? The intrepid members of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project don't think so. Launched in 1997 as a unit of hard-line antitax lobby Americans for Tax Reform, the project's board of advisers reads like a who's who of conservatives; it includes, among others, staunch GOP activist Grover Norquist, supply-sider Jack Kemp, and Eagle Forum chief Phyllis Schlafly. To this crew, the Great Communicator is the man who almost singlehandedly saved us from the Evil Soviet Empire, made Americans proud again, and put the nation on the road to prosperity through tax cuts that helped the poor by helping the rich help themselves.

Buoyed by an early success in having Washington National Airport renamed in Reagan's honor in 1998, the project started thinking big. In short order, they convinced Florida legislators to rename a state turnpike. From there, it was a logical step to the push for a Reagan memorial just about everywhere. "We want to create a tangible legacy so that 30 or 40 years from now, someone who may never have heard of Reagan will be forced to ask himself, 'Who was this man to have so many things named after him?'" explains 29-year-old lobbyist Michael Kamburowski, who recently stepped down as the Reagan Legacy Project's executive director.
[...]
...it was the Gipper's ho-hum performance in a 1996 survey of historians that apparently triggered the right's recent zeal to enthrone him in the public eye. It was in that year that presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in The New York Times Magazine, asked 30 academic colleagues and a pair of politicians to rank all US presidents, and when conservatives saw their undisputed hero languishing in the "average" column, they were aghast. Appearing on the heels of Clinton's landslide victory over Bob Dole, the Schlesinger article seemed a slap in the face, a challenge to the GOP to stake its claim on recent history.

The charge was led by the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative think tank that helped devise the Republican Contract with America. In the March 1997 issue of the foundation's magazine Policy Review, the editors charged that Schlesinger's survey was stacked with liberals and New Deal sympathizers, and presented opinions from authors more appreciative of the Gipper. (The 40th president has always fared better with the general public than with the pointyheads: In a recent Gallup poll, respondents rated Ronald Reagan as the greatest American president, beating out second-place John F. Kennedy and third-place Abraham Lincoln.)

Two issues later, for its 20th anniversary, Policy Review ran a followup cover story: "Reagan Betrayed: Are Conservatives Fumbling His Legacy?" For its centerpiece, the magazine invited soul-searching by prominent Reagan acolytes including senators Phil Gramm and Trent Lott, representatives Christopher Cox, and Dick Armey, then-Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, and Grover Norquist. Soon after the cover story appeared, Norquist launched the Reagan Legacy Project as an offshoot of Americans for Tax Reform, which he had founded a decade earlier to further Reagan's fiscal policies.

And tonight, Grover won the very first Ronald Reagan Award from the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation. Check out the sponsors, a veritable who's who of GOP luminaries. How sweet it must have been for these lovers of freedom to be able to celebrate successfully repressing a "docu-drama" about their Dear Leader without even having seen it. After all, "a revolution is not successful unless it succeeds in preserving itself."

I have no doubt that they all stood up at the gala tonight and proudly proclaimed "Thank You Comrade, Norquist!"

By now, of course, they just do this stuff out of habit. Naming the oceans after Reagan is pro-forma.

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digby 7/22/2012 03:30:00 PM |