Lemkin

"We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction."

— John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, tipping his hand. I’d say this is the first time you can see real fear of the status quo. More broadly, that doing nothing will fix most of the deficit over the near term by eliminating the Bush tax cuts and a few other money-sapping provisions. Were it deemed reasonably likely that Obama will win reelection in the fall, they’d quickly calculate that the only chance the GOP has for full extension of the Bush tax cuts is to force the issue before that happens. You do that by holding the full faith and credit of these United States hostage. Again. And the only way they get there is by reneging on their previous agreements and hope nobody remembers that they’re doing so. Nothing that has transpired in the past 20 years leads me to believe they are wrong on this count.
Sadly for them: they think this cunning scheme to yet again needlessly and recklessly and by choice yet again delivering the nation to the economic precipice has the benefit of being a big political winner for them. Sadly for the rest of us: you can only put this particular gun to the hostage’s head so many times before it gets fired. Maybe this time, maybe next. But soon.

"I’ve talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who believe that, ‘Hey, we don’t like this two month extension [but] if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people, even though it’s not exactly what we want."

— John Boehner, completely misunderstanding the position of his caucus. Either it’s exactly what we want or we blow up the country. Right, John? Right?

All of a Piece

I’m not sure how many times the Republicans have to say the same stuff, plainly and in modern English, before it begins to sink in to the minds of those in the media that they, the Republicans in Congress, want Obama to fail in his bid for reelection and to achieve that goal, they need the American economy to fail.

You, as a GOP House mover-and-shaker (aka Tea Klan fanatic), are faced with the newly rising popularity of Obama (e.g. he’s in the 50s for the first time in a while), the first positive news on housing starts in a long, long time (driven more or less entirely by huge demand for apartments, since vanishingly few folks can qualify to buy houses anymore, at least not considered relative to the bubble excess and the fact that home foreclosures are still relatively high), a suddenly more optimistic public attitude re: the economy, and none of your own GOP candidates for the nomination are exactly setting the woods on fire, and may well be instead burning down the house relative to your broader chances both up- and down-ticket come 2012.

All that considered, do you, the rank and file Tea Klan fanatic, feel comfortable handing that same Obama you want to fail a sure-fired way to boost the economy even more as 2012 rolls along? Or do you want to apply the emergency brakes? With this most recent nonsense, I think no sensate being could still deny that we have our answer.
Now, of course, there is some subtlety to their position. They don’t want the extension of this particular tax break because it a) doesn’t help their prime audience in any way (aka the 1%), because those folks either don’t draw traditional paychecks and/or said pay is a relatively tiny fraction of their entire portfolio, so they could care less and won’t notice either way b) it legitimately does help the broader economy and quickly since we’re in an aggregate demand slump and this is cash in the pockets of the 99% who actually create that aggregate demand in, uh, aggregate, and c) is a quick and relatively easy way to sand the gears of the economy, and they think they can sell it to their crazed idiocratic supporters through ever-willing conduits like FOXnews and the Wall Street Journal (The latter of which is already overboard) using such time-honored tools as goalpost moving and poison-pill additions. No one will ever know, and if they do, we can convince them to blame “Democrat leaders in the Senate.” Who, for once, have grown a pair and are doing their part to (rightly) hang this on the GOP. They even have a “Tea Klan tax hike” style meme going. It’s like they’ve finally gotten hip to the way the other side messaged in, oh, 1992.

But frankly this is a pretty simple calculation for the GOP. Braveheart and all the rest are just window dressing that, as usual, the MSM is lapping up. The real story, the one far too shrill to actually report: Anyone or anything getting in the way slowing the economy can kindly go die in the streets. Tax proposals benefiting the 1%: always welcome. Wedge issues that reliably bring this or that fractional percent of old white voters to the polls in November: always welcome. Anything that might actually help the economy and, by extension, Obama: forget about it. And they have.

"A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have. Because we’ve in fact attempted to create a secular country, which I think is frankly a nightmare."

— Newt Gingrich, disgraced former Speaker of the House and occasional front-runner in the race for the GOP nomination of 2012, sharing his thoughts on what the real problems facing the country are.
Last I checked, the founders were the ones that attempted to create a secular country. What part of “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” is not entirely clear to these people? You get to have all the religion you want, Newt, and be sure to include infinite free divorces for all God-fearing Men in your personal catechism. But, guess what? You don’t get to establish Your Personal God at the head of our government, no matter how well meaning you may or may not be. There is simply no other way to interpret the Constitution on this. Which hasn’t stopped them from trying.

Dear NPR, →

Compare and contrast Jonathan Chait’s approach to Paul Ryan’s fantasyworld with dread Liberal Mouthpiece NPR’s view from nowhere approach in which Ryan is simply allowed to say whatever he wants, without challenge or even follow up of any kind.

Day by day, hour by hour, brick by brick NPR is building its own tomb. Once they’ve chased off all thinking individuals from their “coverage,” a defunding move by the GOP will be a non-event. NPR has vastly higher listenership than FOXnews and still, occasionally, reports facts. Therefore NPR must cease to exist. This is who they are. This is what they do. They want to destroy you, NPR, and you are going out of your way to help.

"…this is the way the right goes after everyone who stands in their way: accuse them of everything, no matter how implausible or contradictory the accusations are. Progressives are atheistic socialists who want to impose Sharia law. Class warfare is evil; also, John Kerry is too rich. And so on."

— Paul Krugman, sole member of the mainstream media who seems to understand this simple concept.

"Does that mean that you would raise taxes on the 47 percent of Americans who currently don’t pay taxes?"

— Anderson Cooper, buying into the entirely wrong, entirely Tea Klan promulgated notion that about half of Americans pay no taxes.
Anderson, and everyone else, everyone, every single adult citizen pays federal taxes in this country or they are breaking the law. Even this 47% to which you refer still pays payroll taxes related to Social Security, Medicare, and etc… if they are employed. However, they may well earn too little money to exceed the standard individual/married filing jointly deduction. Thus, they effectively pay no federal income tax. They do, however, still pay all the rest of it. Period. They do, however, still pay state and local taxes. Period. In any meaningful case: This adds up to a lot more than one dollar (which was Bachmann’s suggested “solution” to the “issue”). But that’s all too boring or too partisan to mention, apparently.
In a functioning society, the media individual selected to mediate this event might just see fit to mention this. Worth noting that, in our society, that sort of thing never, ever happens, and this tax thing is but one of literally hundreds of such opportunities for meaningful intervention in last night’s debate. The level of foreign aid, the current funding totals for defense (with regard to the suggested cut), the real impact of immigration on the economy of this country, foreclosures, and on and on and on.
And so the Republic crumbles.

View high resolution

999 explained in one graph. I see no reason 999 won’t be uniformly and forever adopted by the Tea Klan. Accept no substitutes! The poor have only themselves to blame!

Herman Cain: If it's good enough for Sim City, it's good enough for America. →

gonzodave:

Aside from being an egomaniac, Cain is a plagiarist.

~g

Long before Cain was running for president and getting attention for his 999 plan, the residents of SimCity 4 — which was released in 2003 — were living under a system where the default tax rate was 9 percent for commercial taxes, 9 percent for industrial taxes and 9 percent for residential taxes. (That is, of course, if you didn’t use the cheat codes to get unlimited money and avoid taxes altogether.)

Cut to: Bachmann press conference in which she breathlessly announces that she’s gained access to the secret government cheat codes which, when entered into a secret keypad in the Bible on the day of her inauguration, will allow for unlimited revenue on no taxes whatsoever. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new national GOP polls leader.

(Source: letthetruthlaugh)

Only Off by 3.3 million →

Steve Benen notes the systematic nature of claiming “zero jobs” created from the stimulus despite the conclusion from the Congressional Budget Office that

“President Barack Obama’s stimulus package may have created or saved as many as 3.3 million jobs last quarter and lowered the unemployment rate by as much as 1.8 percentage points”

Let me make this as clear as I can: The Facts Do Not Matter. Unless and until Wolf Blitzer stops the debate and says “then how do you square that statement with the findings of the CBO and 99.9% of world economists who have all concluded…” we will make zero progress.

The modern GOP is entirely predicated on empty boilerplate, outright lies, and brazen platitudes specifically designed to play well for the low information, low attention voter. That is the essence of the Tea Klan: I want all the government services I prefer to be provided for free, everyone else can kindly go die in the streets; here is my entirely unsubstantiated “plan” to make that happen. The cheers at the notion that an under- or un-insured 30 year old in a coma should simply be allowed to die coupled with boos at any notion of immigration being a powerful and useful economic engine for the country say pretty much everything you need to know about the broader movement. God help us if these folks ever discover just how much of the “Texas Miracle” occurred at the hands of legal and illegal immigration into the state. Thus it should come as no surprise that the audience questions last night reflected this sort of poisonous vacuity relative to the actual state of affairs of numerous, seemingly straightforward issues facing the country.

By way of example, there was a long, multi-participant disquisition on how waste, fraud, and abuse totaling in the tens of millions and maybe even into THE BILLIONS could impact the deficit and debt of an approximately four trillion dollar budget. Not one candidate stepped in to even imply that these maximally estimated waste numbers were extraordinarily small potatoes in the context. And neither did Wolf Blitzer. So what was he doing there, exactly?

The same goes for Social Security. Interminable amount of discussion about a program that is largely self-funding and will not be a significant deficit driver for decades and need never drive the deficit should the government choose to make long-term, minor adjustments to the program. Cost growth within Medicare will have destroyed the federal government long before we ever have to think about Social Security as a threat to the solvency of the government. Did that merit a mention? Did Wolf hold anyone to account for that seeming incongruity?

The same goes for “Obamacare.” Each of the candidates begged for “market-based” private insurance solutions to health care delivery in this county. Precisely what, pray tell, do they think “Obamacare” is? Did Wolf bother to ask?

This is all before we even touch lengthy discussions of tax policies featuring 0% rates, 9% national sales taxes, and every other kind of pie-in-the-sky nonsense without even a whisper of how such a rate of collection could even partially pay for existing military budgets, much less everything else dread government does (but don’t cut my pet program!). Was any of this even tangentially addressed? Did anyone get asked what sort of total spending their wonderful tax plan would presage and how that would change federal priorities as we know them (assuming for the moment that the candidate pushing their idea got exactly what they were asking for)? Doesn’t that seem like the sort of thing a moderator should be doing, Wolf?

Of course not, because within our modern media construct the facts do not matter. The facts are the last thing they are concerned with. This was an event entirely predicated on and existing only to produce new sound and fury signifying nothing that will nonetheless be dissected and replayed purely from a horse-race perspective until the next one of these intellectual disasters transpires. It’s why they’re having 52 of them: to feed the mill. What, you thought it was to better understand the relevance and relative merits of the various platforms?

Until we in America force the broader media to start doing its job (by taking our eyes and ears elsewhere), we will continue to get exactly this kind of crap, which is precisely the sort of leadership such an electorate deserves. I wouldn’t hold your breath.