Monday Reads: Esoteric Interests
Posted: December 3, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Asperger's disorder, autism specrtum disorder, God's Doodle, Hillary Clinton, Killer bag lady, Lois Lang, Medici Family grave, Meryl Streep, Virginia Woolf 22 Comments
Good Morning!
I’m going to try to put some interesting reads up this morning just because the political theater surrounding the budget discussions has gotten to me. So, here are some things to read that are a little more esoteric. Most of these things have little hints of hidden secrets that are just tantalizing to me and hopefully a few of you too.
The Atlantic‘s Benjamin Schwartz has a feature article on ‘The Education of Virginia Woolf’ that you literature fans may want to read.
Taken as a whole, Woolf’s essays are probably the most intense paean to reading—an activity pursued not for a purpose but for love—ever written in English. Her assessment of “the man who loves reading” (in contrast to “the man who loves learning”) fit both herself as an essayist and her audience:
A reader must check the desire for learning at the outset; if knowledge sticks to him well and good, but to go in pursuit of it, to read on a system, to become a specialist or an authority, is very apt to kill … the more humane passion for pure and disinterested reading. The true reader is a man of intense curiosity; of ideas; open-minded and communicative, to whom reading is more of the nature of brisk exercise in the open air than of sheltered study.
That passage, from Woolf’s essay “Hours in a Library,” a title she borrowed from a multivolume collection of her father’s essays, recalls Stephen’s passion for reading, walking, and climbing. She invoked her father again in “The Leaning Tower,” an essay adapted from a wartime lecture she gave in 1940 to the Workers’ Education Association, in which she conflated her expansive concept of amateurism with her hopeful, democratic vision of the reading life:
Let us bear in mind a piece of advice that an eminent Victorian who was also an eminent pedestrian once gave to walkers: “Whenever you see a board up with ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted,’ trespass at once.” Let us trespass at once. Literature is no one’s private ground; literature is common ground … It is thus that English literature will survive this war … if commoners and outsiders like ourselves make that country our own country, if we teach ourselves how to read and how to write, how to preserve and how to create.
The American Psychiatric Association’s new diagnostic manual will be published in May with some interesting changes.
The now familiar term “Asperger’s disorder” is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But “dyslexia” and other learning disorders remain.
The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation’s psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.
…
One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger’s disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.
And some Asperger’s families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.
But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.
The new manual adds the term “autism spectrum disorder,” which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger’s disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don’t talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.
So, for all of you that appreciate some real life thriller and spy drama, Salon has “James Bond and the killer bag lady” for your reading pleasure. The suspect is Lois Lang. Even her name sounds like something that should be in the movies!
On the morning of Nov. 19, 1985, a wild-eyed and disheveled homeless woman entered the reception room at the legendary Wall Street firm of Deak-Perera. Carrying a backpack with an aluminum baseball bat sticking out of the top, her face partially hidden by shocks of greasy, gray-streaked hair falling out from under a wool cap, she demanded to speak with the firm’s 80-year-old founder and president, Nicholas Deak.
The 44-year-old drifter’s name was Lois Lang. She had arrived at Port Authority that morning, the final stop on a month-long cross-country Greyhound journey that began in Seattle. Deak-Perera’s receptionist, Frances Lauder, told the woman that Deak was out. Lang became agitated and accused Lauder of lying. Trying to defuse the situation, the receptionist led the unkempt woman down the hallway and showed her Deak’s empty office. “I’ll be in touch,” Lang said, and left for a coffee shop around the corner. From her seat by a window, she kept close watch on 29 Broadway, an art deco skyscraper diagonal from the Bowling Green Bull.
Deak-Perera had been headquartered on the building’s 20th and 21st floors since the late 1960s. Nick Deak, known as “the James Bond of money,” founded the company in 1947 with the financial backing of the CIA. For more than three decades the company had functioned as an unofficial arm of the intelligence agency and was a key asset in the execution of U.S. Cold War foreign policy. From humble beginnings as a spook front and flower import business, the firm grew to become the largest currency and precious metals firm in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world. But on this day in November, the offices were half-empty and employees few. Deak-Perera had been decimated the year before by a federal investigation into its ties to organized crime syndicates from Buenos Aires to Manila. Deak’s former CIA associates did nothing to interfere with the public takedown. Deak-Perera declared bankruptcy in December 1984, setting off panicked and sometimes violent runs on its offices in Latin America and Asia.
Lois Lang had been watching 29 Broadway for two hours when a limousine dropped off Deak and his son Leslie at the building’s revolving-door rear entrance. They took the elevator to the 21st floor, where Lauder informed Deak about the odd visitor. Deak merely shrugged and was settling into his office when he heard a commotion in the reception room. Lang had returned. Frances Lauder let out a fearful “Oh—” shortened by two bangs from a .38 revolver. The first bullet missed. The second struck the secretary between the eyes and exited out the back of her skull.
So, those of you that know me also know that my Saturday night ritual consists of a good red wine, some great music, and a long soak in a hot tub with my latest edition of The Economist. I got more than I bargained for with this article which was a review of a book. And I REALLLLLLYYYYY quote:
The penis
Cross to bare
Anatomy of a seminal work
Dec 1st 2012 | from the print edition
Behind the figleaf
God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis. By Tom Hickman. Square Peg; 234 pages; £12.99. Buy from Amazon.co.uk
THE problem with penises, as Richard Rudgley, a British anthropologist, admitted on a television programme some years ago, is that once you start noticing them, you “tend to see willies pretty much everywhere”. They are manifest in skyscrapers, depicted in art and loom large in literature. They pop up on the walls of schoolyards across the world, and on the walls of temples both modern and ancient. The Greeks and Japanese rendered them on statues that stood at street corners. Hindus worship the lingam in temples across the land. Even the cross on which Jesus was hung is considered by some to be a representation of male genitalia.
Yet the penis has also been shamed into hiding through the ages. One night in 415BC, Athens’s street-corner statues were dismembered en masse. Stone penises were still causing anxiety in the late 20th century, when the Victoria and Albert Museum in London pulled out of storage a stone figleaf in case a member of the royal family wanted to see its 18-foot (5.5-metre) replica of Michelangelo’s “David”. Nothing, save the vagina, which is neither as easy nor as childishly satisfying to scrawl on a wall, manages to be so sacred and so profane at once. This paradox makes it an object of fascination.
Yes, since I put up a picture of Freud I just had to follow-up with something phallic. I leave the discussion to you.
So, what would one of my esoteric posts be without a mention of a historic grave. This time it’s the Tomb of a Renaissance Warrior that may have run awry of his famous Medici Family. This guy’s been dug up a lot so the story is a little twisted.
A noble-but-brutal Renaissance warrior who fell to a battle wound may not have died exactly as historians had believed, according to a new investigation of the man’s bones.
Italian researchers opened the tomb of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, or Giovanni of the Black Bands, this week to investigate the real cause of his death. Giovanni was born in 1498 into the wealthy and influential Medici family, a lineage that produced three Popes and two regent queens of France, among many other nobles (Another branch of the family, the Medicis of Milan, boasted a fourth Pope). He worked as a mercenary military captain for Pope Leo X (one of the Medici family’s Popes), and fought many a successful skirmish in his name. When Pope Leo X died in 1521, Giovanni altered his uniform to include black mourning bands, earning him his nickname.
Giovanni was wounded in battle in 1526; reportedly, his leg was amputated and he died several days later of infection. However, the new investigation of the Giovanni remains reveals that it was not his leg that was sawn off, but his foot. Nor is there any damage to the man’s thigh, where the shot supposedly hit.
Giovanni’s grave has been opened five times already, including an investigation in 1945. This confirmation of the man’s actual wound has created a medical mystery.
“Giovanni was wounded in the right leg (maybe above the knee) but was amputee[d] [at the] foot,” Marco Ferri, a spokesman for the Superintendent of Fine Arts of Florentine Museums, wrote in an email to LiveScience. “Why? The surgeon was not a good doctor or the news [that] reached us [is] not accurate.”
Giovanni’s bones rest with those of his wife, Maria Salviati in two zinc boxes in the crypt of the Medici Chapels in Florence. The man’s tibia and fibula, the bones of the lower leg, were found sawed off from the amputation. There was no damage to the femur (thigh bone).
BFFs? We can dream. But Meryl Streep and Hillary Clinton looked pretty chummy on Saturday night.
The Oscar-winning actress and the Secretary of State met up at the Kennedy Center Honors gala, held at the State Department.
According to the AP, Streep used her iPhone to snap a photo of the two powerful women.
Earlier this year, Streep compared herself to the former First Lady.
“I find a lot of similarities,” Streep said when introducing Clinton at the Women in the World Summit. “We’re roughly the same age, we both have two brothers — mine are annoying — we both grew up in middle-class homes with spirited, big-hearted mothers who encouraged us to do something valuable and interesting with our lives. We both went from public high schools to distinguished women’s colleges … We both went on to graduate school at Yale.”
How about Meryl playing Hillary in a Biopic? It could work!!!
So, that’s a little something different for you to read while getting your Monday going.
I’d like to end with a great big thank you for those of you that helped me pay our annual bills this month. We have to pay a little extra to get the blog to look this way and to have enough room to store things and move around. Thanks a lot for all your support and comments! I think we have one of the best blogging communities on the internet and I adore you all!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Fiscal Policy Dysfunction and Fallacy
Posted: December 2, 2012 Filed under: Fiscal Cliff, U.S. Economy 23 Comments
It’s hard to take anything Republicans say seriously any more given that their arguments are not data-, fact- or theory-driven. There’s a lot of discussion by the media that seems to project this idea that our spending is out-of-control that embraces complete untruths spread by Republicans. Just because something is said consistently by one party doesn’t mean it’s correct or just another point of view. There needs to be some adults in the media these days that point out that just because the republicans say the sky is green doesn’t make that a theory, a fact, or even a remote possibility. It just takes a few charts and well-placed questions. Like why are you worried about “out-of-control spending” when … then show these two graphs. Data shows just the opposite of Republican talking points.
Much can be said of this fiscal “cliff” hooplah. Most of it has to do with the degree of economic illiteracy omnipresent in the TV commentariat and the Republican office holder. Spend some time with economists and you’ll see data rejecting Republican ideological claims over and over again.
As Jed Graham points out:
From fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2012, the deficit shrank 3.1 percentage points, from 10.1% to 7.0% of GDP. That’s just a bit faster than the 3.0 percentage point deficit improvement from 1995 to ’98, but at that point, the economy had everything going for it.
Other occasions when the federal deficit contracted by much more than 1 percentage point a year have coincided with recession. Some examples include 1937, 1960 and 1969.
In short, we do not face a serious problem of growing government deficits. Rather the problem is one of too fast a reduction in the deficit in light of our slowing economy.
As to the challenge of the fiscal cliff—here we have to recognize, as Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse explain, that:
the budget impact and the economic impact are not necessarily the same. Some policies that are expensive in budgetary terms have only modest economic impacts (for example, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts aimed at high-income households are costly but do not have much economic impact). Conversely, other policies with small budgetary costs have big economic impacts (for example, extended unemployment insurance benefits).
In other words, we should indeed allow the temporary tax rate deductions for the wealthy to expire, on both income and capital gains taxes. These deductions cost us dearly on the budget side without adding much on the economic side. As shown here and here, the evidence is strong that the only thing produced by lowering taxes on the wealthy is greater income inequality.
Letting existing tax rates rise for individuals making over $200,000 and families making over $250,000 a year, raising the top income tax bracket for both couples and singles that make more than $388,350, and limiting tax deductions will generate close to $1.5 trillion dollars over ten years …
Yet, poor delusional Republican policy makers continue to run around screaming about the sky falling down. Poor John Boehner seems simply out of touch with reality. Cross check this statement with the data I provided above.
Boehner said the reason negotiations are going so poorly is that Obama administration officials – in particular, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner – aren’t taking Republicans seriously. Boehner said he was shocked at Geithner’s proposal to Republicans last week.
“I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and I said, ‘You can’t be serious.’ I’ve just never seen anything like it,” Boehner said.
Geithner has said his plan included cuts to Medicare and additional stimulus spending, but also an expiration of Bush-era tax cuts to those making over $250,000 a year. Furthermore, the proposal included the closing of some loopholes and new limits on deductions, as well as an increase in the estate tax rate and taxes on capital gains and dividends.
Boehner acknowledged that President Barack Obama won the election on a platform that in part was based on increasing taxes for those making over $250,000. This is a major sticking point in negotiations, and Boehner said the president must compromise with the GOP.
“They won the election, (but) they must have forgotten that Republicans continue to hold the majority in the House. But the president’s idea of a negotiation is, ‘Roll over and do what I ask,'” Boehner said.
While Boehner admitted that going over the fiscal cliff would be detrimental to the economy, he said out-of-control spending is mortgaging the future of the next generation and must be reined in. Accordingly, the speaker said going over that cliff is a distinct possibility.
“I’m determined to solve our debt problem. We have a serious debt problem and it is going to be dealt with,” Boehner said.
NSD = non security discretionary
So, should any one with even an inkling of knowledge on the economy and finance take anything the Republicans seriously? Well, my answer is no. Not unless you’re only agenda is too see the ultrarich get richer and the economy fall apart as no one else has any money to spend. Boehner’s appearance on Dancing Dave’s Disco Party today was so pathetic that Senator McCaskill nearly threw a pity party for him.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said that she feels “almost sorry” for House Speaker John Boehner during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, explaining that Boehner is in a tough spot because of the far-right wing of the Republican Party.
“I feel almost sorry for John Boehner,” McCaskill said. “There is incredible pressure on him from a base of his party that is unreasonable about this. And he’s gotta decide, is his speakership more important, or is the country more important. And in some ways, he has got to deal with this base of the Republican Party, who Grover Norquist represents.”
Meanwhile, outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner got to play the mean adult in the media room.
In an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union,” Geithner insisted that any compromise on the plan he presented to congressional Republicans on Thursday, which includes $1.6 trillion dollars in tax revenue, cuts to Medicare, and another $50 billion in stimulus spending, must contain an expiration of the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000.
“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates going up,” Geithner said in the interview, which aired Sunday. “If they are going to force higher rates on virtually all Americans because they’re unwilling to let tax rates go up on 2 percent of Americans, then, I mean that’s the choice they’re going to have to make.”
While he maintains the administration will refuse any deal without the tax hikes, Geithner was optimistic about the negotiations, showing room for compromise as well.
“It’s a very good plan and we think it’s a good basis for these conversations,” he said. “What we did is put forward a very comprehensive, very carefully designed mix of savings and tax rates to help us put us back on a path to stabilizing our debt, fixing our debt and living within our means.”
The fiscal cliff, which begins in January if Congress and the administration fail to come to an agreement over a number of spending issues, includes automatic reductions in defense and non-defense spending, the end of the payroll tax holiday, and the expiration of extended unemployment benefits.
In particular, the Obama administration’s call for higher revenue through increased taxes on high incomes — which actually goes considerably beyond just letting the Bush tax cuts for the top end expire — gets treated with an unmistakable sneer in much political discussion, as if it were a trivial thing, more about staking out a populist position than it is about getting real on red ink.
On the other hand, the idea of raising the age of Medicare eligibility gets very respectful treatment — now that’s serious.
So I thought I’d look at the dollars and cents — and even I am somewhat shocked. Those tax hikes would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade; according to the CBO, raising the Medicare age would save $113 billion in federal funds over the next decade.
So, the non-serious proposal would reduce the deficit 14 times as much as the serious proposal.
I guess we have to understand the definition of serious: a proposal is only serious if it punishes the poor and the middle class.
The newest Republican emanation of Snowflake Snookie says it’s not serious. Why is this woman getting so much media attention? WTF does she bring to the table?
Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said Sunday she was “disappointed” with President Obama’s proposal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” at the end of the year.
“We want to solve this and I think the Speaker earnestly wants to solve it. I was disappointed by the president’s initial proposal here,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner presented lawmakers with the administration’s initial offer, which included $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in economic stimulus spending and $400 billion in spending cuts. It would also give the president the power to raise the debt ceiling in the future without congressional approval.
Republican leaders in Congress have rejected the proposal, with Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) calling it “not serious.”
Ayotte is yet another attorney whose claim to fame is suing Planned Parenthood because the parental notification law passed by New Hampshire was found unconstitutional. My guess is the right loves her because she’s willing to do the old white dude’s dirty work fighting women’s rights. She also refused to prosecute mortgage fraud cases in her role as attorney general. Ayotte is a climate change denier and opposes marriage equality. She’s a real piece of work in a suited skirt and I really wish the press would stop making her look reasonable because she’s not reasonable on any policy issue. She’s basically Paul Ryan in a skirt. They’re both ideologues that let dogma rule their thought processes. I doubt either of them can do calculus let alone handle a real economic or financial model.
I feel like I keep writing a lot of the same things, but here goes. There’s no “cliff”. There’s no “budget crisis”. There’s only the increased risk of falling back into a recession should these things not be resolved at all. Frankly, I’m glad to see the Obama administration play a little poker for a change. The Republicans should be allowed to twist themselves into knots as long as possible. The economy is improving and this situation will not create a jolt at all. The only thing that might happen is stock market correction at the beginning of the year and the talk of another debt downgrade. Considering that the world still wants our debt, I’m not even worried about that much any more.
This is really ridiculous. The Republican Party and the media need to grow up and learn something about how our economy works. It’s ridiculous to see policy and policy discussions held hostage to this much stupidity. Nearly every student that comes out of Macroeconomics 101 knows that rich people don’t spend as much of their income as poor and middle class. These days the rich invest and hide their money all over the world. Study-after-study shows that increasing the tax rates on the rich won’t hurt the economy. That’s not true of money taken from the poor, working and middle class. Yet, today we heard this from Boehner:
On Fox News Sunday, John Boehner said it doesn’t matter where new revenue comes from, but he ruled out raising taxing on the rich, which leaves the poor and middle class to foot the bill.
Here is a transcript of the exchange between Chris Wallace and John Boehner on Fox News Sunday,
CHIRS WALLACE: You talked about the fact that the President won and you came out with a concession the day after the election and they point out that the president campaigned on raising tax rates, you know, and it was the big issue, between him and Romney, and, they say, just as he had to cave, after your victory, in the 2010 midterms, now, it is your turn to cave on tax rates.
JOHN BOEHNER: Listen, what is this difference where the money comes from? We put $800 billion worth of revenue, which is what he is asking for, out of eliminating the top two tax rates. But, here’s the problem, Chris, when you go and increase tax rates, you make it more difficult for our economy to grow, after that income, the small business income, it is going to get taxed at a higher rate and as a result we’re gonna see slower economic growth, we can’t cut our way out of this problem, nor can we grow our way out of the problem, we have to have a balanced approach and what the President wants to do will slow or economy at a time when he says he wants the economy to grow and create jobs.
What Boehner was implying here was the Romney/Ryan tax plan. There aren’t enough loopholes to be closed in order to generate the revenue need, and if taxes aren’t going to be raised on the wealthy, who is going to pick up the tab? Some House Republicans are suggesting that we adopt Ryan’s plan of putting a cap on deductions, which would absolutely destroy the incentive for charitable giving.
Why do they keep clinging to the same stuff that’s never worked and that voters rejected in the election? Are they insane?
Friday Reads
Posted: November 30, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: crazy Ken Cuccinelli, Fox Faux Wars, Republicans, witch hunts 35 Comments
Good Morning!!!
Well, the brain of Fox Propaganda network is all on wars these days. First, there’s a “war on white men” and of course, women–those emasculating bitchy feminists–are in charge of it all. The Colbert Report has a nice send up of this side splitter.
Women are far more interested in getting married than men, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center .
But who’s fault is the discrepancy? Last night, Stephen Colbert teamed up with his buddy at Fox News, Suzanne Venker, to explain why the sisters are doing it to themselves.
With biting irony, Colbert praises Venker’s argument, which claims that since the sexual revolution “men haven’t changed much …. but women have changed dramatically. In a nutshell, women are angry. They’re also defensive.”
Plus, as Colbert can testify firsthand, men want to work out of the house, pushing paper for the Man while crammed into a tiny cubicle.
“What man wants the woman to provide the money while the man stays home to do what? Witness his child take the first steps? I’ve witnessed people walk before, and frankly babies aren’t that good at it,” said Colbert.
And yes, it’s time for Bill O’Reilly to reignite the War on Xmas. If only it were true! It would be great to go to the store without having your senses assaulted by songs, sales, and crap related to national Crass Consumerism Season, wouldn’t it? Yes, atheists are stopping xmas celebrations all over the country!! It’s a huge atheist conspiracy!!! Plus, O’Reilly doesn’t understand the first amendment issues surrounding it at all since christianity is just a philosophy! Tear down those philosophical nativity scenes in front of all those churches, gawddammit!
Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was more than happy to bloviate about the topic on Wednesday’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” getting into a near shouting match with David Silverman, president of American Atheists.At first, things started out cordial between the two as they discussed “this year’s Christmas controversy situation.”
“You’re an atheist, a nonbeliever, and I respect that, that’s fine. I don’t look down on you,” O’Reilly told Silverman. But later, after Silverman attempted to define what O’Reilly cared about, the caustic commentator characterized Silverman’s point of view as “insane” before flat out calling him a “fascist.”
Interestingly enough, during the course of the interview, O’Reilly also said, “It is a fact that Christianity is not a religion. It is a philosophy.”
So there you have it. Bill O’Reilly calls the leader of an atheist organization a “fascist” over “philosophical”—but not religious—differences.
Yes, it’s an atheist, fascist, philosophical kinda conspiratorial war thing!
So, just when you think the crazy can’t get any crazier … you find out that it’s DEMON sex that makes one gay! Wow! Isn’t scientific inquiry wonderful? Out, out damn demons! Quit making all people gay with your bad, bad demon sex!
The reigning scientific consensus on sexual orientation is that it’s an inherited, biological trait, but that’s just because scientists don’t know how to party. A far sexier explanation has been offered up by Christian magazine Charisma, which conducted its own investigation into the origins of homosexuality to reveal the real culprit: sex with demons.
“Can demons engage in sexual behaviors with humans?” the magazine asks. Why yes, they can! At least according to the article’s primary source, a former stripper-turned-ministry leader named Contessa Adams. Adams shares her decades-long struggle with demon sex, sparing no horrible, sexy detail …
Hey, just tell your parents a Demon made you do it!!!
So, more irrelevant Republicans are making pronouncements about fiscal policy. Newt Gingrich thinks the Congressional Republicans should not negotiate with the President since Republicans are the majority. Is it just me or are Republicans just really bad at math? Seventeen Republican Congressmen out the door in 2 years and we say hello to Speaker Pelosi again. All it takes is 25 House Republicans right now to wake up and care about the country.
“One of the things I would say to House Republicans is to get a grip,” Gingrich said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.
“They are the majority. They’re not the minority,” he said, enunciating the words as if explaining the concept to someone who did not understand it. “They don’t need to cave in to Obama; they don’t need to form a ‘Surrender Caucus.’”
“So my number one bit of advice to the congressional Republicans is simple: Back out of of all of this negotiating with Obama. The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media. You start setting up the definition of success finding an agreement with Obama, you just gave Obama the ability to say to you, ‘Not good enough,’” Gingrich said.
The onetime presidential hopeful ridiculed the idea of the fiscal cliff, saying it was a manufactured crisis.
Rushie Limbaugh–who makes tons of money off of stupid–tells the Republicans to just walk away too. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t know that the deal cut by republicans that caused the fiscal cliff deadline hurts them worse than it hurts the dems. Tax rates go back up to the Clinton years and we get a big ol’ fat cut in military spending. Hey, I’m just fine with that. The question is why are Mr. Limpballs and the Newt? Perhaps its because they’re part of the right wing outrage entertainment business and they’re probably out shorting US equities as I write this.
Would somebody explain to me how the people who elected Obama, who support Obama, who love Obama in the media, in the universities, who write the history, are going to write anything critical of the guy no matter what happens? Even if there is a second term recession, you’re gonna need a telescope to find it reported, just like you need a telescope to find Oprah’s network now. It won’t be reported as a recession. So what is the leverage that the Republicans have? To my mind the only leverage they’ve got is to walk away from this, to stop playing, to stop talking, to stop playing this game.
The Republicans lost. Now, they still control the House of Representatives but Boehner still runs the show there. But the only leverage that I can see that they’ve got is to back out of this and make sure that whatever happens, they don’t have any fingerprints on it. I know what you’re saying, and you’d be right. You’re saying, “But, Rush, but, Rush, no matter what the Republicans do, they’re gonna get blamed for it.” Yes, totally true. No matter what happens. If there is a reported recession, in fact, it will be said to be the Republicans in the House fault. No matter what happens, that’s going to be said, and no matter what happens, as we sit here now, the American people, the majority of whom, are gonna believe that.
So back out of this and make sure you don’t have any fingerprints on this at all. “But, Rush, but, Rush, aren’t your fingerprints going to be on it if you back out? Couldn’t the case be made that Republicans backing out and letting Obama have his way is, in effect, allowing this transformation to happen, can’t you say there would be fingerprints there?” Yes. But I’m telling you there’s another aspect to this that Obama is attempting to pull off here, and if the Republicans aren’t careful, it’s going to happen. Not only is he not worried about a recession in the second term, ’cause even if there is one, it will not be reported as such.
Part of Obama’s transformation of America is wiping out the Republican Party. And anyone who fails to understand that that is also part of Obama’s agenda at this moment, anybody who fails to understand that is really not paying attention and is too caught up in traditional conventional wisdom about, “Well, it was just another election. Well, yes, Obama won. Yes, we marshaled our forces, but we need to stand for pro-growth policies and all that rotgut.” Yes, we do. There’s no way we’re ever gonna be tied to pro-growth policies if our fingerprints are on this coming disaster.
For the life of me, I cannot in any way shape or form figure out what is wrong with these people. I just see vendettas and personal power grabs. As Harry Reid said yesterday: “I don’t understand John Boehner’s brain”. I swear they all must be sots like Boehner.Even the normally reasonable Republicans seem bonkers these days. I think they’ve all just gone nuts on ODs. They’re not even making sense. Susan Collins has decided that a Secretary of State or UN Ambassador should never go on a Sunday Show because it’s too “political”. John McCain and Lady Lindsey Graham think that giving misinformation on Sunday Shows–like say, Saddam Hussein definitely has massive amounts of WMDS and deserves to have his country invaded because of them--should be removed from consideration for any office.
Here’s a good example of crazy from Senator Jim Inhofe: Benghazi Will ‘Go Down As The Biggest Coverup In History’. Obviously, he’s forgotten the Iran-Contra affair which would have been a whopper had our president not been so damned senile during his last term. Then, there’s Watergate and oh, the crap they made Colin Powell tell the UN about Iraq. But, oh, no …Benghazi is a cover up and the worst.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) on Wednesday made a strong claim about the Obama administration’s handling of the Sept. 11 anniversary terrorist attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, declaring that it was a conspiracy of historic proportions.
“This is gonna go down as the biggest coverup in history,” Inhofe predicted during an appearance on Fox News. “The administration deliberately covered this up and misrepresented what happened in Benghazi.”
He later stood by his claim when pressed by Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.
Does having black people in office make these guys lose their marbles? How do they all seem to have such a tenuous grasp on reality? Is it they see that the 1950s or the 1850s are finally gone? WTF is it with these folks? They LOST. THEY LOST. They lost by A LOT!!!
What can you do with pretzel logic like this? Republican Rep. Chris Gibson says he won’t be bound by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s pledge not to support any tax increases because his congressional district number changed. Yup, the pledge only was good for one set of geography and not the new one.
I wish that I was a world famous fantasy or SF author so that you could think this was all satire, or Huxley-like, or some kind of dysfunctional dystopia novel, but it ain’t and I’m not. This is the ONE of TWO political parties that call the policy shots in our country. Nope, Republican office holders have turned our country into the Great Zombie Wasteland. They are all completely delusional.
And, now for yet another result of Fox convincing all the white men of Angry White Menistan to think the country is against them … one more old angry white man shoots a young black teenager.This time its about loud music coming from a car in a convenience store parking lot. He’s going all in for the Stand Your Ground defense. Yes, this is the dysfunctional dystopian American created by the likes of the Southern Strategy, the repeated meme that some foreigner stole the presidency, and there are wars on Xmas, Guns, and White Men. Don’t like some one’s music? Shoot now and say you saw a gun later. Don’t ever think we solved a lot of this with the the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. We’re taking their freedom to stomp us all under their boots. Seventeen year old Jordan Davis is dead because some drunk white dude felt put out by a car stereo in a parking lot.
In what could become another test of Florida’s broad self-defense law, a software developer charged with killing a Jacksonville teenager said he reached for his gun and fired eight rounds only after he was threatened with a shotgun.The suspect, Michael Dunn, 45, of Satellite Beach, was arrested Wednesday on charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder.
Dunn told his lawyer that the victim, Jordan Davis, 17, who was parked at a convenience store in Jacksonville on Friday night with three other teenagers, pointed a shotgun at him through a partly rolled-down window, threatened to kill him and began to open the door. The shooting occurred after a dispute over loud music coming from the teenagers’ sport utility vehicle.
Davis, a junior at a Jacksonville high school who had moved from Georgia two years ago to live with his father, died after being shot twice.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said officers had not found a shotgun in the car.
Dunn and his fiancee, Rhonda Rouer, fled the convenience store in his Volkswagen Jetta after the teenagers left because he was afraid they would return, his lawyer, Robin Lemonidis, said. He did not call the authorities; the police arrested him the next day, finding him because a witness noted his license plate number.
This is what we get when folks like Limpballs, Jim Imhofe, Susan Collins, Bill O’Reilly, the Lady Lindsey, McGrumpy and the lot of those so-called conservatives lie their customers into angry paranoia.
Susan Rice. Eric Holder. Van Jones. Lisa P. Jackson. Valerie Jarrett. Shirley Sherrod.
What do these folks have in common?
They are all black public servants appointed by Obama and witch hunted by Republicans on completely bogus story lines. Sixty Six percent of that list are also women.
How much crazy do we have to put up with? You’d have think the last election would’ve told Republicans something loud and clear but it obviously didn’t. Some people never learn.
Meanwhile, Fox says there is no war on women and Mississippi is one JUDGE away from ensuring women can’t access their constitutional right to abortion. Virginia Republicans are likely to nominate Ken Cuccinelli, Va. Attorney General for Governor next year.
IN THREE YEARS as Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli II (R) has demeaned his office by using it as a blatantly partisan bully pulpit to attack Obamacare, illegal immigrants, homosexuals and climate-change scientists. Now he has managed to bully Virginia’s Board of Health into a stance — unprecedented in state history — that could force most of the commonwealth’s 20 or so abortion clinics to close.
The fight is not over yet. Not by a long shot. Some constitutional rights are more equal than other. Two legs good. Three white legs better. What is on your reading and blogging list?
Creating Fiscal Strife
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: Catfood Commission, Economy, Federal Budget, Federal Budget and Budget deficit, George W. Bush, Global Financial Crisis, House of Representatives, Medicare, Politics as Usual, Republican politics, Republican Tax Fetishists, Super Committee, The Bonus Class, the GOP, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: fiscal cliff 15 Comments
One of the things that drives me crazy as an economist and a citizen looking at this so-called “fiscal cliff” is that our fiscal strife has been created by the people least likely to suffer from its resolution. Congress gave the Bush administration authority to start a series of unfunded, reckless wars that have lasted well over a decade. Congress passed the Bush administration’s reckless tax cuts and generous loopholes that have benefited the few at the cost of the many. The Bush administration’s and Congress’ lack of oversight and deregulation of the financial services’ industry created a low-risk, gambling casino with the national investment and savings accounts and the debt markets. This led to a huge recession. These are the roots of our fiscal problems. But, the discussions around cleaning up messes in the District mostly surround Social Security which has nothing to do with the national debt and deficit and items that have become more necessary to average Americans since Congress and the Bush Administration broke the country with its bad policies.
Here’s some of the latest examples. Closing loopholes and unnecessary deductions for certain constituents is a good idea. However, which of these things are on the chopping block? Inkling its way up the priority list is the major middle and working class deduction and source of household wealth: the mortgage interest deduction. I have no problem with eliminating second mortgages, mortgages on boats, and mortgages on second properties. These benefit very few people and really serve little policy purpose. Capping the deduction–with an annual COLA adjustment to the median price and below-based mortgages is also fine. However, what are we likely to see?
As the Obama administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill scramble to defuse automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect Jan. 1, a herd of sacred cows — from Social Security and Medicare to deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest — are in danger of losing their untouchable status.
Members of both parties have largely steered clear of detailed proposals so far. But plans put forth in the past year by President Obama and Mitt Romney to place limits on annual total tax deductions are likely to crimp the mortgage-interest deduction for certain taxpayers. Top congressional Republicans also have expressed openness to limiting total tax deductions as part of an overall budget deal. In addition, the presidentially appointed Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission suggested scaling back the mortgage-interest deduction as part of its own set of tax-related proposals.
Current law allows homeowners to deduct the interest paid on mortgage balances up to $1 million, including on second homes, as well as on $100,000 worth of home-equity loans. The deduction overwhelmingly benefits wealthier families, partly because they tend to have larger mortgages and pay more interest, and partly because most low- and middle-income Americans do not itemize deductions on their tax returns. It also tends to favor homeowners on the East and West Coasts, as well as those in large cities such as Chicago, where average home prices are higher.
Edward Kleinbard, a tax expert and law professor at the University of Southern California, said the mortgage-interest deduction represents the kind of government “extravagance” that the country no longer can justify, given its fiscal troubles.
“We simply cannot afford wasteful government subsidy programs anymore, and this is one of the most important examples of that,” Kleinbard said. “It’s very much a subsidy to those Americans who need it least.”
Mitch McConnell continues to service Grover Norquist and the Club for Growth. He’s back on his high horse for no tax increases for the wealthy. Ending tax cuts for the wealthy endlessly shown to have no ill-impact on the economy. There is also no real benefit to extending them.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) slammed the door Thursday morning on Democratic demands to raise tax rates on families earning more than $250,000 per year.
“We’re insisting on keeping tax rates where they are, first and foremost, to protect jobs and because we don’t think government needs the money in the first place,” McConnell said on the Senate floor.
“The problem, as I’ve said, is that Washington spends too much. But if more revenue is the price that Democrats want to exact, then we should at least agree to do it in a way that doesn’t cost jobs and disincentivize rates, as we all know raising rates would do,” he said.
McConnell’s comments came a day after Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) shot down a proposal by a senior GOP lawmaker, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, to agree to extend tax rates only for families earning below $250,000 and resume the battle against higher tax rates on the wealthy next year.
Boehner said President Obama and Democrats should focus on finding ways to cut spending and reform entitlement programs.
The fate of the Bush-era tax rates — which will expire for all income levels in January — has dominated the debate over the slew of tax increases and spending cuts that are set to begin next year.
McConnell scolded the president Thursday for sticking fast to his campaign pledge to seek higher taxes on the rich, and made clear that raising tax rates on anyone is unacceptable.
The debate over Medicare is likely to be equally absurd. Medicare needs some reworking. Most of its problems comes from the pharmacy benefit which currently allows Big Pharma to price gouge participants and the taxpayers. But, you wouldn’t know that from the conversation. Republicans are playing games with Amercan’s health. They appear to be clinging to the Ryan’s voucher plan which would be disastrous for the majority of retired seniors.
The austerity crisis talks have hit a peculiar impasse. The problem isn’t, as most analysts expected, taxes, where Republicans seem increasingly resigned to new revenue. It’s Medicare. And the particular Medicare problem isn’t that Democrats are refusing the GOP’s proposed Medicare cuts. It’s that Republicans are refusing to name their Medicare cuts.
Politico quotes a “top Democratic official” who paints the picture simply: “Rob Nabors [the White House negotiator], has been saying: ‘This is what we want on revenues on the down payment. What’s your guys’ ask on the entitlement side?’ And they keep looking back at us and saying: ‘We want you to come up with that and pitch us.’ That’s not going to happen.”
That’s partly politics. If nothing else, Republicans are respectful of Medicare’s political potency. Recall that a core Republican message in both the 2010 and 2012 elections was that Democrats, through Obamacare, were cutting Medicare too much. Republicans, already concerned about their brand, don’t want to rebrand themselves as the party of Medicare cuts.
But it’s partly policy, too. The fact is that short of converting the program to a premium support system — a non-starter after they lost the 2012 election — Republicans simply don’t know what they want to do on Medicare.
Scour the various outlets for Democratic policy ideas and you’ll find plenty of proposed Medicare cuts. President Obama’s 2013 budget, for instance, includes hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts (see pages 33-37), and caps the program’s long-term growth at GDP+0.5 percent. More recently, the Center for American Progress released a 46-page proposal for cutting Medicare by almost $400 billion.
Republicans, meanwhile, have focused their energy on a long-term effort to convert Medicare to a premium-support model. Paul Ryan’s 2013 budget kept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts for the next 10 years and proposed to convert the program to a premium-support model in the future. Mitt Romney’s platform proposed reversing Obamacare’s Medicare cuts and offered a vague framework for converting the program to a premium-support model in the future.
If you dig deep into the Republican think tank world, you can find a few proposals that focus on the near-term.
The current fiscal ‘cliff’ framework appears to place a lot of burden on those least able to take it as well as those least responsible for creating the problems.
Cut through the fog, and here’s what to expect: Taxes will go up just shy of $1.2 trillion — the middle ground of what President Barack Obama wants and what Republicans say they could stomach. Entitlement programs, mainly Medicare, will be cut by no less than $400 billion — and perhaps a lot more, to get Republicans to swallow those tax hikes. There will be at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and “war savings.” And any final deal will come not by a group effort but in a private deal between two men: Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The two men had a 30-minute phone conversation Wednesday night — but the private lines of communications remain very much open.
No doubt, there will be lots of huffing and puffing before any deal can be had. And, no doubt, Obama and Congress could easily botch any or all three of the white-knuckle moments soon to hit this town: the automatic spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts, both of which kick in at the end of this year, and the federal debt limit that hits early next.
Go to the Politico story for a concept of what’s at stake and at issue.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday there had been “no substantive progress” in fiscal-cliff negotiations in the two weeks since congressional leaders met with President Obama.
Boehner, addressing reporters after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in the Capitol, called on the White House to “get serious” about the talks and warned of a “real danger” that Jan. 1 would come without a deal if President Obama did not offer up specific spending cuts he would be willing to accept.
“Despite claims that the president supports a balanced approach, the Democrats have yet to get serious about real spending cuts,” Boehner said. “Secondly, no substantive progress has been made in the talks between the White House and the House in the last two weeks.
“Listen, this is not a game,” he added. “Jobs are on the line. The American economy is on the line, and this is a moment for adult leadership.”
The Speaker criticized the president for holding “campaign-style rallies” instead of engaging in serious talks.
Monday Reads
Posted: November 26, 2012 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Black Thursay Walmart, drone strikes, Norquist pledge 37 Comments
Good Morning!
This story in the NYT has my head spinning. It seems the Obama administration was thinking about putting together some kind of “Rule Book” for the use of Drones and assassination in the war against terror because they didn’t really trust Romney under the current situation. I have to wonder if Romney would ‘ve followed it any way. The bigger question is how do these policies jive with our Constitution and what should both our Legislative and Judicial Branches do to at least curb their use?
Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.
The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.
Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory.
Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.
More broadly, the administration’s legal reasoning has not persuaded many other countries that the strikes are acceptable under international law. For years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States routinely condemned targeted killings of suspected terrorists by Israel, and most countries still object to such measures.
But since the first targeted killing by the United States in 2002, two administrations have taken the position that the United States is at war with Al Qaeda and its allies and can legally defend itself by striking its enemies wherever they are found.
Partly because United Nations officials know that the United States is setting a legal and ethical precedent for other countries developing armed drones, the U.N. plans to open a unit in Geneva early next year to investigate American drone strikes.
I doubt the UN will put any pressure on us but I wonder if this will at least get us all talking about the policy and if that’s the kind of policy we want as a country.
Several more Republican office holders in the District have announced they are willing to break with the Norquist pledge.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday said he is ready to violate conservative activist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge to reach a deal to avoid the looming “fiscal cliff.”
“I will violate the pledge, long story short, for the good of the country,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “When you’re $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece.”
But Graham cautioned that he he would violate the pledge “only if Democrats will do entitlement reforms” and ruled our increasing tax rates.
“I am willing to generate revenue,” he said. “I will not raise tax rates to do it; I will cap deductions.”
The transcript shows that Graham was specific about what he was willing and unwilling to accept.
STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, Senator Graham, you’ve signaled that you’re willing to raise revenues as part of an overall deal that also includes spending cuts, and that’s drawn the fire of Grover Norquist, you know, the author of that no-tax pledge that’s been in place among so many Republicans for 20 years right now. He thinks the best solution is actually not to negotiate a compromise right now, is to go over the cliff. He says the world won’t come to an end if this isn’t resolved before January. Take the sequester. The only thing worse than sequester cuts is to not cut spending at all. He’s saying don’t raise taxes, accept those spending cuts.
GRAHAM: Well, what I would say to Grover Norquist is that the sequester destroys the United States military. According to our own secretary of defense, it would be shooting ourselves in the head. You’d have the smallest Army since 1940, the smallest Navy since 1915, the smallest Air Force in the history of the country, so sequestration must be replaced.
I’m willing to generate revenue. It’s fair to ask my party to put revenue on the table. We’re below historic averages. I will not raise tax rates to do it. I will cap deductions. If you cap deductions around the $30,000, $40,000 range, you can raise $1 trillion in revenue, and the people who lose their deductions are the upper-income Americans.
But to do this, I just don’t want to promise the spending cuts. I want entitlement reforms. Republicans always put revenue on the table. Democrats always promise to cut spending. Well, we never cut spending. What I’m looking for is more revenue for entitlement reform before the end of the year…
This has to be the most horrible story of valuing stuff over people that I’ve ever heard. Three Walmart workers killed a man who had shoplifted two dvd players.
It’s a sad, simple story. An unidentified man allegedly stole two DVD players from the electronics department and left the store through the front door. Two Walmart employees and a contracted security guard chased him into the parking lot. A “physical altercation” took place, and apparently, the security guard put the man in a choke hold. Police arrived soon thereafter to find the three workers on top of the suspected shoplifter who was unresponsive and bleeding from his nose and mouth. The man was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“No amount of merchandise is worth someone’s life,” said Walmart spokesperson Dianna Gee in a statement. “Associates are trained to disengage from situations that would put themselves or others at risk.” She added, “That being said, this is still an active investigation and we’re working with police to provide any assistance.” Walmart put the two employees on paid leave and fired the security guard.
Regardless of what happens at the end of that investigation, there’s no way Walmart is going to come out of this one looking good. It truly sounds like this was a horrible accident, the kind that makes it hard to point fingers or figure out what went wrong. However, this incident also happened as thousands of Walmart workers nationwide were protesting poor treatment by their employers. Are the two things related? Only insofar as it adds up to a ton of bad press for a company long known to promote mass hysteria on Black Friday weekend. It’s a problem that people are still dying at their stores, years after warnings signs like the Walmart employee who was trampled to death on Black Friday.
This has to be the worse thing I’ve ever heard in terms of class war. Dancing Dave’s Disco is always the place to be for outraged q’billionaires.
Carly Fiorina, who reportedly stood to receive more than $42 million after being ousted at HP in 2005, says that public workers should receive less benefits because “it is not fair” that unions are “so rich.”
During a Sunday panel segment on NBC, MSNBC host Al Sharpton asserted that Congress must agree to raise taxes on the wealthy before cutting spending.
“This is about fairness,” he explained. “Why do we need to need to deal with the tax on the rich first? Because we must ensure Americans we are dealing with fairness. We keep talking about shared sacrifice, there was not shared wealth and shared prosperity. So, you’re asking people that didn’t enjoy the good times to share in paying for the tab that they never enjoyed.”
“Let us accept Rev. Al’s point and the president’s point about fairness,” Fiorina replied. “But equally, it is not fair that public employee union pensions and benefits are so rich now that cities and states are going bankrupt and college tuition is going up 25 and 30 percent or police and firefighters are being cut. There’s a lot that isn’t fair right now.”
During Fiorina tenure as the CEO of HP, at least 18,000 workers were laid off after the company’s disastrous merger with Compaq.
Evidently, it’s okay to pay bad management millions of dollars but it’s just too much for any one else to get a living wage and benefits. What is wrong with these people?
So, that’s my list of reads today! What’s on you reading and blogging list this morning?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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