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Obama takes the gloves off-finally

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Sounds like Obama did a great job unloading on the Republicans today, and, quite predictably, the whiner’s chorus has commenced. This kind of thing just gave Paul Ryan the vapors:

“Our entire financial system was nearly destroyed. So we’ve tried this theory out. And you’d think that with the results of this experiment of trickledown economics, after the results became painfully clear, that the proponents of this theory would show some humility.” You’d think they’d change some of their ideas: open themselves up to ending the Bush tax cuts, or being willing to entertain to add new regulations. “Instead of moderating themselves even slightly…[House Republicans]…passed a plan so right wing it made the original Contract with America look like The New Deal.”

 

I read elsewhere that, for some reason, George W. Bush has been unheard from during the current Republican campaign. While the candidates had been lining up to kiss Jeb’s ring, there have been no pilgrimages to wherever W is hiding out these days. This is because, as the hyperbolic reaction to today’s speech attests, Republicans desperately want to pretend that the world began on January 20, 2009. For reasons that I can not even begin to fathom, Obama specifically, and the Democrats generally, pretty much played along with the pretense. There was no Bush Recession or Bush Bailout framing coming from the Democrats, though both events happened on his watch. There was no concerted effort on the part of Democrats to relentlessly remind the country that it was Bush and the Republicans that rammed through the policies that destroyed America. As they have done for the past thirty two years at least, the Democrats allowed the Republicans to control the national conversation. It is actually a testament to the American people that despite the Republican’s near monopoly on that conversation, most Americans still recognize that it was Bush and the Republicans, and not Obama, that caused the depression in which we are still mired.

We can only hope that it’s not to late for Obama to grab hold of the narrative. He’s an amazing speaker, so it’s entirely possible that he can make people forget his own sins-detailed here in the past- and believe that maybe the second time around he’ll realize that you can’t reason with these people. There is room for debate on the question, but I firmly believe his argument would be easier to make if he’d been making it all along.

But, as I’ve said before, at least from a political point of view, Obama is the luckiest guy in the world. The Republicans seem eager to help, as they prepare to offer a plutocrat as their standard bearer. There’s nothing an insecure people want more, they seem to think, than a guy who talks about how much he likes to fire people and tells funny stories about how his dad laid people off.

 

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Taxing the rich

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Anyone who has read this blog faithfully, and there may be one or more people who have, know that I’m a big fan of high tax rates on the rich.

So it was with much satisfaction that I read this post by Paul Krugman, in which he explains, using math I cannot understand, that the rich can be taxed at rates of 70% or higher without endangering any job creation that their high incomes might engender. This is in accord with our historical experience, for there were times when the rich were taxed at very high rates in this country, and jobs got created just fine. Good jobs too, far better than the Willards of the world are spinning off. I mean, how many caretakers can the rich hire to look after their second, third, fourth and fifth homes? Of course, this all runs contrary to Republican orthodoxy, but that’s pretty much a sure sign that it’s good doctrine.

So far as I’m concerned, taxing the rich has less to do with increasing revenue or with creating jobs than it does with minimizing inequality. Even if someone could prove, all historical evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that giving the rich lower tax rates than the rest of us creates jobs, I’d still be against such tax rates. But isn’t it nice to know that, as we suspected, on this issue we can have our cake and eat it too?

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Bipartisanship at last!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Democrats and Republicans alike rally around pink slime.

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Big Brother wants to protect us

Sunday, April 1, 2012

It’s probably fair to assume that Orwell was hoping his predictions would be wrong, but probably not like this. Even he could not envision the extent to which Big Brother would be watching out for we little brothers and sisters. How could he, as he had no conception of the type of technology that would be available to those who wish only to protect us.

In order to serve us better (and we all know what’s coming after that phrase), our guardians on both sides of the Atlantic are making sure they do everything they can to make sure that they can warn us should we ever come close to transgressing. Or, maybe they just like to watch.

Here in America, as the Times reports, police departments all over the country know when we’ve been sleeping and know when we’re awake:

Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show.

The practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, with a handful of carriers marketing a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts or provide other services. Some departments log dozens of traces a month for both emergencies and routine investigations.

With cellphones ubiquitous, the police call phone tracing a valuable weapon in emergencies like child abductions and suicide calls and investigations in drug cases and murders. One police training manual describes cellphones as “the virtual biographer of our daily activities,” providing a hunting ground for learning contacts and travels.

But the Brits have got (or will get?) our local cops, if not the FBI, beat by a country mile, perhaps fitting given we’re talking about Orwell’s homeland:

The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.

Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.

The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.

Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.

A new law – which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech in May – would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.

But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long.

Well, then, that’s alright. I don’t mind if the government knows where I am every second, who I’m talking or writing to, and what websites I’m visiting, as long as it doesn’t know precisely what I’m saying, unless, of course, if feels it needs to know.

Getting back to these shores, this all makes me think about the very malleable doctrine of original intent, used by our right wing judges to impose their legal philosophy (if it can be dignified by that term) onto a distracted nation, for according to the Times, it is hard to say if this government snooping is unconstitutional. We now know that the government may not attach a physical device to our cars to track our movements, but who can say whether it can do precisely the same thing by tracking our cell phones. After all, you don’t have to have a cell phone. You know, buyer beware and all that.

But isn’t it odd. The original intent doctrine essentially amounts to a belief on the part of judges that they can know precisely what the sainted founders would think of an issue. So apparently we now know that Jemmie Madison, who appears to have been a fairly rational guy, judging by his writings, would, after being fully briefed on the history of the last two hundred and 30 odd years, disapprove of requiring people who can afford health insurance to buy it. On the other hand, we can’t say with certainty whether Madison, who himself corresponded in code, would have had a problem with the government keeping track of the identity of his correspondents, the places he went, and the materials he read.

 

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Curveball admits he threw a curve

Sunday, April 1, 2012

What a surprise:

A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow.

 

“Curveball”, the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi’s lies used to justify the Iraq war.

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Time to raise the minimum wage

Saturday, March 31, 2012

I’ve been asked to say a few words about the struggle in our own state to raise the minimum wage. Much of the information I’m passing along was provided in an email I got from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which is hosting a website where you can sign a petition in support of Chris Donovan’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.75 an hour.

Many years ago I worked for near the minimum wage when I worked as a lifeguard for the City of Hartford. I think the minimum wage was around $1.50 then, and I would venture that $1.50 was worth a lot more than the $9.75 that’s under consideration. Back then the price of gas was around 32 cents a gallon. It is now about twelve times higher, so by that benchmark, at least, the minimum wage should be close to $18.00 now. But, back then, other than the Vietnam disaster, the country was relatively sanely run.

As usual, politicians fear to go where the public would gladly tread, at least according to Progressive Change’s press release:

According to our polling, Speaker Donovan’s original proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.75/hr is supported by 64% of likely voters in Connecticut.

Nearly 2/3 of those who support increasing the minimum wage to $9.75 do so strongly — 41% strongly support and 23% somewhat support a $9.75 increase.86% of Democrats, 54% of Independents, and nearly half of Republicans (46%) support Speaker Donovan’s $9.75 proposal

When given the option of increasing the minimum wage to Donovan’s $9.75 rate, higher than $9.75, lower than $9.75, or not at all, 54% of Connecticut likely voters want $9.75 or higher. Only 14% support an increase to less than $9.75 — nearly a 4 to 1 advantage for $9.75 or higher.

This means the $9.25 approved by the CT House Labor committee is much less popular that Donovan’s $9.75 proposal.

The polling questions, which are contained in the full press release appear to be straightforward and not misleading. They were reproduced in the press release I got, for which, unfortunately, I can’t find a link. It’s too lengthy to replicate here, so you’ll have to take my word.

Perhaps the most important part of the proposal is the provision that the minimum wage would increase with the cost of living. That does away with legislative battles and endless debates about the endlessly discredited Republican arguments against the very concept of the minimum wage.

We in Connecticut can be proud of the fact that our legislature is considering a bill that would actually help people presently living at the margins, while so many states, under Republican sway, are busily grinding the poor and middle class so they can divert more money toward the .1%.

 

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Friday Night Music

Friday, March 30, 2012

There’s always a silver lining of some sort in almost any situation. The Trayvon Martin killing, despite the racism we’re hearing from the right, is no exception. At least from what I can see the reaction from the country as a whole has been remarkably post racial. In the old days a killing like this would have stirred outrage in the black community, but rather muted reaction from whites. This time, the folks donning hoodies come in every hue. That’s progress of a sort.

!

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Yet more of the comic side of Mitt Romney

Thursday, March 29, 2012

As he says, it’s funny because it’s true.

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Redefining the Christian brand

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly points out that the right has successfully co-opted the term “Christian” to the point where the press and many corporations use the term to refer exclusively to the subset of Christians who are totally out of their minds.

This is yet another example of the right’s successful abuse of the language, which Orwell predicted, and the right has now perfected. Too many people have accepted the use of terminology such as “pro-life”, for anti-abortion but anti-all other life, “values voters”, for bigots, etc.

There may be a silver lining to the fact that the crazies have stolen the “Christian” brand name. It may help swell the growing group of people who describe themselves as having no religion, a trend that, if we can only speed it along. People who have no religion, we can safely say, are more open to things like science and reason. Given the problems confronting us, it might be a good thing to have more people like that around.

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Romney: I won’t tell you what I’ll do, cause you wouldn’t like it

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

One way to avoid the need to shake your Etch-A-Sketch is to not sketch anything in the first place. Apparently, a sketch free campaign, at least on certain issues, is what Romney has in mind. As he explained to the Weekly Standard, in so many words, if he sketched out his plans, he’d lose. Poor Willard has these occasional moments of near honesty that he simply can’t seem to avoid.

This , of course, is par for the course for Republican candidates. It’s not that Democrats always flesh out their ideas, it’s that Republicans never do, except for the Ron Pauls of the world, who have either no chance or no desire to win. For Republicans, it’s a matter of survival. If they tell people what they intend to do, as Romney implies, people won’t vote for them. They have thus evolved into masters of evasion, adept at promising popular generalities, but avoiding unpopular details. We Americans fervently believe in free lunches, and Republicans are good at promising them. The reality, when Republicans deliver, never quite measures up to the promise.

Witness Paul Ryan, who is delighted to be quite specific about the taxes he’ll cut, but grows evasive about the loopholes he promises to close to make up for the lost revenues. In fact, he intends to close only such loopholes as might be of some benefit to the middle class and the poor, and borrow the rest of the money needed to make up the difference. That wouldn’t go down so well, so like Romney he isn’t going to sketch it out, and he surely isn’t going to etch it.

Paul Krugman says that the media is not fawning over Ryan this time; that they are actually aware that his numbers don’t add up. I hope that’s true, but if so, wouldn’t it make sense for a David Gregory, for instance, to actually pin Ryan down? When he refuses to detail the loopholes, point out the failure and ask him again. When he fails again, do it again. Don’t accept that it’s “fair enough” when a politician refuses to answer a question on which the fate of millions might hinge. Maybe he won’t come back on your show, but the world would be a better place for that. Americans may be all too willing to buy a pig in a poke, but it remains the job of the media to open the poke and look inside.

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