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Yet more on the filibuster

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Good discussion here about the fact that Republicans, should they take the Senate next year, could repeal the Health Care Act using reconciliation. Should they take the White House that would mean the act would be repealed. Should Obama be reelected, he would veto the repeal, after which the Republicans would no doubt refuse to fund it, which would effectively kill it. In fact, no one’s talking about the fact that even controlling one house (and they actually control two) they can kill it that way. Under the split government scenario the Republicans might go the reconciliation route, but should they take the White House, my own belief is that they won’t need to, because the Democrats won’t stand in the way of a repeal. They don’t have the guts. When Republicans get beat, they insist that it was because they weren’t conservative enough. When Democrats get beat, they say the same thing, and move right.

But I think this article misses the larger point. Should the Republicans take both houses and the presidency, they will not countenance the filibuster. They will be in a position to repeal the 20th century, and that’s just what they’ll do, and they won’t let Senate rules stand in their way. Assisted by a media that will suddenly realize how undemocratic the filibuster is (right now, the press doesn’t even use the term, preferring to say that a bill has been “blocked”, thereby implying that it lacks majority support, while also blaming both sides for Senate inaction despite the unprecedented number of filibusters), they will either pressure the Democrats to back down, like they did under Bush, or repeal the rule.

The question is: How much harm can they do in two years before a sickened public throws them out. It is a price we may have to pay to get rid of the filibuster for good, so the Democrats, as timid as they are, can finally, possibly, maybe accomplish something when they get back in.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, October 14, 2011

Trying to keep these somewhat topical, as well as avoiding repeats.

It’s not always possible. I wanted to dedicate something to Rick and Anita Perry. Anita says that her husband is being brutalized for his faith by his fellow Republicans. You can’t deny he’s a good Christian. How else explain his relish for the death penalty? If it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for the rest of us. As to those Republicans, well, maybe they just can’t stop themselves. They’ve been brutalizing the rest of us for the past 10 years or more. Anyway, this is dedicated to the poor misunderstood couple from Texas:

Speaking of Christ, here’s a song that has a bit of application to the doings in New York. Written by Woody Guthrie and performed here by Ronny Elliott. Woody was okay, even in religion. “Jesus was a man…”

And, speaking of Woody and Wall Street, I like the last few lines of this song. Who, after all, are the biggest criminals among us? Roger McGuinn singing Pretty Boy Floyd:

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Mitt Romney, the Republican’s Dr. Fell

Friday, October 14, 2011

Is there anyone who didn’t see this coming. In fact, hasn’t it been here all along?

The teabaggers aren’t happy with Mitt, and some of them are saying that his now seemingly inevitable coronation as their candidate will turn them off. Mitt is, at heart, not a tea party man. He’s Wall Street pure and simple, and makes Obama look like an anti-oligarch of the highest order, which, unfortunately, he actually is not.

Something not considered in this article is that Mitt’s inevitable tack (lurch, lunge?) left (or centerward, depending on your preference) once the nomination is secure, will have a further depressing effect on these whackjobs, particularly if Rush Limbaugh doesn’t fall in line. And he might not. From Rush’s perspective, Obama has been pure gold. Rush would be far better off having another four years of bashing Obama than four years of defending Mitt Romney. As a matter of fact, Republicans in Congress generally would be better off with Obama in office. After all, they have no interest in actually accomplishing anything. Their own offices would be more secure. Imagine the state of this country after two years of solid Republican rule. The poor whipsawed voters of this nation would have no choice but to give a huge percentage of the Republicans the old heave-ho.

Note: For those who are interested, Dr. Fell is a person who otherwise would be lost to history had he not been immortalized in rhyme:

I do not like you Dr. Fell
The reason why, I cannot tell
But this I know, and know full well
I do not like you, Dr. Fell

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Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Yesterday, Krugman did a little gloating on his blog. Seems a year ago, Business Week ran an article about a guy named John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who was betting big on a a major uptick in the housing market. The article contrasted the obviously right Paulson (since he was rich and a hedge fund manager) to the gloom and doom Krugman, who clearly had his head up his ass.

Well, Paulson’s bet didn’t pay off, as even I could have told him.In fact, according to today’s Times, pretty much everything he has touched lately has turned to shit.

This may be because Paulson has had to confine himself lately to trying to predict the market instead of gaming it. The Times article states that Paulson previously “made billions during the financial downturn betting against the subprime mortgage market”, but that’s putting it kindly. The word “betting” implies you have a chance to lose, but Paulson didn’t. He designed securities that would fail, got Goldman Sachs to market them to suckers, and then made a pile betting against them. Oddly enough, though the facts are clear, and the government has actually seen its way clear to bringing a civil action against Goldman, they have not pursued any charges, civil or criminal, against Paulson. Ahh, the rich really are different than you and me, aren’t they?

Anyway, it’s nice to see that Paulson is on the ropes, and we can only hope he’s down for the count. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

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A mystery

Monday, October 10, 2011

From Firedoglake:

When Barack Obama ran for president he promised to respect the states’ medical marijuana laws. But since tak ing office Obama has been steadily using more and more parts of the federal government to wage a war on medical marijuana.

His Administration’s actions as of late have become so aggressively anti-medical marijuana that the Drug Policy Alliance has recently labeled Obama as worse than George W. Bush ever was towards medical marijuana.

Besides being a total waste of money, this is both bad politics and bad policy. Where is the upside for Obama? Does he really think anyone who favors his policy would be likely to vote for him primarily because he is against medical marijuana. This gets him no votes, but it is yet another turnoff for his early supporters, who won’t likely vote for his opponent, but might not bother to vote at all.

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Didn’t see this coming

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Our puppet government in Iraq is not responding to the strings, and is now siding with Iran and with Syria, against the people of Syria. This was something that the war opponents predicted way back when: not the specific situation but the probability of the two countries making common cause. Yet another reason why making war on Saddam was so stupid. He represented absolutely no threat to us, and he was a useful counterweight to both Iran and Syria. Really, if you’re going to play realpolitik, you really ought to have some reality based view of your own interests.

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Same as it ever was

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Or, if you prefer, more of the same. Or, alternatively, deja vu all over again.

Under cover of a consent decree easily wrested from a Federal government eager to make the fraud case against the banks go away, the banks are now hiring robo-auditors to determine whether their customers were harmed by robo-signers.

Care to guess whether they’ll find anything?

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Friday Night Music

Friday, October 7, 2011

I was thinking of posting this a couple of days ago, but didn’t, and then Krugman used the opening lines to open his column this morning, so I decided that I would put it up. Not completely germane to the present occurrences in New York and elsewhere, but close enough. This version of For What It’s Worth, was on the Smothers Brothers Show. You’ll have to excuse the attempt at humor in part of it. It does appear to be live, and it’s a kick seeing young versions of Stephen Stills and Neal Young.

So that was dedicated to the kids. This is dedicated to the press. Hard finding a live version of this, but I managed to do it.

Finally, a little video of the students, faculty and workers at NYU parading down a street in New York, sans permit and apparently sans arrests. Why I am I showing this in particular? Because, if you could zoom in on the very beginning of this mass, you would see my son, leading the charge after having organized it, along with a couple of his friends.

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The New Iphone

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

I find I must weigh in on the new Iphone. The political punditry game is growing stale, considering that everything happening right now is pretty much déjà vu all over again, with the glorious exception of those kids on the street, about which I have had my say. As to what’s left, how many times can you point out that the Republicans are crazy or that we’re being devoured by Wall Street, or that we are attempting to solve our economic problems using time tested nostrums that have failed every other time they’ve been tried.

So, on to the Iphone, which has apparently left a lot of folks cold.

First, I have a confession. While I am a tech fan of the first order, I consider a phone, even the marvelous little Iphone, in the same category as my car. So long as it continues to work, I’ll use it until I run it into the ground. Now, computers, cameras, Ipads, are all different, for reasons I don’t care to articulate because in truth there is no sensible distinction.

Now, back to the Iphone. We can gather from the 4s moniker that a 5 is probably around the corner, but I ask those folks looking for a blockbuster advance on current technology: what more can you reasonably expect, from a hardware standpoint, out of a device small enough to fit in your pocket? As a matter of physics (optics subdivision) the camera on a device as thin as an Iphone can only get so good. You can add all the pixels you want, but after a certain number, they don’t make a difference. After a while, it’s the size of the sensor that counts, and that’s limited by the distance of the lens from the sensor. Display quality is already pretty good, and making it better is probably not going to enrich the user experience very much. Other than near field technology, which may or may not be a good thing, and 4g compatibility, neither of which is that exciting in my book, what was anyone expecting? A different shape, so everyone would have to go out and buy new cases? More storage? No one is really talking about that. The future appears to be in the cloud, and everyone seems to be going in that direction. I’d be for more storage in the Ipad, but in my phone, who cares?

For the most part, future advances are going to be under the hood. Faster processing; faster Wi-Fi, better software, better battery life, etc. That’s where the action is. On those fronts, the new phone delivers quite well, For my own part, I’m more interested in IOS 5 than in Iphone 5. So long as my 3g (or is it 3gs) can run the latest software ( I don’t need a talking digital assistant, so that’s no attraction) I’m fine with it. Most of the changes to the OS were announced months ago, so they’re old news, but that’s where the real improvements will be coming on these devices. I’ve had an Ipad since they first came out. I like my Ipad 2. It’s lighter and thinner, and it has a camera I never use. But the real advance since the device’s first appearance is the evolution in the software as developers learn how to make the device more useful and a possible replacement, in many circumstances, for a regular computer. When I first got my Ipad, I searched for months for blog editing software that would do something as simple as embed a link. Now I have two programs that will do pretty much everything I need. In fact, I haven’t written a post on my computer in months, because my old Mac based blog editor won’t run anymore, and the only replacement I’ve looked at cost $50.00, as opposed to the $4.99 I spent on software for the Ipad.

By the way, for Hitler’s reaction to the new Iphone, go here.

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The Kids Are Alright

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

First they ignored them, and that didn’t work. Then they mocked them, and that didn’t work. Then they arrested them, and that didn’t work. The kids in New York and throughout the country who are following their lead, have the most to lose from the rise of the oligarchs. We oldsters can fade away, a bit more impoverished than we expected, but probably allowed our Social Security crumbs, but the kids will be under their thumbs for the rest of their lives, and their kids, if they can afford to have any, will suffer even more. What’s truly inspiring and encouraging, at least so far, is the absence of any generational rancor, so far as I can detect it. The right has often sought to turn the young against the old, trying to convince them that Social Security, Medicare, etc., are a generational con game. That hasn’t taken hold, except with the Dartmouth Review types. These kids know who’s responsible for the rising inequality and the new normal of high unemployment, low wages and worker oppression. It may be too late to wrest the nation from the grip of the oligarchs. Citizens United may truly have been the last nail, but it’s great to see that they’re trying. If they keep it up the Democrats may have no choice but to try to figure out some way to appease them, and when that day comes lets hope they are as demanding as the teabaggers.

I can’t end this without linking to this piece, written by my younger son, who is involved in urging NYU students to leave their classes and hit the streets. As a parent, I’m a bit worried that he’ll be entrapped by New York’s finest, but I ‘m more proud than anxious.

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