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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Time for some Connecticut Congress folks to get on this list. Joe Courtney was right to take offense on Stephen Spielberg’s placing Connecticut’s representatives on the wrong side of history. This is Joe’s chance to make sure he’s on the right side.

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Malloy gives it to LaPierre

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Nice to see Malloy take him on.

It truly boggles my mind that people who have worked their way up to working in network news can give any credence to the argument that since criminals won’t obey a criminal law, there’s no point in passing it. By LaPierre’s logic, shouldn’t we repeal the laws against murder, since they do make it harder on the occasional law abiding person who kills in self defense. We pass criminal laws in order to allow us to punish people who are doing things we don’t like. We don’t expect that passing such a law will stop everyone from engaging in the proscribed behavior. That’s why we have cops, courts and prisons.

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Newt’s Contract on America nears fruition

Sunday, April 7, 2013

A good history at Angry Bear of the roots of Obama’s quest to slash Social Security. Is it surprising that it is yet another right wing idea that has become middle of the road by virtue of ceaseless repetition on the right and no pushback from what passes as the left in the Beltway. It began with Newt’s contract on America.

There is no need to ask anymore as to the reasoning behind the policies and offers in negotiations that is Obama. It is what he wants. We are living the continual implementation of the conservative economic and thus social ideology that came in with Reagan and fully came out with Gingrich and The Contract with America.

(via Angry Bear – Financial and Economic Commentary)

We may get a temporary reprieve due to the irrational Obama hatred on the right, but we can drive a stake through the heart of this thing only by letting every Democratic office holder know that we will accept nothing less than total opposition to this attack on the middle class and poor.

On a related subject, check out Dean Baker’s recent post, in which he compares the impact of Obama’s tax increases on the rich to that of implementing chained CPI on the rest of us.

President Obama’s proposal would reduce benefits by 0.3 percent for each year after a worker retires. After ten years benefits would be cut by 3.0 percent, after twenty years 6.0 percent, and after 30 years 9.0 percent. Over a twenty year retirement, the average cut would be 3.0 percent.

This cut would be a bigger hit to the typical retiree’s income than President Obama’s tax increases at the end of 2012 were to the typical person affected. A couple earning $500,000 a year would pay an additional 4.6 percentage points on income above $450,000. This would amount to $2,300 a year (4.6 percent of $50,000). That is less than 0.5 percent of their pre-tax income and around a 0.6 percent reduction in their after-tax income.

(via Beat the Press)

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Friday Night Music

Friday, April 5, 2013

Dedicated to the commander in chief and his new budget.

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Another Profile in Cowardice

Friday, April 5, 2013

This time from a more expected source. Seems Tom Foley just couldn’t seem to summon up the courage to tell us where he stands on the new Connecticut gun law.

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Filed in Local issues | | Comments (0)

What comes after “Fool me twice, shame on me”?

Friday, April 5, 2013

Well, Obama is doing it for at least the third time in his presidency, though I’m sure I’m missing quite a few: proposing as an opening gambit a position that he should accept only as a last resort in any negotiation. Actually, what he’s now proposing, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, should be off limits, particularly in a time when banks are robbing us blind and corporations are sitting on piles of untaxed cash.

The politics of this is even worse. All Democrats can look forward to a 2014 campaign in which, should they show the slightest support for this, they will be accused of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, and, for once, Republican charges will be true.

But all is not lost.

We can’t necessarily count on the right to stop this out of Obama hatred. They may put it to a vote, as a trap and will then certainly run against the Democrats for voting to cut social security, should any of them vote for it. But progressives in Congress can stop the train before it departs by announcing their unalterable opposition to these cuts, by calling them cuts (thus undercutting the White House fallacious argument that they are merely adjustments to a formula) and saying they will not under any circumstances vote for them. That leaves the rest of the Democrats in Congress with a choice. They can back the cuts, and have to run on having done so, without even the solace of having been able to pass them, or they can run and hide. Republican attacks will be bolstered by the easily quoted statements of Democratic progressives. For once, this is a situation in which the Democratic left can call the shots, provided they can speak with one voice, or at least speak in harmony.

My bet is that Congressional Democrats will run and hide. Obama deserves to be left standing alone on this one. I for one am not impressed with the White House argument that this proposal to impoverish millions of Americans shows Obama’s courage and seriousness of purpose. If he wants to show those qualities, he should consider putting some bankers in jail and breaking up some too big to fail financial institutions.

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Profiles in Cowardice

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

We Democrats here in Southeastern Connecticut must hang our heads in shame. The only two Democrats to vote against the gun bill in the State Senate are from our part of the state: Cathy Osten of Norwich, and Andy Maynard, whose district includes my home. Andy, some may recall, cast one of the votes that delayed the abolition of the death penalty. Now he’s taken a brave stand in favor of gun kooks, advancing an argument which refutes itself:

Everyone wants to make sure that another tragedy does not occur, but “I think in my view this bill runs a little off track,” Maynard said. “I just don’t have a comfort level with a bill that goes that far.”

Maynard said he was not given enough time to thoroughly review the bill because it came out this morning and that constituents from his rural community who are “proud” sportsmen and traditional folks had valid concerns about being able to protect themselves from intruders and the government.

“It is their right to feel that,” Maynard said. “I don’t share their same weariness of the government because I have the privilege of working in the government.”

But he said his neighbors and friends feel passionately about the erosion of their Second Amendment rights.

“I will defend them on principle, not because they are gun nuts or fringe elements, but because this is who we are as a people, this is what was established as a Bill of Rights when the Constitution was ratified.”

Democrats “jealously guard” a woman’s right to choose after that hard-won battle, he said.

(via theday.com Mobile Edition)

It does refute itself, but a few comments are in order nonetheless. First, it seems passing strange that a state legislator, sworn to uphold both the state and federal constitutions, feels he has an obligation to preserve the “right” of gun nuts to rebel against the government lawfully constituted under those constitutions. But perhaps most offensive is his comparison of this non-existent right to the right of a woman to control her own body.

Well, I don’t regret voting for Andy, because the alternative, at least the last time around, was so much worse. I give him credit for the intelligence to know that his reasoning is specious, so I can only conclude he acted out of fear. He may even get my vote next time, as the alternative will once again probably be worse, but my checkbook will be closed, and I’ll certainly encourage others to follow my example. Presumably the folks itchin’ to take up arms against the government can make up the difference for him.

 Oh wait, I forgot, they only vote for Republicans.

As for Osten, I really don’t know her. I give her credit for matching the speciousness of Andy’s argument.

One final observation. Isn’t it strange that it is only when it comes to guns that otherwise sensible legislators resort to the argument that if a bill cannot completely solve a problem then it can’t possibly be worth passing?

Filed in Local issues | | Comments (1)

Storm is threatening

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I wrote last year about the likelihood that we’ll be seeing right wing movements in Europe, as the bankers put the screws to the common folks so they can preserve their own privileges. Since the Greeks are getting screwed the most, it only stands to reason that it’s most likely, especially given recent Greek history, that the movement would start there, and if it didn’t start there, it’s apparently blossoming in the cradle of democracy:

Emboldened by its meteoric rise in Greece, the far-right Golden Dawn party is spreading its tentacles abroad, amid fears it is acting on its pledge to “create cells in every corner of the world”. The extremist group, which forged links with British neo-Nazis when it was founded in the 1980s, has begun opening offices in Germany, Australia, Canada and the US.

The international push follows successive polls that show Golden Dawn entrenching its position as Greece’s third, and fastest growing, political force. First catapulted into parliament with 18 MPs last year, the ultra-nationalists captured 11.5% support in a recent survey conducted by polling company Public Issue.

The group – whose logo resembles the swastika and whose members are prone to give Nazi salutes – has gone from strength to strength, promoting itself as the only force willing to take on the “rotten establishment”. Amid rumours of backing from wealthy shipowners, it has succeeded in opening party offices across Greece.

(via The Guardian)

If we learn nothing from history, and we always do, we will ignore this nascent movement until it’s too late. But then, from the banker’s point of view, it’s all good. The demagogues on the right talk a good game on the way up, but once they take over, they’ll be the banker’s friend, maybe even more than the corrupt so-called “democratic” regimes in Europe that have been selling out their people for the past several years. It’s win-win for the banks, and lose-lose for the rest of us, but that’s nothing new.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism | | Comments (1)

 Miracles, redefined

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Those of us upon whom a religious upbringing or education was inflicted are well aware that this past Sunday was the celebration of history’s biggest miracle; the revivification of a man who had been tortured to death by crucifixion. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, why such wonders never happen in this modern age, for despite what Paul Simon sang, this is not truly the age of “miracles and wonders”. We’re still wondering, but miracles we see not.

Well, wonder no longer, for Pat Robertson tells us that the problem is those pointy headed intellectuals of the Ivy League, whose skepticism has apparently infected the whole country, for, according to Pat, nowadays, if you want to dupe someone into believing in miracles, you have to go to Africa, where, again according to Pat, you can get them to believe anything. And it’s all the fault of those Harvard and Yale elites that we aren’t as easily duped as the credulous Africans. (Spoiler alert, Pat went to Yale Law School, but apparently that doesn’t count)

According to Robertson, it’s the “skepticism and secularism” that is being taught at “the most advanced schools” around the country that is keeping God’s miracles at bay.

Meanwhile, Africans are “simple” and “humble.” “You tell ‘em God loves ‘em and they say, ‘Okay, he loves me’,” said Robertson. “You say God will do miracles and they say, ‘Okay, we believe him’.”

(via TPM News)

Give the man credit. It’s not easy to blend ignorance and racism so subtly that you almost don’t notice the racism. But note too, the clever manipulation of language. Most of us would say a miracle is an event that took place contrary to the laws of nature. Pat defines it as anything he can get a credulous person to believe.

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Good Friday Night Music

Friday, March 29, 2013

I’m a strong believer in traditions, at least when they serve my purposes, and here at CTBlue we now have a tradition of posting this video on Good Fridays. I am adhering to this tradition for a number of reasons, chief of which being that it spares me from having to overtax my brain by coming up with something original.

Anyway, I believe that this song contains some very good advice, and the movie from which it is derived, is one of the best ever made. It may very well be that one needs a Christian religious upbringing (preferably drenched in guilt) of some sort to truly appreciate The Life of Brian.

As a bonus, here’s one of the funnier scenes from the flick. I never took Latin, but I can imagine the type of teacher that inspired this.

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