Month: July 2010

Your Daily Grayson

by digby

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Libertarian Philosophy

by digby

From Joey Devilla (Click on image for a clear picture)

Typical comment:

Ayn Rand would certainly have had an issue with the people depicted in “Naive” (Rand herself called anarchism “naïve), probably “Petulant” (most don’t win because they come off as a bit insane), “Too smart for science” (attack the science with science, not personal attacks), “Denial-ican,” “More libertarian than thou” (she really hated the idiotic idea of privatizing the police — rightly predicted that this would devolve into a vendetta system), “Nepotist,” “The Apostle” (nothing should be described as “magic”), and “Bizarrely Hypocritical” (she favored a right to abortion).

And libertarianism isn’t a philosophy. It’s a range of political beliefs. Picking at individual libertarian (or libertarian-ish) political beliefs is easier for Mr. Deutsch than actually discussing a philosophy on its merits. I find that is a common technique among leftists a.k.a. “progressives” neé “liberals.” Like conservatives, they don’t really have a philosophical underpinning. The pick positions and argue backwards. See “Whitey.” They, like any decent human being, are disgusted by the idea of a racist restaurant owner. So let’s slap a big asterisk next to the right of private ownership. But when conservatives slap an asterisk on women’s ownership of their uteruses, leftists have to slap an asterisk on their own asterisk … and so forth. Do they believe in private ownership or do they believe that the government has the right to dictate usage rights? Yes.

We’ll just call him number 22, shall we? And aren’t they special?

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Killing Birds Left And Right

by digby

Sargent reports that Senator Jim DeMint is blocking a bill that would allow the Oil Spill commission to function properly:

Last week, the House near-unanimously passed a measure that would grant subpoena power to the White House commission probing the spill. But DeMint is blocking it from proceeding in the Senate:

On the Senate floor, Republican Jim DeMint blocked a move to bring up a Democrat-sponsored bill that would have granted subpoena power to the White House oil spill commission. A similar measure passed the House last week by a vote of 420-1. A spokesman for DeMint said the South Carolina senator himself does not object to giving the commission subpoena power, but was acting on behalf of “members of the Republican conference.”

So according to DeMint’s spokesman, DeMint is holding this up at the behest of other unnamed Senators in the GOP conference. This, even as House Republicans voted en masse to support it. A senior GOP aide I spoke to says Republicans aren’t sure why DeMint is doing this. He says DeMint may simply want to study the issue. But given DeMint’s reputation for being somewhat less-than-deliberative in making decisions, this isn’t exactly reassuring. To be clear, House Republicans support subpoena power for the commission, so this isn’t on them. But it’s hard to see how DeMint is helping Republicans make the case that they are as serious about probing BP and holding it accountable as Issa is about unleashing an army of investigators on the White House.

I’m fairly sure that this is known in political science circles as “having your cake and eating it too.”

Issa gets to pretend that Republicans are crusaders for truth, justice and the American Way rooting out out corruption wherever they find it, while the teabagging Jim DeMint, with a conveniently unelectable opponent about to deliver him six safe more years, comes through for their corporate bosses. Many birds killed with that one stone.

And they do not care even a little about anyone suspecting that they may unleash an army of investigators on the White House. Indeed, it’s a selling point.

Plus, there’s the fact that Jim DeMint is a monster.

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Enough Already

by digby

Joshua Green has a smart op-ed in today’s Globe about the usefulness of Supreme Court confirmation battles as education tools. He recounts how successful the right has been over the years ib creating the myth of the “activist judge” as a way to discredit rulings they didn’t like and notes that in the Kagan hearings the left is using the Citizens United case to make similar points.

And then he exposes typical Village punditry for the idiotically out of touch gasbaggery it is:

This sailed right past some observers. “Why the obsession with the Citizens United campaign finance case?’’ griped a Washington Post columnist. “Enough already.”

I had to see that in its entirely, and sure enough here’s a writer named Eva Rodriguez writing how silly all this boooooring back and forth about corporate power is. (Presumably she found Amy Klubuchar’s penetrating question about whether Kagan was “Team Edward or Team Jacob” yesterday to be vastly more enlightening.)

Her impatience with the topic I would guess is shared by most of the Villagers who undoubtedly see no reason to waste a minute worrying about corporate power infecting our electoral process because they believe corporations are run by normal every day Real Americans just like the Villagers themselves. Why should citizens be threatened by millionaire plutocrats when they reflect the average American’s own values and interests? They’re all jess folks who go down to the beauty parlor and shop at K-mart, right?

There is, of course, another view:

The answer is that liberals recognize that citizens’ ability to challenge corporate power is being seriously eroded, possibly with profound implications. As the elected branches of government have moved to the left, the Court has moved right. In the years ahead, it will likely hear challenges to many of the laws and regulations passed by this Congress, from new rules governing Wall Street to the health care law.

“These hearings are the first national engagement in the major constitutional debate of our time,’’ said Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “And that is, how activist will this court be in using conservative judicial theories to block regulation of business? Kagan’s is the first nomination of the Citizens United Era, as opposed to Roe v. Wade Era.’’

Oh gawd. I guess that means a lot more tedious talk about yet another topic that nobody who’s anybody really cares about. (Hasn’t anyone interesting received some unauthorized fellatio recently?) Good thing it doesn’t happen very often or villagers would just die of boredom.

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What Has Happened To This Country?

by digby

I don’t mean that rhetorically. I’m genuinely curious to know exactly when this culture took this latest turn into selfish cruelty.

Now, it’s legitimate to argue that we’ve always been a cruel country and we have. We’ve always treated certain people, racial minorities and immigrants particularly, worse than others, our prison population today huge and their treatment is medieval. But I’m old and have been paying close attention for a long time and there are some disturbing social and political trends in our culture right now that are taking us waaay back to a time before most of our grandparents walked the earth.

Our history is littered with cruelty and injustice, but in my lifetime the open and widespread cultural acceptance of torture and imprisonment without trial is new. They used to have to hide these things and now we are institutionalizing them. And now this:

Though the jobs crisis shows few signs of abating and the unemployment rate continues to hover near 10 percent, Congress allowed extended unemployment benefits to expire at the beginning of June, causing so far more than 1.2 million long-term unemployed to miss checks.

During normal times, state provide 26 weeks of unemployment benefits for workers laid off through no fault of their own. Federally-funded extended benefits have given the unemployed additional weeks during eight recessions since the 1950s. If Congress fails to reauthorize the current round of extra jobless aid, it will be the first time since then that extended benefits have been allowed to expire when the national unemployment rate is above 7.2 percent.

“This is both unfair to the unemployed, who face a historically difficult situation through no fault of their own, and economically unwise as it threatens the prospect of a strong and sustainable recovery,” says a new report from the National Employment Law Project and the Center for American Progress. “The consequences are obviously dire for those Americans out of work, and could be equally devastating for employed Americans who are counting on a sustained economic recovery to keep their jobs and boost their earnings.”

The report shows that in previous recessions — in 1973, for example — extended benefits have been left in place until unemployment dropped to as low as 5 percent.

See, this is new.

And it’s not just the failure to extend the unemployment benefits, it’s the reasoning behind it. There is the Rand Paul/Sharron Angle “tough love” prescription, of course, which I suspect is far more common than people will admit. (I have actually heard several conversations about somebody’s “lazy uncle” who refuses to take a job that he thinks is “beneath him.”) And then there’s the projected deficit, which throughout the Bush years of unnecessary wars, tax cuts and giveaways to their rich contributors these people said not a word, being used as an excuse to destroy the safety net. I’m hard pressed to think of a more cynical move, although the Iraq war was a helluva test run for how you can convince people not to believe their lying eyes, so perhaps this is a natural next step.

I’m guessing some of it has to do with wealth inequality and the resulting distance between the haves and have nots in everyday society. When the people who do your nails and bag your groceries and bus your table aren’t fully visible in your busy world of IPods and Blackberries, perhaps you begin to think of them as pets who need training or children who require discipline. I don’t know. But something has gone terribly wrong and decent people had better wake up and realize that this radical, nihilistic right wing ideology that calls itself “conservatism” is now in the process of bringing the cruelty of its racist past into the 21st century and applying it to the entire middle and working class of this country.

Oh, in case you hadn’t heard the sick details, the extended benefits bill failed last night in the Senate 58-38. Snowe and Collins voted for it. Ben Nelson voted against it (along with Reid who had to for procedural reasons.) I hope he and his fellow sadists sleep well tonight.

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We are all Jezebels now

by digby

Gay rights activist Evan Hurst attended a Reverend Lou Engle revival meeting and lived to tell the tale. Holy moly. Apparently, everyone, including other Christians, are “Jezebels” and the whole country is subject to God’s law subject to the good Reverend’s interpretation:

“Voting is not just a political act! It is not just a choice that you make. It’s not some kind of decision. I’m shouting it. The Bible says that God gave Adam the responsibility to govern! From the beginning, man was given the government of the earth! Romans 13 says all government is derived from God’s government. It’s all delegated authority, and that those governors are to rule in such a way, in the fear of the Lord, Psalms chapter 2. So, if all government comes from God, then THE GOVERNMENT WE HAVE IN AMERICA IS FROM GOD! So, who is the government? Not Barack Obama! It’s a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Therefore, when you vote for those who shed innocent blood, you are making a governmental decision under the government of God! You are actually in the rebellion of Psalms 2! You will actually be held accountable for how you govern! We have to tremble in the voting booth. We should tremble in voting booths! You don’t choose a person because you feel good about him, or he feels like maybe he’s going to change the world, YOU VOTE ON THEIR STAND ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF BIBLICAL TRUTH! Because if you don’t, you’re actually handing the keys to people who have anti-Christ spirits! You are actually giving authority to someone who is in rebellion to God! … There is a higher government than the governments of men. We are a citizenship of heaven, and that citizenship of heaven influences everything we do, every decision in our lives. I want to stand before the Lord and say ‘When you gave me the government in America, I did what you wanted me to do.’ Because if I don’t, then we’ll hear those same words of Psalms 2, Therefore you kings be warned, Tremble you judges of the earth. Who are the kings?”

I think that might be what Tom Coburn was hinting at during today’s Kagan hearing.

Read on if you dare.The followers were all swaying back and forth repeating simple phrases while Engle babbled on warning the “kings.”

The revivals are happening all over the country. And they are filled with young, suburbanites. Yikes.

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Happy Days Are Here Again

by digby

It’s all good. Susie found reason to celebrate!

Great news! Doesn’t this make you feel better?

The 6.8 million Americans out of work for 27 weeks or longer — a record 46 percent of all the unemployed — are providing U.S. companies with an eager, skilled and cheap labor pool. This is allowing businesses to retool their workforces, boosting efficiency and profits following the deepest recession since the 1930s, and contributing to a 61 percent rise in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index since March 2009. “Companies are getting higher-productivity employees for the same or lower wage rate they were paying a marginal employee,” said James Paulsen, who helps oversee about $375 billion as chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. “Not only are employees higher skilled, you have a better skill match. You have a more productive and more adaptive labor force.” Falling wage pressures will help keep inflation low, contributing to lower Treasury-bond yields, according to Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. He forecasts 10-year Treasuries will yield about 3.1 percent in the third quarter, compared with 4 percent in April.

High skilled workers are taking low wage jobs, just like Sharron Angle said they should. (Not enough of them, of course. All those scofflaws still on UI need to start picking cotton.) And it’s working out just wonderfully for business, which means it’s god’s work.

But let’s not get carries away and think that because workers are getting screwed and inflation and interest rates are low there is no reason why we shouldn’t panic about future deficits and cut the safety net immediately. Why that should be true I don’t know, but a very smart Phd at the Fed told me not to worry my pretty little head about it cuz I’m too stoopid, so I won’t.

Right now, we should all have a great big party to celebrate the fact that we are becoming competitive with other countries(otherwise known as falling wages and living standards.) Huzzah. Happy days are here again.

Gosh I sure do hope those Chinese workers are getting big raises because somebody’s going to have to start buying all that crap from Walmart.

PS: They do sort of belatedly admit that there might be a teensy bit of a problem if you have a large and growing permanent underclass. It’s so unpleasant walking over the beggers.

But hey, no need to rain on the parade with all that downer talk. It’s very good news is that the middle class is dwindling and income inequality is growing.

Is this a great country or what?

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