Month: October 2013

The moustache of (mis)understanding strikes again

by digby

I know there is no more trite phrase in America, but Lord, this Thomas Friedman column is bad is bad. It’s so bad you have to read the whole thing to experience the full horror of it. In fact, I’m not even sure he wrote it himself. It reads more like something the messaging shop at Fix the Debt put together to sound like Thomas Friedman. (I’m going to guess all you who read this blog regularly already know the topic, then.) Yes, the upshot is that old people are robbing the young of all their chances in this world with their insistence on needing to eat in their old age. Luckily, a billionaire pal of his named Stanley Druckmiller is on the case explaining to the kids why grandpa and grandma are parasites.

No mention of student debt, of course, because well I’m going to guess Friedman thinks such trivialities have nothing to do with the inability of the younger generation to get ahead. And certainly there is no mention of the fact that rich greedheads like Friedman and his pals are insisting on sucking up every last dollar in this world while forcing the government to cut back vital programs at the very worst time (and hey, if we’re lucky institutionalize cutbacks for as long as the eye can see)which is having the effect of slowing growth to a crawl.

As Robert Kuttner explains:

Contrary to this sort of propaganda, the economic injustice problem in America is not about generations. It’s about class. Specifically, Stanley Druckenmiller’s class. But Druckenmiller, approvingly quoted by Friedman, blames the diminished horizons of the young on “current spending on my generation” as if he had anything whatever in common with the people reliant on Social Security.

His remedy, also endorsed heartily by Friedman includes:

raising taxes on capital gains, dividends and carried interest — now hugely weighted to the wealthy and elderly — to make them equal to earned income taxes; making all consumers more price sensitive when obtaining health care; means-testing Social Security and Medicare so they go to those most in need; phasing in higher age qualifications for entitlements and cutting corporate taxes to zero, so the people who actually create jobs will have more resources to do so.

However the minor cuts in capital income (the bait) are offset by cuts in corporate taxes, and the real game plan is to slash social insurance—which won’t do anything for the recovery and will hurt a lot of people barely in the middle class.

Here’s the best single line in the column. Whatever the outcome of the debt crisis negotiations, Friedman writes

But there’s one outcome from such negotiations that I can absolutely guarantee: Seniors, Wall Street and unions will all have their say and their interests protected.

Kuttner asks, “which of these things is not like the other?”

The consensus among the more progressive insiders is that the Tea Party will never relent on “tax reform” that includes a tax increase, even if it’s offset by billions in tax cuts and that the White House will never agree to anything that doesn’t include at least the appearance of revenue so we’re safe from Friedman’s Folly. I sincerely hope that’s true.

But I’m not going to stop hammering on it until Democrats stop offering up “entitlements” in budget negotiations. And right now they are on TV every single day emphasizing just how willing they are to cut them. These are not programs to be used as betting chips in a game of chance and as long as they continue to validate the self-serving assumptions of elite columnists and their manipulative billionaire pals, it’s important to maintain a very hard line. It just isn’t smart to assume that people will never do the things they say they want to do.

The day the Democratic Party votes for a bill that cuts, rather than raises, Social Security benefits is the day it will have sold off the last piece of its already tattered political soul. I’m fairly sure the Villagers and the political establishment don’t think that matters, but the rest of us should.

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Quotes from the Tea Party base on the default

by David Atkins

Nothing provides a window into the mind of the Republican base like a perusal of Free Republic. It’s a perfect distillation of what dittoheads and their friends are saying and thinking.

When it comes to the debt default, nothing better illustrates the problems of the Republican Party with its caucus and its messaging than a straight sampling of uncensored base conservatism. This is what it looks like when you unleash a political dragon and can’t put it back in its cage:

knarf: I’d say that’s why …. people like us keep saying, let Rome fall.

Eternal Vigilance: “Government “shut down” = “a good start”

Willywill: “republicans are in trouble.” god, I hope this whole thing collapses and all those good for nothing, fake journalists get arrested.

concerned about politics: Why? They’re doing the right thing. More and more people are slowly finding out what’s in obomacare, and they’re freaking out. They’re waking up to what the left wing freeloaders are costing them.
I’d say the Republicans have it made as long as they don’t cave and screw it up.

Amendment10: This chaos concerning federal government funding is probably nowhere near the chaos that former Speaker Pelosi irresponsibly put the House through when she rammed Obamacare.

Uncle Chip: I love the smell of chaos in Washington

Serkit: Is that angry black former law instructor going to get on television and lecture us again about evil Republicans harshing his choom buzz?

Mojito:Is this illegal, unconstitutional, monstrosity called the Federal Government worth saving? No. Let it burn to the ground.

jeffc: No, the RINO GOPe is in trouble. But I doubt Politico can tell the difference…..

Viennacon: I want to see if O-sh7tstain has the guts to default

oldeconomybuyer: I’ll take chaos over bipartisanship. Obamacare was passed by rebels and will only be defeated by rebels. Put Ted back in the game. Let him speak for the GOP.

LibLieSlayer: I’d say harry and his trained muzzie are in trouble!

Da Coyote: RINOs may be in trouble. Conservatives are not. Die, RINOs, die.

VandeKoik: Chaos there means less chaos they can reap on us.

St.Thomas.Aquinas: Hip. Somehow we’re surviving.

concerned about politics: History always points to the president. History doesn’t care who’s in charge of the house or senate at the time. For example: who was in charge of the house and senate during the failed Carter presidency? Who was during the FDR presidency? Oboma will be blamed for everything that goes right or wrong in the end. The buck will always stop with him. The next generation will see oboma as the one who crashed the global economy, because his own ego was more important than the people of the world.

Clay Moore: Frankly the whole bunch of them can open brawl over what brand of pencil to use for the next umpteen years. The more they fight amongst themselves, the less tyranny they can visit upon us.

Gasshog: The rats are in trouble. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised (not saying I want it to) then the rats and their media can holler till doomsdays its the faults of Republicans but Obama will OWN it. Obama will be the first DEFAULT pres. How sweet it is.

ptsal: My guess is there will still be a sunrise and a sunset….Let the govt go broke.

Obama_Is_Sabotaging_America: Shut it down. It’s the only way to ensure spending cuts. Start with the White House.

DesertRenegade: The lib media is so afraid that they will lose hold of the narrative. The reality is that if government stays shut down, our credibility will actually rise because we can finally balance the budget. It’s so simple, a child can see it. I can see Jesus just as he did to the moneychangers, kick Obama and his ilk out of the people’s house and let their corrupt institutions crumble. Please stand strong Sen. Cruz!”>

Keep in mind that these aren’t cherrypicked. I’ve pretty much posted each comment one after the next.

This is the conservative base, the ones who decide who wins GOP primaries. They won’t settle for anything but economic disaster, they don’t view Democratic electoral wins as legitimate, and they can’t figure out whether the crisis is a good thing, or the Democrats’ fault, or both.

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Meanwhile, Big Brother wants your buddy list

by digby

Oh look. As the government burns, more NSA revelations.

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.

Oh no biggie. If you’re not guilty of anything — or don’t know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone who is guilty of anything — you have nothing to worry about:

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, said the agency “is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets like terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers. We are not interested in personal information about ordinary Americans.”

So, drug smuggling is officially a matter of national security? Good to know. I wonder what else they’ve decided fits into that category?

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Hippie bullies rush the halls of congress

by digby

… trying to intimidate the Republicans into giving up their “principles”

QOTD: Hindrocket’s progeny

by digby

Edroso sez:

At PowerLine, Steven Hayward is making shutdownade. It tastes terrible.

The bullying tactics of forcibly shutting off public spaces like the World War II memorial on the mall has surely inflicted damage on Obama that, had he behaved with minimal restraint, he might have been spared.

Surely.

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Moment of zen: Tea Party twerk

by digby

Ted Cruz, wrecking ball

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Staying on message

by David Atkins

Good for the White House:

The bill that House Republicans are planning to vote on Tuesday is unacceptable to President Obama, White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in a statement.

“The president has said repeatedly that members of Congress don’t get to demand ransom for fulfilling their basic responsibilities to pass a budget and pay the nation’s bills. Unfortunately, the latest proposal from House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group of Tea Party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first place,” Brundage said.

Will the country and earned benefits get sold down the river in the madness to come? It’s too early to tell.

But the White House deserves praise for being willing and able to hold the line on calling out Republicans for what they’re actually doing, Ari Shapiro notwithstanding. When the opposition is willing to tear the country down for radically partisan goals, it’s important take a stand and not try to be “the adult in the room” every time.

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Misunderestimating the strategery

by digby

Dave Johnson has a good piece reminding us all of what led us to where we are today:

Remember what led to the sequester? There was a fundamental miscalculation that led to these terrible economy-killing cuts taking effect. White House negotiators believed the sequester cuts were so terrible and stupid that Republicans wouldn’t really let that happen. So they offered these cuts as an inducement — a worst alternative — to coming to an agreement about taxes and cuts. (Never mind the mistake that any deficit reduction at allright now is economy-killing.) The idea was that the sequester cuts are so terrible and have such a disastrous effect on the country and economy — and people — that “they wouldn’t really do that.” But they did that. Now many Republicans are celebrating the sequester cuts, calling the sequester an accomplishment.

I have copped to being one of those who thought the GOP would never allow the defense cuts to happen. I simply assumed they weren’t going to be able to keep up their fake patriotic front and that the contractors would pull the plug. But it turns out they are determined to keep drowning the government in the bathtub even if they end up killing their own babies in the process.

And that’s because they are getting rewarded.  As Grover Norquist said:

“Sequester is the big win. It defines the decade.”

That means a lot of things, including the fact that we have now officially adopted austerity as a policy. But it also means the Republicans believe they have a very sharp sword they can hold over the Democrats’ heads. Norquist again:

Look, these were the guys who thought sequestration was a great win for them and who made 85 percent of the Bush tax cuts permanent. The Bush tax cuts were an upper hand he could have used to control the country for years. If he would have extended it for a year we’d be talking about whether there should be a tax increase right now. You shouldn’t spend too much time thinking you’re dealing with political geniuses here.

That’s how they think. Sequestration is to them what the Bush tax cuts would have been to the Democrats.

And it would appear that many Democrats haven’t figured that out yet. At least if this quote from Sheldon Whitehouse is any example, not all of them have:

“The Republicans, and particularly the Tea Party Republicans, really burned their hands on this hot stove, and the idea that in January they’re going to want to grab it again and burn themselves all over again doesn’t seem very likely. I think they learned a lesson from the damage that they did to our country with this latest stunt.”

Sure they have:

A new Pew Research Center poll shows a majority of Republicans and many independents are just fine with the idea of not raising the debt limit by the Treasury Department’s deadline of Oct. 17.

There is a huge partisan split on this questions, with 37 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats in the new poll believing there would be an economic crisis.

They’re simply not working under the same assumptions as the rest of us.

I suppose if they do crash the world economy they might finally learn their lesson at long last. But when everyone understands that the full faith and credit of the United States is no longer operative, we’re going to have bigger problems, aren’t we?

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Your tax dollars at work, GOP style

by digby

We furloughed the CDC but there is still money for shennanigans like this:

Do yourself a favor and go look at the whole page. This is GOP governance in action.

*Evidently, the ranking minority member of any senate committee has the right to run a government web page without input from the majority. I don’t think Democrats ever used their privilege to disseminate outright lies and left wing propaganda but maybe they did. Doing this during the government shutdown takes some real cojones though.

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Ok fine. Throw half the population under the bus and we’ve got a deal!

by digby

I can’t believe that Democrats would go for this, but you never know:

[S]everal Republican legislators said there was another provision they wanted included in the legislation: a so-called “conscience clause” that would exempt employers (citing religious objections) from having to provide coverage for birth control as part of the health care plans they offer employees. This idea has been on the Republican wish list for years—Obamacare already has this sort of exemption for churches, mosques, and other places of worship—and with Washington in full-on crisis mode, GOPers are looking to exploit current circumstances to win this long-running fight.

“There are a lot of people, and I’m one of those, who are really pushing for a conscience clause to be included,” said Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), a former consultant and End-Times novelist who was elected last fall. “They want to have some principle that they could go home and say, ‘we fought for this, and we got this.'”

Sure they do. And people in hell want ice water, it doesn’t mean they deserve to get it.

I’d guess that sticking it to women on behalf of the Catholic Bishops and the social conservatives might be a pretty decent consolation prize. (Contrary to popular perception, the sopcial conservatives haven’t disappeared.) But it would repudiate pretty much everything every Democrat said in the last election so I’d guess it’s a non-starter. But the GOP is undoubtedly going to need a little something to even sign on to a temporary cease fire. What’s it going to be?

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