Author: Tom Sullivan

Deference must be shown
by Tom Sullivan

Somebody didn’t get the memo. For an exceptional people who celebrate their revolution to overthrow rule by kings and titled nobility, we have an amazing number who still believe they are entitled to deference. According to some in Washington, “entitlements” are bad. They make a people weak. And if there is anything (besides LGBT people) that makes their skin crawl and makes them reach for another grain alcohol and branch water, it’s weakness.

See, deference must be shown to “the job creators” — praised be their name — even when their invisible hands create no jobs. Deference must be shown to Wall Street titans, for without their wisdom, there would be no six- and seven-figure bonuses for selling fraudulent securities, and no taxpayer-funded bailouts. Behold them in their glory. Behold the power the royals wield over our late, great democracy. Psst. Kneel, willya?

Proper deference must be shown, too, towards the alpha dogs’ faith, a faith that justifies. Tolerated other faiths must know their place. Sadly, the Kenyan Pretender did not get the memo either. At the national prayer breakfast Thursday, President Obama said:

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history,” he told the group, speaking of the tension between the compassionate and murderous acts religion can inspire. “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Blaspheme! Speaking in the prophetic voice was never much welcome in Old Testament times. Nor is it now. Pretty tame stuff for a prophet, too. But you can imagine the response:

Some Republicans were outraged. “The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” said former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore (R). “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

Heretic! he cried. Anybody got a match?

Pretty thin-skinned for a people willing to dish it out with a shovel when it’s somebody else’s faith.

“There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith,” the prophetic voice continued.

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called Obama’s comments about Christianity “an unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison.”

What we need more, he said, is a “moral framework from the administration and a clear strategy for defeating ISIS,” the acronym for the Islamic State.

Because military strategy is what we go to prayer breakfasts for, after all.

Our moral framework collapsed when Americans cheered and defended the last administration for committing torture. Now you want the Muslim Pretender to rebuild it for you? It’s what prayer, fasting, and sackcloth and ashes are for, pal. That’s in a book you might be familiar with. They’re just not as much fun as a good, Christian ass whuppin’.

Sheesh. These guys can’t make up their minds whether they want their Christian country to act like Christ or to just “act” like it’s a Christian country. We wear Christianity the way a teenager wears an American Eagle hoodie and thinks it’s stylish.

Argument by clickbait
by Tom Sullivan

This morning E.J. Dionne takes on income redistribution as a conservative wedge issue. In particular, Rep. Paul Ryan’s lame attempt to brand non-GOP-approved economic policies as morally suspect with his recent coinage of “envy economics.” To be sure, it’s less insulting than “makers vs. takers.” And it’s more suitable for Sunday morning chat fests than Conrad Hilton III’s “f_cking peasants,” if no more mature. But it’s the thought that counts.

You’ve gotta hand it to the GOP intelligentsia. They seem to have an endless supply-side of these arguments. Dog whistles for the clickbait generation.

Dionne asks, as long as we’re branding opponents’ policies, why not brand Ryan’s “greed economics“?

Ryan’s opening rhetorical bid is unfortunate because there are signs that at least some conservatives (including, sometimes, Ryan himself) seem open to policies that would redistribute income to Americans who have too little of it.

Yes, conservatives and just about everybody else — except, perhaps, for truly austere libertarians — are for redistribution. But almost everyone on the right and many of the more timid Democrats want to deny it. This form of intellectual dishonesty hampers a candid debate about solving the interlocking problems of stagnating wages, rising inequality and declining social mobility.

Ryan attempted over the weekend to paint the president’s economic proposals as unAmerican, unfit for an “aspirational” and “optimistic” people. Besides, they don’t work, according to Ryan. Dionne counters:

Well. Regiments of Republicans claimed that Obama’s policies, and especially Obamacare, would be “job killers.” In the face of 58 straight months of private-sector job growth, will they ever admit their claims were absolutely wrong? Will anyone even ask them? And like them or not, aren’t Obama’s proposals on higher education, child care and pre-kindergarten programs all about aspiration and optimism?

The irony—usually lost on champions of “trickle down” such as Ryan—is that where once he argued that Obama’s policies pitted class against class and would stifle “the job creators,” as Jonathan Weisman observed, now Ryan argues that those same policies have “exacerbated inequality” and made things worse, saying, “The wealthy are doing really well. They’re practicing trickle-down economics now.”

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A zombie faith

by Tom Sullivan

It was kind of stunning, actually, to see the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson invoke “the common good” in a national newspaper, as I mentioned yesterday. Speaking of that sort of thing (like “public trust”) being so gauche and all. Pitting people against each other? Now that’s how you get ahead in politics. At least, for a certain kind of politician.

Long ago, President Lyndon Johnson explained how this conservative schtick works:

If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll even empty his pockets for you.

The Fox News business model, ladies and gentlemen. They’ve just expanded the palette a little.

Regarding pitting people against each other, Michael Hiltzik yesterday looked at how the Republican Congress is dealing with Social Security disability funding — not by solving the problem, but by “intensifying the crisis.” Someone must be punished, and Republicans are pretty sure it’s the Poors, the aged, and the infirm:

In practical terms, the rule change sets up a confrontation over Social Security’s finances by pitting the program’s retirees against its disabled beneficiaries and their dependents. The confrontation is totally unnecessary, because the required reallocation would have minimal effect on the old-age program. The old-age trust fund, which is still growing today and has not yet been tapped, is expected to last at least until 2034; the reallocation would make both the disability and old-age funds solvent until 2033, according to the latest estimates by the Social Security trustees.

The rule change does, however, reflect Republicans’ cherished disdain for disability recipients, whom they love to caricature as malingering layabouts. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) slathered himself in iniquity last month when he told a New Hampshire audience: “Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts.”

Digby dealt with this at Salon yesterday, noting that at $1,130/mo on average, nobody’s living large on disability. But:

Apparently, even that’s too much. The government needs to crack down on these lazy moochers and put them to work. Back in the day they used to sell pencils and apples on street corners, amirite? And in third world countries you see plenty of horrifically disabled people making a tidy living by begging. They show the kind of gumption we are denying our paraplegics and mentally ill by molly coddling them with a poverty level stipend.

“Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled,” the apostle wrote mockingly of false piety, teaching that faith without works is dead. But that zombie faith is much in vogue.

This morning, Stephen Richter examines the need conservative lights such as George Will have to keep flogging the welfare horse, writing:

If there is a resurgence of the level of transfer payments to welfare recipients now, that is not due to any relaxation of the standards under which people qualify for welfare. (Indeed, the bar to obtain and keep benefits remains quite high.)

Nor is it the result of some sweeping cultural degradation foisted upon the good and hard-working American people by “progressives,” as Will ultimately insists. There is little to suggest struggling Americans have become newly enthusiastic about being compelled to seek help – including from the government – to make ends meet.

That the United States is at the bottom of rankings of social mobility among OECD countries matters little to theoreticians like Will, Richter writes.

Facts be damned. Hands up as well as handouts are for the weak, and against the natural order. The Founders may have mentioned tending to the “general welfare” twice in the U.S. Constitution, but they didn’t really mean it. Social Darwinism and The Market are hungry gods.

UPDATE: Fixed payment typo.

Freedom to be jerks
by Tom Sullivan

The Kochs, the NRA, and Randians of the right treat the word freedom as a conversation stopper. (What, are you against freedom, commie? Game Over. We win.) But just as creating the T-party pushed the GOP so far right that party regulars now are stuck with trying to reign in the monster they created, turning freedom into a worship word may be backfiring too:

A Florida man set up a gun range in his front yard, but police said there’s not much they can do but keep an eye on him.

Other residents are livid that 21-year-old Joseph Carannate set up targets and plans to fire his 9mm handgun in his residential Saint Petersburg neighborhood, reported WFLA-TV.

“I don’t know if this idiot is going to start popping off rounds,” said resident Patrick Leary. “I’m furious.”

Yeah? Furious commie.

But since by law the Gunshine State prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights, freedom means fire at will. Freedom means telling the neighbors, hide in the basement with your young-uns if you don’t like it.

The recent fight over vaccines travels that same road, doesn’t it? The teaser headline on the front page of the Washington Post online grabbed me this morning. Gerson: Vaccines and our duty to our neighbors. Whaddya mean “duty to our neighbors,” commie? Free-DOM:

Resistance to vaccination on the left often reflects an obsession with purity. Vaccines are placed in the same mental category as genetically modified organisms (GMOs), DDT and gluten. But the problem with organic health care is that the “natural” rate of child mortality is unacceptably high. Organically raised children can get some very nasty ­diseases.

Opposition to vaccination on the right often reflects an obsession with liberty — in this case, freedom from intrusive state mandates. It has always struck me as odd that a parent would defend his or her children with a gun but leave them vulnerable to a microbe. Some conservatives get especially exercised when vaccination has anything to do with sex — as with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine — on the questionable theory that teenagers are more likely to fornicate if they have a medical permission slip (or less likely to without it).

Whether you are blazing away in a suburban front yard, or putting neighbors’ children at risk by refusing to immunize yours, or publishing cartoons of Mohammed with intent to offend (France, I know), or strolling into the Burger King with your AR-15, or doing anything else arrogantly prick-ish, because freedom, maybe the radical individual thing has gotten out of hand. Doesn’t it seem, at long last, that our freedom fetish is turning us into a nation of jerks?

Michael Gerson dares use the phrase “common good”:

In all these matters, there is a balance between individual rights and the common good. This may sound commonplace. But some Americans seem to believe that the mere assertion of a right is sufficient to end a public argument. It is not, when the exercise of that right has unacceptable public consequences, or when the sum of likely choices is dangerous to a community.

Commie.

Our own T-party?
by Tom Sullivan

Bill Curry, two-time Democratic nominee for governor in Connecticut and a former Clinton White House advisor, explores how progressives might reinvigorate the “corrupt and empty husk” of the Democratic Party. Somehow the four groups he believes make up the Democratic voting block must learn to

When in doubt, hit somebody
by Tom Sullivan

The Times editorial board paid closer attention than I did to Obama’s State of the Union speech:

They went largely unnoticed, four words President Obama ad-libbed during the State of the Union address last month as he asked lawmakers to provide legal cover for America’s military intervention in Iraq and Syria.

“We need that authority,” the president said, adding a line to the prepared remarks on his teleprompter that seemed to acknowledge a reality about which his administration has been inexcusably dishonest.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure” goes the old saying. That applies to legislating as well. The PATRIOT Act, for one. In this case, passage on September 14, 2001 of the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), signed on September 18 by President George W. Bush. Specifically:

Section 2 – Authorization For Use of United States Armed Forces

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Obama now wants to use the AUMF to retroactively justify bombing Syria over a decade later. Congress will likely go along. The Times is not amused:

By failing to replace the sweeping war authorizations Congress established for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more than a decade ago, with a far narrower mandate, lawmakers are abdicating one of their most consequential constitutional powers: the authority to declare war. White House officials maintain that the current campaign in Iraq and Syria is legal under the Afghan and Iraq war resolutions, a dubious argument considering those were tailored to respond to the Sept. 11 attacks and to deal with Saddam Hussein, then the Iraqi leader, on the grounds — since proved to be false — that he had weapons of mass destruction.

Obama called on Congress in 2013 to “refine, and ultimately repeal” the Bush AUMF and vowed himself not to expand it lest we “grant Presidents unbound powers” (to wage war on their say so). Now, Obama and the usual suspects want Congress to draft a new AUMF against ISIL. Because when in doubt, hit somebody. And because we have so many places to hit them from.

In 2008, the Pentagon claimed “545,000 facilities at 5,300 sites in the U.S. and around the globe.” What counts as a facility? Or a site? How many of those are overseas? In 2009, Anita Dancs with the Institute for Policy Studies estimated about 865 bases overseas, at an annual cost of $250 billion. (What counts as overseas is a matter of interpretation.) Ron Paul caught flack in 2011 for saying 900.

Trouble is, the Pentagon can’t even give you an accurate count of what the empire administers, as Nick Turse found about the same time:

There are more than 1,000 U.S. military bases dotting the globe. To be specific, the most accurate count is 1,077. Unless it’s 1,088. Or, if you count differently, 1,169. Or even 1,180. Actually, the number might even be higher. Nobody knows for sure.

But you can trust them. That global footprint is justified. Just what the Founders imagined. If we can’t find enough enemies to justify those bases, new enemies can be arranged, and new legal justifications for attacking them.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday. Bread and circuses for everyone.

If your blue state is healthier, thank a Republican
by Tom Sullivan

Affordable Care Act opponents argue in King v. Burwell now before the U.S. Supreme Court that Congress intended to withhold subsidies from the states unless they established their own exchanges. If SCOTUS agrees, ACA opponents expect the ruling to effectively gut the federal exchanges operating in over half the states and to seriously undermine Obamacare.

Even as this argument seems to have fallen apart, should the court strike down the federal exchange subsidies, Republicans in Congress vow not to reinstate consumers’ health insurance tax credits.

Steve Benen writes:

Remember, as far as the public is concerned, a clear majority of Americans would expect the Republican Congress to protect consumers from hardship. Indeed, Greg Sargent this week flagged the latest report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that nearly two-thirds of Americans would expect lawmakers to keep existing subsidies in place if the Supreme Court ruling goes the wrong way. Only a fourth of the country would expect Congress to do nothing.

The same report found that even most Republicans support states setting up exchange marketplaces so that families can continue to receive subsidized access to medical care. This is, of course, the exact opposite of what GOP policymakers have in mind.

Ezra Klein reframes that outcome, arguing that Republicans’ plan for Obamacare’s demise has become “a plan to rip themselves off.” Klein elaborates:

If the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, the subsidies will basically shut off in (mostly) red states. And congressional Republicans won’t do anything about it. That means Republicans in those states will be paying the taxes and bearing the spending cuts needed to fund Obamacare but getting none of the benefits.

Which is to say, the biggest fight in American politics in recent years began with Democrats creating a law that was a giant subsidy from blue states to red states and has evolved into Republicans working to turn the law into a giant subsidy from red states to blue states. It is very, very weird.

Not really. Republicans, especially in the 15 refusenik states Klein identifies, have a unremitting knack for cutting off their noses to spite their faces (and their children’s). They have principles and they stand in on them.

Stings and errors of outrageous brokers
by Tom Sullivan

Nice to see Matt Taibbi back at Rolling Stone. But not so nice for the financial services industry.

Taibbi reports on a memo from Jason Furman, Chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, detailing the stings and errors average investors fall prey to from their brokers. “The current regulatory environment,” Furman explains in the document obtained by Bloomberg, “creates perverse incentives that ultimately cost savers billions of dollars a year.”

“For instance,” Taibbi writes, “it might surprise a lot of Americans to know that brokers handling retirement funds aren’t required by law to act in the best interests of their clients.” In nontechnical jargon, you might call this a “red flag.” When brokers “churn” accounts, performing needless trades to rack up fees, long-term investors can lose as much as 1-3 years worth of retirement withdrawals.

Taibbi continues:

The Obama administration is proposing to fix the problem by changing the rules and imposing a fiduciary duty standard on brokers, forcing them to act in their clients’ best interests. If this Labor Department proposal ever gets past the 50 yard line, expect the financial services lobby to carpet-bomb Washington with studies showing that apart from nuclear winter or inviting al-Qaeda to occupy the White House, nothing could be worse for America than forcing brokers to act in the best interests of their clients.

Bloomberg has more details.

We used to build things

by Tom Sullivan

As The Wire‘s Frank Sobotka once said, “We used to make shit in this country, build shit.” But not lately.

In a country whose population has grown by 235 million and where vehicle travel has increased by 2.2 trillion miles since 1960, the highway system has grown by only 15 percent, according to the Washington Post. It is badly in need of maintenance at a time when traditional funding sources are not keeping pace:

“The growth we’re having in this country can’t be met with current resources,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in an interview this month.

The need for a new source of transportation funding is under discussion in Washington this week, where lawmakers face a May deadline to come up with a plan before current funding expires.

I’m not a federal planner, but since the federal gas tax has not been raised since 1993, do you think that might have something to do with it? Put me on the commission, right?

Our penny-pinching brain trust on the Hill can’t figure it out. The people unashamed to spend hours each day begging for campaign donations, yet afraid to ask Americans to materially support their country? The ones quick to complain about nebulous, unspecified waste and the need for cutting taxes for the rich again and again — you know, the personal responsibility people — can’t seem to solve the problem of how we maintain what we’ve built and use every day. Or to see to our other responsibilities, like health care or education of the nation’s children. But nearly 900 overseas military bases? No problemo. Because
war? War is like jello. There’s always room for jello.

The comedy duo Frangela do a bit they begin with, “There was a time in this country….” Yes, there was. It was the early 1960s:

We left from Chicago driving Route 66. (The Nelson Riddle theme to the TV show is still the hippest ever.) The trip took a couple of days. The highway was still two lanes as you went further west. That was already changing.

Beside Route 66 and elsewhere, Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System – the vast system of roads most of us take for granted – was taking shape from border to border and from coast to coast. It was a national project worthy of a great nation. The country was on the move.

Astronaut Alan Shepard was a national hero. Our parents wanted us to go to college. Our president wanted us to go. Our country wanted us to go. Getting an education was not just a key to a future better than our parents’. It was a patriotic duty. Not just something you could do for you, but what you could do for your country.

America was going to the moon by the end of the decade. We needed scientists and engineers and new technologies. Between the G.I. Bill and government-backed student loans, America was making it more affordable than ever to get an education. It was good for you. It was good for your community. It was good for all of U.S.

Even as corporate profits skyrocket, we explain away our inability to accomplish anything like that today by telling ourselves we cannot afford it and that we have lost faith in government. Or have we just lost faith in ourselves?

A 527 some friends and I used to have ran a series of radio ads that spoke to that issue. Like this one:

VO: You wouldn’t let the lawn go to seed or leave broken windows broken. You worked hard for your home. And the longer you let things go, the more it takes to set them right. With collapsing bridges, overtaxed power girds and decaying infrastructure, isn’t it time we felt the same way about the home … we call our country?

VO: Take ownership in America. Register. Vote. Volunteer. A message from BlueCentury.org.

Alas, poor derrick: Obama drills “Graveyard of the Atlantic”
by Tom Sullivan

Oil rigs in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic“? Someone tell the president April 1st isn’t for two months yet:

(Bloomberg) — The Obama administration proposed opening to offshore drilling an area from Virginia to Georgia in a policy shift sought by energy companies but opposed by environmentalists worried about resorts such as the Outer Banks or Myrtle Beach.

The offshore plan for 2017-2022 marks the second time President Barack Obama has recommended unlocking areas in the U.S. Atlantic for oil drilling, and it drew a swift retort from allies who say the payoff doesn’t justify the risk of a spill along the populated coast. The agency said Atlantic leases won’t be auctioned for at least six years and drilling wouldn’t start for several more years.

Well, that’s a relief. Plus, you know, with the Gulf Stream and all, a massive oil spill 50 miles offshore of the Outer Banks might never reach Cape Hatteras.

“Offshore oil spills don’t respect state boundaries,” said Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts. “A spill in North Carolina could affect Massachusetts.”

Heads up, Nantucket.

The proposal is still preliminary, officials suggested:

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told reporters the proposal was a “balanced” approach, but she stressed that it was only a draft.

“It is not final, we’re in the early stages of what is a multi-year process,” Jewell said, cautioning that some regions listed in it “may be narrowed or taken out entirely.”

That caveat and the timing make the announcement a mite suspect. Days ago, the Obama administration had Alaska livid over its request “to designate parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area” off-limits to oil drilling. The request left Sen. Lisa Murkowski fuming. Something about decisions on federal land made Outside being a violation of state sovereignty. Other Alaska legislators were similarly put out:

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker was “outraged” at the timing of the announcement, which comes amid low oil prices and declining production “despite having more than 40 billion barrels of untapped resources, mostly in federal areas where oil and gas activity is blocked or restricted,” the joint statement said.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, called the plan “callously planned and politically motivated” in the same statement.

On the heels of the Alaska announcement, the Atlantic drilling proposal is generating predictable howls from East Coast environmentalists:

“This proposal sells out the southeast fisheries, tourism, and coastal way of life,” says Sierra Weaver, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This is an area that has never been drilled for oil production. These are places and communities that rely on natural resources like clean air and clean water for the quality of life and the lifestyle that they know.”

The White House surely knew its twin decisions would raise firestorms from both the left and right.

A head fake in advance of a Keystone pipeline veto? Or a sop?