Keynesians were right

Not that they'll get any credit for it or that anyone will listen to them now.

On the analytical front: many economists these days reject out of hand the Keynesian model, preferring to believe that a fall in supply rather than a fall in demand is what causes recessions. But there are clear implications of these rival approaches. If the slump reflects some kind of supply shock, the monetary and fiscal policies followed since the beginning of 2008 would have the effects predicted in a supply-constrained world: large expansion of the monetary base should have led to high inflation, large budget deficits should have driven interest rates way up. And as you may recall, a lot of people did make exactly that prediction. A Keynesian approach, on the other hand, said that inflation would fall and interest rates stay low as long as the economy remained depressed. Guess what happened?

I'm sure you readers know the answer. But the perpetually wrong will never admit it, because, well, they just don't do that. Confidence in one's wrongness gets you a gig in the TV punditry. Especially if it supports the preferred narrative. Thoughtful, nuanced analysis, not so much.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

House of Cards Economy

At least as far back as 2004 I was calling the Bushenomic Boom a house of cards and it finally fell in 2008. When Obama took over just after the crash, I had hoped and rather expected that his administration would rebuild with bricks and mortar this time. Sadly, as Ruth explains here, they simply restacked the card house. Do read it all, but the closer is scary because it's true.

Still soaring in its visions, the corporate class still will not see that it has been proved wrong. What was bad for individuals is bad for corporate interests as well, but those diminished profits haven’t hit home with the believers in ‘market efficiencies’ and ‘trickle down’ myth. That your debt is their profit is as far as they can see. That is the lowest and last layer in the total house of cards our economy had become. If they can’t let go, and become part of the functioning, REAL, economy that last layer is on the verge of tumbling.

Believing in myths, and putting a balance on their books that ignores investments in bundled "toxic" mortgages – which include a preponderance of debt that will go unpaid – means that REAL value has been wiped out. Holding tight to a blind faith in outmoded and wrong theories has led to a whole system based on a ground floor that is gone.

"Mark to Market" – the term for accepting actual monetary reckoning on all those bundled bad mortgages – is the sound of that last row of cards beginning to believe in gravity.

A lot of smart people talk about lost decades in terms of economic blunders. I have a growing fear that when it falls this time, we'll be looking at a lost century. But however long it lasts till they finally get it right, it surely won't be pretty.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Growing Police State

The only defense ordinary citizens have against police misconduct is videotaping arrests. What kind of society have we become when this is allowed to happen?

The resisting-arrest conviction last week of Felicia Gibson has left a lot of people wondering. Can a person be charged with resisting arrest while observing a traffic stop from his or her own front porch?

Salisbury Police Officer Mark Hunter thought so, and last week District Court Judge Beth Dixon agreed. Because Gibson did not at first comply when the officer told her and others to go inside, the judge found Gibson guilty of resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer.

Gibson was not the only bystander watching the action on the street. She was the only one holding up a cell-phone video camera. But court testimony never indicated that Hunter told her to stop the camera; he just told her to go inside.

The cop never attempted to arrest her as far as I can see. She just didn't jump when he told her to leave her own porch on her own property. Maybe there's more to it than this sketchy account but I don't see any imminent danger to the public in this story either. Seems like the new police motto is bully and intimidate. Sure doesn't look like, protect and serve anymore.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Little known facts about well known bloggers

I always knew Howie Klein was some kind of big wheel in the entertainment business before he organized Act Blue, probably the most effective progressive PAC around. And he wowed me with his encylcopedic knowledge of politicians when I heard him being interviewed on some radio show about a month or so ago. So yeah, I always knew he was cool, but I never appreciated how really very cool the guy is, until I read Digby's post. Just wow.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

A jobs agenda or a Billionaire Bailout?

Though I've been guilty of it myself, I've come to loathe the "What ___ Should Do" genre of pontificating. However, Steve Benen comes up with an especially good one that I happen to agree with and have been planning to pitch myself next week once the politicians are paying attention again.

I realize that the likelihood of Congress passing anything in this environment is, to put it charitably, remote. If Republicans aren't willing to let the Senate vote on extended unemployment benefits, and House Republicans were willing to lay off tens of thousands of school teachers, then winning a vote on job creation is almost certainly impossible.

But why not have the fight anyway? Why not force Republicans to fight against a jobs bill two months before the elections? Why not let the public see exactly what both sides want to do to give the economy a boost, and determine which is preferable?

Why not ask voters which they prefer -- a jobs agenda or a Billionaire Bailout?

Seems simple enough to me. Dems put together a simple bill, no complicated amendments, clearly designed to create jobs. Not just save existing jobs, but create decent paying employment for the millions who are out of work and dare the GOP to fight them on it.

Worst Congressperson in America

This is one contest I'm glad to see my crazy Congresslizard win. Between getting used to the job and battling this incessant illness, whatever it is, I've sorely neglected Billy Kennedy. This win from Blue America should help some.



More details at DWT but you happen to be someone with a few bucks to spare, getting this one the air is a good cause. Crazy old Foxx has over a million in her warchest and Billy only has about 70K. If we're to get rid of her, he's going to need some help.

The Kochtopus

If you missed the New Yorker article on the Koch Brothers, I recommend it for your Sunday reading. Frank Rich has a decent summary, but to get the full impact you really should read the full New Yorker piece. It's so dense, it's hard to pull quotes but here's just one:

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

Really. Read it all. Under the heading, know thine enemy, the gory details on how they're systematically trying to destroy every progressive gain of the last century is valuable knowledge.

What do they stand for?

I've been talking about this pretty much since last summer. It's obvious what the tea party types are against, but as Steve Benen notes today, in the aftermath of the Beck's grand theft of MLK's dream rally, what they're for is still murky.

I occassionally ask the cons in my comment section myself. What liberties have they lost? What freedom do they need restored and so on. They never really answer, but it's pretty obvious to me what they want to freedom from tolerance, the liberty to dictate tax dollars don't assist anyone they consider unworthy and the imposition of their "Christian values" on the rest of us by dint of government mandate.

I don't really think of most of them are bad people, especially the elderly ones who have been frightened and manipulated into fighting against their own best interests. Yet, they are part of the problem and if we're to save civil society, sadly, these are the people we must battle.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Dream a little dream, of me

Just can't shake this illness. It keeps fluctuating between better and worse. Felt reasonably ok at work today. Was thinking snorting the saline solution was helping. But when I got home, I suddenly got very tired and my temperature spiked to 100.3 again. So I decided to take an aspirin and a nap.

Set the alarm for 6:00. When it woke me up, I couldn't turn the damn thing off. Pulling the plug didn't work. I was literally breaking it apart with my bare hands, disconnecting all the wires. Meanwhile, my old co-worker and my old next door neighbor showed up. Along with a few strangers. They wouldn't help me stop the beeping but had weird convos with me instead.

I finally woke up for real at 6:06. Such a vivid dream. So meta. So weird.

Chris Christie pwned

This is most amusing story I've read in the last 24 hours. The Con's Con, "straight-talking" Chris Christie got pwned by the Obama administration.
It was, according to New Jersey’s governor, a $400 million mistake. The state was drenched in recriminations on Wednesday as Gov. Chris Christie said a clerical error by a midlevel official had caused the state to lose out on $400 million in federal school reform money — an error that caused its Race to the Top grant application to fall short of the 10-member winner’s circle by just three points. [...]

“That’s the stuff that drives people nuts about government, and that’s what the Obama administration should answer for,” he said. “When the president comes back to New Jersey, he is going to have to explain to the people of the state of New Jersey why he is depriving them of $400 million that this application earned them, because one of his Bureaucrats in Washington couldn’t pick up the phone and ask a question.”

Fortunately, "federal officials released a video on Thursday evening showing that Mr. Schundler and his administration had not provided the information when asked."

The video pretty much makes a liar out of Christie. Local Jersey pols quoted at the link say he won't survive. I doubt that. His fans won't care and corrupt politicians are a way of life there.

Still amusing though. First he harumped about being disappointed if he was misled. Ultimately he fired Schundler. Word has it Schundler wanted to get fired instead of resign, so he could collect unemployment. These people should be in jail for killing irony.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Generals hate cutback plan

Sorry, I was too sick to blog last night, but this is worth reading this morning. As you may recall DefSec Gates called for thinning the ranks of top brass at the Pentagon. Unsurprisingly, Pentagon top brass hate the idea.

Pentagon officials said the measures were aimed at more than a number. Mr. Gates said he wanted to flatten a bureaucracy that had experienced significant “brass creep,” swelling to “cumbersome and top-heavy proportions.” He complained, for example, that a request to send a dog-handling team to Afghanistan goes through no fewer than five four-star headquarters. [...]

According to the Pentagon, there are now 963 generals and admirals leading the armed forces, about 100 more than on Sept. 11, 2001. Meanwhile, the overall number of active duty personnel has declined to some 1.5 million from 2.2 million in 1985, even though the Army and Marine Corps have grown since the Sept. 11 attacks, to carry out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's not even that these guys make all that money.

The salary cap for generals is about $180,000, up from $130,000 a decade ago, according to Todd Harrison at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a private research group in Washington. Like all officers and enlisted personnel, generals have the benefit of the military pension system, which gives everybody who serves 40 years a pension equal to their full pay.

It's their support staff that cost the taxpayers so much.

Salaries and benefits, however, are the least of it. The biggest costs are created by the generals’ staffs — including security details, senior advisers, communications teams, schedulers and personal aides. Mr. Harrison said that the annual cost of salary, benefits and staff for each of the military’s highest-ranking generals and admirals — 40 four-star and 146 three-star — easily exceeded $1 million.

The interviewed generals are peeved that they're being charged with a culture of entitlement. But what the hell do they do all day? Their war strategies haven't exactly been a brilliant success except for military contractors. And I'm betting these same guys are out there suggesting union pensioners should get cut off because "we just can't afford to pay them anymore."

310 Million Tits

Meet Alan Simpson, chief muckety-muck of President Obama's Catfood Commission and apparently their designated jackass. His response to a critical post at HuffPo?

Alan Simpson believes that Social Security is “like a milk cow with 310 million tits,” according to an email he sent to the executive director of National Older Women's League Tuesday morning. [...]

His email is peppered with exclamation points and condescension. At one point he urged Carson to read a certain graph, "which I hope you are able to discern if you are any good at reading graphs."

Simpson concludes by implying that leading a major organization dedicated to the interests of middle-aged and elderly women is not "honest work."

"If you have some better suggestions about how to stabilize Social Security instead of just babbling into the vapors, let me know," he writes. "And yes, I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too. It's the same with any system in America. We've reached a point now where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"

This is the guy our President entrusted to steer the future of our social spending? Many updates at the link and he's apologized but too late. This guy clearly thinks the social safety net is not needed and characterizes the working poor who spent their lives paying into the system, greedy tit suckers for expecting to receive the benefits they were promised? He's gotta go.

Florida burning

It's bigotry day in the news. Those good "Christian" nutcases in Florida intend to go forward with their "burn a Koran day" and announced yesterday they will have a security force at the conflageration.

Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones has accepted the support of Right Wing Extreme, which he said offered to come to the church with between 500 and 2,000 men on September 11. He described the organization as an armed civilian militia group.

And without a trace of irony, this:

But in a statement sent to CNN by the Dove World Outreach Center, Right Wing Extreme founder Shannon Carson said: "We fully support Dove World Outreach Center and its efforts to put an end to the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. Islam is a violent cult with the goal of world domination."

As opposed to the Christian Taliban who want to ban birth control, criminalize abortion and otherwise force their religion beliefs into public law? And why am I suddenly remembering Altamont?

Muslim cabbie attacked in NYC - Updated

The poison fruit of Pam Geller's bigotry ripens in the Big Apple. A NYC cabbie was slashed by his passenger after admitting he's a Muslim. TPM has the latest details. The vicious young thug will be charged with a hate crime. Glad the cabbie was able to lock him inside the cab so he can't escape justice.

Update: The cabbie released a statement describing the incident. Horrifying.

Pro-Park51 rally

This is a bright spot in the dark morass of anti-Islam bigotry. Some supporters of freedom of religion surface in the Big Apple.

(New York, NY) -- A newly formed group that includes a number of family members of 9-11 victims is rallying today in support of the building of a mosque near Ground Zero.

The 9-11 families group "September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" is teaming up with at least 40 religious and civic organizations to form a coalition called "New York Neighbors For American Values." The coalition is expected to hold an afternoon rally at the municipal building in Manhattan.

I hope they get a huge turnout.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Terrorist recruitment tools

I've seen a few people suggest that we're not allowed to mention how the far right is aiding the enemy with this current anti-Islam fever because that what they said about us when we protested the war in the first place. Well screw that false equivalence. It's true about them. Counter-terrorism experts believe it's "playing right into the hands of radical extremists." There's proof.

The supercharged debate over the proposed center has attracted the attention of a quiet, underground audience -- young Muslims who drift in and out of jihadi chat rooms and frequent radical Islamic sites on the Web. It has become the No. 1 topic of discussion in recent days and proof positive, according to some of the posted messages, that America is indeed at war with Islam.

In contrast, when we were arguing, and marched and fought against the invasions and occupations, we sent the opposite message. One would think that would be obvious.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Breaking: News viewership goes down in August

This cold is just kicking my butt. All I want to do is sleep until about September when the cold and the stupid discourse ends. Take this "important" item, that I didn't actually read beyond the blurb below at Memeorandum.

The network newscast ratings for last week are in and “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” tied its all-time low in total viewers with an average of 4.89 million tuning in during the five days. — The low was set last June, when ABC also hit its own low.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that the last two weeks in August are the biggest summer vacation time. Similarly, June is the big start of vacation season for those who can't afford August hotel rates. And if I recall the lastest ratings I've seen for cable shows, this is still about 4 million more than Fox's most popular news programming.

Bizarre how people get so hung up on the numbers. They have nothing to do with reach. Their only use is to bamboozle advertisers into believing they're getting some value for often gerrymandered statistics. Yes, I'm talking to you internet sites that make me click through four pages and two pop-ups to get to the story I'm trying to read.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Angry Mob

They are not protesters exercising their right to peaceably assemble. They are thugs. Worse yet, they are out of town thugs.

The day began with hundreds of anti-mosque protesters roaring into Lower Manhattan on motorcycles. Within hours both sides had gathered en masse.

And here's what happened when a guy who looked Muslim-ish walked by:



When these tea party thugs claim they want their liberty, what they really mean is they want to reclaim their right to exercise their bigotry in public. Or as a Balloon-Juice commenter put it, "They got one thing right: Ground Zero is being desecrated. Just not by Muslims."

This wasn't even really about the so-called mosque. It was about hating Islam by people who got their "education" on the subject from Rush Limbaugh. And ironically, the brown skinned guy they were threatening is a construction worker who works at Ground Zero.

What worries me most is I don't think the GOP is going to get the big sweep these guys are expecting in November. When they lose, this stuff is going to feel mild in comparison to what comes next.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Not Angry Enough

Quote of the Day:

California Congressman Darrell Issa told a California Republican Party meeting that the tea party isn’t angry enough.

“We have to say to the tea party: You’re not strident enough, you’re not angry enough and the government has gone far enough,” Issa said.

Just once, I'd like to see someone point out to these fools that they are the government that screwed it up in the first place.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

25 Things you should know about Other People

Via my pal Erin, these 25 things you should know about other people is one of the best things I've read all week. And it's from an erotic model no less. Not your usual listicle. My favorites:

5. For a lot of people, music is a reflection of who they are and their relationship to life. Remember that before insulting someone’s favorite band.

15. For most people religion is a social commitment more than a spiritual one.

18. For nearly every crazy idea, you can find a fully credentialed scientist who will back it up.

And also from Erin, I didn't realize today was National Topless Day. I'm getting a bit too old to march myself, but I'm with them in spirit. One of the biggest differences I've noticed in my travels between the US and Europe is the silly American fear and loathing of the female breast in particular and nudity in general. Breaking down those barriers is a good thing.

What's at stake in November

My commenters at DetNews freaked me out this morning. I've known some of these guys for years and while I've been irritated by their capacity for cognitive dissonance, I considered them bascially good people. But today, in response to my latest post in a series on the violent rhetoric of the far right, more than one actually told me that "killing for liberty" is not only okay, it's justifiable. So they've gone from claiming they don't condone violence and that these are just "lone wolves" to it's okay to kill your fellow Americans who don't subscribe to your political ideology.

Over the great orange Satan, this poster touches on the same metamorphosis and expresses some of the emotions I've having over this development. Worth reading in full, but here's some of the salient points:

The question of protecting the nation or the principles on which it was built is no longer the focus of "conservative" arguments -- it's not even a side note -- because this group no longer makes any distinction between the common good and their own self interest. They have reached the conclusion that their success is worth any price, even if that price is fatal to the founding principles of the nation. They have no canon but victory, no concept of restraint.

What we're facing in a few short weeks is a critical test; one that I believe may do more to determine our future than any action inside our own borders for over a century. ...It's the idea that personality can outweigh facts, and that force can author "justice" as well as any law. It's the conviction that those with hard-won knowledge are dangerous, and need to be overruled by "common sense." It's the view that history has an unfortunate bias, one that can be adjusted with a careful "correction" of the textbooks. It's the doctrine that only a portion of the populace is Real Americans deserving of liberty, and the rest must be dealt with as enemies. ...

Those that have taken the place of the traditional Republican Party (and the once reasonable politicians who have thrown over their long held ideals to grovel for these new masters) are not just battling with some aspects of science, they're waging war on reason. Not just tinkering with immigration policy, but sharply narrowing the meaning of the word "American." What's at stake isn't whether laws will be passed favorable to our positions, or whether laws will be passed that we don't like -- the real question is whether the United States will continue as a nation of laws.

GOPers create wedge issues of hate every cycle, but this one suddenly seems much more dangerous to me than ever before. I don't actually think most of the blowhards of the far right have the courage to actually go out there and face death for liberty, but it seems they're willing to cheer from the sidelines to encourage the crazies who do.

Maybe it's just that this cold is making me feel weak and crummy, but today for the first time, I'm really scared in a way I've never been before.

Gay marriage versus civil unions

I admit outside of unequivocally supporting equal rights for gay couples, I haven't really studied the particulars about why gay marriage is different than civil unions. I was recently challenged on this point in a discussion at facebook with a devout Catholic. It's not that I didn't know some of this, but for instance I wasn't aware that many states don't recognize civil unions from other states, whereas marriages are universally recognized even if the laws differ between states.

Anyway, this is informative and worth archiving for those debates you might find yourself in with some random gay basher. [via Avedon]

Sick bed blogging

I am so sick I can't deal with our stupid political discourse at all today. So some links of interest I've been saving up.

Hours of fun at The BBC Mastermind Quiz. It's Brit centric, so it's harder than it sounds. It appears to be the qualifying quiz for some Brit show like Jeopardy, or maybe more like Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Hilarious typo on this CNN graphic. Funny because it's true.

I guessed this wrong. The most popular selling item at WalMart.

Incredible Indian Cave Temples.

Love this stuff. 24 vintage brochures.

Nice shot of Mark Knoller.

I'm still loving Neato Coolville. Have to put this on the blogroll so I can check it more often. Found this vintage commercial there.



Wasn't sure it was still around, but just noticed at the big box store that they still sell this candy. I wouldn't eat it on bet now, but I recall liking it as a kid.

Sick

Had to work today and I seem to coming down with a wicked bad cold. And yeah, I'm sick of the stupid discourse of August. To the extent I'm going to post today, I just did at DetNews.

I'm off to bed and dumb TV. The THIS channel is running a marathon of Jeff Bridges worst movies. Wild Bill is on right now. Jeff looks so cute in long hair... Back tomorrow.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

If the deficit hawks win...

This is what our future could look like.

The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

Actually, if you read the article, Greece looks a lot like us right now even though the measures did cut their deficit.

The problem is that the austerity measures have in the meantime affected every aspect of the country's economy. Purchasing power is dropping, consumption is taking a nosedive and the number of bankruptcies and unemployed are on the rise. The country's gross domestic product shrank by 1.5 percent in the second quarter of this year. Tax revenue, desperately needed in order to consolidate the national finances, has dropped off.

...The package included reducing civil servants' salaries by up to 20 percent and slashing retirement benefits...

Slashing salaries and benefits for government and union workers is a popular theme among my "fan club" at DetNews lately. If I was inclined to engage with them on it, I might mention that these same people are always accusing me being jealous of the success of the greedy CEO class but base their "logic" on demanding these cuts for working people on the basis that they're making X% more than other workers.

I could have also pointed out that these same guys are always accusing me of basing my positions on "my emotions" instead of logic, yet they argued without irony that the Park51 cultural center shouldn't be built because it hurts their feelings. Admit I'm sometimes jealous that I can't reach that level of cognitive dissonance. I'd probably sleep better.

Happy Birthday Women's Sufferage

The USA is 234 years old. Women have only had the right to vote for 90 years.

A lot of changes for women's rights happened even later, both socially and in the workplace. Also racial discrimination was only outlawed 46 years ago. Remember that whenever you get frustrated by the glacially slow pace of political change.

Quote of the Day

From the very smart Lance Mannion:

At this point the choice is not between how great it would've been if WH had listened to us and how shitty it is. It's between how shitty it is and how much more shitty it's going to get if GOP takes over.

Read his blog too.

Blindsided, or just blind?

Ken Bazinet reports internal griping among Democrats whining that they were "blindsided when President Obama weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque Park51 cultural center and handed the GOP a new club to beat them with."

Several Democratic campaign operatives complained that without a heads-up, they did not have the time to war-game how to handle questions from the news media or GOP attacks.

"They did the right thing - they just didn't do it the right way," lamented another Democratic source.

Rumor also has it Rahm Emanuel and Obama's top political advisers didn't want him to step into the fray at all. Makes me all the prouder of Obama for going ahead and standing up for the constitutional principle despite the naysayers. It was certainly in the best interests of civil society that he do so and the crybaby Dems should be embarrassed that they find it so difficult to put the nation's well-being ahead of their own political concerns.

Meanwhile, a bunch of Dems are also peeved at Reid for opposing the Mosque Park51 cultural center without warning them first. That strikes me as a much more legitimate gripe, but not sure why they're surprised. Reid has never exactly been a profile in political courage. They probably should have expected him to be the first to cave into the GOP's ragemongering.

US consumers cut back on health care

Given the economic times, it isn't really a surprise, but this new report showing the reduced use of routine medical care is not a good trend.

Among Americans responding to the survey, they said, 26.5 percent reported reducing their use of routine medical care since the start of the global economic crisis in 2007.

This proportion dwarfs the comparable numbers for other countries: 5.3 percent in Canada, 7.6 percent in Britain, 10.3 percent in Germany and 12 percent in France.

The reductions correlate with the size of the of the out of pocket costs, which occur even in countries with universal coverage. The good news is, "Several provisions of the new health care law, signed by President Obama in March, could counter the trend described in the report." The bad news is that will take years to happen.

The long term impact on the development of serious illnesses won't be known for years either but even for those who have good health insurance plans, this is still worrisome. When medical providers start losing this kind of money, costs will go up for everyone to cover the shortfalls in their budgets. Vicious cycle.

It's not even really a mosque

The narrative about the Islamic cultural center, wrongly being framed as the Ground Zero mosque, just got light years dumber with Harry Reid weighing in to say they shouldn't build it there. Of course, it's not a real surprise that he decided to pander to the bigotry currently ruling the southwest states. The GOP there did anoint a complete nutjob as his opponent and he's far from the only one bringing on the stupid.

There are some sane voices in the crowd. A couple of bloggers are posting photos of this so-called hallowed ground. And I'm pretty sure that a majority of the crazy cons who are hollering the loudest about this "insult" have probably never been to New York and have a ridiculously skewed vision of what the project will look like. I expect it will be as unidenifiable as the this existing mosque that already sits about a block away from the proposed construction site.

The actual mosque is apparently in the basement. Meanwhile the best question I've heard posed to the media today was "who are the 9/11 families organized in opposition to Cordoba House?" Josh Marshall investigates and finds no evidence there is widespread disfavor among the actual families of the 9/11 dead. Our brilliant fourth estate apparently thinks one woman, the wife of one of the pilots on the airplanes, who has partnered with Liz Cheney is representative of the thousands of families who as far as I know haven't rendered a public opinion.

Have to say this "story" has become so absurd and hateful it makes the idiot tea shouters of last summer at the town halls look reasonable. Find myself wishing for the next shiny object to occupy the media, so this insanity can end.

Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Working this morning, so just a quick linkfest. If you're a fan, or just fond of the 60s, this profile of Jimi Hendrix is a must read. Lots of insider stuff that I've never read anywhere else about the music scene in London.

Also for the boomers, if you loved the old TV shows, you'll enjoy Lorne Greene singing the theme song to Bonanza. Who knew it had lyrics?

A very funny exchange of emails between a parent and school chaplin.

Didn't read this one but I loved the title, The Real Power Behind the Throne: An Exclusive Tell-All Interview with Glenn Beck’s Blackboard.

Tough times for freelance writers. My pal Erin tells all about writing for demand media.

A really beautiful sunset.

Loved this art. Traffic light tree.

My friend R. Clayton McKee explains what White Linen Night is, in pictures.

And my pal started a new blog, lots of photos of Philly and a look inside The Mind of William Lodge.

[photo credit]

Obama speaks out for NYC mosque - not good enough?

By now you've heard that President Obama made a strong statement in support of the NYC mosque during his hosting of a Ramadan dinner yesterday. As everyone is saying, this is of course a very good thing and in a sane world it wouldn't have even been necessary. I'd add for all those who have been complaining for weeks that Obama refused to make a statement on this issue, timing is everything. This statement will carry a much larger impact because he made it at Ramadan.

And while I'm thinking about impatient leftys, this Empywheel tweet drives me crazy:

Obviously, the gay community just needs a big symbolic holiday, w/good food, at which POTUS can declare his support.

For crying out loud. I love Marcy. She's done tremendous work for progressive causes and her coverage of the Scooter Libby trial launched the leftosphere into relevance but cripes, is it really so hard to celebrate a good moment for Obama by conflating it with a negative? It's like saying yeah, I loved the brand new car you got me, but you didn't give a big fat diamond ring too. Pretty sure this is what Gibbs was talking about when he was made the cracks about the professional left.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Tea Party takes stand against net neutrality

The entire tea party platform can be pretty much be reduced to one basic tenet. If liberals are for something, they're against it.

A coalition that included 35 Tea Party groups sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday urging the agency not to boost its authority over broadband providers through a controversial process known as reclassification.

The process could give federal regulators the power to impose net neutrality rules, which would prevent Internet access providers from favoring some content and applications over others.

Talk about useful fools. Prodded by their corporate puppetmasters like FreedomWorks, the TPs are buying the telcos argument that it's a free speech issue. In the interests of civility, I'll suppress my rant and just repeat Steve Benen's take on this point.

Now, like most of this crowd's positions, that's obviously backwards. In fact, watching the Tea Partiers for a while now, there seems to be one common thread to all of their positions: seemingly well-intentioned, but deeply confused, people let their anti-government zealotry get in the way of reason.

Which is true, but the fact that they're apparently largely driven by their unmitigated hatred for anything Democratic or liberal is still pathetic and disturbing.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Dead fish on Jersey Shore

They came out of nowhere, thousands of dead, small bait fish washed up on Cape May in New Jersey overnight. No one knows what killed them but they're at the bottom of the food chain.

They've ruled out red tide and are looking at oxygen levels, but I'm willing to bet it was the allegedly disappeared Corexit/oil mix from the Gulf, which is much more toxic than either substance alone. The dispersant made the oil invisible so BP could lowball the spill, but the poison is still out there.

Lost the link to the video when my computer just crashed, but the local resident said the seagulls won't touch them. They know.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Our tabloid media

Internets are especially irritating today, but I did run across this article from The Atlantic that was an interesting read. The author traces the trajectory of television news and how, "Earnest cost centers where scrappy reporters purported to do the Lord’s work gave way to slick operations, seen as sources of profit, whose anchors commanded massive salaries."

He blames it on cable and the corporatization of news programming that led to a focus on profit over information. More interesting is his expose of how the genre of "missing white girl" stories are generated. Also notwithstanding the claims that they don't pay for interviews, well, they do through the back door.

“It’s a very defined underworld of behavior that people really don’t talk about,” said the former booker. “All the networks have policies not to pay.” Indeed, most network news divisions are officially prohibited from paying sources for interviews, but they can get around that problem in any number of ways. In addition to paying a fee to a middleman, rather than to a subject, the network might conduct the interview in a lavish location, with all expenses paid and tickets to Broadway shows or Disney World thrown in. Or the network might pay for the use of a photo or video, with the interview coming along “for free.” Sometimes, a trashier evening tabloid show will license photos and get a coveted interview, and then both are recycled onto a more respectable morning or evening news program on the same network, which can broadcast them freely while leaving its own checkbook unsullied. In each instance, everyone knows what’s happening except the viewers.

The piece profiles one such middleman. Too bad most viewers won't see this, or even care if they do. In fact, it will probably inspire at least a few people to do crazy stuff so they can cash in too. [Via Greg Mitchell.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Gibbs fights back - Updated

You know its August because the only thing going on in politics is internet spats. This "interview" with Gibbs in The Hill has the hippies in a mass snit this morning. I put scare quotes around interview because it's really just The Hill's spin with a couple of isolated, link baiting quotes but here's the gist.

...White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

He's not entirely wrong about that. Nor is this completely untrue.

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.

Outside of the netroots bubble, I still see a lot of support for Obama. And frankly, there are days when even I get tired of the relentless netroots outrage about every single thing that isn't accomplished instantly, while the administration's successes are very nearly ignored. The empath in me can't help but think that nobody is inspired to cooperate under the weight of constant criticism.

My friend Creature takes a measured tone about it, but thinks Gibbs' hippie punching was unnecessary. That's true enough but me, I can't worked up over it at all. I see the netroots beating up on Obama nearly every single day on the internets. It doesn't matter if they have legitimate gripes or if they're being unrealistic, the fact is they're dishing it out. So the way I figure it, Gibbs, right or wrong, should be allowed to punch back once in a while. Everybody needs to vent sometimes.

Meanwhile, young Ezra is wise for his years. He puts his finger on the underlying dynamic.

And so it is here: The left is angry at the White House, and the White House is angry at the left, and both may be justified in their annoyance and tactical critiques, but the tension is actually a result of the rules allowing 41 senators to block the will of 59.

I think he's right. Everyone is just frustrated by the failures of the process and besides, a big Dem establishment/netroots fight has become an August tradition.

Update: I no sooner posted this than I see Gibbs apologized and clarified his remarks. Which isn't good enough for the quoted high profile lefty critics at the link...

Gates: Slash the ranks

I wasn't all that thrilled when Obama kept Gates on, but I'm liking that he's walking his talk on slashing Pentagon spending. I don't hate this at all.

Gates said he will recommend that President Obama dismantle the U.S. Joint Forces Command, which employs about 2,800 military and civilian personnel as well as 3,300 contractors, most of them in southeastern Virginia. He also said he will terminate two other Pentagon agencies, impose a 10 percent cut in intelligence advisory contracts and slim down what he called a "top-heavy hierarchy" by thinning the ranks of admirals and generals by at least 50 positions.

The reduction in funding for contract employees -- by 10 percent annually over three years -- excludes those in war zones.

Which of course means the fattest of fat cat military contractors are safe from the cuts. But hey, you have to start somewhere and cutting out a big chunk of the brass is a pretty good place to start.

Sarah Palin did something stupid

And once again Caribou Barbie wins the news cycle. Stupid like a fox. An impeccable manipulator for media attention. She doesn't care about the laughing and pointing as long as they spell her name right.

Still winning this morning.

In slightly related news, I didn't read this, but loved the headline. Levi Johnston for Mayor of Wassilla. Why not? He likely would make a far better Mayor than her Royal Slimeness was.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Priceless

Act Blue steps in where the DNC refuses to tread and lends a hand to John Boehner's progressive challenger:



Via Digby who has the backstory and more details on the combined TV ad and billboard campaign.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

"The ignored conscience of an increasingly crackpot party"

Since we're talking about South Carolina, this isn't all that surprising, but it's sad. Rep. Bob Inglis, "a voice of reason at a dumb, unreasonable time in American politics," is out of a job "for not hating Barack Obama nearly enough." He was trounced in the GOP primary by a Tea Party extremist willing to pander to the misplaced anger of Beckheads.

On some level, I'm not all that sad to see incumbents being kicked out on either side. I believe overly long entrenched politicians are a big part of what's broken in our system of goverance. But I'm sorry to see one that talks like this get beaten down by a ragemonger.

"I figured out early in the race I was taking a risk by being unwilling to call the President a socialist," Inglis says. "I'd get asked a question and they'd all wait to see if I'd use the word - socialist - they were throwing around. I wouldn't. Because I don't think that's what he is.

"To call him a socialist is to demean the office and stir up a passion that we need to be calming, rather than constantly stirring up." [...]

"When you have one of our so-called leaders saying that Obama is a socialist, then others feel empowered to dial up the rhetoric and call him a Marxist. Or a Communist. Then you have something worse than words, you have the dehumanizing and demonizing of the President of the United States. And when that happens across history, scary things can happen." [...]

"Why do I have to see Democrats as my enemies? I've got Al Qaeda. I've got the Taliban. I've got enough enemies. I'm supposed to call this President despicable? The people who are despicable are the ones who constantly mislead the public in the interest of selling books. Or themselves. And always cloaking themselves in patriotism. Shame on them." [...]

"But then what do I know?" Bob Inglis says. "I lost."

The author of the post sums up this sorry outcome perfectly.

His district did. His state did. His party did. He did not.

True enough, he got out with his integrity intact.

Since this is South Carolina, the Tea Party guy is likely to win. He'll be a disaster in DC. That's unlikely to bother the useful fools who will elect him, but for the greater part of electorate that still don't understand how dangerously unhinged this faction is, he will serve as a living illustration of how extreme the Tea Party movement is and there will be a backlash in 2012. So there's that...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Sunday Songbook

Too much angry on the internets today so how about some cool Delta Blues.



Via my pal Rascality.

Take this job and shove it...

I've been trying to catch up on blogs I haven't read in way too long. Avedon seems to be posting less and less often these days but she's still always worth starting at the top and scrolling. I especially recommend her rant here on the myth that all we need to do is retrain older workers. It starts like this:

And, honest to gods, I so want to smack people around when they talk about retraining. Some of the most skilled and educated people in America are out of work and will probably never have another job because they are regarded as too old. For the most part, they will have better educations and be more literate and have wider experience than the younger people who come up behind them because they were educated before the Reagan administration set to work destroying our educational system.

Read the whole thing at the link. Atrios talked about this a while ago too. That post is long buried but he's right in saying that for people in their late 50s and older, retraining for a new career is ridiculous. Even a two year program takes you that closer to retirement age and the bottom line is no one wants to hire older workers for anything. Competency is not valued, it's considered a threat and to even get a crummy job, in this age group you have to pretend to be less skilled or else you're considered "over-qualified." Atrios suggested lowering the retirement age to 62, which sounds to me like a better solution than raising it to 70 when there's no jobs to be had.

Meanwhile, Avedon also links to a few short interviews done with well know bloggers at Netroots. I liked that Digby gave a shout out to Dan at Pruning Shears. He's one of the most under-appreciated bloggers out there, right next to my much cherished friend Capt. Fogg. They both always have enlightening posts and eloquent styles that should have launched them into greater glory by now.

Do yourself a favor on a slow news weekend and read them both, right now.

The GOP's Flim Flam Man

Love it when Paul Krugman gets shrill. He nails Paul Ryan's deceptive and idiotic “Roadmap for America’s Future” even while the Very Serious People are all gushing over the "intellectual adaucity" of the GOP's newest "idea man."

Mr. Ryan’s plan calls for steep cuts in both spending and taxes. He’d have you believe that the combined effect would be much lower budget deficits, and, according to that Washington Post report, he speaks about deficits “in apocalyptic terms.” And The Post also tells us that his plan would, indeed, sharply reduce the flow of red ink: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.”

But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan’s request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.

Of course, a closer look at Ryan's "new" plan shows it is the same old GOP ploy only this time with bigger tax cuts for the wealthy and a greater shafting of the working class. Also health care rationing for the elderly via vouchers.

Seriously one of Krugman's very best columns and be sure to read the companion piece, How to Read a CBO Report.

Not brain surgery

I tend to think the internet pundit class offers way too much unsolicited advice, but Steve Benen, in response to reports that some in the House are nervous about voting for the state's aid bill, has some of the sagest words for the Democrats I've seen in a long while.

Passing the state-aid bill should be the easiest of no-brainers, but the fact that even this is problematic makes ambitious policymaking impossible. Ideally, right now, Democrats should be preparing a massive jobs bill, without any concern at all for the deficit. When asked if they consider job growth more important than the deficit, Dems should be bold about it: "You're damn right we do."

It's not just about the economy, it's about standing for something, and standing up to the GOP lies and the media who dutifully reports those lies as "disagreements." Dems promised to do that "if only they had a majority" but every time I look Harry Reid is negotiating to weaken bills instead of leading a fight against false memes.

I'm tired of excuses and screw seniority. If the Dems manage to hold on to a majority, thinking it's time for a new Leader.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Hit and Run

Working this morning so just a couple of links. If you didn't read the post about the conservative cabal at Digg, here's the long version where they give details on how it worked and name names.

Also, I haven't looked at this yet, but it was getting rave reviews around the internets. Jon Stewart's righteous rant on the failure of the 9/11 victims benefits bill.

I'll be back later.

Have a cold brew

It's International Beer Day and if you're celebrating with a craft beer, thank Jimmy Carter. One of those rare instances when dereg worked for the better for the consumer.

As for me, in light of my present financial state, I'm marking the occassion with a cold PBR. Sure it's a cheap mass produced beer, but I'm told the kids still think it's a cool brew.

Kagan quietly confirmed to SCOTUS

There was so little media attention, I almost forgot it was happening but Elena Kagan was confirmed this afternoon on a 63 to 37 vote without the usual Senate theatrics. Outside of the initial "OMG, she's probably a lesbian" when she was first nominated, this was the quietest confirmation I recall in my lifetime.

Guess the wingers and theocrats are too worked up over the overturning of PropHate in California yesterday to spare much outrage for Kagan. And of course, immigrant bashing and overturning the 14th Amendment been keeping them busy too. I suppose the GOPers figured that would be a much better wedge issue for November.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Creepy carnival games for crazy cons - Updated

Guy who owns the carnival just can't understand what the problem is here.

The black "alien leader" is holding a scroll titled "Health Bill" and wearing a presidential seal belt buckle. He also has antennae and a troll doll with a KISS T-shirt on his shoulder.

The owner of the carnival company, Goodtime Amusements, dismissed a complaint, saying the figure is not meant to be Obama.

Yup, no offense intended. I mean it looks nothing like our President, does it?

And speaking of creepy, check out Andrew Breitbart's latest racism expert.

Update: That was quick. Breitbart scrubbed his site of any mention of Pezzi's name.

Conservatives cheat to win

Jules Siegel discovers a, until now, secret cabal of crazy conservatives who figured out how to game Digg in order to elevate conservative friendly posts and bury liberal ones. Of course, gaming the algorithms has long been a right wing ploy to raise their profiles on the various internet ranking sites but using it to suppress free speech is a new and ugly wrinkle. Yet they're constantly whining about how "their voices" are being suppressed by the "liberal media."

I'm so old I remember when cheats were shunned in our society. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now it's a path to success within the wingnut wurlizter.

High price for small progress

The Senate finally found a couple of GOP votes for cloture and the state's aid bill is on its way to passing. Word has it Pelosi will call the House back into session to clear it through for the President's signature.

But Mark Kleiman notes the price of those Republican votes was costly.

Republicans in the Senate have agreed to avoid some teacher layoffs: in return for cutting Food Stamps in the midst of the worst prolonged employment crisis since the Great Depression. And they might – might- be willing to approve the New Start treaty (largely negotiated under Bush II and supported by everyone with basic literacy on nuclear issues): in return for wasting additional tens of billions of dollars on fancier nuclear weapons (which presumably don’t have to be “paid for” because they don’t actually help human beings).

So save some jobs but leave the destitute hungry while they pad the pockets of their crony contractors with deficit spending. Hell of a tradeoff. You would think with 1600 pages of rules in the Senate, there has to a better way for the Dems to overcome the GOP obstructionism other than slitting their own throats with inhumane and counterproductive tradeoffs.

On the backs of the workers

The disturbing trend of forcing more productivity while cutting wages and benefits for the working class continues to grow. Obviously, with the weak economy the owners have the upper hand over hourly employees who are forced to choose between the cuts and having no job at all.

Interestingly, one rarely sees cuts reaching the executive offices. I would bet if we had a rule that the highest paid person in any organization couldn't draw compensation more than 30% higher than the lowest paid employee, management would find better ways to balance the books than on the backs of those who work the hardest to deliver what often turn out to be record profits.

Missouri rejects mandatory insurance

Shocking news. Who could have predicted? Mandatory insurance coverage isn't popular among Republicans in Missouri. The vote doesn't actually change the law. However, the GOP and their conservative apologists are trying to spin it as a huge referendum on the reforms. Perhaps they forgot that wasn't a popular provision on either side of the fence -- ever. Meanwhile, as the more well received provisions have begun to take effect, public approval of the overall law is rising.

All of which means nothing. While goverance is slow, politics are fast and volatile. It's a long way to November and any unexpected event can change everything. But barring that, and judging from the current pace of the economic recovery, it's more likely jobs will still be the issue driving the electorate.

Defending the Ground Zero Mosque

A couple of great defenses were made yesterday for building the Muslim cultural center in New York. Mayor Bloomberg made a brilliant speech within the context of the history of the fight for religious freedom in New York. The money quote:

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Also, of all people Jeffrey Goldberg made an equally eloquent defense.

Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels.

I know Feisal Abdul Rauf; I've spoken with him at a public discussion at the 96th street mosque in New York about interfaith cooperation. He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of this mosque project are giving him what he wants.

Both are well worth reading in full. In a sane world, people would listen and the protests would end.

But it snows somewhere in winter

So yeah, Al Gore is fat and manmade global warming is still unsettled.

Or for the reality based community, unsettling. [Via Balloon Juice.]

GOP follies

I have to work this afternoon so a couple of quick hits worth reading that I didn't get around to yesterday. First is Barry Ritholtz, How the GOP destroyed the American Economy. Long list, but this is one my favorite:

America’s debt explosion has resulted from the Republican Party’s embrace, three decades ago, of the insidious Supply Side doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

And Steve Benen catches the latest in GOP hypocrisy:

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) proclaimed Obama's actions "truly breathtaking" and said the government ownership roles at Chrysler and GM "should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise." [...]

Got that? Corker hated the policy last year -- it offended his notion of how the government should operate on a fundamental level -- but now that it worked, and the evidence is clear that Obama was right, he wants the public to think the president succeeded thanks to the Republican "contributions" to the policy.

This is not only a reminder of just how shameless this crowd really is, it's a reminder how fortunate America was that Republicans weren't calling the shots when the pressure was on.

I have nothing to add to that.

The world’s greatest deliberative body

“It’s time we started looking at some of these rules.” ~Senator McCaskill
The New Yorker has the best piece on our broken Senate that I've seen in years. This is one for the archives. Almost impossible to excerpt but here's just a bit:

The most pervasive authority over the institution is not the Constitution or the Bible but, rather, an impenetrable sixteen-hundred-page tome, by Floyd M. Riddick, called “Senate Procedure: Precedents and Practices,” which only the late Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, was known to have read in its entirety. The procedures are so abstruse that a parliamentarian must sit below the presiding officer and, essentially, tell him or her what to say.

And here's the closer:

The two lasting achievements of this Senate, financial regulation and health care, required a year and a half of legislative warfare that nearly destroyed the body. They depended on a set of circumstances—a large majority of Democrats, a charismatic President with an electoral mandate, and a national crisis—that will not last long or be repeated anytime soon. Two days after financial reform became law, Harry Reid announced that the Senate would not take up comprehensive energy-reform legislation for the rest of the year. And so climate change joined immigration, job creation, food safety, pilot training, veterans’ care, campaign finance, transportation security, labor law, mine safety, wildfire management, and scores of executive and judicial appointments on the list of matters that the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing. Already, you can feel the Senate slipping back into stagnant waters.

Slipping back? They barely emerged from the swamp for a brief moment too long in coming. I don't think they're ever going to drain it unless they change the rules. Significantly.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

GOP beats down Harry again

The Senate was supposed to vote on the state's aid bill today and the GOP had no ground to oppose the vote. The $26 billion price tag was completely offset "by spending reductions as well as new taxes on multinational corporations, which GOP senators are loath to support."

Last I saw on twitter, the Senate couldn't break the GOP block because they balked at the tax on the multinational corporations. Unsurprising but nonetheless I'm hearing Harry Reid is wandering around looking for new offsets to try to get those one or two GOPers that would allow the bill to move forward.

It's hard to believe with all the rules of the Senate and after almost two years of the same GOP tactics, that Harry can't come up with a better way to fight the perpetual filibuster. Jay Ackroyd keeps saying we have to accept at some point that the Democrats don't really want to win these fights. Hard to argue that isn't true in the face of Harry's relentless caving.

Update: Read Jay Ackroyd in comments. He leaves us an excellent, fuller explanation of how the Democratic complicity works -- for them, not for us.

[Thanks to Mike at Crooks & Liars for the kind link.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

And the winner is.... Fox

After weeks of lobbying, before Helen Thomas' vacated seat was even cold, the unanimous decision is Fox gets a seat in the front row in the White House briefing room. They don't get Helen's actual seat, that goes to AP and Fox gets AP's old seat. And there were more rearrangements in this game of amusical chairs, none of which will improve the utility of the briefings. Me, I don't care where they sit. This bizarre high school cafeteria level obsession with the seating arrangements won't make the questions any better.

I'm not at all surprised that Fox won this one. It's got nothing to do with journalism; it's all about the Benjamins. Fox kicks in the cash to pay for the pool coverage by the White House paparazzi so now we'll have a better view of Major joining his compatriots in tweeting their way through the briefings.

What they need is a better system for calling on the correspondents. There are people in the back who never get called on, while the prima donnas in the front row repeatedly ask the same stupid questions over and over in the vain hope they'll get Gibbs to say something different. That's the defintion of something...

Tax and spend

Don't know what got into the tradmed this weekend, but here's more debunking of the GOP narrative. William Gale hits the WaPo and explodes five myths about the Bush tax cuts. Yves adds this precious reminder about the estate tax, digging up the 2001 letter signed by 100 ultra rich people, including the "evil" Mr. Soros, opposing its repeal.

And, instead of yet another, "oh this poor rich person who had to sell one of their vacation homes" story, the NYT focuses on the long term unemployed workers over the age of 50 who have had to wipe out their retirement accounts in order to survive. That's part of what makes the proposal to raise the retirement age for Social Security so ridiculous. For many of us in this age range, it's not even going to be a choice. Few will be able to afford to retire.

The End of the American Dream

Once a person could work hard, live frugally and end up the hero in a rags to riches story. Today, that American Dream is lost:

Alexis de Tocqueville, the great French chronicler of early America, was once misquoted as having said: “America is the best country in the world to be poor.” That is no longer the case. Nowadays in America, you have a smaller chance of swapping your lower income bracket for a higher one than in almost any other developed economy – even Britain on some measures. To invert the classic Horatio Alger stories, in today’s America if you are born in rags, you are likelier to stay in rags than in almost any corner of old Europe.

Combine those two deep-seated trends with a third – steeply rising inequality – and you get the slow-burning ­crisis of American capitalism.

The family featured in this article is the new American reality. No rally, no matter how big, on Wall Street is going to lift their boat. They're three weeks away from living on the street at any given moment. Sadly, theirs is what passes for a success story in middle class America today.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]