Money = Speech

Why is it that a comedy show is where we get the best reporting and analysis?

(see the full episode here)

Two ridiculously important takeaways:
1) When people's votes are counted straight up, you get one result, but when you add in the multiplying effect of money, the result is entirely different.

2) People like Frank Luntz manipulate the language in an attempt to fog up the issues, making some of the most atrociously harmful policy proposals sound reasonable &/or beneficial* - and then topping it all off by referring to this process of obfuscation as "clarification", and calling the practitioners "Plain Speaking".

(*see Overton Window)

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Seasteading

Lurching towards the logical extreme, this is not unexpected:

PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to make its title a reality.

So we'll have a colony of wealthy residents living outside the territorial limits of the US. They're not subject to our laws and regulations, and they get to "live free" in this Randian paradise.

Makes me wonder about a few things - not the least of which is piracy.  I think if I were an enterprising individual who was already involved in something illegal like the drug trade, I might deem it worth the risk to raid one of these little settlements now and then, just to see what's available.  Better yet, some kind of protection racket might be quite profitable for me.

Just wonderin'.

Contradiction

A big chunk of "the right" loves to claim Ayn Rand as a patron saint while ignoring one of her main points, ie: contradictions exist, but cannot prevail.

By way of example:

Reconstruction

Yikes.  Got the main bill for the Hospital side of things for my Total Hip Replacement.  The bill from the surgeon should be following shortly.

Previously, I had an XRay for diagnosis, and then another XRay Study to measure for the device itself.  Those two totaled close to $1400.00.

Right now, I'm getting two visits per week from a nurse who checks me over and tests my Coumadin level, plus two visits per week from the Physical Therapist.  Once they turn me loose and I'm no longer considered "house-bound", I switch to Out-Patient status, and I go to a rehab center twice a week

Thank God for good insurance coverage. 

Fun Fact

This represents exactly one dollar more than what ExxonMobil paid in taxes last year.

Caption Contest

1) "Bachmann reveals truth about what it takes to get a Republican nomination."

2) "And now, my impression of my husband - the girls at the club love this one."

Super Congress

I've decided not to piss and moan about the ridiculous level of self aggrandizement and ego-petting when it comes to naming the gimmick these guys have come up with to try to deal with the petty politics of the Budget and the Debt.

I don't know about the legalities of the thing because I don't think it matters, because I think it's wired to fail anyway.  The Repubs have stacked their side with people who are dead set against any tax increases.  They're all on the record, or they've signed one of Grover Norquist's stupid pledges.  And the Dem Leadership (making what looks like a deliberate attempt to prop up the "both sides do it / they're all the same" meme), have appointed members who are party loyalists and apparatchiks - but Harry Reid made one pick that I think absolutely ensures an outcome favorable to the Repubs, and his name is Max Baucus.

First, of course, we have to ignore the irony of a government setting up a brand new piece of bureaucracy in an attempt to cut back the existing bureaucracy.  But no matter; I expect they'll make a nice show of it, and we'll be entertained (ie: distracted) long enough for the "automatic cuts" to kick in.

The real fight goes on backstage; the real fight is about whose fiefdom lives or dies.  Watch and listen.  I think this thing is all about re-organizing the power allotment of the existing structures of congressional committees; the relationships between federal, state and local governments; and practically all things "government".  This is nothing short of a full-on paradigm shift fueled by the big-time ambitions of small-time operators, and it's bound to be a wild ride.

Corporate Personage

Here's Willard employing a Debate Stopper as he tries to make the point for lowering Corporate Tax rates.
(A Debate Stopper is a meme; a statement of "political fact" - usually in simplistic terms - intended to require agreement on the speaker's basic premise, allowing the speaker to go on to make a conclusive statement of policy).



The problem, as always, is that if your basic premise is false, then your conclusion cannot be true.

And here's the fallacy: If a corporation is a person; and it is entitled to the same rights and privileges of all other people, then it must be subject to the same responsibilities and liabilities as any other person.

A corporation is allowed to own another corporation, but a person is not allowed to own another person.

A corporation is not - cannot be - a person.

Both Sides

The centrist meme starts with a perfectly reasonable assumption that there're at least two sides of the story; that we need to be sure we're addressing questions from as wide a perspective as possible. All well and good, but it starts to fall apart when you take that next step and assume that ALL issues MUST have at least two sides (they don't), and that both points of view are ALWAYS valid (they aren't).

While Centrism has its uses, as a political philosophy, it's just intellectually lazy. It's a product of our need not to feel embarrassed because we supported the wrong candidates and causes; or because we aren't willing to do the work required of every good citizen in a democracy; or that we were just following a fashionable trend; or whatever.

To take just a piece of the argument, here's Bill Maher exposing the lie of "both sides do it".

Go, Dylan

Some Not-So-Good Signs

There was once quite a buzz surrounding the recall attempts in Wisconsin, but somehow, because the Repubs held on to four out the six seats in question, the Press Poodles decided it was no longer much of a story - suddenly, it got kinda hard to find any in-depth coverage or analysis of the results. (see the numbers here)

By winning 2 seats and trimming the Repub majority to 17-16, the Dems are claiming they've changed the dynamics of Wisconsin's State Senate to some degree, but I'm betting the lesson the Repubs are taking away is that the combination of gerrymandering, advertising and dirty tricks is the key;  that as long as they can apply the Big Money Propaganda, then they can maintain the "50% plus 1", which means they can still just bull their way thru.

Put that election news together with this, and we've got an overall outlook that remains pretty bleak.

In fact, they said, America was composed of two distinct groups: the rich and the rest. And for the purposes of investment decisions, the second group didn’t matter; tracking its spending habits or worrying over its savings rate was a waste of time. All the action in the American economy was at the top: the richest 1 percent of households earned as much each year as the bottom 60 percent put together; they possessed as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and with each passing year, a greater share of the nation’s treasure was flowing through their hands and into their pockets. It was this segment of the population, almost exclusively, that held the key to future growth and future returns.

And finally (for today), there's this from a CNN Poll:

A lot of that anger seems directed toward the GOP. According to the survey, favorable views of the Republican party dropped eight points over the past month, to 33 percent. Fifty-nine percent say they have an unfavorable view of the Republican party, an all-time high dating back to 1992 when the question was first asked.

If Repubs are unpopular, and if a majority of voters are saying they don't deserve to be re-elected; and yet they keep winning elections, then what logical conclusion can we draw regarding our little experiment in self-governance?

TIme For Change

In abbreviated form: The natural flow of events, as any civilization evolves, is for more and more of the power and money to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.  Conversely, as power and money shift upwards, the number of people who are left with with less and less grows almost geometrically.  Eventually, you have way too many people who feel they have nothing more to lose, and you get a kind of spontaneous combustion as they come together, form into a mob and go about taking what they believe should be theirs.  Usually, it amounts to some smash-and-grab looting and car-burning, and it goes on for a relatively short period of time (a few days to a few weeks).

What's happened in Greece and now what's been going on in The UK looks to me like this random form of protest so far; people venting their frustrations and trying to get somebody to acknowledge their plight.  And even tho' the official version is that the riots are in reaction to the death of a young man at the hands of Police, it's really just the instigating event and not the underlying cause at all.

But a coupla things to watch for:
1) As the thing widens, are there signs of leadership and organization?
2) What force is to be brought against the protesters, and what kind of language is the government using to justify the use of force?

A Confluence Of Many Things Financial

Kinda looks like S&P just can't help themselves.  They went after Freddie and Fanny today, and they downgraded 10 out the 12 banks that make up a kind of plumbing system for the mortgage market too.  S&P could be on very dangerous ground now, as some of this starts to look very much more like politics than strictly business.  The editorial attacks from the press and from some of the big finance players are very huffy (FT, CSM), and if they're coupled with political counterattacks, it could prove fatal.  So I wonder: what are they up to?  Is S&P the one good guy who at long last has decided he'll try telling the truth?  Or is this Caesar crossing the Rubicon?

Also, AIG's filing suit against Bank of America.

Verizon phone workers are out on strike in the US Northeast.

Street riots in London.

And, oh yeah - the Dow is down another 630 points at the close today.

Who's Is It?

I posted the other day: "Obama owns it now".  Well, as usual, the spin competition ramped up in a hurry, with one of Washington's all-time great gaffemeisters (John Kerry) calling S&P's decision to downgrade US Debt "the Tea Party Downgrade".

The Repubs and the wingnut bloggers jumped on it and started the usual whine-a-thon about those mean old Dems calling people names and shit, blah blah blah.  But a coupla things here:  First, it's kinda cool that Kerry was finally able to make a point without fuckin' up the delivery.  Second, there was a significant number of Tea Partiers who said out loud that they thought default might be a good thing, so why are they pouting now when people are identifying them with the downgrade?  And third, how long before the Dems get tired of reminding everybody about all the bad shit the Repubs have gotten us into and decide not to use any of it as a campaign issue?

S&P's Downgrade

There's a paragraph in their reasoning saying basically that S&P doesn't feel comfortable with a high rating for US Government Debt because of their concern for the politics of the Debt Ceiling debate we just went thru.

If I can take as a given my thinking that Wall St is moving away from the GOP because of the Tea Party nutbags, then it makes a lot of sense that the downgrade is actually S&P sending a signal to the GOP that they need to get their shit together.

If your interest burden goes up because of the S&P downgrade, and S&P says it's because they don't trust the political process, and it's the Tea Baggers making the political problems, then who ya gonna blame?

It's possible the Tea Baggers kinda fucked up in reverse tho'.  Imagine how popular they'll get when somebody figures out how to spin it back and say the Tea Party was absolutely right about everything because look - we scared Wall St half outa their socks.

The grand shift in power continues and it just gets weirder as we go.