Bohemian Travesty

Work in progress:

Bohemian Travesty

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Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Won a fake landslide,
By rejecting reality

Open your eyes,
Look up to the skies and see,
I'm just a rich man, devoid of all empathy,
And I'm easily bored, and really slow
tiny hands, and little toes
Any way the nation goes doesn't really matter to me, to me

Melania, I could kill a man
Put a gun against his head
Pull my trigger, then he's dead
Melania, I just want to prove
I could cap some bitch and still just walk away

Melania, ooh
Didn't mean to make you cry
I'll be up late tweeting straight through till tomorrow
Kellyanne, carry on. Oh I'm such a stable genius

Comey, your time is through
Cause you wouldn't fall in line
And Putin's watching all the time
Goodbye Judge Sessions, you had to go
Gotta toss you all aside and hide the truth

Melania, ooh (any way the nation goes)
We've gotta keep telling lies
Sometimes I wish I'd never brought up the Wall

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramooch, Scaramooch, will you do the Fox Morning Show?
Sarah Huckabee is lying
Very, very frightening, whee!
(Giuliani) Giuliani
(Giuliani) Giuliani
Giuliani Figaro
Magnifico-o-o-o-o

I'm just a rich man, everybody loves me
He's just a rich man from a rich family
Narcissism rife with malignant cruelty

Tax returns, Russian probes, will you let it go?
Bob Mueller!: No, I will not let it go (let it go!)
Bob Mueller!: will not let it go (let it go!)
Bob Mueller!: will not let it go (let it go!)
Will not let it go (let it go!)
Never, never let it go
Never let it go, oh
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
Oh, mama mia, mama mia (mama mia, let it go)
The FBI has a jury standing by for me, for me, for me

So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can impeach me and shove me aside?
Oh, bigly, can't do this to me, bigly
Just pardon it out, I'll just pardon myself outta here

Nothing really matters
Anyone can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters but me

Any way the nation goes ...

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Original song, lyrics, and inspiration belong to Freddy Mercury - I hope he approves

Unemployment Would be Under 6% Without GOP Obstruction

The GOP has been on an economic wrecking mission ever since the election of Barack Obama - indeed we now know that leading Republican strategists and legislators met and planned a course of economic sabotage and complete obstruction on Obama's very first day in office.

This obstruction has had a huge price - a deliberate price that the GOP is betting the American people will blame on President Obama. GOP obstruction did not prevent the passage of ARRA - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - popularly know as "The Stimulus" bill of 2009 during the height of the economic disaster as the economy was falling off a cliff - the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that ARRA has saved up to 3 million jobs. But nearly every economic measure since then has been blocked by GOP obstruction, filibusters and brinksmanship.

What has been the result of GOP obstruction? It is hard to quantify what constant obstruction has cost - you could tally up estimates of every measure that came along, but not all would have passed - nor even been introduced if previous measures had been adopted that obviated their need. But we can look at just two big examples and get a minimal measure of the human cost to American citizens of a deliberate policy to destroy the economy in order to bring down the president; 1) austerity, and 2) obstruction of the 2011 American Jobs Act.

Austerity is madness - many in the GOP actually believe that austerity during an economic downturn is the right thing to do - even 'socialist' Europe was convinced of this - although most realize it is not true, and has no history of success - even Mitt Romney unwittingly admitted as much in an unguarded moment. But that hasn't stopped savage austerity on the state and local level - which has cost over 600,000 public sector jobs so far.

Normally in a recession and recovery government at all levels increase public employment - this has happened in every GOP administration - and much of that increase is funded by federal government grants to the state and local governments. But since the Stimulus, the GOP has blocked any substantial help for the states, and in GOP led states severe austerity cuts have been the rule - even including GOP governors rejecting projects fully funded by the federal government. The economic cost of this is far more than just those 600 thousand jobs - the spillover effect on private business and local economies has been devastating - when you factor in all these effects the total job cost of austerity has been estimated at 2.3 million jobs.

President Obama proposed the American Jobs Act in his 2011 State of the Union address, and spent the next year promoting it at every opportunity. Although expensive - in contained a combination of tax cuts and increases, along with direct spending, designed to increase consumer spending and lower the cost to business of hiring new workers. The CBO said the bill would not only have paid for itself within 10 years, but would have reduced the deficit by at least 6 billion dollars. According to an analysis by Moody's it would have created about 1.9 million jobs.

The result of GOP obstruction with those two things cost us 2.3 million jobs and 1.9 million jobs respectively. US employment as of May 2011 is about 155 million jobs, which means those 4.2 million jobs that the GOP has prevented account for 2.7% of the unemployment rate. But let's be fair, there is a small amount of overlap in those jobs - a small portion (about 8%) of the American Jobs Act would have gone to State and Local governments to pay for teachers, first responders and the like - although for the most part it would have just prevented further layoffs rather than resulted in new hires. Also it is very likely that without the economic wrecking of GOP obstructionism the labor participation rate would be higher - so instead of a reduction of unemployment to 5.5% it would be slightly higher, but still well under 6%.

Now just for fun, consider if we had done during this recovery what every GOP administration has done, and substantially increased public sector employment.

Without knowing how much we would have increased public sector employment we can't even make a firm estimate of how much better employment levels would be, but if we make the assumption that we increased the public sector by just half of the amount we actually reduced it - the total effect on the economy in both public and private sector jobs would be around 1.15 million jobs - which would push the unemployment rate below 5%.

That is the human cost of GOP economic obstruction.

Fast & Furious Foofaraw

If you haven't been paying attention to the Fast & Furious scandal, you haven't been watching FOX News. The latest episode is Darrell Issa's House committee voting to hold Attorney General Holder in Contempt of Congress for not violating the law by providing documents he can't legally provide - such as classified documents identifying informants, and grand jury transcripts. Now they are talking impeachment because president Obama has taken the unprecedented step of invoking executive privilege to stop Congress from demanding documents it is illegal to provide.  By 'unprecedented' I mean that this is the first time Obama has invoked executive privilege - his predecessors did so repeatedly without any objections from these very same congressmen.


The Fast & Furious conspiracy, as laid out by Congressman Issa is that a time traveling Obama and Holder, went back in time (presumably using the same time machine Obama used to plant his fake birth documents and newspaper announcements in 1961 Hawaii) to the Bush administration and started a gun tracking program that allowed guns to be sold to gun runners going to Mexican drug cartels, in order to have those guns shock America with a wave of Mexican gun crime in order to gin up support for US gun control laws to take away our guns! The logic of this conspiracy was succinctly summed up by Stephen Colbert:  

Yes, very clearly, Obama started this gun tracking program in 2006, when he hypnotized George Bush. Then he secretly ordered Attorney General Holder to order the Justice Department, to order the ATF to order gun shops to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels, and then lose track of them, thereby panicking Americans to gin up support for the draconian gun control measures that Obama has never introduced."

Colbert missed that Holder would have had to have ordered then Attorney General Gonzales to start the program in 2006 - or AG Mukasey who oversaw the direction and development of much of it. Oddly Issa's committee has never sought testimony from Mukasey or Gonzales, or anyone else involved in the creation of the program, instead they have concentrated exclusively on the man who ended it - Holder, to expose his reasons for starting it.

Rachel Maddow's more professorial presentation on the Fast & Furious Foofaraw's intersection with the GOP, NRA and FOX News:


We can expect the House to approve Contempt charges against AG Holder in the next few days on a strict party-line vote.

Clearly the Fast & Furious 'scandal' is a flimsy fantasy ridden incoherent conspiracy theory that can't hold up to even cursory scrutiny - yet the GOP leadership is going full-monty in pinning the blame for it on AG Holder - the man who ended it - not started it. Why?  Democratic leader Pelosi thinks they are trying to destroy Holder so that he can't block their voter suppression efforts.

SCOTUS on Obamacare - will it do the right thing for the wrong reasons?

This may be the most purely political Supreme Court of the United States in memory. And that may bode well for the Obamacare case before the court.

The mandate issue under consideration is laughable. There is nothing unique or unusual about the 'mandate' - which is not even a mandate - the "tax penalty", approximately $700 for those who are able to obtain Medical Insurance but choose not to, is unenforceable. If they choose to not add the amount to their tax returns, there is no consequence, neither the IRS nor anyone else has the authority to do anything about it, no charges, no prosecution, no attempts to collect it. If you fail to follow the mandate, the penalty is completely voluntary.

The argument that the government cannot require citizens to pay for something they don't want to is childish and wrong. It happens all the time. Taxes, licenses, garbage fees. So they pretzel their logic to say that what makes it unconstitutional is making people purchase it from a private source, even though you can be coerced to buy from the government - such as Social Security and Medicare social insurance contributions. Again, nonsense. One of the earliest acts of the Republic was to require merchant marines to buy private hospital insurance. Another required all free men of militia age to purchase and keep a firearm. Laws against public nudity require the purchase of clothing from private sources.

The 'broccoli' argument is the most absurd. Usually run along the lines of "if the government can require you to buy health insurance, what is next, broccoli?". As if the idea of buying broccoli is so morally bankrupt that anything that starts the slippery slope that ends with broccoli is evidence of unequaled tyranny. Here's the thing, not buying health insurance is very very costly, since lack of insurance does NOT prevent the delivery of medical care, it just pushes the cost onto others. This is not theoretical, we know that right now, every private health insurance policy in America is about $1000 more expensive because of the cost of treating the uninsured. People who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it are transferring real and substantial costs to others. This does not happen with broccoli.

On legal and logical grounds the case before the Supreme Court is groundless. But this is a political court, and this is a partisan political issue, so here it is. We know that a solid majority of the court is aligned with the political forces that want this law overturned. But will they?

Consider this. This court took this case politically, they will rule on it politically. But what is the bigger picture? Chief Justice Roberts is already worried about his troubled legacy, particularly due to his pivotal role in the disastrous Citizens United outrage. Scalia is concerned about his own reputation for making principled judgments narrowly focused on the minutia of constitutional law and history, yet always seems able to bend them to reach his desired political result. Alito is shedding his "Scalito" reputation as Scalia's second vote. Kennedy, who values his role as 'reasonable swing vote' has been anything but, he almost always swings right in politically charged cases. Only Thomas is unapologetically always political. The other 4 conservatives have reasons concerning reputation and legacy to at least consider being something other than a rubber stamp. But they are still going to make a political decision in this case.

What factors might influence their political decision? Well ... there is an election going on. What do you suppose will be the political fallout of a decision that overturns, or guts the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) just three months before the election? Probably not much on the presidential race, by all accounts the GOP will be putting up the most unpopular nominee in decades (no matter who gets the nod), so they will depend on their Citizens United enabled billions to use saturation attack ads to close the gap. The presidential election will depend on if overwhelming advertising is enough to decide the vote. But that is not the only election. The GOP has a commanding majority in the House to defend, and only need switch two or three seats to take the Senate. But in the aftermath of an anti-Obamacare SCOTUS decision, what happens? Outrage and anger in the Democratic base, and not a few independents too. When they lose it, they will suddenly notice all the very popular things in ACA that they and even Republicans like and overwhelming want, all taken away. Lots of outrage and anger.
Elections very seldom turn on persuasion, they are decided by which side is most effective at turning out its partisans and discouraging its opponents partisans - that's how negative ads work, they don't change minds, they make people stay home. But an anti-Obamacare decision will angerize the Democratic base, and they will turn out in numbers not seen since ... 2008. The GOP base is already energized in its hatred of Obama, and an anti-Obamacare decision will not increase that, indeed they may become less energized in their satisfaction with the political win and its slapdown of Obama.

So there you have it, the most likely political outcome of the Supreme Court overturning or gutting Obamacare will be new and larger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate - with the ability to repair Obamacare, or even replace it with single payer. That is what those four conservatives will have to consider while making their political decision on Obamacare. Are they willing to make a bad decision, that fulfills their partisans' political desire to kill Obamacare, knowing it will lead to GOP defeat and lasting harm to the conservative movement? Or will they burnish their reputations and save the GOP (despite itself) by reluctantly upholding it.

I don't know, they have proven themselves to be incredibly reckless, but I think there is a very good chance that at least one of them will choose to make the right decision for all the wrong reasons - and one is all that it will take.

____________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE  June 28, 2012

ACA UPHELD by US Supreme Court

And the answer is in - by a 5 to 4 decision ACA has been upheld by the Supreme Court. As suspected the swing vote was Chief Justice Roberts - who is protecting his legacy, and more importantly - the Republican majority in the 2012 election.

It is surprising that the remaining 4 conservatives - including the so-called 'moderate' Kennedy - all dissented and were apparently willing to completely overturn ACA despite the likely adverse consequences for the GOP.  However - I suspect one of the other conservatives would have found a reason to switch his vote if Roberts hadn't - partisanship trumps ideology for this conservative block, which is why they are always willing to be the most extreme 'activists' to uphold GOP interests no matter how much they claim to be strict constructionists.

The majority decision upheld the so called mandate - correctly identifying it as a tax (a peculiar voluntary tax at that) well within the Constitutional authority of Congress.

More perplexing is the ruling on the Medicaid expansion that is designed to expand Medicaid to 18 million Americans who do not qualify under current rules. Medicaid (not to be confused with Medicare) is a joint federal/state medical program for the poor. The expansion in ACA would extend it to some of the working poor and those in their households who currently earn more than the current limits. ACA required the states to participate in the expansion or lose all of their Medicaid matching funds - which 26 states argued is unconstitutional coercion. This type of 'coercion' is very common - for instance highway funds are subject to a number of conditions, which will result in a state not receiving their share of federal highway dollars if they don't meet them - the most well known examples were the 55mph speed limit back in the 70s, and the requirement to raise the drinking age to 21 in the 80s. It is not inconceivable that this Obamacare ruling could result in lower drinking ages in some states - perhaps states that would like to attract college tourist dollars like Florida, Louisiana or Texas.

What the Medicaid decision won't result in is states not extending Medicaid coverage - because there is no coercion - the federal government will be paying for 100% of the expansion cost for the first 3 years (2014-17) and it is unlikely that Congress will not extend federal payments after that. Despite the fact that 26 states filed suit against the Medicaid expansion provision, since it is of no cost to them only the most recalcitrant of ideologues would face the wrath of their constituents by turning it down - which leaves only Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin as possible states to eliminate health care for the working poor for absolutely no reason at all. We'll see if Scott, Walker or Kasich are willing to be that reckless - I'm only betting on Scott.

Ohio CAN have a do-over: How to throw the bums OUT

Markos "kos" Moulitsas wrote in Ohio wishes it could have do-over in governor's race that Ohio is having major buyer's remorse over the election of John "Lehman Brothers" Kasich as governor. Due to citizen disgust at Kasich's reverse Robin Hood budget and the anti-union and anti-public employee SB5, Kasich would lose a new election by 15 points.
Alas Ohio lacks any recall mechanism for state officials - but that doesn't mean we can't throw the bums out - we do have a citizen's initiative process for placing issues and constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Use the Citizen's Initiative Process to Amend the Governor's Term of Office.
An issue could be put on ballot to amend the Ohio constitution to change the dates of the terms for governor and other elected state officials - including members of the Ohio Senate and House, by ending their terms soon after passage, with the new terms being filled by candidates chosen in a special election. We can put a "recall and reset" issue on the ballot just like the gambling companies put casinos on the ballot.
The Amendment could be written to end only the term of the Governor and Lt. Governor, or it could completely clean the slate and put every office up for reset, or something in between.
In the process we can fix one of the tactics the GOP uses to stay in control of a Blue State. They have the Governor and major state offices elected in mid-term elections when voter turnout is lower, thus favoring Republicans. The initiative could reset those terms to coincide with Presidential terms - when voter participation is highest and most representative of the state's population.
And importantly the initiative could add a recall mechanism to remove elected state officials in the future without requiring a constitutional amendment.
Passage of the Amendment would end the current terms of Governor and some other elected officials and provide for a quick special election to elect new office holders. It would be a very short campaign - a rarity in American politics. The new gubernatorial and state office terms would only last until the end of the quadrennial year, and would thenceforth follow the national quadrennial calendar for presidential elections.

Irresponsible

It is time to inextricably link the words Irresponsible and Republican. It is no longer enough to call them the Party of NO, it is time to make their name synonymous with irresponsibility until they change.

The GOP are masters of using language to distort the perception of reality - that is how the Estate Tax - which only effects a small number of the wealthiest families - turned into a unfair tax on dying in the minds of people who will never have to face it after it was rebranded the Death Tax. They achieve this rebranding by having the discipline to put the new terminology into widespread use by all of their politicians and media echo chamber.

Using reasonable discussion and lengthy explanations of the facts does little to counter the reality distortion effect of GOP language or to provoke interest in the attention deficit media. But there is something we can do - add a branding to the counter productive actions of the GOP by using the word Irresponsible every time we say Republican.

Irresponsible Republicans have caused a crisis in our Federal Courts by refusing to allow votes on over half of all judicial nominees - even the ones that have been unanimously approved in committee.

Irresponsible Republicans have blocked passage of an essential Defense Appropriation bill, while our troops are still fighting two wars.

Irresponsible Republicans are blocking the extension of unemployment insurance, saying the jobless are too lazy to work even though there are 5 unemployed Americans for every available job.

Irresponsible Republicans insist on making the slow economy worse by prematurely cutting federal spending and killing the recovery.

Irresponsible Republicans insist that all spending must be paid for - except for the 700 billion in unneeded tax cuts they want to give to the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Or when an Irresponsible Republican is in the White House.

Irresponsible Republicans insist on the discredited supply side trickle down theory that cutting taxes will cut the deficit - even after trying that strategy during the Reagan administration and failing. And trying it during the GHW Bush administration and failing, And trying it during the GW Bush administration and failing.

Irresponsible Republicans have announced they look forward to closing down the government in April by refusing to raise the debt limit - even though they never failed to raise the debt limit during the Reagan and two Bush administrations.

Irresponsible Republicans still support using torture - a crime under the Geneva Convention - even though it never provided any useful information and made America less safe.

Irresponsible Republicans are blocking the renewal of Ronald Reagan's START treaty - even though every single living past and present US Secretary of State say it is essential to pass it.

Irresponsible Republicans want to cut Social Security in order to reduce the deficit - even though Social Security is running a surplus, is self funded with its own taxes, and by law cannot spend general revenue.

Irresponsible Republicans risk turning America into an international pariah state by cynically denying man made global warming (even though they know it is really happening) in order to cater to their big energy company donors.

Reasonable explanations won't penetrate the consciousness of the ADD media and low information patriots, but by repeating Irresponsible Republicans each time we deal with their irresponsible behavior we will be showing just who the grownups really are.

Revive Social Security

Social Security is doing just fine.

Despite the Catfood Commission, Social Security will never increase the national debt. In fact Social Security is just about the ONLY government program that is well funded for as far as we can forecast. It has a huge surplus of well over 2.5 trillion dollars that will continue to grow to well over 4 trillion dollars before it begins to decline. Sometime between 20 and 30 years from now that trust fund will run out, and SS will have to run on its current revenues - just like it did for its first half century of existence. That is not "broken", that is what it was always intended to do. Once the trust fund is gone, we can continue to fund benefits at 80% of current levels basically forever. Not bad, do absolutely nothing at all and SS doesn't have to cut a penny, increase the retirement age or reduce any benefits for at least 20 years, and after that can go forever with just a 20% cut. So why do they want to make those benefit reductions now?

Here's a better idea. Let's enhance Social Security so that it lowers unemployment, stimulates the economy, and restores confidence.

• Reduce unemployment by lowering the voluntary retirement age to 60 instead of raising it to 69. Life expectancy is mainly increasing because fewer people are dying young - but people reaching the end of their working years are not actually living significantly longer - and a lifetime of work, especially physical labor, is not easier on today's sexagenarians. 69 might be a good retirement age for a banker, but not for skilled iron-workers, or auto workers, or even janitors. Let them retire earlier and open up those jobs.
  


• Turn FICA into a true flat tax, rather than the regressive tax it is now. Currently FICA taxes are 12.4% of the first $106,800 in earned wages (split between worker and employer), and absolutely nothing is collected for Social Security on any income above that - and FICA taxes are not collected on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains. Let's make it a true flat tax, Collect it on all income - no exceptions. We could then easily pay for lowering the voluntary retirement age, and never have to reduce benefits, and at the same time we could cut the FICA tax rate to about half of its current level.

Reduce unemployment, substantially reduce FICA taxes for most taxpayers, preserve benefits and create confidence in today's workers that Social Security will be there for their retirement. Damn, that sounds downright conservative!

Alito Was Wrong

Do you remember Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's rebuttal of President Obama during this year's State of The Union address?

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections," Said President Obama. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito silently mouthed "not true" when Obama criticized the Supreme Court's decision.

Obama was talking about the Court's "Citizen's United" ruling, that threw open the floodgates for unlimited spending on campaign ads by corporations.

In particular, Alito is reported to have been objecting to the claim that foreign corporations would be able to finance campaign commercials in the United States - an interpretation that the Fox News Right had solidly supported in its insistence that Alito Was Right.

Now we get to grade the test. So far this election season campaign ads by outside groups are far outnumbering ads from candidates. One group in particular is more active than the rest - the US Chamber of Commerce (a group which unlike your local chamber represents multinational corporations rather than the small businesses on Main Street) - The US Chamber of Commerce has pledge to spend $75 million during this election season. So where does the Chamber's money come from? Big corporations, including:

• State Bank of India (state-run) and ICICI Bank of India
• Esnaad, a subsidiary of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
• Russian state-run VTB Bank
• BP [UK]
• Royal Dutch Shell [Netherlands]
• Siemens [Germany]
• Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International
• Bahrain Petroleum Company (state-owned)
• And hundreds more

Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads

Sam Seder: Mosque at Ground Zero: That's Bullshit

And a related story:

Fareed Zakaria:

Build the Ground Zero Mosque

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But after the ADL publicly called for moving the mosque, I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. More ›

The End of the Middle Class 2

Also see The End of the Middle Class

Hobos and welfare for America's Rich

Hobos and welfare for America's Rich

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard July 6th, 2010
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited

Reading William Manchester’s Glory And The Dream over the weekend, I came across this remark from President Herbert Hoover, blurted out famously in the cruelest year of 1932.

“Nobody is actually starving. The hobos, for example, are better fed than they have ever been. Hobos are eating well, in fact one had ten meals in a single day.”

Itinerant worker looking for work during the Great Depression

Hoover took deep offence at reports that children were dying of malnutrition. This is not surprising for a man who first made his global reputation organizing food aid for Belgian children at the end of World War One

By then Hoover had lost the plot, a common problem for those over the age of 45 who stop thinking, stop observing, and rely reflexively on whatever set of views worked for them in the past (I am 52).

He never quite lived down these words. After he lost the lost presidency to Roosevelt in 1933, he was taken to see starving families in Colorado. Though Hoover was too self-righteous to admit error. He insisted that economy was well on its way to recovery until President-elect Roosevelt frightened everybody with his “socialistic” adventurism.

Republicans on Capitol Hill who backed the mobilization of $3 trillion of fiscal and monetary support to bail out the financial system are now going to great efforts to prevent the roll-over of temporary benefits to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off.

I don’t wish to enter deeply into an internal US dispute between Republicans and Democrats, but I do think think that the American political class will have to face up to the new reality of a semi-permanent slump for a decade or more that will blight a great number of lives. The cyclical recovery that normally makes it possible for most Americans to find a job if they want one is not going to happen this time because the overhang of debt, fiscal tightening, and a liquidity trap have combined to jam the mechanism.

Presidential Reunion

How to respond to the Party of NO

Who really deserves the Bankster Bonuses?

Wall Street Banksters - short for Banking Gangsters - are about to receive another round of failure bonuses, even though they are still holding back from loaning money to credit worthy businesses and consumers and making money instead on exactly the same type of derivatives gambling that just required a 3 Trillion dollar taxpayer bailout a year ago.

Meanwhile, there are people out there doing jobs that ought to be getting the kinds of bonuses that the banksters aren't earning.

Here's one: The pilot of United Airlines flight 634 who safely and smoothly landed an Airbus 319 jet with a set of wheels missing. No skidding, sliding or tumbling. Whoever he is he deserves a Bankster bonus.

Airline pilot used to be a very good paying job. Not anymore. Sure the top pilots make pretty good pay, but its about a third of what they made 25 years ago (CPI adjusted). Even the hero of the Hudson - Captain Chessly Sullenberger - had his pay cut 40% a few years before he proved he is worth more than any Wall Street bankster.

Mock Them

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab waited until the last 20 minutes of his flight from Amsterdam to Detroit before he attempted to blow up his underpants - he was probably waiting for the end of the in flight movie ... I think it was "Four Christmases" with Vince Vaughn. Definitely worth delaying your martyrdom for an hour and a half.

And before anyone asks - HELL YES I'm making light of a terrorist act. I'm treating it with all the mockery it deserves.

You see, there are a bunch of idiot politicians and "opinion leaders" trying to make hay off of this attempted attack. In effect they are using it to attack us all over again. Congressman Peter Hoekstra, an idiot, immediately released a fundraising letter asking us to help him defeat the terrorists - he's running for governor of Michigan. Senator Jim DeMint is blasting the lack of strong leadership at the TSA even though he personally has been blocking the confirmation of the new TSA chief for several months. Pat Buchanan, Tom Ridge, Dick Cheney and others are outraged, OUTRAGED I say - that the underpants bomber has been arrested and indicted and will be prosecuted in an actual courtroom just like non-law abiding Americans. Some are even demanding that we torture this stupid deluded kid, even though he has been completely cooperative, has admitted to his plans, his ties to al Qaeda (well, to al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, which is not really the same "al Qaeda" as Bin Ladin's al Qaeda, but birds of a feather), and is answering any questions asked of him, but still, they want him tortured ... not for information (which we are getting), but ... just because ... These are the same idiots who claim it is too dangerous to prosecute international terrorists in US courts, even though we have already convicted over 400 of them and they have been locked away in our federal prisons for years without problem. These idiot cowards have such a low regard for American justice that they would have us become exactly the type of lawless nation that the terrorists accuse us of being.

Here's the deal. These terrorists are not supermen. They aren't bigger than life, they don't have super powers, they aren't able to defeat our justice system, they can't escape from our supermax prisons. They are, to a man, pathetic wimps. They are weaklings. They attack innocent civilians because they know they can't handle a fair fight. They use fear because they are too pathetic and lame to be able to use persuasion.

The idiot coward fools who build them up are helping the terrorists and hurting America rather than protecting it. They are collaborating with the terrorists in making us more fearful and less free. Their approach of ramping up the fear is exactly the wrong thing to do. We need to put the terrorists in their proper place - prison - and treat them as what they are - weaklings, wimps and morons. I love that we are calling this latest guy the "underpants bomber", that disdain is exactly correct. We should be mocking these fools in the media, not building them up as bogeymen.

Sensible security makes sense, but the cost is too high if we trade our freedoms for security. We need to respond to the threat of terror with vigilance and mockery.

Eventually one of these morons is going to get lucky and actually succeed in their attack. We still need to mock them. They send a thousand morons, and one is bound to get through. Give them no respect. Refuse irrational fear. Yes, we'll grieve the loss of innocent life at the hands of moronic cowards who are too afraid to put up a fair fight, but we should never fear or respect them.

Related post: They don't give a damn about our freedom

How to do it

Fox news has taught me that a president must never bow to a foreign leader. Here is the correct way to greet them:

Child Labor Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freaks

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Best Health Care Bill that Money Can Buy

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The Health Care Reform Bill is slowly falling together. The big insurance companies are getting almost everything they want. Public financing to subsidize them, a requirement for the uninsured to buy insurance or pay a fine, and guaranteed profits. Looks like they lose on the public option -except that it will not be available for the vast majority, only to the uninsured - and only if your state decides not to "opt-out". So it won't really be "competition". If you like the insurance your employer offers - you can keep it, and if you don't like the insurance your employer offers - you have to keep it anyway. So much for "options".

A few congressmen will be offering amendments to make the public option a true option for everyone - introducing actual competition. Others will be offering a bill allowing individual states the right to offer a single payer plan in their state - the proven method for providing the best care at the lowest cost. Use the the chart below to understand how your congressional representative makes their decisions (from the Center for Responsive Politics).

Every member of Congress and the total contributions they have received from the Health Care industry from 1989 through June 2009.

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