Fast And Loose On Libya
There is educated uncertainty, and there is opinionated ignorance.
The first is exemplified by Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to former President Carter, who on Thursday on Morning Joe expressed legitimate ambivalence:
But I have to tell you frankly . . . I cannot think of another instance in recent times in which I myself was so uncertain in thinking about the problem, about how we should act. Because there are so many downsides and so many uncertainties.
“But in the end, I concluded that, if we didn’t act it would be worse,” Brzezinski said, adding that he has some misgivings about the way it is being handled.
With Rush Limbaugh, it started out much the same. On Friday, the 18th, suggesting a parallel between the situations in Egypt and Libya, he observed
What if it is the Muslim Brotherhood? What if it is a bunch of people trying to overthrow so-called peaceful to the United States regimes and establish this so-called caliphate? I don't know. It's tricky. It's really tricky. And when you have people in a regime like ours that just knee-jerk react in support of any minority simply because they're a minority that can be scary.
Sure, Rush's racial animosity was in play. No one has suggested that only a minority of the Egyptian population opposed President Hosni Mubarak but Limbaugh couldn't resist the temptation to identify President Obama with minorities. If racial pimping weren't such a lucrative enterprise for Rush, one would almost think it second nature.
But after the rightist had conceded that the situation in North Africa has been "tricky," he went downhill from there, displaying all the slimy instincts we've come to expect of him. Echoing the least sophisticated objections of the left to U.S. military action, on Tuesday the 22nd (a guest host sat in on Monday) Limbaugh bellowed
But no, we're in Libya. You talk about protecting innocence civilians, how about Zimbabwe and Mugabe? Or North Korea, for crying out loud? If we're looking at where civilians are mistreated and we want to go places to protect them, there are a lot of places that have more of them than in Libya.
Because, presumably, we must implement the same policy in every country in a region because circumstances are identical everywhere. Compound thoughlessness, add false equivalence mixed with a dark view of America, and you have Limbaugh immediately adding
For that matter, folks, we have more innocent civilians under attack in Arizona than are under attack in Libya. And Barack Hussein Obama has been talked into going into Libya by three women while filing suit against another woman, the governor of Arizona." Thoughtless and cruel, comparing thousands of deaths by oppressed people living under a despot to the residents of one of the United States of America.
On Wednesday, Limbaugh's ever-present loathing of poor people re-emerged as he (yet again) equated Barack Obama's foreign policy with a volunteer-driven anti-hunger program: "the old human rights of Jimmy Carter resurfacing here. Meals on Wheels!" A bombing campaign and Meals on Wheels: a perfect parallel.
But he wouldn't be done until he could attack Barack Obama's manhood simultaneously with a sexist slap at women:
This is what happened. She doesn't like that the template for the story is that it was the women who nagged him to attack Libya until he gave in, or only the women of Obamaland have any gonads. "Um, hello: Hillary Clinton pushed for intervention in Libya not because she's female, but because, cautious as she may be, she also is among the more historically hawkish members of the administration." It had nothing to do with the fact that she's female. It's just that she's a hawk. How about the fact that her president wasn't doing anything? How about the fact that there was dithering going on here? Again, as somebody here who's disengaged. This isn't what he signed up for. He signed up for getting even with the United States. He signed up with reordering and transforming the US. He signed up take us down. He didn't sign up to make us act like a superpower. He didn't sign up for this. He didn't sign up for this kind of distraction. So the babes had to get in gear.
Reluctant to be typecast as merely racist, sexist, or hostile to struggling Americans, on Thursday Rush decided
You know, Democrat presidents don't like using the US military. If the truth be known, liberals actually are happier when the US military loses. Liberals don't want military success. They don't think the world should be shaped that way. Of course, ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force. Liberals hate that. To them, this is a world governed by the aggressive use of speeches. You know, all the speeches in the world didn't stop Khadafy from deciding he wanted to become illegitimate.
President Obama has joined the NATO offensive against the Libyan government and has been attacked relentlessly by Rush Limbaugh. Nevertheless, unable, unwilling, or lacking a coherent argument to criticize this decision, Rush declares "liberals don't like using the military" (or) "military success" (and believe) "this is a world governed by the aggressive use of speeches." Let's go over this again: President Obama commits air power against the Khadafy regime and has not yet given an address extensively explaining his rationale and objectives. Rush Limbaugh suggests Obama doesn't like using the military, wants the military to fail, and thinks he can overturn regimes with speeches. And no one in the traditional media asks the Republican leader: what in creation are you talking about?
The brilliance in Rush Limbaugh's approach, however, is not limited to his success at avoiding scrutiny by the mainstream media. It is that (on an issue on which conservatives, like liberals, are divided) he has ridiculed President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton incessantly- and done so without once revealing whether he supports American military action in Libya. Doing so while maintaining the allegiance of his audience and credibility from the traditional media is a triumph of epic proportion.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
When You Lie With Dogs
Media Matters reports sometime in the spring of 2009 Schaeffer Cox founded the pro-gun rights Second Amendment Task Force and wrote a "Letter of Declaration" which read
Let it be known that we, the people of Alaska, stand in recognition of the true principle that whenever a government abandons the purpose for which we have created it and even becomes hostile towards that which it was once a defender of, it is no longer a fit steward of the political power that is inherent in the people and lent to this government with strict conditions. These conditions are clearly defined in the United States Constitution and understood by the common man.
Furthermore, to the extent that our government violates these conditions, they nullify their own authority, at which point it is our right and duty, not as subjects but as sovereign Americans, to entrust this power to new stewards who will not depart from the laws we have given them.
This being the case, let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms or otherwise impose on the right that shall not be infringed, thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense which precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.
The following day, the group met at a Denny's restaurant in Fairbanks, Alaska and in June a video (below) of the event, which Cox claims was attended by 150 people, appeared online. It includes footage of Alaska's sole U.S. Representative, Don Young, signing the Declaration, which Young communications director Meredith Kenney states actually occurred at an open-carry rally held that spring in Fairbanks. (The video shows footage of Young and Cox standing alongside each other, apparently at a restaurant.)
Kenny maintained Young he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment, though she apparently did not explain why her boss believes "the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government" if Washington enacts gun control legislation.
A member of Congress advocates overthrowing the United States government if it implements policies he disagrees with. As Digby has said in other contexts, "what could possibly go wrong?"
Glad you asked. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has reported that on March 16
Schaeffer Cox was contacted by officers while monitoring the scene of a police search at an Eighth Avenue house at about 8 p.m. The 26-year-old carpenter and business owner is part of a “Liberty Bell” network that sends out mass notifications when someone believes their rights are being violated. The owner of the home had contacted him to complain that police were making an unauthorized search of her property.
While Cox was standing outside the home taking notes, police say he failed to tell them he was carrying a concealed .38-caliber pistol. He was arrested on a charge of fifth-degree weapons misconduct, a misdemeanor.
Sgt. Gary Yamamoto said Alaska statute requires that people immediately tell law enforcement officials about the presence of a concealed weapon after being contacted.
“We want everyone to be safe when we’re dealing with people,” he said.
It’s the second arrest this month for Cox, who was charged with felony assault on March 2, a week after Alaska State Troopers accused him of choking his wife during a trip to Anchorage. Cox, who didn’t have a previous criminal record, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless endangerment on March 5 and received a suspended sentence.
Don Young and Schaeffer Cox, two would-be recruits in Sharron Angle's Second Amendment Remedies Militia.
Media Matters reports sometime in the spring of 2009 Schaeffer Cox founded the pro-gun rights Second Amendment Task Force and wrote a "Letter of Declaration" which read
Let it be known that we, the people of Alaska, stand in recognition of the true principle that whenever a government abandons the purpose for which we have created it and even becomes hostile towards that which it was once a defender of, it is no longer a fit steward of the political power that is inherent in the people and lent to this government with strict conditions. These conditions are clearly defined in the United States Constitution and understood by the common man.
Furthermore, to the extent that our government violates these conditions, they nullify their own authority, at which point it is our right and duty, not as subjects but as sovereign Americans, to entrust this power to new stewards who will not depart from the laws we have given them.
This being the case, let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms or otherwise impose on the right that shall not be infringed, thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense which precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.
The following day, the group met at a Denny's restaurant in Fairbanks, Alaska and in June a video (below) of the event, which Cox claims was attended by 150 people, appeared online. It includes footage of Alaska's sole U.S. Representative, Don Young, signing the Declaration, which Young communications director Meredith Kenney states actually occurred at an open-carry rally held that spring in Fairbanks. (The video shows footage of Young and Cox standing alongside each other, apparently at a restaurant.)
Kenny maintained Young he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment, though she apparently did not explain why her boss believes "the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government" if Washington enacts gun control legislation.
A member of Congress advocates overthrowing the United States government if it implements policies he disagrees with. As Digby has said in other contexts, "what could possibly go wrong?"
Glad you asked. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has reported that on March 16
Schaeffer Cox was contacted by officers while monitoring the scene of a police search at an Eighth Avenue house at about 8 p.m. The 26-year-old carpenter and business owner is part of a “Liberty Bell” network that sends out mass notifications when someone believes their rights are being violated. The owner of the home had contacted him to complain that police were making an unauthorized search of her property.
While Cox was standing outside the home taking notes, police say he failed to tell them he was carrying a concealed .38-caliber pistol. He was arrested on a charge of fifth-degree weapons misconduct, a misdemeanor.
Sgt. Gary Yamamoto said Alaska statute requires that people immediately tell law enforcement officials about the presence of a concealed weapon after being contacted.
“We want everyone to be safe when we’re dealing with people,” he said.
It’s the second arrest this month for Cox, who was charged with felony assault on March 2, a week after Alaska State Troopers accused him of choking his wife during a trip to Anchorage. Cox, who didn’t have a previous criminal record, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless endangerment on March 5 and received a suspended sentence.
Don Young and Schaeffer Cox, two would-be recruits in Sharron Angle's Second Amendment Remedies Militia.
When You Lie With Dogs
Media Matters reports sometime in the spring of 2009 Schaeffer Cox founded the pro-gun rights Second Amendment Task Force and wrote a "Letter of Declaration" which read
Let it be known that we, the people of Alaska, stand in recognition of the true principle that whenever a government abandons the purpose for which we have created it and even becomes hostile towards that which it was once a defender of, it is no longer a fit steward of the political power that is inherent in the people and lent to this government with strict conditions. These conditions are clearly defined in the United States Constitution and understood by the common man.
Furthermore, to the extent that our government violates these conditions, they nullify their own authority, at which point it is our right and duty, not as subjects but as sovereign Americans, to entrust this power to new stewards who will not depart from the laws we have given them.
This being the case, let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms or otherwise impose on the right that shall not be infringed, thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense which precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.
The following day, the group met at a Denny's restaurant in Fairbanks, Alaska and in June a video (below) of the event, which Cox claims was attended by 150 people, appeared online. It includes footage of Alaska's sole U.S. Representative, Don Young, signing the Declaration, which Young communications director Meredith Kenney states actually occurred at an open-carry rally held that spring in Fairbanks. (The video shows footage of Young and Cox standing alongside each other, apparently at a restaurant.)
Kenny maintained Young he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment, though she apparently did not explain why her boss believes "the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government" if Washington enacts gun control legislation.
A member of Congress advocates overthrowing the United States government if it implements policies he disagrees with. As Digby has said in other contexts, "what could possibly go wrong?"
Glad you asked. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has reported that on March 16
Schaeffer Cox was contacted by officers while monitoring the scene of a police search at an Eighth Avenue house at about 8 p.m. The 26-year-old carpenter and business owner is part of a “Liberty Bell” network that sends out mass notifications when someone believes their rights are being violated. The owner of the home had contacted him to complain that police were making an unauthorized search of her property.
While Cox was standing outside the home taking notes, police say he failed to tell them he was carrying a concealed .38-caliber pistol. He was arrested on a charge of fifth-degree weapons misconduct, a misdemeanor.
Sgt. Gary Yamamoto said Alaska statute requires that people immediately tell law enforcement officials about the presence of a concealed weapon after being contacted.
“We want everyone to be safe when we’re dealing with people,” he said.
It’s the second arrest this month for Cox, who was charged with felony assault on March 2, a week after Alaska State Troopers accused him of choking his wife during a trip to Anchorage. Cox, who didn’t have a previous criminal record, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless endangerment on March 5 and received a suspended sentence.
Don Young and Schaeffer Cox, two would-be recruits in Sharron Angle's Second Amendment Remedies Militia.
Media Matters reports sometime in the spring of 2009 Schaeffer Cox founded the pro-gun rights Second Amendment Task Force and wrote a "Letter of Declaration" which read
Let it be known that we, the people of Alaska, stand in recognition of the true principle that whenever a government abandons the purpose for which we have created it and even becomes hostile towards that which it was once a defender of, it is no longer a fit steward of the political power that is inherent in the people and lent to this government with strict conditions. These conditions are clearly defined in the United States Constitution and understood by the common man.
Furthermore, to the extent that our government violates these conditions, they nullify their own authority, at which point it is our right and duty, not as subjects but as sovereign Americans, to entrust this power to new stewards who will not depart from the laws we have given them.
This being the case, let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms or otherwise impose on the right that shall not be infringed, thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense which precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness.
The following day, the group met at a Denny's restaurant in Fairbanks, Alaska and in June a video (below) of the event, which Cox claims was attended by 150 people, appeared online. It includes footage of Alaska's sole U.S. Representative, Don Young, signing the Declaration, which Young communications director Meredith Kenney states actually occurred at an open-carry rally held that spring in Fairbanks. (The video shows footage of Young and Cox standing alongside each other, apparently at a restaurant.)
Kenny maintained Young he has always been a vocal and staunch defender of the Second Amendment, though she apparently did not explain why her boss believes "the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government" if Washington enacts gun control legislation.
A member of Congress advocates overthrowing the United States government if it implements policies he disagrees with. As Digby has said in other contexts, "what could possibly go wrong?"
Glad you asked. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has reported that on March 16
Schaeffer Cox was contacted by officers while monitoring the scene of a police search at an Eighth Avenue house at about 8 p.m. The 26-year-old carpenter and business owner is part of a “Liberty Bell” network that sends out mass notifications when someone believes their rights are being violated. The owner of the home had contacted him to complain that police were making an unauthorized search of her property.
While Cox was standing outside the home taking notes, police say he failed to tell them he was carrying a concealed .38-caliber pistol. He was arrested on a charge of fifth-degree weapons misconduct, a misdemeanor.
Sgt. Gary Yamamoto said Alaska statute requires that people immediately tell law enforcement officials about the presence of a concealed weapon after being contacted.
“We want everyone to be safe when we’re dealing with people,” he said.
It’s the second arrest this month for Cox, who was charged with felony assault on March 2, a week after Alaska State Troopers accused him of choking his wife during a trip to Anchorage. Cox, who didn’t have a previous criminal record, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor reckless endangerment on March 5 and received a suspended sentence.
Don Young and Schaeffer Cox, two would-be recruits in Sharron Angle's Second Amendment Remedies Militia.
Patronizing Women
The creativity of the anti-abortion rights movement is being stretched with restrictive bills promoted in Idaho, Kansas, Alabama, and Ohio.
A common theme, meanwhile, runs through anti-choice proposals in three other states, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Arizona. In Michigan, House Bill 4433 (text, in PDF, here), paternalisticly claiming for the state "an interest in protecting women" (in protecting women, not citizens or the public), mandates "performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus at least two hours before an abortion is performed." Oklahoma has enacted a law which, as in Michigan, mandates the doctor to present the ultrasound and the pregnant woman "to listen to a detailed description of the fetus within an hour of the procedure," even if the abortion resulted from rape or incest.
Arizona, home to the Private Prison Operators Employment Act, would not be upstaged. The East Valley Tribune reports
State senators voted to make race- and gender-based abortions illegal, but not before adding provisions which could send doctors and others involved in these acts to prison.
Monday's 21-5 vote came amid charges and counter-charges about whether girls and blacks are being targeted in the womb. Lawmakers from each side cited figures designed to back their contentions.
The only clear thing is that the bill, which already has been approved in similar fashion by the House, is likely headed to the governor's desk, possibly by the end of the month. And Jan Brewer has signed every measure restricting abortion that has been sent to her.
HB 2443 does more than make criminals out of doctors who terminate a pregnancy knowing the woman's reason is to select the race or gender of the child. It also imposes criminal penalties on anyone who solicits or accepts funds to finance abortions based on race or sex.
Violators would face a presumptive prison term of 3.5 years.
That latter provision is aimed at Planned Parenthood.
Well, of course it is, because there is no better way to reduce abortions than to reduce access to birth control information, as well as to other health services for women. Manipulating statistics of blacks obtaining abortions, Republican State Senator Dan Shooter (thankfully, not from Tucson) contended "No one should be subjected to abortion because they're the wrong sex or race." Women and minorities, apparently, are unable to make their own decisions.
The actions in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Arizona have one thing in common: that paternalistic attitude toward women, the notion that they cannot make decisions themselves. The subtext is, as Dahlia Lithwick described in Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's reasoning in Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), that "if pregnant women only knew how abhorrent the procedure was, they'd always opt to avoid it."
But in Arizona at least, another factor is at play. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker exempted police and firefighters from his anti-middle class union legislation at least in part because he recognized that cracking down on the people who fight crime and fires is highly politically incorrect. In the same vein, clamping down on women who have abortions, charging them for first-degree murder for soliciting the destruction of their baby, just wouldn't fly. It would be even more politically incorrect as the right, which loves denigrating the phrase itself (often ridiculing it as "p.c."), undoubtedly understands. Conservatives (as well as liberals) would find odious placing on trial for a capital offense pregnant women, whom they care so, so very much about. Instead, they hew to the paternalistic approach, refusing to hold "the fair sex" to the value they often extol: responsibility for one's own action.
Anti-abortion rights activists, justifiably fearing a precipitous drop in support for their cause if they dropped their intellectual inconsistency, are loath to face this contradiction. Ban abortion- or threaten to prosecute the professionals who perform it- because it is killing, thereby rendering it murder. Then exempt from prosecution the individual who seeks, pays for, and agrees to participate in, that murder. Cynicism would suggest that, on some level, the opponents of abortion are not convinced abortion is the taking of life. But if Occam's Law/Law of Parsimony applies, it likely is something more simple: cowardice.
The creativity of the anti-abortion rights movement is being stretched with restrictive bills promoted in Idaho, Kansas, Alabama, and Ohio.
A common theme, meanwhile, runs through anti-choice proposals in three other states, Michigan, Oklahoma, and Arizona. In Michigan, House Bill 4433 (text, in PDF, here), paternalisticly claiming for the state "an interest in protecting women" (in protecting women, not citizens or the public), mandates "performance of a diagnostic ultrasound examination of the fetus at least two hours before an abortion is performed." Oklahoma has enacted a law which, as in Michigan, mandates the doctor to present the ultrasound and the pregnant woman "to listen to a detailed description of the fetus within an hour of the procedure," even if the abortion resulted from rape or incest.
Arizona, home to the Private Prison Operators Employment Act, would not be upstaged. The East Valley Tribune reports
State senators voted to make race- and gender-based abortions illegal, but not before adding provisions which could send doctors and others involved in these acts to prison.
Monday's 21-5 vote came amid charges and counter-charges about whether girls and blacks are being targeted in the womb. Lawmakers from each side cited figures designed to back their contentions.
The only clear thing is that the bill, which already has been approved in similar fashion by the House, is likely headed to the governor's desk, possibly by the end of the month. And Jan Brewer has signed every measure restricting abortion that has been sent to her.
HB 2443 does more than make criminals out of doctors who terminate a pregnancy knowing the woman's reason is to select the race or gender of the child. It also imposes criminal penalties on anyone who solicits or accepts funds to finance abortions based on race or sex.
Violators would face a presumptive prison term of 3.5 years.
That latter provision is aimed at Planned Parenthood.
Well, of course it is, because there is no better way to reduce abortions than to reduce access to birth control information, as well as to other health services for women. Manipulating statistics of blacks obtaining abortions, Republican State Senator Dan Shooter (thankfully, not from Tucson) contended "No one should be subjected to abortion because they're the wrong sex or race." Women and minorities, apparently, are unable to make their own decisions.
The actions in Michigan, Oklahoma, and Arizona have one thing in common: that paternalistic attitude toward women, the notion that they cannot make decisions themselves. The subtext is, as Dahlia Lithwick described in Supreme Court Justice Kennedy's reasoning in Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), that "if pregnant women only knew how abhorrent the procedure was, they'd always opt to avoid it."
But in Arizona at least, another factor is at play. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker exempted police and firefighters from his anti-
Anti-abortion rights activists, justifiably fearing a precipitous drop in support for their cause if they dropped their intellectual inconsistency, are loath to face this contradiction. Ban abortion- or threaten to prosecute the professionals who perform it- because it is killing, thereby rendering it murder. Then exempt from prosecution the individual who seeks, pays for, and agrees to participate in, that murder. Cynicism would suggest that, on some level, the opponents of abortion are not convinced abortion is the taking of life. But if Occam's Law/Law of Parsimony applies, it likely is something more simple: cowardice.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Not Necessary
Citing a disturbing analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that now through 2021 national debt will never fall below 4% of gross domestic product, The New Republic's William Galston finds
Whatever one may think about the size, timing, and appropriateness of short-term budget cuts, the CBO report adds precision to the common view that our long-term fiscal course is unsustainable.
Galston, understandably, laments the stance of the public revealed in the latest Pew Research survey, in which "lowering domestic spending" is favored by more than 2 to 1- while pluralites oppose cuts in defense/military spending (narrowly), changes to Social Security/Medicare (overwhelmingly), and raising taxes (slightly more overwhelmingly). Galston argues "the only way to change these public attitudes is to level with the people about our fiscal situation and educate them about the true choices we face." Echoing the sentiments of 62 U.S. Senators, he contends "this task is essential and long overdue," disturbed that it appears "former professor Obama isn’t willing to take the lead."
Don't be. This is a sucker's bet. We've all been through this before. The GOP increases spending while reducing income taxes (why not? no one has to pay for it!) during a Repub presidency, expecting a Democratic president to do the responsible thing, talk about our children's future, and decide to cut the deficit.
That can, of course, be done in either of two ways: reduce spending or increase taxes. Given that any suggestion that an income tax increase, even- nay, especially- on the wealthy prompts innumerable Republicans to stomp their feet, throw a temper tantrum, and swear to Grover Norquist they never, ever will vote for a tax increase, there is only one option available. And given that a Democratic president knows that if he cuts defense spending, he'll be accused of all manner of endangering the American republic, aiding the enemy, and possibly violating the Constitution, we know where the ax is expected to fall.
Taxes are down with and, the CBO has reported, in January 2011 “revenues would be just under 15 percent of GDP; levels that low have not been seen since 1950." (The average for the past 40 years has been 18%.) Corporate tax revenues, as the graph below, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities indicates, are at near historically low levels. And the highest marginal tax rates are significantly lower than during most of the 1990s, during the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.
And as the graph below indicates, tax rates for the wealthy have dropped more than for the middle class while incomes have stagnated for the middle class, which has declined in numbers and importance.
So Barack Obama, as only a Democratic President would, is urged to be the adult in the room, to explain to the American people the long-term (by far the greater) danger of increasing debt. Meanwhile, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan- seriously- has proposed to cut the top corporate and income tax rate from 35% to 25%. No, really. No need to mention his party affiliation- only Democrats are expected to be responsible.
Please, no more teachable moments for President Obama, or any more opportunities for him to push "winning the future." Support for sound policy, including this legislative proposal from U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, would be far more helpful.
Citing a disturbing analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that now through 2021 national debt will never fall below 4% of gross domestic product, The New Republic's William Galston finds
Whatever one may think about the size, timing, and appropriateness of short-term budget cuts, the CBO report adds precision to the common view that our long-term fiscal course is unsustainable.
Galston, understandably, laments the stance of the public revealed in the latest Pew Research survey, in which "lowering domestic spending" is favored by more than 2 to 1- while pluralites oppose cuts in defense/military spending (narrowly), changes to Social Security/Medicare (overwhelmingly), and raising taxes (slightly more overwhelmingly). Galston argues "the only way to change these public attitudes is to level with the people about our fiscal situation and educate them about the true choices we face." Echoing the sentiments of 62 U.S. Senators, he contends "this task is essential and long overdue," disturbed that it appears "former professor Obama isn’t willing to take the lead."
Don't be. This is a sucker's bet. We've all been through this before. The GOP increases spending while reducing income taxes (why not? no one has to pay for it!) during a Repub presidency, expecting a Democratic president to do the responsible thing, talk about our children's future, and decide to cut the deficit.
That can, of course, be done in either of two ways: reduce spending or increase taxes. Given that any suggestion that an income tax increase, even- nay, especially- on the wealthy prompts innumerable Republicans to stomp their feet, throw a temper tantrum, and swear to Grover Norquist they never, ever will vote for a tax increase, there is only one option available. And given that a Democratic president knows that if he cuts defense spending, he'll be accused of all manner of endangering the American republic, aiding the enemy, and possibly violating the Constitution, we know where the ax is expected to fall.
Taxes are down with and, the CBO has reported, in January 2011 “revenues would be just under 15 percent of GDP; levels that low have not been seen since 1950." (The average for the past 40 years has been 18%.) Corporate tax revenues, as the graph below, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities indicates, are at near historically low levels. And the highest marginal tax rates are significantly lower than during most of the 1990s, during the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.
And as the graph below indicates, tax rates for the wealthy have dropped more than for the middle class while incomes have stagnated for the middle class, which has declined in numbers and importance.
So Barack Obama, as only a Democratic President would, is urged to be the adult in the room, to explain to the American people the long-term (by far the greater) danger of increasing debt. Meanwhile, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan- seriously- has proposed to cut the top corporate and income tax rate from 35% to 25%. No, really. No need to mention his party affiliation- only Democrats are expected to be responsible.
Please, no more teachable moments for President Obama, or any more opportunities for him to push "winning the future." Support for sound policy, including this legislative proposal from U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, would be far more helpful.
Not Necessary
Citing a disturbing analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that now through 2021 national debt will never fall below 4% of gross domestic product, The New Republic's William Galston finds
Whatever one may think about the size, timing, and appropriateness of short-term budget cuts, the CBO report adds precision to the common view that our long-term fiscal course is unsustainable.
Galston, understandably, laments the stance of the public revealed in the latest Pew Research survey, in which "lowering domestic spending" is favored by more than 2 to 1- while pluralites oppose cuts in defense/military spending (narrowly), changes to Social Security/Medicare (overwhelmingly), and raising taxes (slightly more overwhelmingly). Galston argues "the only way to change these public attitudes is to level with the people about our fiscal situation and educate them about the true choices we face." Echoing the sentiments of 62 U.S. Senators, he contends "this task is essential and long overdue," disturbed that it appears "former professor Obama isn’t willing to take the lead."
Don't be. This is a sucker's bet. We've all been through this before. The GOP increases spending while reducing income taxes (why not? no one has to pay for it!) during a Repub presidency, expecting a Democratic president to do the responsible thing, talk about our children's future, and decide to cut the deficit.
That can, of course, be done in either of two ways: reduce spending or increase taxes. Given that any suggestion that an income tax increase, even- nay, especially- on the wealthy prompts innumerable Republicans to stomp their feet, throw a temper tantrum, and swear to Grover Norquist they never, ever will vote for a tax increase, there is only one option available. And given that a Democratic president knows that if he cuts defense spending, he'll be accused of all manner of endangering the American republic, aiding the enemy, and possibly violating the Constitution, we know where the ax is expected to fall.
Taxes are down with and, the CBO has reported, in January 2011 “revenues would be just under 15 percent of GDP; levels that low have not been seen since 1950." (The average for the past 40 years has been 18%.) Corporate tax revenues, as the graph below, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities indicates, are at near historically low levels. And the highest marginal tax rates are significantly lower than during the 1990s, during the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.
And as the graph below indicates, tax rates for the wealthy have dropped more than for the middle class while incomes have stagnated for the middle class, which has declined in numbers and importance.
So Barack Obama, as only a Democratic President would, is urged to be the adult in the room, to explain to the American people the long-term (by far the greater) danger of increasing debt. Meanwhile, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan- seriously- has proposed to cut the top corporate and income tax rate from 35% to 25%. No, really. No need to mention his party affiliation- only Democrats are expected to be responsible.
Please, no more teachable moments for President Obama, or any more opportunities for him to push "winning the future." Support for sound policy, including this legislative proposal from U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, would be far more helpful.
Citing a disturbing analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that now through 2021 national debt will never fall below 4% of gross domestic product, The New Republic's William Galston finds
Whatever one may think about the size, timing, and appropriateness of short-term budget cuts, the CBO report adds precision to the common view that our long-term fiscal course is unsustainable.
Galston, understandably, laments the stance of the public revealed in the latest Pew Research survey, in which "lowering domestic spending" is favored by more than 2 to 1- while pluralites oppose cuts in defense/military spending (narrowly), changes to Social Security/Medicare (overwhelmingly), and raising taxes (slightly more overwhelmingly). Galston argues "the only way to change these public attitudes is to level with the people about our fiscal situation and educate them about the true choices we face." Echoing the sentiments of 62 U.S. Senators, he contends "this task is essential and long overdue," disturbed that it appears "former professor Obama isn’t willing to take the lead."
Don't be. This is a sucker's bet. We've all been through this before. The GOP increases spending while reducing income taxes (why not? no one has to pay for it!) during a Repub presidency, expecting a Democratic president to do the responsible thing, talk about our children's future, and decide to cut the deficit.
That can, of course, be done in either of two ways: reduce spending or increase taxes. Given that any suggestion that an income tax increase, even- nay, especially- on the wealthy prompts innumerable Republicans to stomp their feet, throw a temper tantrum, and swear to Grover Norquist they never, ever will vote for a tax increase, there is only one option available. And given that a Democratic president knows that if he cuts defense spending, he'll be accused of all manner of endangering the American republic, aiding the enemy, and possibly violating the Constitution, we know where the ax is expected to fall.
Taxes are down with and, the CBO has reported, in January 2011 “revenues would be just under 15 percent of GDP; levels that low have not been seen since 1950." (The average for the past 40 years has been 18%.) Corporate tax revenues, as the graph below, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities indicates, are at near historically low levels. And the highest marginal tax rates are significantly lower than during the 1990s, during the longest period of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.
And as the graph below indicates, tax rates for the wealthy have dropped more than for the middle class while incomes have stagnated for the middle class, which has declined in numbers and importance.
So Barack Obama, as only a Democratic President would, is urged to be the adult in the room, to explain to the American people the long-term (by far the greater) danger of increasing debt. Meanwhile, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan- seriously- has proposed to cut the top corporate and income tax rate from 35% to 25%. No, really. No need to mention his party affiliation- only Democrats are expected to be responsible.
Please, no more teachable moments for President Obama, or any more opportunities for him to push "winning the future." Support for sound policy, including this legislative proposal from U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, would be far more helpful.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Serious, Unserious, Or Whatever
John Dickerson isn't serious.
However, such criticism wouldn't be taken as an insult by the columnist for Slate, who on March 18 wrote
Washington is obsessed with measuring seriousness. President Obama's televised discussion of his NCAA bracket proved he isn't a serious leader. House conservatives said GOP leaders weren't serious enough about cutting the deficit. Senate Republicans leveled that charge against their Democratic counterparts.
This call for seriousness is often itself not a serious charge. What most of the criticisms actually mean is "My opponent doesn't believe something I'd like him to."
So true, so true, and in support of his thesis, Dickerson invokes unnamed campaign managers for Repub presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Haley Barbour, each of whom has told him that his/her candidate embodies the seriousness the American people are looking for.
But then Dickerson derails, speaking in far more positive terms of the man designated by the media as The Most Serious Man In Washington:
That's the test that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan uses. He worries that the focus of Tea Party activists and many House freshmen on immediate spending reductions obscures that test. "They literally think you can just balance" the budget by cutting "waste, fraud and abuse, foreign, aid and NPR," he said in an interview last week with the Associated Press. "And it doesn't work like that."
Ryan is about to take a huge gamble on seriousness.
Ryan, you see, doesn't claim seriousness; he takes a gamble on it, walking the walk rather than talking the talk.
Except he doesn't. Paul Krugman last August unmasked Ryan's fraudulent Roadmap for America's Future, finding
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.
And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.
And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Finally, let’s talk about those spending cuts. In its first decade, most of the alleged savings in the Ryan plan come from assuming zero dollar growth in domestic discretionary spending, which includes everything from energy policy to education to the court system. This would amount to a 25 percent cut once you adjust for inflation and population growth. How would such a severe cut be achieved? What specific programs would be slashed? Mr. Ryan doesn’t say.
After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.
And we already know, from experience with the Medicare Advantage program, that a voucher system would have higher, not lower, costs than our current system. The only way the Ryan plan could save money would be by making those vouchers too small to pay for adequate coverage. Wealthy older Americans would be able to supplement their vouchers, and get the care they need; everyone else would be out in the cold.
Today, Krugman writes that The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Comeback America Initiative and the Concord Coalition (leading advocates of Seriousness) last Wednesday gave to Ryan its "FI$CY" because (or perhaps) because his
contribution to reducing the deficit is that he, well, talks a lot about the need to reduce the deficit; never mind that his actual proposals are a mixture of magic asterisks and concrete actions that would actually make the deficit bigger.
Dickerson's motive, though, is not to elevate Ryan to the level of Seriousness without burdening him with the label. He contends
When a candidate has no easy way to overcome an obstacle to his campaign, he will seek to diminish it by pointing to something else. This is a time-honored technique, though its most notable recent use has been by Democratic presidential candidates in 2000 and 2004. Both Al Gore's and John Kerry's campaigns argued that Americans would overlook their shortcomings because they wanted a "serious" candidate.
Taking pot shots at Al Gore apparently has not completely ceased. It has been a popular media parlor game the past dozen years as Bob Somerby (who, helpfully, periodically returns to this subject) summarized for us on 12/3/02:
Many familiar spin-points in Campaign 2000 came straight from the RNC. The points were then bruited all over the press. This conduct is especially strange, of course, when the spin-points are totally bogus.
The fancy hotel? It came to you came straight from the RNC. To revisit the press corps’ gong-show performance, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/8/02 and 8/9/02.
Gore really brought us Willie Horton? Utterly, grindingly, howlingly false—and brought to you straight from the RNC. The point was recited all over the press. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/1/02 and 11/4/02.
First Love Story, now Love Canal? Bonus points for a Lou Dobbs moment!! Ceci Connolly seems to have cut-and-pasted this bit of spin straight from an RNC press release. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/2/02.
And how about that “farm chores” hoax? That began at the RNC, too. Gore was trashed as a liar for months—although the Washington press corps was full of reporters who knew that his statement was perfectly accurate. For some strange reason, nobody spoke. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/29/99, 6/30/99, and 8/30/99. By the way, the RNC even faxed out a doctored quote in order to sell its “farm chores” twaddle. No one in the press corps tattled. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/26/00.
Slamming the guy who presciently supported Gulf War I, opposed Gulf War II, and warned us about environmental degradation before it was fashionable, while it was fashionable, and since it has gone out of fashion, is fair game, though unjustified. It is curious, though, Dickerson follows his criticism of the prior two Democratic presidential nominees by concluding, far more generously,
This theory also requires that people see President Obama as unserious. Cool, detached, and cerebral, maybe. But one ill-timed televised discussion of his NCAA bracket isn't likely to make voters take seriously the idea that he's not, well, serious.
Barack Obama is thoughtful, cerebral, and serious. But Dickerson's defense of Obama in light of his knock on Gore (and Kerry) bears a similarity to the treatment of one of those Democrats by Chris Matthews, of whom Somerby recently noted
For two solid years, when Welch was the boss, he was savage and profoundly dishonest in his attacks against Candidate Gore.
As you may recall, Candidate Gore (“a man-like object”) didn’t “have his gender straight.” Matthews was endlessly troubled by “this protean new person, this new man-woman, whatever the hell he’s trying to become.” The most remarkable insults rained down for two years, and then well beyond. (Weeks after 9/11: “He doesn’t look like one of us,” Matthews told Don Imus. “He doesn’t seem very American, even.”)
Now Matthews is, fortuitously, himself far more generous toward a fellow who, some say, "doesn't look like one of us" and whom many Republicans believe "doesn't seem very American, even." Somerby notes "today, of course, Matthews hates all that talk about people who don’t seem very American—as he always should have."
Perhaps for John Dickerson, too, it all comes down to being, and having, "cool." Paul Ryan, in his own wonkish (albeit superficial) way, may have it, as does Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the last two Democratic presidential nominees weren't, and didn't, and for Dickerson and some of his colleagues, that has made all the difference.
John Dickerson isn't serious.
However, such criticism wouldn't be taken as an insult by the columnist for Slate, who on March 18 wrote
Washington is obsessed with measuring seriousness. President Obama's televised discussion of his NCAA bracket proved he isn't a serious leader. House conservatives said GOP leaders weren't serious enough about cutting the deficit. Senate Republicans leveled that charge against their Democratic counterparts.
This call for seriousness is often itself not a serious charge. What most of the criticisms actually mean is "My opponent doesn't believe something I'd like him to."
So true, so true, and in support of his thesis, Dickerson invokes unnamed campaign managers for Repub presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Haley Barbour, each of whom has told him that his/her candidate embodies the seriousness the American people are looking for.
But then Dickerson derails, speaking in far more positive terms of the man designated by the media as The Most Serious Man In Washington:
That's the test that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan uses. He worries that the focus of Tea Party activists and many House freshmen on immediate spending reductions obscures that test. "They literally think you can just balance" the budget by cutting "waste, fraud and abuse, foreign, aid and NPR," he said in an interview last week with the Associated Press. "And it doesn't work like that."
Ryan is about to take a huge gamble on seriousness.
Ryan, you see, doesn't claim seriousness; he takes a gamble on it, walking the walk rather than talking the talk.
Except he doesn't. Paul Krugman last August unmasked Ryan's fraudulent Roadmap for America's Future, finding
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.
And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.
And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
Finally, let’s talk about those spending cuts. In its first decade, most of the alleged savings in the Ryan plan come from assuming zero dollar growth in domestic discretionary spending, which includes everything from energy policy to education to the court system. This would amount to a 25 percent cut once you adjust for inflation and population growth. How would such a severe cut be achieved? What specific programs would be slashed? Mr. Ryan doesn’t say.
After 2020, the main alleged saving would come from sharp cuts in Medicare, achieved by dismantling Medicare as we know it, and instead giving seniors vouchers and telling them to buy their own insurance. Does this sound familiar? It should. It’s the same plan Newt Gingrich tried to sell in 1995.
And we already know, from experience with the Medicare Advantage program, that a voucher system would have higher, not lower, costs than our current system. The only way the Ryan plan could save money would be by making those vouchers too small to pay for adequate coverage. Wealthy older Americans would be able to supplement their vouchers, and get the care they need; everyone else would be out in the cold.
Today, Krugman writes that The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Comeback America Initiative and the Concord Coalition (leading advocates of Seriousness) last Wednesday gave to Ryan its "FI$CY" because (or perhaps) because his
contribution to reducing the deficit is that he, well, talks a lot about the need to reduce the deficit; never mind that his actual proposals are a mixture of magic asterisks and concrete actions that would actually make the deficit bigger.
Dickerson's motive, though, is not to elevate Ryan to the level of Seriousness without burdening him with the label. He contends
When a candidate has no easy way to overcome an obstacle to his campaign, he will seek to diminish it by pointing to something else. This is a time-honored technique, though its most notable recent use has been by Democratic presidential candidates in 2000 and 2004. Both Al Gore's and John Kerry's campaigns argued that Americans would overlook their shortcomings because they wanted a "serious" candidate.
Taking pot shots at Al Gore apparently has not completely ceased. It has been a popular media parlor game the past dozen years as Bob Somerby (who, helpfully, periodically returns to this subject) summarized for us on 12/3/02:
Many familiar spin-points in Campaign 2000 came straight from the RNC. The points were then bruited all over the press. This conduct is especially strange, of course, when the spin-points are totally bogus.
The fancy hotel? It came to you came straight from the RNC. To revisit the press corps’ gong-show performance, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/8/02 and 8/9/02.
Gore really brought us Willie Horton? Utterly, grindingly, howlingly false—and brought to you straight from the RNC. The point was recited all over the press. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/1/02 and 11/4/02.
First Love Story, now Love Canal? Bonus points for a Lou Dobbs moment!! Ceci Connolly seems to have cut-and-pasted this bit of spin straight from an RNC press release. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/2/02.
And how about that “farm chores” hoax? That began at the RNC, too. Gore was trashed as a liar for months—although the Washington press corps was full of reporters who knew that his statement was perfectly accurate. For some strange reason, nobody spoke. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/29/99, 6/30/99, and 8/30/99. By the way, the RNC even faxed out a doctored quote in order to sell its “farm chores” twaddle. No one in the press corps tattled. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/26/00.
Slamming the guy who presciently supported Gulf War I, opposed Gulf War II, and warned us about environmental degradation before it was fashionable, while it was fashionable, and since it has gone out of fashion, is fair game, though unjustified. It is curious, though, Dickerson follows his criticism of the prior two Democratic presidential nominees by concluding, far more generously,
This theory also requires that people see President Obama as unserious. Cool, detached, and cerebral, maybe. But one ill-timed televised discussion of his NCAA bracket isn't likely to make voters take seriously the idea that he's not, well, serious.
Barack Obama is thoughtful, cerebral, and serious. But Dickerson's defense of Obama in light of his knock on Gore (and Kerry) bears a similarity to the treatment of one of those Democrats by Chris Matthews, of whom Somerby recently noted
For two solid years, when Welch was the boss, he was savage and profoundly dishonest in his attacks against Candidate Gore.
As you may recall, Candidate Gore (“a man-like object”) didn’t “have his gender straight.” Matthews was endlessly troubled by “this protean new person, this new man-woman, whatever the hell he’s trying to become.” The most remarkable insults rained down for two years, and then well beyond. (Weeks after 9/11: “He doesn’t look like one of us,” Matthews told Don Imus. “He doesn’t seem very American, even.”)
Now Matthews is, fortuitously, himself far more generous toward a fellow who, some say, "doesn't look like one of us" and whom many Republicans believe "doesn't seem very American, even." Somerby notes "today, of course, Matthews hates all that talk about people who don’t seem very American—as he always should have."
Perhaps for John Dickerson, too, it all comes down to being, and having, "cool." Paul Ryan, in his own wonkish (albeit superficial) way, may have it, as does Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the last two Democratic presidential nominees weren't, and didn't, and for Dickerson and some of his colleagues, that has made all the difference.
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