I spent a few days away with family and friends. Needless to say, many are Republicans and worse yet, Tea Baggers.

I'm sure many of you can sympathize (empathize?) with this situation, looking to spend some R&R time away, visiting loved ones, catching up with old acquaintances, and yet knowing all the while the political leanings of those you will meet and that there's always the chance of something being said -- whether it be by them or you -- where if not handled delicately could domino into a full-blown squabble. On the one hand, you simply want to meet/greet/converse and keep things light, not because you want to but rather because you have to. Been there, done that, and past occurrences have dictated that's the way it has to be (unfortunately).

On the other hand, if something is said politically, you do not want to just let things go with a nod and grin, wanting instead to respond to whatever was said. Odds are it was something about Obama, or the deficit, or the woeful economy. Whatever was said, you know it was likely something paraphrased from FOX News and is either based on fiction or incorrect assumptions, or both.

Do you dare say something that undoubtedly will be perceived as "elitist" (code word for factually correct AND liberal-leaning)? Or do you just suck-it up, not wanting to risk having a brief statement mushroom into an ugly scene?

You never know which way things will go. Republicans and esp. Tea Baggers seemingly by nature harbor much inner-anger and are quick to jump all over you if they sense they're not discussing something with like-minded-thinking folks.

I have a tendency to try and go half way, perhaps injecting some facts into the dialogue (without mentioning sources up front since too often if you say NY Times or the like, it's immediately dismissed as leftist dogma), but stopping well short of giving a fleshed-out basis for my thoughts on the matter. I must say though that at times even this brief attempt at introducing something other that what Rush or Hannity might say does ignite some sparks. I must then make a quick decision: do I look to change the subject, if not for anyone else than for the sake of the kids if an argument ensued, or do I gingerly but forcefully rebuff the stoked-up incitement? Do I want to be another wet noodle? Another spineless liberal ala Harry Reid? Or do I do what Republicans and Tea Baggers do best, meet their intimidation and anger head-on with a dose of my own??

Again, for the sake of the kids, you want to avoid what could easily become an embarrassing spectacle. But also I am frequently outnumbered by this crowd and they appear to be fully aware of this and use it to full advantage, pressing their views while knowing they have numbers in bodies and can bully thanks to children being present.

Fortunately this time around, I was able to make some brief comments unscathed, deftly side-stepping any openings or possibilities for eruptions. Whew.

A relief, yes. But still it never ceases to amaze me the things I hear uttered by someone only to later hear something else said by the same person that contradicts or conflicts with what he or she said just a short time earlier.

For example, someone mentioned an article in the latest National Geographic magazine that informs of the women in Brazil having fewer babies thanks to their educating themselves about birth control alternatives. This person felt the article was very interesting and understood that in part Brazil's success over the last several years is due to their population becoming more developed and progressive in their thinking. However, this person is very much against abortion, actually he's against all forms of birth control, and also has a personal situation involving a teen pregnancy -- will leave at that, but I don't believe it was lost on him that education and birth control could have prevented that teen pregnancy.

Conflicting logic and dare I say hypocrisy is the norm when one is with Republicans and Tea Baggers. Yet as I mentioned, it's always amazing to observe their lack of realizing or acknowledging these many conflicts, that they live their day-to-day lives with so much incongruence, denial and (willful?) blindness.

Some other examples of topics that surfaced which I either elected to briefly offer comments and keep fingers crossed heated debate didn't follow, or I just let it go without comment (have to conserve energy, can't risk entanglement at every turn):

* Weather. Irene was obviously a subject of discussion, but so also was the torrential rains this summer coupled with parts of the country experiencing consecutive days of excruciating heat (e.g. Austin had 70 straight days of 100+ degree heat). You'd think maybe climate change would receive a mention as a possible factor in all of this -- nope. Instead, the usual babble about how weather is cyclical, this admittedly strange weather is no different than times in the past, it's just Mother Nature "getting angry", etc. Please. I did state that in fact the trends are not cyclical, that the charts all show the direction of heat and CO2 heading in one direction: up. Cyclical infers an up/down pattern -- over time, it's just not there. I also asked my favorite question, "where do you think the CO2 and pollutants go, into outer space?" and as per usual, never received a response.

* Riots in Philadelphia. I heard accolades given to the mayor of Philly, saying finally that city gets a good mayor, tough on "hoodlums" and enforcing curfews. I didn't think establishing something close to martial law in a U.S. city was a good thing, and was certainly a worrisome development to say the least, not so much warranting congrats to one individual but rather demanding analysis. Why is this happening? What are the root causes and how can those be addressed? I had to remind it's not likely just a coincidence that similar riots had been occurring elsewhere in the world (London, Chile, Egypt, Libya, etc.). The non-rich and non-elite are growing increasingly weary and frustrated with the state of things, whether it be high unemployment, rising food prices, ballooning wealth disparity, entrenched corruption, to name a few. People are getting pissed. Extending unemployment insurance is not just the right thing to do, it may also help to prevent further civil unrest -- but the GOP and Tea Baggers are too short-sighted to recognize such an act as a wise "investment."

* Stock portfolios. There was much chatter about the stock market. Will it go up from here or continue to go down? Do I have too much in stocks? Should I buy gold? Any advice?? No mention about how the stock market began its descent right after the Tea Party debt ceiling victory, effectively initiating a massive austerity program which leaves the economy sputtering on its own, with the government in a fiscal straight-jacket, not able to help. The stock market decline simply reflected the fragile state of the economy but more so it being sent out alone on the high-wire with no balance pole, no net, no nothing. S&P literally stated their downgrade was due largely to the Tea Party hostage-taking maneuver, and according to Sen. Mitch McConnell it will be used repeatedly in future. Heck, even Bernanke strongly hinted that the economy could use more help than just what the Fed could offer in monetary cures. But all of this was lost on this Tea Party crowd, who simply wanted to blame Obama, period.

* Libya/Gaddafi. Much grousing about why are we there at all. Oh boy. So it's OK for GW/Cheney to invade another oil-rich country that had nothing to do with 9/11, spending over $1 trillion to do so, using "shock and awe" methods to both scare and impress the world, and heavily reward a company called Halliburton -- and yet it's not OK for Obama to spend very little regarding Libya, doing so quietly, and obviously getting good results...? Gads, I just let this one go....

You get the point. It went on and on over several days. Some retired folks who were proud government workers for many years (decades), and yet recited more than a few anti-government GOP talking points. Mind you these same people had stated they loved their Medicare (when I asked) and even enrolled their name/address/phone# on a government website to receive robo-calls about Irene. I even heard one person seemingly slip up and tell me that in his town children attending a Catholic school receive busing to that school on the town's dime, via the public school bus system. I asked how could this be, why should the local public there pay for transportation to a non-public school -- never received a coherent answer.

As much as I love vacations and seeing family and friends, this aspect of the visit never changes and serves to spoil what should be an enjoyable time. I have no problem with differences of opinions, as long as the arguments involved are based on facts, reason, logic and non-conflicting beliefs. As you can see, rarely do I encounter any of this. A shame.

Michael Tomasky recently wrote a piece that exposes not only the true culprit behind our deficit (nothing surprising on this front), but also exposes the Tea Baggers as crazed hypocrites.

The Boston Globe ran a chart (see below) last Sunday that I’d buy billboard space to reproduce in every decent-size city in America, if I were running the Democratic National Committee. The premise of it was very simple: It showed how many trillions each president since Ronald Reagan has added to the nation’s debt. The debt was about $1 trillion when Reagan took office, and then: Reagan, $1.9 trillion; George H.W. Bush, $1.5 trillion (in just four years); Bill Clinton, $1.4 trillion; Obama, $2.4 trillion.

Oh, wait. I skipped someone. George W. Bush ran up $6.4 trillion. That’s nearly half—44.7 percent—of the $14.3 trillion total. We all know what did it—two massive tax cuts geared toward the rich (along with other similar measures, like slashing the capital gains and inheritance taxes), the off-the-books wars, the unfunded Medicare expansion, and so on. But the number is staggering and worth dwelling on. In a history covering 30 years, nearly half the debt was run up in eight. Even the allegedly socialist Obama at his most allegedly wanton doesn’t compare to Dubya; and Obama’s debt numbers, if he’s reelected, will surely not double or even come close as we gambol down Austerity Lane.

In percentage terms, the case is even more open and shut. This table (below) tells the sad tale. The percentages in question here are debt as a chunk of the GDP. It was more than 100 percent after World War II ended, for defensible and obvious reasons having to do with financing the war effort (the government buying all those tanks and planes from GM, and everything else). But after it went back down, it had tended to hover in the 40 to 50 percent range during good times. Well, Reagan raised it 20 points, to 53 percent from 33 percent. Bush Sr. a gaudy 13 points more. Clinton lowered it by 10 points, back down to 56 percent. Bush Jr.? Up 28 points, to 82 percent of GDP. Obama has raised it nine points. Once again: In a 30-year increase from 32 percent to 93 percent of 61 points, nearly half, 28 points or 46 percent, happened under Bush.

When I haven’t had to leave the room to avoid smashing the television, I can only laugh when I hear Tea Party conservatives avow today, with all the credibility of Larry Craig explaining his wide-stance technique, that they have no love for Bush. Nonsense. What did they have for him in real time? Were there protest marches, mass donnings of tricorn hats, nullification threats from states regarding federal legislation? Of course not. In real time, there was a little polite caviling, but in the end they voted for all this debt. After all, Bush was defending freedom.

It is truly an incredible record when you stack it up. First, the party fought tooth and nail against every single move Clinton made that ended up putting us in surplus. Then it got power—and let’s not get into how that happened—and ran up completely unprecedented debts and deficits. Then it put the foxes in command of the henhouses at the SEC and OTC and brought the world to the very brink of total economic collapse. (The economic “growth” rate in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to recently revised Commerce Department figures, was negative 8.9 percent; even during the Depression rates were typically higher.) Then a guy from the other party got back in, tried to do what the vast majority of economists would say should be done in such a situation (the government should spend money while the private sector couldn’t), and they fought him tooth and nail. And now they’ve forced him into a deal (which he should not have agreed to) that will help ensure that the economy remains stuck in neutral until, oh, November 2012, to pick a date out of the air. Next, that guy will identify tax cuts to spur job growth, and they will invent reasons to oppose these measures, just as they once invented reasons why “deficits don’t matter."

Well, there you have it, succinctly put. The exploding deficit was not a problem as long as one of their own was in the White House. But with a Democrat winning fair and square to take up residence there, all hell breaks loose, they throw a sh*t fit. And it doesn't help that this Dem is 50% not white, further driving them over the edge.

The key charts are below. In the first graphic, note that almost 50% of Obama's contribution ($2.4 trillion) is comprised of stimulus measures that 1) had to be implemented due to the Great Recession that Obama inherited and 2) which worked.



Click to magnify

In his NY Times op-ed, Warren Buffett sums up today's America:

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent....The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes.

This country has been reduced to one word: greed. How else to explain the utter silence on this matter? Despite the fact Buffett generously writes, "I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people....Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes," why is he the only super-wealthy person to regularly speak out about the unfairness in the tax code? Where are all the other "decent" folk of which he speaks, who seemingly hide in the shadows and avoid making such an impassioned plea to raise taxes on their brethren?

Reminder: there were many super-wealthy people on the Titanic.... Rich, poor, there's no difference at the bottom of the ocean.

Newsweek's front cover of Michelle Bachmann has received much coverage, with the photo apparently depicting her not as herself but rather as a crazy woman.

Of course, there's no chance that she actually looks that way in real-life. I mean after all, it's never been said before or written anywhere that she has a crazy-eyes look. No, it has to be that liberal rag Newsweek simply out to get her, to make her look silly.

Oh boy. Anyone with half a brain would know that odds are extremely low that her people did not see the cover photo before it went to press. I'm sure it was OK'd by the Bachmann folks, and I'm sure they felt that's just how she looks when photographed.

But what is frightening is it's my sense that those who first stirred up the controversy and made it into a national crime are Bachmann's supporters, not Bachmann herself or her people. Her die-hard fan base cried foul, clamoring for justice, believing it was another evil, liberal plot.

It's one thing to be an enthusiastic supporter for a given candidate, but many a Tea Bagger goes beyond to what can only be regarded as cult-figure followers. Anything that is perceived to be a slight against their leader(s) is immediately called out and admonished in the most forceful manner -- never mind if there's any truth to their presumption.

Recall when Sarah Palin made incorrect statements about Paul Revere. It was reported then that her followers quickly bombarded Paul Revere's Wiki page, attempting to change the correct facts there to match Palin's wrongness. To me this was horrific. People were more than willing to modify the truth in an effort to "please" or "honor" their glorified leader. It was something right out of Orwell's 1984 -- bone-chilling.

In my opinion this behavior is unsettling to put it mildly and could conceivably devolve into something more dangerous. History shows that followers of cults can get so caught up in their beliefs and so removed from reality that unfortunate actions can result.

It's something to be aware of and keep a watchful eye on.... Nothing good can come from zombie-like hero/heroine worship.

"Let’s take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?" -- Steve Benen

A timeline well-worth memorizing.

It's really incredible to take in what's happened in the last 30 some odd years. From Reagan + $2 trillion in debt, to Clinton amassing a surplus, to GW/Cheney with "Deficits don't matter" and +$5 trillion in debt, to Obama inheriting all the debt and Great Recession and getting shat on for not fixing everything in two years, to most recent S&P "Tea Party" downgrade.

Is this the road to ruin we always hear about, in real-life?

And Einstein's quote keeps coming to mind, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Unfortunately, we have devolved into an insane asylum with the inmates running the place. And I give you a senior wacko in charge, along with the Puppet Master.

Anyone or anything most responsible for the S&P downgrade? According to S&P, blame the Tea Party and Republicans. Also click here.

What I would like to know is how many of the 82% voted for Tea Party schmucks last year? And they're going to complain now??

Krugman makes a good point (one of many). Obama's tactics may work when you're dealing with a conventional foe, but when the opposition is far beyond the norm, well into crazy and nonsensical terrain, then one likewise must operate in an unconventional manner. It's similar to fighting cleanly when your foe is pulling out all the cheap shots to pummel you bloody. I believe anyone would expect in that situation for the person fighting cleanly to toss off his/her gloves and get down and dirty.

Yet Obama continues to live in this delusional world as if today's Republican Party is the GOP of yesteryear. As crazy as Republicans were under GW/Cheney, they're (incredibly) much worse now. And as Kevin Drum wrote today, we're basically being held hostage by about 10% of elected politicians -- how is this possible? As Krugman states, polls show even the average Republican voter is to the left of these Tea Bagger folks in Congress.

How is this happening? One big reason is because one side is functioning on steroids, ripping apart flesh and just going hog-wild nuts to get what they want, while the other side is populated by meek, overly-cautious Democrats who refuse to see the ugly reality of the situation and/or just can't muster an equal-in-force response.

We've always known the Dems to be wet noodles and spineless, but if they remain this way given the piranha-like opposition, there will be nothing left of them but their bones and their dignity.

But then again maybe my prior post will be right, maybe the American public will come to the rescue of the hapless Dems and finally put a stop to this. As Keith Olbermann ranted last night, like the cavalry, it will be up to us since our elected reps are just not up to the fight.

Today will come and go and fortunately it won't be the end of the world as we know it. The Tea Party put a gun to the country's head and the saner in Washington had no choice but to cave, to give in to their demands.

Many will say that Obama should've fought harder from the start, or better yet he should've taken control of the dialogue to prevent the proverbial train from leaving the station. To allow Republicans to win another fight via intransigence just continues to feed the beast and encourage their unyielding ways.

However, I venture to say that with this debt ceiling fiasco, the infantile sect of the clueless have finally pushed too far, with most Americans (including even some lucid, less-crazed Tea Baggers) fully realizing that such acts of brute force without reasonable compromise is no way to run a this country. Maybe a third-world, developing country can have a small faction apply extreme pressure to effectively attain their demands, but not a mature, fully-developed democracy like the United States. Bringing our nation to the brink of an economic meltdown was far more of a treasonous act than the so-called anti-American acts of daring to criticize GW/Cheney post-9/11.

That said I almost encourage the radical right-wing nutbags in the GOP to ratchet things up even further the next time they're itching for a fight. I have to think the next time will be their last. This most recent charade will not be forgotten easily, and they should count their blessings given what they got out of the deal. If they were smart, they'd take their winnings and lay low for a long while. But I have a feeling we'll be hearing from them again soon -- like a junkie hooked on crystal meth or a successful bank robber who doesn't know when to retire.

I have little to no faith that Obama will stand up to these hoods next time as I haven't the empirical evidence to support such a notion. Yet I do believe it will be most Americans next time that will prove to be the difference, as they'll quickly recall this nightmare as fast as one recalls the name of a restaurant responsible for wrenching food poisoning. The memory will be all too real and next time things will go very differently.

If not, if I'm wrong, God help America.

Tea Bagger Joe Walsh has said many times that he doesn't want to burden his kids with this country's debt. Little did we know that he is a deadbeat dad. Apparently he doesn't want to burden his kids with income either. Another family values blowhard where you just knew the hypocrisy was there, it was just a matter of time....

McCain went on Hannity's show to try and walk back criticism he leveled at the "hobbit" Tea Party folks and we got to hear Sean lead off with, "The Tea Party didn't cause the debt crisis we have. The Democrats and Obama did. They didn't spend all this money to bring us on the brink of default losing our credit rating, the Democrats, the president brought us to this point." Really? There's been several versions of a chart like this one floating around for many months now, showing with facts & numbers that most of the debt is due to GW/Cheney, not Obama. What's worse is McCain, a U.S. senator, agreed with Hannity.

Michele Bachmann is apparently anti anti-bullying. This on the heels of a number of teen suicides in her district, many suspected to be due to bullying. Could it be her opposition stems from homosexuality being mentioned as a reason for the bullying? After all, boys will be boys....

“In 1985, the top five percent of the households – the wealthiest five percent – had net worth of $8 trillion – which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five per cent have net worth of $40 trillion. The top five per cent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980.” -- David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director

102 Things NOT To Do If You Hate Taxes

Leave it up to Graucho Marx to concisely sum up today's Republican Party stance when it comes to anything Obama and the Democrats propose or support.

Will this be the overdue crackup of the Republican intransigence? With Boehner losing control of his factions and hearing word that tempers have flared intra-GOP, will things come to a boil prompting change? Can we expect many of the less-insane Republicans to have finally learned that enough is enough and look to reign in the very vocal, and clueless, minority that makes up the Tea Party wing of their party? Or will they kick the can down the road in establishing a sense of adulthood within, putting off what needs to be done until the next occasion comes along for the Tea Baggers to embarrass themselves?

The country can't take much more of this asinine behavior.

Absolute scoundrels: "With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation." These a-holes would rob your wallet if the lights were to go out in a store. Diversion is their friend. And they actually believe the EPA is to blame for the dismal economy....

McCain once tirelessly courted those "hobbits." Sleep with dogs and you get fleas.

Regarding his comments about the Norway tragedy, Glenn Beck asked aloud, "I mean who sends their kids to a political camp?” Yeah, I wonder who would do that....

Another Sarah Palin quote straight from Bizzaro World, "Scaring the American people is exactly what President Obama is doing in that bizarre speech he gave last night.... He’s getting pretty good at this fear mongering." She would know, and GW/Cheney only did this for seven years. Incredible.

GW/Cheney would have alerted all media outlets to this story, and it would have been huge 24/7 news. But instead it came and went with hardly a mention.

Someone forgot to tell the stock market that "Obamacare" was going to put an end to our health care system as we knew it, turning it into a socialist's dream.

The chart (click on it to make larger) shows price returns since last October for the S&P 500, the health care sector (XLV ETF), and six major U.S. health care provider companies. Note that the stock market in general (S&P 500) is up 15% and the health care sector has appreciated by about 17% in that time, and then you have the stocks of the health care providers.

These are the companies that collectively fought hard to defeat Obama's reform efforts, spending many, many millions to distort the truth and spread a campaign of disinformation and propaganda. Since October, the stock prices of these six companies have far exceeded the return of both the stock market and the health care sector in general. Wellpoint's stock turned in the worst performance at +37% -- which is still a whopping 20% above the HC sector and 22% ahead of the S&P 500 index! The other five stocks all surpassed the +40% level, with Coventry topping out at near +80%, a percentage more than 5 times greater than the S&P 500's return.

I know a thing or two about the stock market and one thing investors are very good at doing is discounting the future prospects of companies and industries. Market players look a few years down the road when assessing companies and price the stock accordingly today. If the fortunes and fate of companies like Aetna, Humana and Cigna were truly in trouble, were certain to be significantly compromised given the massive "pinko" changes to come from "Obamacare," then you could bank on the fact that the respective stock returns of these companies would've severely trailed the stock market since last October. But instead we have quite a different picture, to say the least.

What does this mean? It means Wall Street investors -- hardly a naive and/or dumb crowd -- have known for quite some time that all the crap hoisted against health care reform has been a bunch of hooey and lies. It also means that Obama's health care reform measures are hardly comprehensive or possessing much "teeth" -- again, not a surprise, something we've unfortunately known all along to be the case. Yet the blabbering hysterics from the opposition would have you think Obama succeeded in pushing through extraordinary, far-reaching provisions. Nonsense.

You may not like Wall Street, the stock market, the world of high finance, etc., but make no mistake, when it comes to seeing through all the BS and representing reality and facts, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better vehicle representing this than stock price behavior.

The bottom line is investors have been voting with their hard-earned $$$ that these companies are going to do just fine over the next several years.

Yes, Keith Olbermann is better than ever, his new show on Current actually superior to what he did at MSNBC.

$1 trillion (trillion with a "T") for a fighter plane we likely don't need? But what about the deficit? Tea Baggers where are you -- not a peep? But a $1.6 billion cut to the EPA's meager $10 billion budget, now that's a top priority and will do wonders to resolving the deficit problem....

What a shocker, all the trumped-up, baseless hysteria concerning supposed rampant violence near the U.S.-Mexico border is just that -- trumped-up, baseless hysteria. The USA Today conducted a study and concluded that "rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years — even before the U.S. security buildup that has included thousands of law enforcement officers and expansion of a massive fence along the border. U.S. border cities were statistically safer on average than other cities in their states. Those border cities, big and small, have maintained lower crime rates than the national average." And you thought you'd get the truth from Republicans on this subject? Why should it be different from any other subject? Lies, distortions and fabrications, that's how they roll, keeping their base misinformed, very afraid and ultimately in their control, compliant zombies.

“New rule: Republicans have to stop thinking up intricate psychological explanations for why liberals don’t like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. Let me save you all some time — are you ready? — (it’s) because they’re crazy people. People who are not that bright and full of awful ideas — pretty much the same exact reasons we didn’t care for George Bush and made jokes about him. So trust me: it’s not because they have breasts — it’s because they are boobs.” -- Bill Maher, on HBO's 'Real Time'

More Reagan truths, this time from Dana Milbank, "100 years after Reagan’s birth, it’s clear that the Tea Party Republicans have little regard for the policies of the president they claim to venerate. Tea Party Republicans call a vote to raise the debt ceiling a threat to their very existence; Reagan presided over 18 increases in the debt ceiling during his presidency. Tea Party Republicans say they would sooner default on the national debt than raise taxes; Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times. Tea Party Republicans, in 'cut, cap and balance' legislation on the House floor Tuesday, voted to cut government spending permanently to 18 percent of gross domestic product; under Reagan, spending was as high as 23.5 percent and never below 21.3 percent of GDP." The reality is the modern-day GOP would despise someone like Reagan; they've succeeded in fictionalizing his eight years in office, which is what they do: manufacturing a reality they can approve of.

Obama's grassroots effort is past history. This time around he's going big-time conventional. Good luck with that, but his biggest benefactor remains the cast of hapless losers opposing him.

Yeah, Rick Santorum is right, Obama blows because his stimulus only created 240 million jobs, not the 280 million he promised (to think this dope wants to be president, frightening).

The following graphic is extremely enlightening:



Summarized by one of the study's authors:

As you can see from the figure, participants rather badly estimated the current state of wealth disparity! Furthermore, they offered an ideal wealth distribution (under a “veil of ignorance”) that was even more different (and more equal) relative to the current state of affairs.

What this tells me is that Americans don’t understand the extent of disparity in the US, and that they (we) desire a more equitable society. It is also interesting to note that the differences between people who make more money and less money, republicans and democrats, men and women — were relatively small in magnitude, and that in general people who fall into these different categories seem to agree about the ideal wealth distribution under the veil of ignorance.

In reality, the top 20% own about 85% of the wealth. Most people guessed it was between 55%-60% -- way off. And they thought the ideal number should be about 35%, a figure much lower than their 55%-60% guess, and far, far lower than the factual number of 85%.

I suppose most of the ultra-wealthy in this country are heartened to learn of these results, that the average American believes income distribution is more equally distributed than it actually is. It's difficult to fuel class warfare when most of classes don't have a clue as to what's reality versus fiction. Ignorance is bliss, and who better to keep "catapulting the propaganda" than the likes of the GOP, Fox News, corporate special interests, etc.

Until most Americans get their heads out of their arses, this disequilibrium will continue to widen.

Classic stuff from Bill Maher. "Yee Haw! Jesus take the wheel!" Must see.

The following is a segment of an interview with NPR's Terry Gross and Lester Brown. Brown recently wrote an article entitled, "The New Geopolitics of Food" appearing in Foreign Policy Magazine, and he founded both the World Watch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute.

Given the fact that Brown has been fighting the good fight since the early '70s, Gross asks him the following question:

GROSS: So you haven't given up. Not much has changed for the better, you say. But you haven't given up. Do you consider yourself a man who is constantly frustrated by what you see?

Mr. BROWN: You know, I probably should be. But sometimes you're asked if you're an optimist or a pessimist, and someone answered that question recently and said it's too late to be a pessimist. And I think that sums it up well. But one of the things I do is go back and look at the economic history of World War II, and realize that we totally restructured the U.S. industrial economy almost overnight.

The attack on Pearl Harbor came on December 7th, 1941. It was extraordinarily successful in military terms, sinking, you know, sinking a large part of the U.S. Pacific fleet that happened to be at anchor there.

But then a month later, January 6th, 1942, President Roosevelt gave his State of the Union address in which he laid out arms production goals. He said we're going to produce 45,000 tanks, 60,000 planes, thousands of ships. And people just couldn't relate to that because we were still in a Depression mode economy at the time.

But what Roosevelt and his colleagues knew was that the largest concentration of industrial power in the world at the time was in the U.S. automobile industry. So after his State of the Union address, he called in the leaders of the industry and said because you guys represent such a large share of our industrial capacity, we are going to rely heavily on you to help us reach these arms production goals.

And they said well Mr. President, we're going to do whatever we can. But it's going to be a stretch producing cars and all these arms too. He said you don't understand. We're going to ban the sale of automobiles in the United States. And that's exactly what we did. And we'd been producing three million a year even during the Depression.

We banned the sale of automobiles. So from early 1942 until the end of 1944, there were essentially no cars produced in the United States and we exceeded every one of those arms production goals. In the end, we didn't produce 60,000 planes, we produced 229,000 planes.

I mean, even today, it's difficult to visualize how we could do that. But the encouraging thing is that we did that and it didn't take decades to restructure the U.S. industrial economy, it didn't take years. We did it in a matter of months. And if we did that then, then certainly we can restructure the energy economy much more rapidly than most people think and thus, be able to stabilize climate before it spirals out of control.

Real change is possible, and yet so many behave as if it's a lost cause, that we're doomed. They don't say this aloud, nor do they probably admit to it privately. Rather it's more likely an indirect admission that occurs subconsciously, with a good dose of cynicism and more so a whopping helping of selfishness. It's much easier to silently cave to the belief that we as a country, much less we as a planet, simply do not want to sacrifice those comforts and routines comprising our day-to-day lives. Needless to say, I suspect a much larger percentage of these folks are conservative and/or Republicans (see the John Kenneth Galbraith quote at the masthead of my blog).

But it's refreshing to read Brown's words of hope. Not platitudes or empty sentiments, but a documented example of a prior time not long ago when we were faced with an emergency and rose to the occasion.

The one problem is a tragic event like Pearl Harbor was a clarion wake-up-call, one with sudden and forceful impact. It literally changed the course of events at the time and ultimately history. Climate change is much slower moving and in effect more of a silent killer, like carbon monoxide poisoning. Before you know it, it's too late.

Sadly we're not treating the effects of climate change as we would if they collectively equated to a singular attack on our soil, ala Pearl Harbor or 9/11, two events that we know catalyzed significant actions for change.

By the time we realize as a nation that we need to take drastic steps, it may be too late, irregardless if we stop everything and come together to solve the problem.

And once again Kevin Drum sums it up quite succinctly:

Republicans got the tax cuts they wanted. They got the financial deregulation they wanted. They got the wars they wanted. They got the unfunded spending increases they wanted. And the results were completely, unrelentingly disastrous. A decade of sluggish growth and near-zero wage increases. A massive housing bubble. Trillions of dollars in war spending and thousands of American lives lost. A financial collapse. A soaring long-term deficit. Sky-high unemployment. All on their watch and all due to policies they eagerly supported. And worse: ever since the predictable results of their recklessness came crashing down, they've rabidly and nearly unanimously opposed every single attempt to dig ourselves out of the hole they created for us.

But despite the fact that this is all recent history, it's treated like some kind of dreamscape. No one talks about it. Republicans pretend it never happened. Fox News insists that what we need is an even bigger dose of the medicine we got in the aughts, and this is, inexplicably, treated seriously by the rest of the press corps instead of being laughed at. As a result, guys like Marco Rubio have a free hand to insist that Obama — Obama! The guy who rescued the banking system, bailed out GM, and whose worst crime against the rich is a desire to increase their income tax rate 4.6 percentage points! — is a "left-wing strong man" engaged in brutal class warfare against the wealthy. And Rubio does it without blinking. Hell, he probably even believes it.

We are well and truly down the rabbit hole.

House and Senate Republicans have become so extreme in their ideology, so far beyond the comprehension of anyone who thinks rationally, that we've recently observed many surprising voices speaking out:

"In short, this is quite possibly the stupidest constitutional amendment I think I have ever seen. It looks like it was drafted by a couple of interns on the back of a napkin. Every senator cosponsoring this POS should be ashamed of themselves." -- Former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett, commenting on the Republican's balance budget amendment.

"It's very dismaying to see that 30-year descent into the kind of nihilism, know-nothingism that is represented by the Republican Party today." -- Former Reagan official David Stockman

"Of the 400 richest people in America, they pay a 16-percent average income tax rate. Grover Norquist, in another couple of years, is going to be irrelevant. You can’t save America without some kind of revenue. You can’t fight two wars and not have something to support it. You can’t run a country that way.... I remind him that Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times.” -- Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson

“I think that the Republicans ought to identify a very significant amount of so-called tax expenditures which in fact are misclassified. They are expenditures. They are outlays, and many of them are subsidies. And subsidies are not the type of thing that you want for an efficient market system. There are a lot of them. My view is that I was in favor of the Bush tax cuts on the grounds that it was the dissipation of a surplus. As soon as it became obvious that the surplus disappeared, I no longer supported that." -- Alan Greenspan

Finally, and to me most shocking to the point where I still think he's joking:

"I am in favor of greatly raising the taxes on very wealthy people, millionaires and billionaires. I wouldn't raise the taxes on people making $250,000 a year. Look, it's a basic arithmetic thing; it's not an ideological thing. We are spending an enormous amount of money that we're not covering with tax revenue; we're borrowing it. At some point we're going to have so much debt that there's going to be a crisis and there will have to be austerity measures here just as they were in Greece. A simpler way would be tax people who have a great deal of money, tax them more, let them help pay down the debt." -- Ben Stein

This chart, from Tim Noah at Slate via Ezra Klein, speaks volumes:



Under Democratic presidents, nearly all income levels have done equally well. However under Republican presidents, the skew of top income earners doing better than the lower earners is striking. Under GOP presidents, the 95th percentile saw their incomes grow by almost 5 times the growth rate of the 20th percentile -- that's enormous.

Oh, and don't forget to notice that the growth rates for all income buckets are higher under Democrats than Republicans.

One has to wonder just how worse off we'd be if Republican McCain had been running the show for the last 2+ years.