Thoughts on the SCOTUS ACA ruling

Before it became too late to do so, I wanted to post some brief comments about the SCOTUS decision on the ACA. I wrote much of this down the day of the ruling, but realize by now many of these thoughts have been conveyed on other blogs. Oh well, so be it.

You knew Roberts' "penalty = tax" semantics would be a gift to the right-wingers, and it didn't take long for them to respond in kind.

However, it should be very easy for the Dems to knock down this attack (but then again, nothing ever seems easy for the Dems!). For one, they can turn around and say that if Obamacare increases taxes, then Romneycare did the same in MA. Secondly, when The Heritage Foundation and Republicans designed and supported this same health-care mandate from 1993 to 2009, they actually designed and supported a tax increase. Those two points alone are enough to completely negate this word-play issue.

But ThinkProgress also reminds that whereas the ACA penalty/tax amounts to near $700 per affected household, the payroll tax extension Republicans were against late last year would've amounted to a cost of $1500 on average, or more than twice the ACA penalty figure. As per usual, Republicans are hypocritical and inconsistent, in this case arguing against a tax that costs half as much as the tax increase they were for late last year. And mind you, the payroll tax affects many more people than the ACA penalty.

The SCOTUS dissent wanted to strike down the entire ACA law, a very radical decision in light of past precedent. As it is three prominent legal conservatives (Silberman, Sutton and Fried) found nothing unconstitutional about the ACA. Going further, striking down the entire ACA law would've resulted in chaos in this country as many elements and components of the law are already fully functioning within our current health care system.

Roberts knew all of this and along with his concern for how the Court would appear on the heels of GW vs. Gore and Citizens United, I believe he stepped in and uncharacteristically became a liberal, countering the dissent.

But more so, when reading the dissent, it does make clear just how radical and extreme the right-wing contingent of the Court is and can be. They have no problem with handing down rulings sans of any past precedent -- in so doing, behaving in the activist manner that conservatives have repeatedly accused of liberal Justices. In effect, the Scalia wing offer up opinions about how they wish for the country to go, as opposed to what the Constitution would dictate.

Get ready, for despite this save by Roberts, over the next 10+ years this Court is likely to reshape the country much more so than the gridlocked executive and legislative branches.

It may be true that Roberts purposefully threw the right-wing a bone by redefining the penalty as a tax, but the fact is by him doing so actually saved the ACA. Calling it a tax allowed for it to be constitutional as per the Court and thus upheld. In the end, Roberts' semantics saved the ACA from being struck down by Scalia et al. Also, it was encouraging to learn that Roberts will only go so far with the other right-wing Justices when it comes to radical rulings. A small victory, one not likely to be repeated anytime soon, but you take what you can get from this crew.

Regarding messaging, when polled, the ACA tends to lose because the GOP is very effective at demonizing words and phrases -- in this case, turning "Obamacare" into something perceived to be very bad. However, when individuals are polled on the actual details and policy of the ACA, people generally tend to love what they hear. The real message? Democrats are nowhere near as good as Republicans when it comes to conveying concise, effective word associations. For "Obamacare" to become more popular, this sad fact needs to change.

Three Items

Corporate profits are at an all-time high, wages are at an all-time low and employment continues to be less than stellar.

I say the problem is too much regulation and high taxes are adversely affecting confidence! (gads)

Chris Hayes' weekend gig is a revelation, coming out of nowhere to be the best political show on TV. It's not the usual back & forth prattle to fill up time between commercials, rather Hayes makes sure to keep the discourse elevated and interesting. Highly recommended.

Regarding Europe, billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio recently wrote, "[T]alk of a fiscal union to resolve these problems has to be looked at in light of the question of whether it is in the interest of fiscally strong contributors to have a fiscal union with fiscally weak recipients in which the majority rules how the money is divided."

One can argue whether or not it's in the interest of the "fiscally strong contributors," but then one would also need to argue whether or not the system we have in place here in the U.S. is in the interest of those states that are fiscally stronger than weaker states.

The fact remains the monetary system in Europe has been deeply flawed since its inception. Sovereign states or nations all using a common currency and yet lacking a central body of authority just doesn't work. Over time, some countries will inevitably fare better than others and since the lagging countries no longer have their own currencies to devalue, boosting their competitive advantage, they suffer with no recourse. If a central body existed with adequate power and jurisdiction, it could step in and help those countries by shifting aid from the strong to the weak.

It's what we do in the U.S. We are a fiscal union sharing a common currency and yet we're comprised of 50 states. For every $1 in taxes California sends to Washington, it gets back just $0.78, meanwhile Mississippi receives over $2 for every $1 it pays in taxes. Is this fair to California? Perhaps not, but Mississippi does not have it's own currency to devalue in hopes of better competing with California. And for those states in need, we don't instead enforce harsh austerity measures at the federal level.

Given we are a union, meaning separate states but one country using one currency, how else does this arrangement work without resulting in the current ongoing situation across the Atlantic?

Great (But Not Good) Expectations

With the numerous and deep layoffs of 2008-2010, it's no wonder corporate profits have reached peak levels never seen before in history. And yet with profits at such extreme highs, why no hiring?

Two reasons come to mind, the first being the obvious one: no demand for goods/services. Real wages remain low and continue to trend lower. Unemployment continues to remain high. Government spending at the state and local level has been near nonexistent, with hundreds of thousands of layoffs as a result. The federal stimulus was woefully too small given the severity of the economic decline (worst since the Great Depression). Many continue to be saddled with too much debt. And the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor has never been wider. All of these things have contributed to keeping consumer demand in a perma-low state, with income repressed and future prospects uncertain.

Typically, to fill the void under such circumstances, government is expected to step-in and provide fiscal stimulus to help offset the lack of demand in the private sector -- and in this case, would be a bargain since interest rates are near zero (actually negative in real terms). But we have a Republican Party that chooses to put politics ahead of country in hopes of insuring conditions remain poor so that Obama is a one-termer.

A second reason why companies are not hiring is not often mentioned. It has to do with expectations. With profits soaring, earnings per share also dramatically increase, with most companies successfully surpassing Wall Street analysts expectations. As a result, the stock price more often than not rises.

However, herein lies the circle-jerk dance whereby company management must continue to exceed expectations -- expectations that continue to elevate with each earnings per share beat. When the next fiscal quarter comes around, if management fails at outperforming Wall Street estimates, the stock will get punished, more often than not severely.

With a continued lack of demand in the economy, translating into scarce demand for products/services, management is left with few alternatives to boost earnings. Although unfortunate, in an effort to cut costs the easy choice becomes employee layoffs, with another being accounting finesse or tricks. But with layoffs comes further income repression, meaning further demand repression -- rinse & repeat as the ugly cycle spirals its way lower.

Thus hiring people becomes an out-of-the-question proposition and it will remain so until demand returns -- assuming it ever does. And it's why, to paraphrase a famous quote, we all need to become Keynesians, sooner rather than later!

Reminder: Keynes was not for permanent government spending, not at all. Instead he advocated that government needed to spend during times like now, when the economy was in serious recession or depression, to provide a floor and provide the needed fuel to turn the economy around. In due course, the private sector feeds off this changing of the tide and a full-fledge recovery is in motion. When the economy is back on its feet and by all accounts heading in the right direction, it's at this time that you focus on debt reduction (as did Bill Clinton in the late '90s).

So please do not allow right-wingers to obfuscate matters with misinformed, alarmists cries about Keynesian = endless government spending. It's simply not true. In fact, over the last thirty years, what we've had are two presidents each presiding over enormous government spending during good economic times (Reagan & GW) and one president (as already mentioned, Clinton) who followed Keynes' advice and reduced the deficit when the time was right.

But of course, deficits only matter as a topic of serious concern when a Democrat resides in the White House.

Just The Facts, Please

The far right all too frequently bloviates as if what they're saying is true and based on facts, but all too frequently it's not the case.

Examples: they favor lower tax rates to boost the economy, and yet we have Clinton's eight years versus GW's eight years. Another is they endorse the Austrian school of economics over Keynesian when in a recession or depression, and yet we have the Great Depression versus the New Deal.

They often point to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged as if it's non-fiction. Folks, it's a novel, and a poorly written one at that. It's not factual or based on real-life events.

Granted, I didn't offer a huge sample size above, but unfortunately when it comes to sheer numbers of events to support a given contention, history does not provide numerous recessions or depressions, for example (thankfully!). However, Clinton's eight years do in many ways effectively counter GW's eight years when it comes to tax rates, economic growth and creating jobs. The New Deal versus the Great Depression does in many ways highlight what works and what doesn't work when it comes to rejuvenating a left-for-dead economy (spending or fiscal stimulus works, austerity does not).

Sure, they try every so often to come up with what they believe to be a gotcha moment, where they think they finally have something that's based on fact. The latest being Reagan's recovery versus Obama, and Latvia as some kind of austerity success story. It didn't take long for both to be exposed as loaded examples at best.

Paul Krugman, Michael Tomasky and conservative David Frum, among others, have been explaining that the Reagan recession and recovery was quite different than Obama's much-worse predicament, and yet you'll hear the far right attempt to make the apples/apples comparison. Krugman's column on the subject is particularly illuminating, and his blog post offers a graphic that all but puts to rest any justification for equating the two periods.



As you can see, during Reagan's recession, total spending occurred at a 14% clip, or more than double that of Obama's relatively anemic 6% rate (yes, The Gipper was a big-time Keynesian!). And yet Obama inherited not a Fed-induced recession as did Reagan, but rather a consumer-driven depression with much worse structural difficulties to overcome -- a more severe level of unemployment being one of them. As these authors point out, Reagan at least had an opposing party willing to help and compromise for the good of the country. In contrast, Obama has had nothing of the sort as Republicans have firmly refused to give in on any meaningful measures to boost the economy. In addition, they've invoked the filibuster more than at any time in history, stone-walling most of what this administration would've liked to accomplish.

I would also add that another big difference of now versus then that is getting no mention is the gap between the rich and poor. In the early 1980s, the inequality gap was nowhere near as large as it is now which made for a much healthier, dynamic and resilient economy, one more readily able to bounce back from a downturn. Thirty years later, this gap has exploded into a massive chasm. As a result, more Americans have less in real dollars and therefore demand has remained stunted. Government spending typically serves as a temporary fix as it fills in for the lack of demand, helping to spur and lift the economy out of its doldrums. But as already mentioned, spending under Obama is less than half that which occurred under Reagan, despite the fact Reagan's recession was far less deep. So today (vs. early 1980s) you have a greater percentage of people with less inflation-adjusted money and you have less governmental economic aid in the form of real per capita spending. I won't even ask why we haven't felt the effects of trickle-down job creation from the super-wealthy, a group that is the richest to ever inhabit the planet.

As for Latvia, again it's already appearing to be a bit dubious as the poster child of what austerity can achieve during tough economic times. I will just say that Latvia is hardly representative of a G20-type economy, meaning one more akin to the U.S. Austerity has been ongoing in Ireland for years and we've yet to see it work its magic there, and mind you Ireland's economy is more of a relevant comparison to the U.S. than that of Latvia.

I actually applaud the right wingers in trying to come up with anything fact-based to support their beliefs. It will be refreshing to (finally) see some actual evidence that plausibly makes one nod and say, "You know what, they might actually have something here...." But I'm not holding my breath.

Romney Is Desperate, and the Electoral Map

We've observed Romney cozy up to the likes of Donald Trump, Ted Nugent and Dick Cheney -- quite the motley crew. While at first it may appear inexplicable as to why Romney would want to associate himself with such fringe characters, to put it politely, I think it simply means Romney continues to run desperate. It infers he is still trying to nail down far-right support in his own party, meaning he's still trying to secure the base! That's quite a bad sign for him if at this point in the campaign season he must still placate and sell what remains of his soul to insure that the 20% who supported Bush/Cheney to the bitter end, i.e. the wingnuts, will vote for him. If he can't lock-up the apoplectic Obama haters, what does it say about his chances to win over the swing voters?

On that note, although many polls have the November election too close to call, just take a look at what counts in this country, the electoral map. Thus far, the race is not nearly as close as such polls make it out to be, with Obama comfortably ahead of Romney when it comes to electoral votes. Obama has approximately 40 more votes than Romney, and Obama already has the amount need to win re-election. Granted, these are projections and anything can still happen between now and November, but the point is the media is, as always, trying to make the race appear very competitive (it's in their interest to do so), more so than is reality.

I would also point out that perhaps the best political handicapper out there, Nate Silver, has Obama's chances of winning at 63%, which stands in stark contrast to the toss-up polls we're used to seeing. And if the election were held today, Nate puts Obama's chances of winning at a whopping 77%, again further bringing into question today's polls.

But I reiterate, for Romney to have to curry favor with such extreme figures in his party to me speaks volumes. Obama has those who will definitely vote for him and those who definitely will not, with the remainder likely making their final decision depending on how the economy fares. It's not as if they feel the need to get to know him better as a person -- he's been president for four years. Either they already like him or not, and the rest comes down to the economy or some other hugely influential event yet to occur.

Yet Romney has a small number of people who really like him, with a greater majority lukewarm or just barely tilting his way, and then of course there are the many who very much dislike him. He may eventually get all of these fence-sitters to come around to his side, but the fact is it remains a question mark. Meanwhile Obama has many fewer wishy-washy folks to win over and many more who are certain to vote his way. Advantage Obama.

Romney, a modern-day Omega Theta Pi frat brother

I think it's pretty clear by now that Mitt Romney would've been a textbook-perfect brother of the Omega Theta Pi fraternity. What fraternity is that, you ask? In the movie Animal House, it's the frat house populated with well-to-do, pompous, vacuous a-holes, represented most famously by Neidermeyer. Recall Douglas Neidermeyer was your stereotypical ROTC/Patton-wannabe, a bit too gung-ho, a bit too straight-laced, a bit too into enforcing what he deemed normal. All in all, your classic jerk and bully.

Compare this profile to what we've come to learn about Romney, in particular the recent revelation about his bullying of a gay classmate. During high school, several friends held down the victim as Romney proceeded to use scissors to cut clumps of hair from the presumed gay boy's head.

Romney's defense? "I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school," he said while chuckling. The described act of bullying is disturbing enough, but to hear 40+ years later Romney attempt to excuse it away as "hijinks" while laughing no less is even more inexcusable and disgusting. As long as he's not the victim, then it's no big deal. As long as it wasn't one of his sons that were held down and had hair removed with scissors, then it's OK, no big deal. And it's as if for him to show empathy or compassion is to show weakness, and he just can't have that happen. What would the Republican base think?

How this incident, along with the Seamus incident, do not qualify as occurrences that demand at least some serious consideration when it comes to judging Romney as a person and as a candidate is something I don't understand. If you had a long-time friend and learned that he had committed such a heinous act many years ago, are you telling me it wouldn't impact how you looked at him, how you viewed him as a person going forward? I have to think it would. It's just ugly and in my experience this kind of telling behavior does not completely vanish with maturity. Someone capable of doing such a thing then most likely retains some of those unfeeling, hateful qualities today.

Is this a major campaign item? No. But it should be something voters contemplate when deciding what personality traits and characteristics are important in the POTUS.

If Anything, We Should Be Getting Much More In Debt

Felix Salmon writes:

Just look at the amount of money which is flowing straight to corporations’ bottom lines, and not being put to good, productive work. Corporate profits now account for significantly more than 10% of GDP: that’s never happened before.



To spell this out: high corporate profits and low levels of job growth are two sides of the same coin. If things were working properly right now, companies would take their excess revenues and use them to hire more people. Instead, they’re basically just letting those excess revenues sit on their balance sheets as cash because they’re scared to invest in themselves. It’s frankly pathetic.

Felix continues on to mention something I asked a few months ago:

The solution to this problem is nothing complex — the arbitrage is sitting there in the first chart, plain for all to see. The government can borrow at 1.45%: it should do so, in vast quantities, and invest that money back into the economy itself. Take a few hundred billion dollars and use it to fix our broken infrastructure, to re-hire all those laid-off teachers and firefighters, to provide some kind of safety net for the millions of Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. Even if the real long-term return on any stimulus package was zero, the nominal long-term return would be well over 1.45%, making the investment worthwhile.

As I've written here before, we may very well look back upon this period as a time of tremendous lost opportunity. With interest rates at historic low levels, and the economy likewise at historically depressed levels, what the government should be doing (and should have been doing) is borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars at a real interest rate of less than zero to spend on long-delayed infrastructure projects, hiring workers and generally getting the economy back on its feet. Yes, classic Keynesian economics. But the crucial difference in this case is that we have an economy that truly needs such stimulus and we're fortunate to have such incredibly low rates to fund such desperately needed stimulus. It's a complete no-brainer and yet because of continued partisan intransigence, the nation suffers.

Republicans want the economy to remain in the toilet. They've always wanted this. They have nothing else to run on, so they must continue to insure that the economy does not recover. It's their only shot at ousting Obama. "Country First" -- right....

Krugman on Christie

I love this guy, he doesn’t pull punches, he's always fact-based, he won the Nobel prize – and he’s gutsy: here he goes after the NJ governor and Krugman is a professor in NJ (Princeton).

Items

Time's Joe Klein recently wrote:

I've been thinking about this since seeing HBO's excellent rendition of the 2008-campaign book Game Change. Late in that campaign, John McCain began to open up on Obama. "Who is the real Barack Obama?" he asked, pointedly, at rallies, and the audience responses to that question--"a terrorist," "hooligan," "socialist," "Arab"--and the raw fury of the crowds scared the hell out of him. Finally, McCain told an extremist, "[Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as President." It was a fine moment, on film as in life.

Classic Joe Klein. He applauds as if special those who are just doing the right thing. Gads. Similar to the person who returns the lost wallet -- yes, a good deed, but one we hope is the norm and not to be treated as atypically good. I think in part it speaks to Klein's many years within "the beltway," to the point where when observing a politician acting in a non-self-serving manner, doing something that should be regarded as everyday sensible and proper, he instead lauds hefty praise upon that figure. Quite telling, and sad.

I know it's many days old, but if you missed it please check out Rachel Maddow's classic "Romney Lies All The Time" video segment. It's Maddow doing what she does best.

It kept reminding me of the scene in the movie Chinatown when Jack Nicholson kept slapping Faye Dunaway in the face, trying to get her to tell the truth. But Dunaway's character was so deeply damaged she couldn't do it, instead muttering one lie after another, incapable of telling the truth mainly because her entire life had been based on lies. It was part of her DNA to deceive and misinform, it was tragically all she knew.

Romney is very similar, lies coming to him like tears to Rep. Boehner. They just flow from his mouth, effortlessly, almost subconsciously. Imagine what that will mean if he lands in the White House. To me it has four years of scandal written all over it, the sheer volume of deceit and corruption likely well surpassing that of Warren Harding. Romney seems to have no convictions and will say to anyone what it is they want to hear. He is willing to lie, incessantly, not caring a wit that his prior conflicting statements have been recorded/documented. In the end, it has to mean one thing: he believes American citizens are utterly and completely stupid. Wonderful quality to have in a president.

Speaking of Romney and the White House, can someone explain to me (apart from rigged elections or SCOTUS making it happen) how this guy can become president if 1) most Americans dislike him, 2) he fares very poorly with the increasingly-important Latino voters, and 3) he's a huge turnoff to those earning less than $100K per year, i.e. most Americans?? Formidable hurdles to overcome, and I could've kept going beyond just three.

I must say that what surprises me is not that the SCOTUS might very well decide against the ACA, but rather that I continue to read of political writers, bloggers, etc. who were shocked, shocked I tell you, to admit that this indeed may happen. Huh? How can anyone be shocked?

Color me overly cynical, but rather I consider myself to not be naive and frankly I'm simply going with past precedent in this regard (something this SCOTUS doesn't do enough). You have Bush vs. Gore and Citizens United, to name two biggie cases. But then there's the Clarence Thomas disclosure form fiasco, the Scalia hunting outings with Cheney, Alito blurting out "not true" -- what more does it take to realize that this Court is less about the actual law and more about ideology? And the ACA was going to be different this time around? Why? Because they're due to be fair and honor prior rulings? We'll see, could still happen, but please, spare us the head-scratching, befuddled reactions.

The Fading Of Keith

I can't say I was shocked to learn that Current sacked Keith Olbermann. Judging from earlier accounts, the relationship has been stormy to say the least, with Keith showing up for work on a non-regular basis, reportedly displeased with his situation at the relatively new gig. At this point, I for one have no idea who's to blame. Is Keith really the difficult prima donna he's being made out to be, or is he just a demanding professional that desires top quality in his work and from everyone involved to that end? Beats me, it may be a combination of both but we're very likely to learn more when the lawsuit unfolds.

It's really a shame. Keith Olbermann continues to fade. I've been watching Keith since his MSNBC stint and while he continued to be his inimitable self on Current, to me his show gradually became non-essential viewing. I would continue to tune in to hear what Keith had to say about the issues of the day, but it did seem as if he was increasingly mailing it in, offering up obligatory outrage when expected, but even that became a rare occasion.

In his defense, the Current show did not have an appealing look. It did appear low-budget and almost grainy to the eye, as if filmed using old cameras and poor lighting. All you had to do was flip over to MSNBC to see the contrast. That said it's very difficult to attract an audience when viewers must strain and wince to literally watch the program. Score one for Keith: Current apparently didn't invest enough in the production values of the show.

However, as I mentioned, Keith himself seemed to exude less energy over the last few months, perhaps realizing the inevitable was near. But I have to assume he had full say over who would be regular contributors on his show and apart from Matt Taibi, most were quite frankly boring and offered very little when it came to eye-opening insights or provocative commentary. Snore.

My favorite Countdown contributor from the MSNBC days was Jonathan Alter as he always provided very honest and rigorous commentary, saying what he thought in a very intelligent manner, not overly worrying about offending someone. That's not to say he was ever offensive, but rather he would not pull punches and justifiably pointed out wrongs and hypocrisy. He was refreshing and always made me tune in to see if he might be on the show.

With Current, the contributors became very young, and with that oddly enough more conventional in their commentary, voicing primarily dignified pap that while liberal was exceedingly sanitized. In that respect, score one for Current as Keith allowed the content of his show to slip, significantly.

Will Keith put a halt to this long, drawn-out fade and show up elsewhere, reinvigorated and better than ever? Who knows. It does seem evident that he is quite the volatile personality who ultimately may only succeed doing things 100% his way, on his own terms. To me that hints at a fee-based podcast of sorts, or something like Glenn Beck TV (oh, the irony).

Or maybe that's it, we never hear from Keith again, except for the occasional op-ed or book release. Lord knows he's made many millions in his career, allowing for early retirement.

But then who foresaw the Current gig post-MSNBC? He can surprise. In the meantime, the right-wing will have a field day with the Al Gore vs. Keith Olbermann pending lawsuit and back/forth war of words. It doesn't take much to get the knuckle-draggers worked up in a frothy lather....

The Romney/Seamus Incident: Just Ordinary?

I wrote last Sunday that the Romney/Seamus incident mattered. Three days later, Kevin Drum wrote on his blog:

Give me a break. I would guess that nearly every family that's ever taken a long road trip has tried to stick to a schedule and keep stops to a minimum. Was Romney a little stricter than average? Maybe. Does this offer a glimpse of Romney's "rigidity"? Please. The Seamus story came from Tagg Romney, and he doesn't suggest that any of the Romney kids felt especially downtrodden during the ride. Romney was just an ordinary guy trying to cram a 12-hour trip into a single day and he didn't want it to turn into a 14-hour trip. Shapiro had it right when he said this story has "no larger presidential significance." He should have stopped right there.

Initially I couldn't tell if Drum was being sarcastic, and frankly I remain befuddled.

Kevin has been my favorite blogger for many years, offering lucid posts with an obvious liberal slant but without going overboard. However, I've always felt that from time to time, he tends to poo-poo topics getting heavy airplay on the left as if to take some higher ground and rise above what he portrays as pointless gnashing-of-teeth chatter. He likes to come off as a "keeping it real" progressive, agreeing with most of the larger and more cerebral lefty positions of the day, but making sure to smack down what in his mind are excessively idealistic dust-ups that any right-minded (or left-minded?) person would do or believe.

In this case, if I'm not mistaken, Kevin's advising we back off the Romney dog incident, that it's been blown way out of proportion. I mean c'mon, any person would've done what Romney did, with a family and all, trying to make good time on a long drive.

Really? Any 38-year old father would've put the beloved family dog in a box, strap it to the car rooftop where it would withstand 60+ mph wind for 12 hours, and when the dog shits and it runs down the car window, said father pulls the car over at a gas station, quickly hoses the dog off, puts dog back in box, and speeds off, hoping to make back those lost precious minutes, pronto.

Oh yeah, that's normal, "ordinary" behavior. Did we ever find out if Romney hosed down his car to rid his window of the dog shit streaks? Or would that have taken too much time, possibly stretching a 12-hour trip into 14??

I standby my blog post that this incident does matter and says at least a few things about Romney (nothing good, obviously). I encourage everyone to Google away, read up about the awful episode, then draw your own conclusions. I know I didn't embellish anything, and Romney himself admits to it all (another political gaffe?).

It's troubling to hear those who implore that what he did with Seamus was no big deal, and that nothing meaningful can be gleaned about our potential next President. (What if it were cats instead of a dog, Kevin? Make a difference?). And mind you, I still come across people who have never heard of this incident and after hearing a quick summary are disturbed by it. It has impact. Also, a disclosure: I'm not a raving, I-wanted-Michael-Vick-executed pet lover.

But then again, as I said I may have completely misread Kevin's post. It happens. He may have laced the entry with wink-wink stuff and I'm too dense to notice. Let's hope anyway.

Catch-up Thoughts

I agree with Kevin Drum about the Greg Smith op-ed. It's hard to believe Goldman Sachs ever had a soul to lose, much less lost it in the last 10 years or so. But then again, Smith is likely a by-product of this gradual descent into cultural depravity. When he started at GS, he was young and quickly adapted over time to what is now the modern-day version of the "Vampire Squid." It went from bad to worse in that time and that's what Smith noticed: relative degradation, not absolute. It's like crying foul that Caligula became more profane in his later years.

Paul Krugman's "What Greece Means" is a lesson for the Tea Party (to the extent it still exists). Austerity doesn't work, better to grow out of the deficit via Keynesian stimulus, esp. with interest rates at record lows. Roads, bridges, infrastructure are in desperate need of repair and it's not something that can continuously be put off into the future. And at some point, people are going to die from this lack of up-keep. I've read that the cost of such projects doubles every five years, so why not invest in making upgrades now, when real interest rates are actually negative! Business schools teach that one should take on debt when the rate of return on the project surpasses the interest on the debt. Here we have real interest rates at below zero and the rate of return to be gained on these projects is absolutely greater than zero -- if not for anything else than for the cost savings alone (as I said, costs double every five years). It's a no-brainer, but unfortunately too many citizens on the right have been brainwashed, and of course Republicans do not want to do anything that is sensible and could actually help this country, believing it simply helps the Kenyan.

Bill Maher had Alexandra Pelosi show both of her brief films, the first showing Mississippi in all it's wonderful glory, and the other film showing what appeared to be welfare abuse occurring in NYC. Pelosi tries to make the point that these two films are opposite sides of a coin, one angering the right, the other pissing off the left.

I don't agree. The film showing welfare recipients abusing the system in NYC is something that is wrong and could be fixed. It's repairable. Also, despite what the right believes, welfare abuse -- like voter fraud -- is nowhere near as big a problem as their propaganda makes it out to be. All too often, they take some isolated examples of fraud and suggest (citing no facts) that this relatively small problem is wrecking the country.

However, the film on Mississippi shows a much larger problem, one that is indeed wrecking this country. It shows citizens who are ignorant, possessing beliefs based on prejudice and hate as opposed to anything rooted in fact or knowledge. It also shows people who are hypocrites. One guy hates big government but is on food stamps, when told of this dichotomy he quickly says he feels he "deserves" the food stamps, i.e. the free hand-out, the welfare. Much of what is shown in the video is seemingly irreparable and is destroying this country. Do these people have any clue that for every $1 in taxes paid, Mississippians receive $2 back from the government? Hedge funds would love that 100% return on investment. They are completely ignorant to their welfare-queen ways and if you watch the video I think you'll agree: there's not much hope in changing these people. They believe what they believe, they is what they is, period.

Randi Rhodes aired another example of why Fox News is clown central. She has footage of Fox defending GW Bush when gasoline prices were rising, with the clamoring talking heads saying back-off, ease up, it's not his fault, the President can't be blamed, he has little control or influence over the price at the pump -- AND what citizens should be doing is conserving energy. It's incredible. Then cut to present day, with gas prices rising and Obama in office. Suddenly Fox personalities believe it's all the President's fault, Obama is to blame. Outrageous, but not shocking. Fox viewers are once again taken for complete fools.

Maybe vanity will finally make global warming deniers believe....

The Seamus Incident Matters

Yes, what Romney did to his dog Seamus is a valid campaign topic. For one, Mitt was 37 years old at the time, hardly a youthful indiscretion. Second, imagine what Republicans would've done during the 2008 race if Obama did the same. But more so, it's says much about Mitt the cyborg person, his lack of empathy, his inability to make a seemingly heartfelt decision as opposed to one that was expedient and coldly fit his needs.

It's exactly this kind of anecdotal evidence that makes one wonder how a person will react or decide in the future. It's quite scary when you really think about it, and frankly I think even GW or dare I say Cheney (!!) would've elected to transport the dog by more humane means.

Not All Billionaires Lack A Conscience

From Jeremy Grantham's 4Q investment letter (as always, insightful and without rationalization, a common means of denial by the very rich):

It gets worse, for what capitalism has always had is money with which to try to buy influence. Today’s version of U.S. capitalism has died and gone to heaven on this issue. A company is now free to spend money to influence political outcomes and need tell no one, least of all its own shareholders, the technical owners. So, rich industries can exert so much political influence that they now have a dangerous degree of influence over Congress. And the issues they most influence are precisely the ones that matter most, the ones that are most important to society’s long-term well-being, indeed its very existence. Thus, taking huge benefits from Nature and damaging it in return is completely free and all attempts at government control are fought with costly lobbying and advertising. And one of the first victims in this campaign has been the truth. If scientific evidence suggests costs and limits be imposed on industry to protect the long-term environment, then science will be opposed by clever disinformation. It’s now getting to be an old and obvious story, but because their propaganda is good and despite the solidness of the data, half of the people believe the problem is a government run wild, mad to control everything. So the “industrial complex” (or parts of it) fights to increase the inherent weaknesses of capitalism. They deliberately make it ever harder to reach the very long-term decisions that will serve us all. The influence of the Tobacco companies in deliberately obscuring the science to protect profits at a huge cost to society in health costs and lives is a perfect analogy to the energy industries that work hard to confuse the public on scientific measures of damage to health and the environment.
<..>
[W]ith natural resources, capitalism wants to eat into these precious, limited resources at an accelerating rate with the subtext that everyone on the planet has the right to live like the wasteful polluting developed countries do today. You don’t have to be a PhD mathematician to work out that if the average Chinese and Indian were to catch up with (the theoretically moving target of) the average American, then our planet’s goose is cooked, along with most other things. Indeed, scientists calculate that if they caught up, we would need at least three planets to be fully sustainable. But few listen to scientists these days. So, do you know how many economic theories treat resources as if they are finite? Well, the researchers at the O.E.C.D say “none” – that no such theory exists. Economic theory either ignores this little problem or assumes you reach out and take the needed resources given the normal workings of supply and demand and you can do it indefinitely. This is a lack of common sense on a par with “rational expectations,” that elegant theory that encouraged the ludicrous faith in deregulation and the wisdom of free markets, which brought us our recent financial fiascos.
<..>
Capitalism, by ignoring the finite nature of resources and by neglecting the long-term well-being of the planet and its potentially crucial biodiversity, threatens our existence. Fifty and one-hundred-year horizons are important despite the “tyranny of the discount rate,” and grandchildren do have value. My conclusion is that capitalism does admittedly do a thousand things better than other systems: it only currently fails in two or three. Unfortunately for us all, even a single one of these failings may bring capitalism down and us with it.

The False Equivalency Thing

It didn't take long for the conspiracy theories to pop up concerning Andrew Breitbart's death. Reminds me of the Vince Foster suicide, with anti-Clinton conspiracy theories surfacing not long after his unfortunate death.

Never mind that when many of us last saw Mr. Breitbart he was seemingly very drunk while screaming at a bunch of Occupiers, as if he was going through some sort of breakdown or personal episode.

We may never know why he died, but for many they've already figured it out.

What irks me most since Breitbart's passing is to hear the media once again trot out the false equivalency thing. You know how it goes by now, this desperate need to find personalities on the left to pair-up with the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and Breitbarts of the right.

During a morning this week, I was listening to WBZ news radio and a one-minute-blurb commentator, Jon Keller, said:

[W]hen Breitbart took the video of that Obama administration official’s speech and edited it to make it seem like she was being racist, that wasn’t acceptable journalism or political discourse.

When lefty journalists speculate about whether or not Sarah Palin is the mother of her son, that’s just as bad if not worse.

Really? Breitbart committed a journalistic wrong that actually cost someone their job and Keller deems this not "acceptable," but then equates Breitbart to nameless "lefty journalists" who may have committed a professional no-no "as bad if not worse." If not worse?! What?! Keller doesn't bother to identify any of these pinko journalists but goes further to slam any of them for doing something possibly worse than what Breitbart actually did, which had real repercussions!

I shouldn't be surprised by this, it's become so commonplace. Hell, for a short stint not too long ago we observed the great Jon Stewart dabble with the both-sides-are-to-blame equivalency canard. But if memory serves, I believe Stewart woke up and quickly backed off his brief attempt at becoming Senor Above It All, realizing that what he was saying was horse sh*t, based on high-minded fiction as opposed to real-life ugly truth.

But it unfortunately continues. Another example is Dr. Horace "Woody" Brock, holder of five academic degrees and author of recent book, American Gridlock. Obviously a smart man. His book professes to offer solutions that succeed in cutting through the right vs. left gridlock, yet even this brainiac appears to be guilty of the false equivalency disease. Early on in his book, he equates Rush Limbaugh (right-wing) with Paul Krugman (left-wing). Look, I can understand the partisan divide combined with fame between these two guys to make them likely targets for A=B, but c'mon, give me a break. One of them is an esteemed Nobel Prize winner and the other is an "entertainer" of expansive disrepute (!!). I mean the attempt-to-equate is completely absurd, esp. for someone with so many degrees.

Unfortunately, it likely won't be the last time we get subjected to the false equivalency thing....

Random Thoughts

The $300 million man is getting all folksy. Romney's handlers must constantly try to come up with new ways to make Mitt seem like a man of the people, that he is one who can surely relate with the common man. It’s hopeless, but their latest tactic seems to be for him to get all Huckabee on us. Yech.

Why golly, listen to him wax nostalgic about good ole dad, by gosh he was good at spitting out those nails: "It's one of the lessons I learned from my dad. He never graduated college. He was a plaster carpenter. He was good. He could put a mouthful of nails and spit them forward."

Next up, look for Mitt to be downing Bud Lights with Joe The Plumber.

Ecuador is willing to preserve about 4,000 square miles of rain forest for a measly $3.6 billion -- and they're having difficulty raising the cash! Wealthy countries are balking at this deal, one that would preserve one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, keep 800 million tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere, and maintain an enormous air filtration system by way of the huge forest. Need I remind that $12 billion was literally "lost" in Iraq, and we and other wealthy countries can't pony up close to $4 billion? Incredible.

Some are now saying Obama intentionally elongated the contraception ruckus for well over a week in order to aid Santorum at the expense of Romney. It's no secret Obama would much rather face Rick than Mitt. In any case, I would argue the Republicans are once again idiots when it comes to playing their cards smartly. They ran with this canard, figuring it would do harm to Obama. But the fact is those voters likely won over by this "outrageous overreach" by Obama were going to vote Republican anyway. However, there were many more who were fence-sitters and likely much less socially conservative than your typical Republican and by threatening access to birth control, the GOP lost most of these undecided voters. Net-net another loss for the dopey right.

Another classic rant by Bill Maher. This time he slams the "Country First" Republicans for despising New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC and LA/Hollywood, not to mention other highly-populated areas of the USA. Maher: "[T]hey accuse Obama of dividing America....[W]hen it comes to dividing America, it's Republicans who in recent years have carved out a nation into two distinct territories. There's the heartland, and then there's the rest of the country: a vast nightmarish wasteland of college professors, museums, and people who recycle." Or the red welfare states vs. the blue states giving more than they receive.

Did you know that genetically modified food has insecticide built into its DNA, and it "was detected in the umbilical-cord blood of pregnant women"? That can't be good. But of course it's legal, thanks to lobbyists hard at work.

By November, the unemployment rate should be much lower. Is it any wonder the Republicans are beginning to panic, looking to create wedge issues out of contraception and TV ads starring Clint Eastwood?

Santorum defends the Crusades?? Hey Rick, why not categorize the Spanish Inquisition as misunderstood? And what do you have to say about the 200 priests suspected of sex abuse living in California?

62% Of Canadians Oppose Fracking

What does that say when the majority of people in this generally very pro-energy country is against this form of natural gas extraction? I think at minimum it says in the U.S. we need to slow down, roll up our sleeves and begin to really examine and investigate what is becoming an increasingly worrisome practice. If we don't, like global warming, it will be too late.

Unemployment Falling, Obama Rising

The unemployment rate has been steadily falling since 2009, a chart (below) the Obama campaign will be sure to show often.

Have to laugh, Wall Street folks love a rising stock market but they generally dislike Obama. Unemployment rate going down is good for the economy and stock market, and good for Obama. Hmmm, sounds like a conflict to me....

Another Romney Campaign Fail

Concerning Romney's latest campaign gaffe ("I'm not concerned about the very poor"), many are writing about what he should've said instead, or why he said it at all (dog-whistle code to his wealthy supporters).

To me it's just another rookie-like screw-up. Given Romney has been in campaign mode for many, many years, he should know better than to utter such things, period. For him to claim later that he was taken out of context is exactly the point: a seasoned campaigner knows what not to say specifically because in this day and age of sound bites, a string of 8-10 words will be cut and pasted all over the news, leaving out any extra words that may have changed the inference. It's that simple, a "duh" truism.

But Romney continues to not get it. The no-concern-for-the-poor comment is just the latest. There was also the I-like-firing-people, you-wanna-make-a-$10K-bet? and I-didn't-make-much-in-speaking-fees doozies, the latter two further crystalizing how out of touch he is with the average American. Does the average American make a friendly bet for $10 grand? Would the average American regard almost $400,000 paid in speaking fees as not that much money?

It's clear the man is politically tone deaf, and more so it appears he can't help himself, that it's serial in nature. How do you explain the recent repeated offenses after running for office so many times? His wealth and elitism is deeply ingrained within his DNA, to the point where no matter how often his handlers attempt to coach him and purge these tendencies, they will always surface, like pea soup coming to a boil.

Romney is safe as long as he remembers to stick to talking points and preconceived tag lines. But once he ventures off script and attempts to be genuine with his answers, to actually speak in what are real terms for him, that's when he gets in trouble. Again, it's not just that he then says things that further confirm his stereotype, but more so that he says things that are simply ill-advised and stupid with regards to smart campaigning. You just don't say these four words: "I like firing people."

In many ways, it's equivalent to John Kerry's I-voted-for-it-before-I-voted-against-it debacle. Those of us who heard it in full context know what he actually meant, but it didn't matter. I recall all to well hearing Kerry say those words live at the time and wincing, realizing it was likely his Dukakis-army-tank or Dean-scream moment. I think it was a huge fail.

But Kerry really only had this one, albeit a big one. In contrast, Romney seems to churn out these misspeaks or "fails" about once a week.

The Obama people must be licking their chops. After all, despite Republicans labeling him the "Teleprompter President," Obama is actually quite good off-script. He can be very effective, actually reaching and impacting his audience, and doing so with facts and few if any unfortunate gaffes. I would very much like my odds in this regard versus Romney. After all, and as we've seen already, Mitt can't always be pre-programmed and there will be plenty of opportunities before November for him to say something that could sink his candidacy. It's just a matter of time....

Social Conservatives Are Dumb -- Literally

"Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found."

But then I suppose I'm guilty of intellectual elitism just for citing this study.

Idle Youth

This chart can’t bode well. Increasing numbers of idle youth + increasingly less funds for government benefits due to austerity = recipe for eventual civil unrest. The Eurozone best snap out of their Hayek spell and come around to Keynes before it's too late....

How Will They Stop Newt?

I ask, what Democrat / liberal is not enjoying this whole Newt resurgence thing?

Yes, it goes without saying that he's evil incarnate, but that truism aside, what I'm loving is picturing Newt as an experiment gone terribly wrong in a Republican science lab.

Newt is everything that has comprised a Republican over the last several years: he's brash, egomaniacal, an opportunist, a hypocrite, a liar, he infers racism, he's a fear-mongerer, he talks up "family values," etc. It's as if the GOP took cells from Atwater, DeLay, Cheney, Nixon and a bunch of other heinous party figures and combined them in a petrie dish, attempting to create an uber-Republican.

But alas, something went badly wrong and this creature called "Newt" escaped from the lab, and now he wreaks havoc on the party that created him. The conventional GOP establishment is freaking out, trying to kill the Frankenstein they created. However this monster is seemingly unstoppable, much like the super-zombies in the movie "28 Days Later," where the dead could run amazingly fast and chomped everything in sight.

In this last debate, poor Romney tried his best to fight back, but he was laughably feeble in comparison to Newt, who fended off each truthful assault Romney hoisted at him with ease. Of course, Newt used lies, deflection and an indignant tone to dazzle the crowd and come out on top, but that's exactly what an uber-Republican is designed to do.

WHAT WILL THE GOP DO?? HOW WILL THEY STOP THEIR CREATION FROM RUINING THEIR CHANCES IN NOVEMBER??

Strap in and stay tuned, this is going to get good....

Rachel Maddow Fact-checks PolitiFact

Rachel Maddow administers a well-deserved take-down of the farcical web site, PolitiFact. Recall their nonsensical 2011 Lie Of The Year. Watch Maddow officially make this web site obsolete, click here.

Despicable Newt Wins S.C.

I received the announcement by email around 7:30pm last night, from the NY Times:

Newt Gingrich Wins the South Carolina Primary, The A.P. Projects

Television networks and The Associated Press projected Newt Gingrich as the
winner of the South Carolina primary Saturday, just 10 days after a fifth-place
finish in New Hampshire left the impression his candidacy was all but dead.

Surprising his rivals and upending the highly unpredictable Republican race for
the presidency in its third, pivotal contest, so strong was Mr. Gingrich’s
performance that the major television networks declared him the winner the
minute the polls closed, basing their projections on exit polls that showed him
winning a plurality of voters among a wide swath of important Republican voting
blocs.

Newt declared the winner "the minute the polls closed," trouncing Romney by almost 13%. Wow, has to be considered a bad loss for Romney, esp. since I believe SC has correctly picked the last eight Republican nominees.

And note above the "his candidacy was all but dead." Sounds eerily similar to John McCain's fate four years ago, his campaign sputtering, key people left him, suddenly things begin to reverse and poof -- he becomes the nominee. Same thing to happen for Newt?

Who can predict when it comes to a party that only continues to become more kooky and nutty with each passing year. Now I'm hearing several powerful GOP figures to the far, far right of the far right in the party are hoping for a brokered convention which would allow them to install a "chosen one" to save the day (Palin? Christie? Mitch Daniels??). Again, who friggin knows.

I just love how the SC folks likely despised and continue to despise Bill Clinton and his foolish dalliance with Lewinsky, and yet with two-time cheater Newt, Mr. Family Values, fully draped in blankets of hypocrisy, that's not a problem. Apparently, the Christian thing to do is to always forgive Republicans, over and over, no matter the frequency or circumstances. But for Democrats, not a chance. Instead Republican SC voters say, "May sinners not on our political side burn in Hell forever!!" You know, as it says in the Bible....

This Republican nominee circus manages to continue to just astound those who can still think rationally.

And serving as ringmaster to this sh*t show is Newt himself, the supposed brainiac of the circus performers. I must say, during a campaign season where we've been treated to the utter repulsiveness of Newt Gingrich in all its squirmy glory, the man manages to continuously top himself.

He has called Palestinians "invented" people, and of course he must be right given Newt is a highly-respected (and well-paid) historian....

Then there was Newt's bracing suggestion that poor kids should replace janitors in our school systems (sweeping for Miss Daisy??). Even more disturbing is the amount of applause this idea receives from debate audiences. But then again, the debate audiences have proven to be more repugnant and ugly than any of the candidates, which is saying quite a bit.

And recently we heard Newt boast, “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” Both a racist and misleading statement, but that's what Newt does, goes for the emotional bell-ringer as opposed to intellect, and does so in an underhanded way. The fact is no president "puts" people on food stamps. People sign up for such assistance on their own, and unfortunately Obama inherited such an anemic, underperforming economy that people in record numbers have been forced to seek such help.

Dick Polman summarized it well:

It's easy to see why Newt was playing the race card. The primary is Saturday and he's scrambling to catch Mitt Romney. What better time to roll in the gutter, South Carolina style? "The best food stamp president" is code for saying "the black president who is signing up record numbers of lazy blacks, so that they can get more handouts on the government dime."

Yes, the best way to pander to the willfully ignorant - and thus gain ground in the GOP race - is to pepper them with lies. Newt did so, via his seral insinuations.

For starters, Obama doesn't "put" anyone on food stamps. The federal Agriculture Department's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides qualifying low-income people with vouchers to buy food, is voluntary. More people tend to sign up for the program when times are tough. Times have been tough since the Great Recession struck us with full force - before Obama even took office. And times have been tough across all racial lines; according to the 2010 Census, 74 percent of SNAP recipients are not black.

Thanks largely to the recession, the number of SNAP recipients has jumped 65 percent since 2008. But that's not the only reason. Signing up has become easier, due to eligibility rules that were loosened in 2002 and in 2008 - during the Bush administration. Indeed, the number of SNAP recipients rose in seven of the eight Bush years. The total number jumped by 63 percent during Bush's tenure. Oddly, I don't ever recall hearing Newt tag Bush as a "food stamp president."

And it's a lie to even imply that SNAP recipients are shiftless slackers; according to the 2010 census, 41 percent of recipients live in a household where somebody works. In other words, the working poor are swelling the food stamp rolls, seeking help because their low-paying jobs (at a time of severe wage stagnation) can't put enough food on the table.

The braying debate crowd naturally knew nothing about these nuances - and nobody on that stage, least of all Newt, dared try to enlighten them.

Yup, large number of hateful, ignorant folk comprise the GOP so the likes of Newt know full well what better way to curry favor with such knuckle-draggers than to hoist race-bating, inaccurate horse sh*t at them. Don't educate, instead fulminate.

And then we have the latest from Newt, and for my money the best yet. CNN interviewed his second wife, who said that Newt had asked her to consider the idea of an "open marriage" when he was caught cheating (second time for Newt). When this interview came up in the GOP debate, Newt became inflamed and said it was "despicable" to mention.

Classic Newt, turning the tables to characterize him as the victim. Just imagine if an opponent of his had this abhorrent legacy as baggage -- Newt would've made it an issue to be attacked, repeatedly. He would've said it speaks volumes about the character and decision-making process of the person, and he would have been right.

Newt commits this despicable act against his second wife, and yet he now proclaims that CNN is despicable for bringing to light what wouldn't be a concern or topic to begin with if Newt had not acted a certain way years ago.

Worse yet, the debate audience loudly applauded Newt's cries of victimhood. And he goes on to win the primary.

Only with the modern-day Republican Party can a man cheat on his wife twice, suggest an "open marriage" option to one of the cheated-on wives, become indignant with rage when his ugly past is brought to fore, calling the messenger "despicable" and to then receive wild applause for doing so.

What is clearly despicable is everything about Newt, much less the modern-day GOP.

Now that Bachmann, Trump, Cain and Gingrich have all experienced their relatively brief rise and fall in what is the clownish GOP presidential race, may we please learn from the past and not spend too much time on Santorum. He too will be forgotten in short-order as he has almost no shot of becoming the Republican nominee, and even less of a shot of becoming the next president, so can we just not waste time profiling his extreme positions and outrageous statements only to see him fade in the near future. Please?

I must confess, I watched a bit of Saturday's NH debate and hearing Romney trot out the red-meat lines to please the hard-right GOP base, I continue to wonder if he's sort of winking to the rest of us more moderate Americans, assuring us that he has to say this stuff to win the nomination but that he doesn't really believe it so please don't be afraid. OR I wonder, does he actually believe these far-right positions that he now claims to believe in?? If he were to be the next president, would he actually become the second coming of GW? Obviously, it's not just me wondering about these questions, but Republicans likewise are befuddled and fear he would instead tack back to his more moderate days as governor of MA.

What's hilarious about this is the modern-day Republican Party has forced it to be this way. The party and its base are so far to the right, so extreme, that if they were to elect one of their true zealots as their nominee, even they have to know that such a person would have little chance of winning in November. So the party is left with a once more moderate figure, such as McCain and Romney, and yet to win the nomination via appeasing and placating the base, the McCains and Romneys must twist and turn, contorting themselves like a pretzel to rid themselves of their pasts and try to convince the doubters that they now think like them, that they've seen the light, that the far right agenda is a beautiful thing.

And yet the base still doesn't quite believe, offering only tepid support, and meanwhile if/when this newly-converted moderate gets to be the GOP nominee, the job becomes increasingly difficult for now this person must try to appeal to the more moderate general electorate. And yet too much has already been said by the GOP nominee, too many statements endorsing far-right positions and criticizing programs and beliefs that are popular with the majority of voters -- and it's all captured on videotape, ready-made for 30-second ads.

You can see how the GOP has more or less made it near impossible for one of their own to make a successful run at the White House. It's difficult enough to have everything break your way to come out on top when making a go of it for president, but given the obstacle course that the GOP has created in addition to all of the other obstacles that come with the territory of running, the odds of succeeding certainly plummet that much more.

Fellow Democrats and liberals could say, "Bravo!" Let their kooky dysfunction remain, thus benefiting the likes of Obama and future Dems looking to reside in the WH. However, the problem is as long as they remain extreme in their views, not waking up to the problems that stem from it as described above, enough far-right Senators and Congresspersons will likely win office to serve as strident obstructionists. As we've come to learn, a Democrat as President is much less effective with these folks playing partisan games, as opposed to when Reagan was in office and Democrats controlled Congress. I don't recall then the Dems refusing to compromise on everything Reagan tried to do....

If Romney were to beat Obama (just saying), and the GOP continued to control Congress, Romney would conceivably be able to pass many of the things Obama would like to pass but hasn't been able to due simply to partisan obstruction. Suddenly stimulus-like measures would be framed in a new way and Republicans would rally around and support them. It would have nothing to do with Romney and everything to do with party-line politics in this day and age.

So for the good of the country, I believe it's better for the GOP to finally realize the quagmire they've created for themselves and to once and for all begin to purge the far-right nutballs and wingnuts and return to the days when the party was more moderate and reasonable. I never would've thought that those days would be more like Reagan, since he was thought to be fairly extreme at that time, but in comparison to today he's just a bit right of FDR! It would ultimately increase their chances of getting a Republican back in the White House, but more so it would help to get this country on the right course to recovery. Isn't that what counts, country first?

Having said all of this I continue to be amazed at how much Obama has been able to actually accomplish despite stern resistance from the opposing party. Just take a look at the chart below, showing the progress he has made on the job front, all the while receiving no help from Republicans. Bravo indeed.

Bill O'Reilly's book Killing Lincoln appeared on Entertainment Weekly's "Worst Books of 2011" list. I'm sure Bill will slam the magazine with something like "written by a bunch of commie, socialist pinheads!" His usual brainy retort.

Penn State, Paterno and cover-up. As with the Catholic Church scandal, protecting the institution came before protecting the rights of individuals. In this case, it was apparently protecting a football program and a coach's legacy that became priority #1. Beyond shameful. And my understanding is we've only heard about the tip of the iceberg, with much more to be divulged and surface....

With Rick Perry paying Fox $1 million for ads, one has to wonder to what extent this is a gift to Fox. Perry's campaign is flush with cash and yet he's been plummeting in the polls and for all intensive purposes is out of the race. So why the big cash outlay? Is it to perhaps insure favorable coverage in the future (as if there was any doubt)? Is it to perhaps convince Fox to offer him a job at some point down the road, if his popularity in Texas dries up?? Very odd.

Don't look now but the whack-a-mole game that is the GOP presidential race now has Gingrich rising in the polls. Yes, it's now Newt's turn to get a closer media look, which has not fared well for Bachmann, Perry and Cain and in the past has not been a good thing for Newt. But for now, he's failing upward and winning by attrition.

Don't we get a fair amount of food from China? This bit of news ain't good.

Many are beginning to wonder if natural gas fracking is causing earthquakes.

As for the Herman Cain escapades, I wish more serious-minded political commentators would stop discussing and even following this guy's campaign as it's a waste of time. Cain has no shot of becoming the GOP contender. As Rachel Maddow has been stating, he's been running a faux or fake campaign. Heck, they've all learned from Newt Gingrich, who figured it out long ago that running for president is a terrific business move. Newt does it every four years as it helps to boost his speaking fees, it keeps him "relevant" and in the public eye, it gives him supposed credibility, it boosts book sales, it channels much traffic to his web site (where he has stuff for sale). The bottom line is he very likely makes much more in return for what he puts into his "campaign." I believe Michele Bachmann learned to do this, and Rick Santorum has been doing this, and Sarah Palin sort of did it with her fake dance maybe/maybe not going to run -- and now we have Herman Cain. But alas, many Republican voters are clueless about it, believing many of these clowns are earnestly running for president. Both hilarious and sad.

I've posted this graphic in the past, but I believe it's worth updating and re-posting. Keep this chart in mind the next time someone says "Obamacare" is going to destroy our private healthcare system. If that were true, these managed care stocks would not have crushed the market since the end of last October. Bottom line is investors as a group are typically not stupid and such massive stock outperformance indicates these companies will likely do better than ever (i.e. "Obamacare" didn't go far enough).

Click on to enlarge

Glenn Beck, Goldline and charges of fraud. Does this shock anyone?

As you may have noticed with the frequency of my updates, I'm not a professional blogger. My other life too often gets in the way. I do collect many news items, jotted-down thoughts, etc., meant to be posted up here fairly expeditiously but unfortunately instead they become quite past due. Rather than just tossing in garbage, I hope you don't mind when I post them anyway....

One of my favorite political writers ever, Jonathan Alter, recently wrote about the possibility of Obama switching Biden for Hillary for this upcoming election. Could this actually happen? Alter writes, "I’d say the odds are long -- but it’s definitely not impossible." Then almost as if on cue, Time releases a poll showing Hillary would trounce the Republican contenders if she were running for president, by margins larger than Obama. Admittedly such a poll can be a bit dubious given Obama has been in the #1 spot for 2+ years, receiving all the shrapnel and wounds in this difficult period, and it's always appealing to think "What if she had won her way into the White House, would things have been different...?" However, as the polls tighten up between Obama and Romney, I would assume Obama would do everything necessary to secure a victory. Biden has more or less been invisible in this term, esp. compared to VPs Cheney and Gore. Meanwhile, Clinton has been very high profile and I would say has received very positive reviews from both parties. With the GOP likely to use everything at their disposal to defeat Obama, trotting out all the usual beyond-the-pale campaign methods, there will be a need for an attack dog in the race, one who can land blows and yet do so tactfully, avoiding embarrassment. Hillary can do this better than Biden, who as we know often puts foot in mouth. In addition, it would be great to get Bill Clinton more overtly involved in working his magic to get Obama another four years -- he still remains one of the most amazing and gifted political minds and strategists that I've ever seen. And I would also mention, do not discount that woulda/shoulda mentality, "if only it were a Hillary/Obama ticket to win in 2008, would things be different...." It may be folly, but there's enough people (like myself) who originally wanted Hillary to go all the way and just the thought of her becoming #2 in charge and having more explicit influence over decisions and day-to-day operations could be enough to tip the scales in what is shaping up to be a close election.

Apparently the governor of California, Jerry Brown, is shocked at just how pigheaded and untrustworthy his Republican cohorts are -- where the hell has this guy been?! In the article we learn a few things about Republicans in California that hold true for the party on a national scale (proving that Republicans are a-holes no matter where they hold office). They refuse to accept facts, they believe that a 50/50 compromise is unfair and unacceptable, and they lie and don't honor their word. And yet reasonable people are expected to work with such clowns and actually attempt to get something accomplished for the sake of the people. It defines insanity, as per Einstein: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Nearly 200 companies/special interests/lobbyists have registered to "influence" the 12-member congressional "Super Committee" which is expected to find many billions in spending cuts. So let me understand, after all the Tea Party-inspired BS we had to endure concerning the debt ceiling, this is what we get? Instead of the entire Congress getting "influenced" by lobbyists, now it will be fine-tuned to just 12, simply making the job easier for the lobbyists. Way to go Tea Party idiots! We're roundabout back to the original problem: $$$ in politics. Which is what the antithesis Tea Party -- OWS -- is highlighting, the root cause of the rot, not the symptoms.

I highly recommend reading this interview with economist Richard Koo. Many fear we're headed down the road of Japan, doomed to experience a "lost decade" of malaise and muddle-through. Koo has extensively studied the problems in Japan, becoming the go-to expert on it's "Great Recession." Along with several excellent suggestions and prescriptions, Koo concludes, "The Japanese government didn't do enough spending in the early 1990s and added another 10 years to the problem. If the U.S. avoids that mistake, maybe in a couple of years you will be out of this mess." And note, with regards to the recent impressive U.S. stock market rally, Japan has enjoyed more than a few 35+% rallies during its 20-year protracted bear market.

The John Podhoretz column in the NY Post is hilarious. It's as if one were to bake a cake, ice it with dog feces and then complain about the taste. John, your party has spent years carefully crafting a "master recipe" of what they like and dislike, ultimately producing this cast of nincomepoops. It's what the GOP deserves.

More items to come....

I happened to watch the Republican debate tonight. It was like getting a broken nose reset.

The verdict was clear: Romney won easily, Perry lost badly. And forget about the rest, they're inconsequential.

RP needed to hit this one out of the park to have even a remote chance of climbing back into the race -- not going to happen. His wife can stop bitching about the way her hubby is being treated, he's toast.

Let it be said one more time that the only reason Romney has been winning these debates is because his competition is hapless and inferior. He's winning due to relative superiority.

Wait until he's up against Obama, one on one. It will be a stark contrast compared to this cast of kooks and yokels.

I happened to watch the Republican debate tonight. It was like getting a broken nose reset.

The verdict was clear: Romney won easily, Perry lost badly. And forget about the rest, they're inconsequential.

RP needed to hit this one out of the park to have even a remote chance of climbing back into the race -- not going to happen. His wife can stop bitching about the way her hubby is being treated, he's toast.

Let it be said one more time that the only reason Romney has been winning these debates is because his competition is hapless and inferior. He's winning due to relative superiority.

Wait until he's up against Obama, one on one. It will be a stark contrast compared to this cast of kooks and yokels.

I happened to watch the Republican debate tonight. It was like getting a broken nose reset.

The verdict was clear: Romney won easily, Perry lost badly. And forget about the rest, they're inconsequential.

RP needed to hit this one out of the park to have even a remote chance of climbing back into the race -- not going to happen. His wife can stop bitching about the way her hubby is being treated, he's toast.

Let it be said one more time that the only reason Romney has been winning these debates is because his competition is hapless and inferior. He's winning due to relative superiority.

Wait until he's up against Obama, one on one. It will be a stark contrast compared to this cast of kooks and yokels.

I must say I sort of saw (predicted?) OWS coming....

Fortunately it has thus far remained non-violent. Let's hope it remains that way and doesn't eventually attract the "wrong" people as its sphere of influence expands.

Buffett takes on Murdoch -- clash of the titans!

Surprise! Lobbyists "infiltrate" debt super committee.

The difference between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme.

Reagan increasingly looks better (more moderate) in relative terms than the GOP kooks of today (who would most likely cast him out as too liberal).

"Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales." Imagine if Soros did this....

As the planet warms, forests die, and as they die = less trees to absorb CO2 and pollutants, and with less trees to absorb CO2 and pollutants, planet warms even more -- repeat.

Clarence Thomas must go. If he can't figure out how to complete a form, what does that say about him ruling on some of the most complex and important issues that face this nation?

Remember when Mr. Tea Party, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), was going to shake up Washington, change how it's done down in DC....?? Yeah, right. More BS eaten up by naive supporters.

"Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way — enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day. The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists."

Bloomberg: continued high unemployment could lead to expanded rioting.

"Congress spent over $120 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Tell them it’s time to rebuild America."

How many investigations on Solyndra, four? And amounting to $500 million, it's the only failure of close to $40 billion invested in green energy, or about 1% of funds. What an outrage. Meanwhile, how many investigations were assigned to the $18 billion in cash missing in Iraq under GW's reign??

I saw these two headlines as consecutive emails in my inbox:

"Sarah Palin Says She Will Not Seek the Presidency"

"Steven P. Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple, Dies"

Oh, how to describe the chasm between the two regarding importance....

This Boston Globe story speaks volumes. The average percentage of uninsured working adults in this country is 22%, the average for Massachusetts is 7% and the average for Texas is 32%. For children ages 18 and under, 10% on average are uninsured in the U.S., compared to 17% for Texas and just 3.5% for Massachusetts.

So Texas has 10% more uninsured adults and 7% more uninsured kids than the national average. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has 15% fewer uninsured adults and 6.5% fewer uninsured kids than the national average. Yet Perry pats himself on the back for the healthcare in Texas while Romney can't run fast enough away from the good he did in this regard as MA's governor -- huh?

This country is insane. Up is down, black is white, etc.

From the article, "Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country - 24.6 percent - and the number of uninsured that has grown by 35 percent during Governor Rick Perry’s 11-year tenure.... And what is the price Texas pays for so many without insurance? A host of health problems, researchers have found. Overall health care quality for Texas is poorer than in every other state, especially when it comes to preventive, acute, and chronic care, as well as care for diabetes, heart, and respiratory diseases, according to the 2010 report of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.... Texas ranks third to last in the country for the percentage of adults with a regular source of medical care, according to Commonwealth Fund data on state health system performance.... [I]n a state where 16.8 percent of children are uninsured, more than all but one other state, only half of Texas children have a medical provider who knows them and coordinates their care. More than a third of them have not received recommended medical and preventive care within the year, and immunization rates are low as well. Texas also ranks last in the country in the percent of children who receive needed mental health care.... Doctors recount horror stories of uninsured patients who die of treatable diseases because families delay seeking medical help or must endure long waits for appointments with specialists."

Some Texas miracle....

Let me understand, Intel is smart enough to realize that with interest rates this low, it pays for them to float debt and use the proceeds to repurchase their stock. In other words, issue debt at an average of say 3% interest and buyback stock which will net 4+% in gains. A no-brainer for the corporate world.

Then why is it in a near-zero interest rate environment (real rates are actually negative) for the nation that we're not likewise taking advantage of cheap (free?) borrowing rates to increase debt in order to stimulate the economy, increase employment and frankly invest in our country literally via infrastructure projects? Studies show we need to invest trillions of dollars in bridge repair, etc., and these projects only get more expensive with delay. Best to take them on now while borrowing is very cheap, and it would serve to meaningfully boost employment.

It all just makes too much sense -- what's the catch? Oh right, Republicans don't want Democrats to do well next year. Party first, f*ck the country.

Proof that Republicans have been more intransigent and uncompromising towards Obama than the Democrats were towards GW.

It's not even close -- which shouldn't surprise anyone.

Maureen Dowd's recent column received much (deserved) attention. So many have grown so frustrated with Obama -- if he's not already, he should be sweating. As much as the GOP appears to have an exceedingly weak field, he's not invincible.

I will quibble with a line Dowd wrote: "[Obama] is now just a guy in a really bad spot."

Not true. I bolded "now" because Obama has been in a bad spot ever since he took office. As Dowd stated in the first line of her column, no thanks to GW.

The problem isn't as much that he's been in a bad spot, but rather that he hasn't followed through on promises and stated solutions to address these problems. Although Obama and his advisers often treat his supporters as if they have the IQ of a birch tree, the fact is if Obama simply did what he said he was going to do, even if he didn't solve the problem his supporters would be fully by his side today, emphatically praising him.

Unfortunately, his behavior and actions have been less than what he promised us in 2008. He was going to be different, and yet he's just the same.

Perry makes GW look like the second coming of Einstein.

Yes, maybe we should've went with Hillary after all.

Robert Redford is beginning to doubt Obama when it comes to the environment.

Is Obama Bad for the Environment?

Obama's EPA catering to big industry.

Monsanto could very well be the scariest company on the planet.

Even CEOs are getting fed up with the partisan divide in Washington. I'm sure they're leaning on their Republican buddies to cut the crap, stop working against the Democrats on everything and start to give in and compromise. Yeah, and oh look, a pig just flew over my house....

Worse than Bush.

I just have to wonder when it comes to many issues where Obama has raised the proverbial middle-finger to his supporters, would Hillary have been this bad? Would she too have caved so often on positions she had campaigned on/for? Or would she have shown much more spine and vigor when it came to standing firm for what she believed in and more so, what she had promised those who voted for her??

Where does it end with Obama? Just when you think he's all but morphed into Republican-lite, he does something else that makes the "-lite" questionable.

Does he believe he is that much of a lock in 2012, that many of us will have no choice but to hold our noses and vote for him (yes, the HNV (Hold Nose Vote) strategy)? Someone should tell him that many may just stay home, fed up and disgusted by his lack of follow-through on so many things.

Oh, and those of you on the right who still think Obama is a pinko socialist, at this point you're simply insulting all actual pinko socialists.

At this point, it should be apparent to most non-Tea Baggers that the stimulus was not big enough given the scope of our economic problems. Krugman has been saying this forever. Meanwhile, we've been put into a fiscal straight-jacket thanks to ignorant Republicans (who as Kevin writes, argue that WWII got us out of a similar situation not too long ago).

The fact is with an election year around the corner, Republicans will not go along with anything that might have a chance of working to improve the economy. Partisanship before country is their rule.

However, it's no coincidence that riots have sprung up all over, in unrelated places like Philadelphia, London, Chile, Egypt, Libya, etc. The Tea Bag faction did hold the entire country hostage during the debt-ceiling "debate" and their shenanigans played a big part prompting the S&P downgrade. If social unrest continues to spread and escalate due to high unemployment, food price inflation, and increasing wealth disparity, to name a few reasons, one has to wonder if the GOP will stick with their staunch austerity positions.

Whereas Tea Baggers used blackmail to get what they wanted in the form of spending cuts and no taxes, if the economy remains weak or worsens, there's a good chance more outbreaks of unrest will occur due to dire frustration and anger. Will such unfortunate and threatening acts serve as reverse-blackmail, provoking action from Republicans?

Look, of course no one wishes to see violence erupt -- duh. But while we constantly hear about how 1% own 40% of the wealth or similar such stats, need I remind that 1% of the approximate 300 million people in this country amount to just 3 million. In other words, the super-wealthy are outnumbered 297 million to 3 million. I have a feeling this notion is not lost on many of the 3 million and could make them very nervous if conditions in this country, or elsewhere, truly get ugly.

Again, let's pray it doesn't happen, that it doesn't come to this and things do improve, but foolish, misguided decisions frequently have consequences.