NEON GODS

Oh, NOW I understand.

Back when I was a kid going to school I was always a step behind my math teachers.  I never had a problem with real numbers: if I have 2 apples and Cindy takes 1 of them, I still have 1 apple, right?  Fine. 

Then came fractions.  How can I have 1 2/3 apples??  Like who's measuring?  But I finally caught on, just in time to find out there are also things called negative numbers:  If I have two apples and Cindy steals three of them....what?   Oh, I see, bad example.  Then they tried to convince me that there are letters that can be numbers, like x, but you don't know what that number is, and it is YOUR job to figure what it is.  OMG!  They are trying to destroy my brain!

But they weren't done, then came equations with more than one letter in them: a, b, c.  And then, once you finally accept that as fact (and hadn't dropped out of school yet), they  began subtly throwing in Greek letters that weren't even in our alphabet.  OMFG!

Yes, I was always a year behind and making a fool of myself.  My final wretched question was always, "What will I ever use this for?"

Then came the bomb, Imaginary Numbers, a concept so foreign to my literal mind that to this day I have never figured out what they are and who would ever use them.  The only time I ever tried using one was once on a math quiz there was an equation I couldn't figure out so as an answer I wrote "it's obviously an imaginary number."  There was nothing imaginary about the "D" I got on that quiz.

But now I know who uses imaginary numbers, and why.  The Republicans use imaginary numbers when they create budgets, and for that reason alone, I suspect, this is why the Washington pundits are so damn impressed with Paul Ryan's budget proposal that everyone is gushing over even though the numbers don't add up.  He actually used those Imaginary Numbers that stymied us all our lives. The man is a frickin' genius!  I'm even a bit jealous that he's been able to pull it off in front of the entire country, and I couldn't even trick my math teacher...  :(

--Trakker

They are determined to shut it down

I'm too angry to write coherently (as if that could ever describe my writing here) about the way the Republicans are playing Obama like a fiddle.  I'm to the point where I'm not sure we wouldn't have been better off if McCain had won in 2008, if only because then the Republicans would own, and be held responsible for, what they are doing to America.  I suspect four years of McCain/Palin would almost guarantee a saner President and Congress in 2012. 

E.J. Dionne wrote a good column yesterday, "The High Cost of Hating Government" (h/t horsec),

...the government of the most powerful country in the world [is] being held hostage by a band of fanatics who (1) represent a very small proportion of our population; (2) hate government so much that they [relish] the idea of closing its doors, no matter the cost; and (3) have neither respect nor patience for the normal democratic give-and-take between competing parties and points of view.

Point number three is as much the Democrats fault as the tea partiers.

Unfortunately that blood lust by the tea partiers for shutting down the government was thwarted by Obama this time, so they will demand it again, soon, when the debt limit has to be raised.   Obama should have refused to give in this time, and let them shut it down and suffer the consequences.  Now they have two more opportunities to wreak havoc on our country and they will do it.

Be sure to read Ezra Klein today (and every day).  He manages to write coherently about the things I can't.  I'm going to go out and chew on a tree or something.

--Trakker

Rolled again

Ezra Klein on the recent budget deal:

The substance of this deal is bad. But the way Democrats are selling it makes it much, much worse.

The final compromise was $38.5 billion below 2010’s funding levels. That’s $78.5 billion below President Obama’s original budget proposal, which would’ve added $40 billion to 2010’s funding levels, and $6.5 billion below John Boehner’s original counteroffer, which would’ve subtracted $32 billion from 2010’s budget totals. In the end, the real negotiation was not between the Republicans and the Democrats, or even the Republicans and the White House. It was between John Boehner and the conservative wing of his party. And once that became clear, it turned out that Boehner’s original offer wasn’t even in the middle. It was slightly center-left.

But you would’ve never known it from President Obama’s encomium to the agreement. Obama bragged about “making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” Harry Reid joined him, repeatedly calling the cuts “historic.” It fell to Boehner to give a clipped, businesslike statement on the deal. If you were just tuning in, you might’ve thought Boehner had been arguing for moderation, while both Obama and Reid sought to cut deeper. You would never have known that Democrats had spent months resisting these “historic” cuts, warning that they’d cost jobs and slow the recovery.

Yes, the Democrats got rolled again.  I'm deeply, deeply pissed! 

Why?  WHY?! do any sane, rational people support this miserable, cowardly, Democratic Party anymore??  Leave it.  I would rather form a new party and lose  a few elections than feel obligated to support these losers! 

Maybe we need to form our own crazy-ass tea party with radical demands like: TAX THE RICH!  Close the loopholes that allow American corporations to avoid paying any taxes. Start spending money on infrastructure projects that would put people back to work, pay taxes, and build things America needs.  Make it cheaper for poor and middle class kids to go to college. Stop funding Wars! 

We've got to drive a stake though the Democratic party's heart and refuse to support anyone who won't fight for the things listed above. Make that the litmus test for support.  If you don't share these values, then don't even bother emailing or calling me for support.  And write to your Congressman and Senator and tell them you are sick of watching Congress tear down this once great country.

Update: Here is a post on DailyKos reminding us of the good ol days when we had a skilled President with cajones.  So, Bill, where are you now?

--Trakker

The Right, in a nutshell: TS!

Tom Toles is a political cartoonist for the Washington Post.  He also has a blog at the Post where he writes short posts most days.  He's a liberal, so he attracts a lot of wingnuts who mock him in the comments section.

Today a wingnut, writing as "bertzel," wrote this:

Are you suggesting that the Republican party is evil because of their "grow up and take care of yourself for a change" attitude?

This is a pretty good description of the right's philosophy toward life: grow up and take care of yourself.  Don't ask for any help from me or the taxpayers because either a) you're a lazy, irresponsible asshole trying to sponge off my hard work, or b) you've had a run of bad luck but you should have planned for it and you obviously didn't so quit whining. 

Because this is sometimes hard to articulate I've begun calling it the Republican's "TOUGH SHIT!" philosophy. 

I suspect the difference between the left and the right is this: the right assumes everyone but them is an asshole out to game the system and mooch off the hard work of others.  In other words they assume everyone is an asshole until proved otherwise.

The left (and most rational people) assume everyone else is like them, wanting to work hard, play by the rules, and pay their own way in the world.  When they get in trouble, they don't want a handout, just a boost, or a safety net to keep their head above water.  In other words, everyone is a responsible adult until proved otherwise.

Yes, there are cheats.  They are everywhere, even in churches and the corporate boardrooms (especially in the...?, oh, never mind). We do what we can to prevent it and punish those caught cheating, but it's just part of life.  If you refuse to participate in every activity where people cheat, you will die.

I can't stand the thought of living in a society that subscribes to a TOUGH SHIT! philosophy, but that seems to be the direction we're headed.

--Trakker

How do you negotiate when the opposition's demands are outrageous?

You make your demands equally outrageous!

The Republicans started the current year's budget fight by demanding about $30 billion in cuts for the remainder of this year.  Harry Reid said that was outrageous and unworkable.  So what did the Democrats end up doing?  They agreed to the $30+ billion in cuts, but then the tea party demanded $61 billion in cuts instead. Or they'll shut down the government!

I suspect the government won't be shut down because the Democrats will eventually cave at a figure between $38 billion and $50 billion, and the Republicans will emerge as the clear winners (as usual).

This is what the Republicans always do, make outrageous demands and end up getting most of what they want.

As soon as this year's budget gets passed, Congress will begin work on next year's budget and the whole dance will begin again. 

I assume the Democrats will start by proposing some additional, but modest, cuts and the Republicans will demand huge, damaging cuts, cuts that will cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs, kill hundreds of federal programs, make huge cuts in the safety nets for the poor, and extend the tax cuts for the wealthy...and destroy any recovery.

What the Democrats should do is propose just the opposite: huge tax hikes for the wealthy, increased funding for the safety nets, increases in medical research, more job programs and money for infrastructure, etc.  Every one of these requests should be desirable and justifiable.  In other words, ask for things WE want, things we NEED, things the American people want, and propose to pay for it with increased taxes on the wealthy.

In other words, make the right begin the budget battle having to fight to reduce our requests rather than begin their fight by trying to get us to give them more and more cuts.  Then when crunch time comes any compromise will end up giving us something (tax increases on the wealthy?) and them something (modest budget cuts).

This isn't rocket science.  The Democrats are surely aware of this tactic, but they never use it.  Why?  Could it be that they work for the same people the Republicans do and want the same results?  Could this all be a choreographed dance for the people?

--Trakker

Who will get the blame?

There's a lot of talk today about who will get blamed if there is a government shutdown.  I think that's premature beause this isn't about a government shutdown, it's about passing a budget to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year...which is what shut it down in the first place!  So it's not just, who's to blame for shutting it down but more like who's to blame for keeping it shut down and refusing to come to an agreement on a budget.

The Democrats have agreed to $33 billion in cuts already, which is more than the Republicans demanded in the first place.  That's more than they should have agreed to, and I suspect any deeper cuts will be hard to get the Senate Democrats to agree to, so it's all up to the Republicans.  If they continue to insist on $40-50 billion in cuts, we could see a very long shutdown.  Of course, as the shutdown grows longer so will the stories on the news of the people affected by the shutdown: passports not processed or renewed, popular parks like Yellowstone shuttered, popular museums closed, federal employees running out of money, Washington's economy devestated, etc.  These stories will up the pressure to come to a compromise.

It will all come down to who can hold out the longest and I'll put my money on the Tea Party.  The one thing the Democrats are not noted for is courage.  They would get cold feet in hell.  I predict the finale frigure will be between $39-41 billion, which will have a major impact on our economy, a major impact!

--Trakker

GOP: "Repeal the 20th Century"

Harold Meyerson summed it up nicely today,

If it does nothing else, the budget that House Republicans unveiled Tuesday provides the first real Republican program for the 21st century, and it is this:

Repeal the 20th century.

Republicans have never particularly warmed to the American social contract that governed most of the past hundred years. Its central elements, ... assumed a level of collective national responsibility for the well-being of the elderly and children, the two groups who could not benefit directly from employment, through such programs as Social Security, Medicare, funding for schools and for college grants and loans.

One could easily defend these programs on a humanitarian basis alone, but they make sense for other reasons as well.

The logic behind these programs wasn’t simply humanitarian. It was also economic: Bolstering the purchasing power of the elderly increased economic activity and enabled the adult children of the elderly to invest more in their own children. Enabling more people to get good educations straight through college created a more productive workforce.

That's the part that the Tea Partiers don't get, helping the children, the poor, and the elderly does cost tax payers money, but they save us money, too, and it spurs economic activity and help America be more productive.

The Tea Partiers are hell bent on smashing these programs and will probably damage them significantly before they are wrestled to the ground and stuffed back under their rock, but by then the middle class will see a lot of our remaining wealth being drained and in the pockets of the very rich.

Meyerson then ends his column with a well-deserved backhand to our President,

And, finally, there’s talk that we have a president who’s a Democrat — the party that created the American social contract of the 20th century. Initially, he focused on reshaping and extending that contract into the 21st. Now that the Republicans want to repeal it all, he’s nowhere to be found. Has anybody seen him? Does he still exist?

No.

--Trakker

The rich win again and yet it's still not enough for them

Let us look in on the household of a wealthy one-percenter as Bethany Rich approaches her 18th birthday.

Bethany:  Waaah, Daddy, Mummy said we can't afford everything that I want for my birthday: a new horse, because Snowball is getting old, that yellow Lamborghini - but I want it repainted electric blue, that dreamy yacht we saw at the dealer last Wednesday, and a Gulfstream G150.

Dad: Bethany, you know we can't afford all of that.  Daddy only got a 27% raise this year, and my bonus was only $8 mil.  We can't get you all that, maybe the horse and yacht, but that's all.

Bethany: But Daddy, I have it all figured out, if you fire 40% of our staff and cut the pay of all the rest, we can afford it, I did the math.

Dad: Yeah, but we can't cut 40% of the staff and survive, and the staff is already struggling on what we pay them!

Bethany: Dad!  I know the staff, they can't go anywhere else, there are no jobs for them so just cut their wages and if they complain tell them G'bye.  There are hundreds of people who will take the job for peanuts!   It'll work, you'll see, and I really, really, really want that Lamborghini, Daddy.

Dad: Oh, okay, Bethany, we'll cut 20% of the staff and cut everyone else's pay to minimum wage, and ask them to get their older kids to drop out of school and help them.  I'm sure they'll do it so they can keep their job.  But we can't afford the Gulfstream, Beth.  You have to cut back too.

Bethany:  Oh Daddy, that's great!! I'm so happy!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I didn't really want the Gulfstream anyway, I just used it as a way to get the Lamborghini.  I'll ask for the Gulfstream next year.

Daddy:  Oh Bethany, you are so clever!  You make me so proud.  You'll make a great privileged bitch of a wife for some CEO.

I'm sure you recognize the players here.  Bethany is the Tea Party and Daddy is Congress.  I was inspired by Michael Gerson's column yesterday.

Obama now has Republicans cornered in budget negotiations. By accepting $33 billion in cuts for the remainder of 2011, Obama has taken the middle ground and exploited a major division within the Republican coalition...

What made this possible was Obama’s willingness to betray progressives in Congress even before the budget conflict began. In February, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had criticized spending reductions in the range of $30 billion as “draconian” and “unworkable.” Now that figure is a floor. The left has already lost the budget battle — though the right has not yet won it. Obama clearly takes liberals for granted, shoring up his own fiscal reputation at their expense. Given their quiescence, it seems a good strategy.

 This maneuver has also placed House Speaker John Boehner in exactly the position he wanted to avoid. Obama’s offer is more than reasonable. A $30 billion reduction, after all, was the initial Republican negotiating position back in early February. Given that Republicans control only the House, this level of cuts would normally be viewed as a remarkable success... [emphasis mine]

It is a remarkable success for the Republicans and a huge defeat for the left, as usual.  But the Tea Party is not nearly satisfied, now they want the Gulfstream too, or they will shut down the government.

Shutting down the government might seem like a minor irritation for many, but even the threat of a government shutdown requires thousands of hours of planning to make sure only truly essential services are exempt, and to insure the shutdown doesn't endanger Americans anywhere: on the battlefields, in VA hospitals, etc.  This diverts a lot of man hours from doing the things that need doing.  The shutdown will be costly, and once the government reopens everyone will be way behind on their work.  I know, I went through the last ones, thanks to Newt.  Because those of us who stayed home got paid for doing nothing most of us just stayed after work and worked on our own time to help catch back up.  This time I suspect there will be no back pay for those laid off, and federal workers will just say screw it.  Few anywhere are willing to sacrifice for a mean boss - the American people, many of whom absolutely despise their employees.

--Trakker

How much did your income go up last year?

I'm sure you saw this already, but it needs to be said again:

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels, a USA TODAY analysis of data from GovernanceMetrics International found. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010, says the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

That's not an average where a few huge increases at the top can skew the figure, it's the median increase.  The median CEO pay in 2010 was $9.0 million (up from $7.1 million in 2009)! 

A 27% increase in pay in just one year, a year when the average worker's salary increased just 2.1%. 

Yet, Scott Walker and all his Republican governor cronies are hard at work impoverishing their public employees, and at the federal level the Republicans are trying hard to throw thousands of government workers out of their jobs.

Republicans used to worry about the Communists infiltrating our country and ruining it.  Looks like they found a way to ruin it themselves!

--Trakker

Time to re-examine religion

I'm sorry but when will the world finally realize that religion is not something we should be encouraging in a peaceful, loving, respectful society?  Why do we as a society venerate religions, let them build large churches, on huge lots, that used for just a few hours each week, and give them tax breaks to encourage this behavior.

Yes, good people are drawn to churches and they do some good for the community, but I suspect most of these people would do good things for the community anyway.  Unfortunately religion provides cover for people who do bad things, pedophile priests leap to mind. And loony people with crazy ideas and hateful prejudices love to start churches where they can get the cover of respectability (and tax breaks) for their looniness.

I'm writing mainly in response to the angry, murderous reaction by nut-case Afghani Muslim fundamentalists in response to the stupid, infantile, nut-case pastor of the small Florida church who burned a Koran.  Those involved should all be rounded up, caged, and paraded around the word for our ridicule ---- alas, only in my dreams.

Muslims insist they are a peaceful people, and 98% of them are, it's just that the remainder go batshit crazy and turn murderous when someone, anyone, criticizes their religion.  That is intolerable in today's world.

Then we have the haters in the U.S. like Fred Phelps, and the anti-abortionists who think God wants them to murder doctors who provide legal abortions, and this guy in Florida, Terry Jones, who appears to have some key genetic material missing.  Terry Jones (I won't call him Rev.) was told by no less than Gen. Petraeus that burning a Koran would put our troops in danger - and he did it anyway. 

I would have no trouble if they could find a way to put Jones away for life for the murder of those U.N. guards.  It might even save his life given the murderous anger of certain Muslims who would love to get hold of him (but not to worry, Jones says he's got a gun - I guess he doesn't have much confidence in his suddenly wimpy God to protect him.  Dontcha' just love all those Christians who tell us God protects those who love him, but carry a gun around for protection? Yessssss). 

So I'm just fed up with the violence and killing, and hate, and exploitation, and bad things done to children in the name of some God.  Why do we refuse to acknowledge that the harm done in the guise of religion more than offsets the good done?

--Trakker