Far East Cynic

Mitt Romney seems to be having trouble adjusting to life as a worthless piece of shit an also ran.

First, here's Willard, reminding us again that he only lost because he wouldn't give the Poors all the nice things, like the things he gave all of us here in Massachusetts, when he was pretending that he wasn't such a privileged, entitled dick.

The president had the power of incumbency. ObamaCare was very attractive, particularly to those without health insurance. And they came out in large numbers to vote. So that was part of a successful campaign.

You bet. It was going to be the part of your successful 2008 campaign, too, until the entire Republican party decided that it would rather inject itself with Ebola than spend eight years listening to you.

"It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done," Romney told Fox News in an interview broadcast on Sunday, his first since losing to President Barack Obama last November."

Yeah…..sure….asshole-whatever helps you sleep at night in your gold covered bed.

Take it away, Charles Pierce:  "Somebody's still got the baaaaad butt-sting. The country decided you were a walking lump of cream cheese that it wouldn't sit next to on the last cattle car to Hell. Go away again now."

Nonetheless it always humorous to watch Rmoney try to pull off the common touch.:

The one thing I can say for absolute certainty, after watching Willard Romney try to impersonate a carbon-based life-form for over a year, is that "people" got as good a look at who he really is as they have of any candidate in the past 20 years. His problem was that he couldn't even fake being a fake well enough. I look forward to many more appearances from America's Fun Couple in the weeks and months to come, as they keep digging that hole with both hands.

Rmoney arriving for his Fox interview.

I have been reading the reactions to the sequester-and I am truly coming to the firm conviction that the United States of America has gone insane. Not only did Congress not avoid this abomination-but they didn't even stick around and try to work it out even after the deadline has passed. That astounds me beyond all belief. Even more so is the reaction of some in the proletariat who actually believe that this approach to budgeting is a good thing and are saying we need even more cuts ( without offsetting revenue restoration).

There are a whole host of lies and distortions out there-and that is what bothers me the worst. One cannot even correct the record-because there is no willingness to understand, much less believe the facts.

Lets review the facts shall we?

1) It is not just "a 2 percent cut" in federal spending. Its an almost 9 percent whack in defense and a combined 8% whack in non defense when the various non defense cuts are aggregated. And even more importantly-because the Congress did not act to allow the Administration to execute reprogramming actions, the various departments cannot do what common sense says they should do-make vertical cuts and tough reductions in programs wholesale. ( Like cancel LCS for example and move the money to other accounts). Yet there are people-I've argued with them who just go on saying that we can  do this and no one will get hurt. Well, they are wrong-and deserve to be beaten for their inability to understand. Yes I said that-its how I feel.

2) The GOP insistence that there can be no restored revenue-even when it makes sense and will better spread the burden around-is total lunacy.

Ezra Klein mans up and admits he was wrong. He had written a piece suggesting that if only Republicans knew how much Obama has been willing to offer, they might be willing to make a deal. Jonathan Chait set him straight, informing him that no matter what Obama put on the table, Republicans would find a way to say that it’s not enough. And sure enough, a Twitter exchange lets Klein watch that process in real time, as a top Republican consultant, confronted with evidence that Obama has already conceded what he said was all that was needed, keeps adding more demands.

So Klein admits that Republicans just don’t want to make a deal. Their objections to the deals on the table aren’t sincere; if convinced that Obama has met their demands, they just make more demands.

I think it’s important here to understand the broader implications.

The whole push for a Grand Bargain has been based on the notion that we can reach a fiscal deal that takes the whole fight over the budget off the table. What Klein has belatedly learned is how unlikely such a Bargain really is; but the same logic tells us that any Grand Bargain that might somehow be struck, via Obama’s mystical ability to mind-meld Star Trek and Star Wars or something, wouldn’t last. In a year — or more likely in a minute or two — Republicans would be back, demanding more tax cuts and more cuts in social programs. They just won’t take yes for an answer.

Meanwhile, it’s not just Republicans who refuse to accept it when Obama gives them what they want; the same applies, with even less justification, to centrist pundits. As people like Greg Sargent point out time and again, the centrist ideal — deficit reduction via a mix of revenue increases and benefits cuts — is what Obama is already offering; in fact, his proposals have been to the right of Bowles-Simpson. Yet the centrist pundits keep demanding that Obama offer what he has already offered, and condemn both sides equally (or even place most of the blame on Obama) for the failure to reach a deal. Again, informing them of their error wouldn’t help; their whole shtick is about blaming both sides, and they will always invent some reason why Obama just isn’t doing it right.

 

This is the whole false equivalency thing again. "Both sides do it". No, in this case only one side has-and since they don't experience any consequences for it-they do it again and again. The fiscal scolds and whack jobs in the GOP should have their balls in a vice right now-being squeezed until they pop. But no one is inflicting the pain on them to get them to do what is right. America only has two branches of government right now. Congress for all intents and purposes has ceased to exist. The founding fathers never intended for that to happen.

Basically its a continuation of the total freak out 30% of America had when Obama won in 2008 and when he won again in 2012. Unlike others its not about race, but it is about his proposing ideas that that show compassion for the non-wealthy. The 30% on the teabag side of the aisle don't really believe in the two party system anymore. They only know that if they can't be in charge than they are going to whine and cry like the selfish spoiled children they are.

Fact 3-Congress bears the bulk of the blame. Between the filibusters on the Senate side and the GOP in the house proposing nothing of substance-they created this situation and what's worse, they like it.

Meanwhile, budget cuts or no budget cuts, the military budget is being hollowed out from within by rising military health costs. Over the past decade, the military’s health-care costs have tripled, surging from $19-billion in 2001 to $53-billion in 2011. Health costs are projected to rise to $63.9-billion by 2015. An additional 6% cut atop those previous problems begins to look like a serious challenge to readiness and effectiveness.

Yet this serious challenge is not being taken seriously by the very people you’d most expect to be concerned. According to a Gallup poll released last week, 80% of self-identified Republicans feel it is very important for the U.S. to have the world’s strongest military. Only 48% of self-identified Democrats think so, as opposed to 51% of Democrats who say military predominance is “not that important.”

In Washington, however, it is the Republicans who are behaving cavalierly about the defense budget…….

The trouble is that the new Tea Party congressional GOP no longer minds defense cuts as much as it used to — or as much as the rank-and-file Republicans surveyed by Gallup. Congressional Republicans increasingly welcome the sequester as a good thing, or anyway, an acceptable thing.

According to Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee: “[This] shows we’re finally willing to stand and fight for conservative principles and force Washington to start living within its means. And that will be a big victory.”

It should be stressed: The Republican Study Committee is an important group within the Republican caucus. These are not Ron Paul style isolationists, but mainstream conservatives. Unfortunately, mainstream conservatives are increasingly willing to risk national security to score points in the Washington partisan competition.

Americans sense the decline in their country’s strength. Gallup finds that only 50% now express confidence that the U.S. military ranks number one, the lowest number since the end of the Cold War. Such pessimism is exaggerated of course. But it’s not completely ill-founded. Not since the 1970s has Congress taken the kind of risks with national security that it seems ready to incur today.

 

I am becoming more and more pessimistic-and less able to control my anger. Ronald Reagan would weep at what his party has become, and Tip O'Neill would weep at the state of Congress today. No matter how polarized the discussions were in the 80's they were still able to negotiate compromises. But now-then, the debate was about the policies. Now, its about Obama. The useless people in the crazed 30% of America who make up the teabagger village cannot come to grips that there is a better and different solution than to give in to their inherently selfish instincts. And I am at a loss as to how to make them understand it short of depriving them of oxygen and letting them suffocate.

The truth is, most of what "conservatives" believe to be true is false. And there is no one in America who can convince them other wise. Such is the result of 10+ years of an alternative world-led by Fox News-that makes up its own facts, distorts the truth and allows shills to gain positions of prominence. The US has become what it says it despises-a 2nd rate power. It has no one to blame but itself. you can't cut, cut, cut-and not pay the bill.  We can have less government spending-but do not kid yourself, it comes at the cost of global retrenchment. By deciding not to decide-Congress has decided. Let the withdrawals begin. But please don't complain when the results are not what you wish.

The douchebags elected representatives in Congress have once again failed miserably at their jobs..

You will notice the Countdown clock to your left, counting down the days till my furlough and or layoff-whichever comes first.

One of my favorite writers, Charles Pierce has summed up the situation quite well:

Whatever happens tomorrow, the utter failure of sequestration to do what it is designed to do is of a piece with the previous failures of the Gang Of Six, the Gang Of 12, and the king of all revered utter failures, Simpson-Bowles, which still has most of official Washington feeding Vaal at every turn in service to a commission that couldn't even muster a majority of its own membership, Whatever happens tomorrow, the utter failure of sequestration to do what it was supposed to do — namely, to be so utterly horrifying that it would force a deal — should bring an end to government by gimmick.

Government by gimmick is a dodge. Government by gimmick is a way for politicians to protect their status as politicians without actually doing the jobs they were elected to do. Government by gimmick depends vitally on the fundamental Beltway anti-democratic heresy — that the system as designed is inadequate to present circumstances and that the only way out of this is to go put together the proper group of bipartisan Very Important People to apply common sense to the problem. It was government by gimmick — the Tower Commission — that probably bought Ronald Reagan out of the Iran-Contra scandal because the gathering of wise men determined from the start that holding the president responsible by constitutional means would scare the children and disturb the horses. This is the principle that was applied to the useless Gang Of 14 solution to the "problem" of judicial filibusters. And, ever since the American people elected a Congress full of right-wing chew toys in 2010, government-by-gimmick has been the way the American economy has been directed, and now all the duct tape is failing, and the balsa's cracking, and the whole thing is coming apart, and the people in charge are spending long hours talking about how they couldn't have foreseen any of this.

The great thing about Pierce is that he does not succumb to all the nonsense about "both sides do it". He puts the blame squarely where it belongs-on the selfish children who inhabit the tea party crazed GOP.

Tomorrow night I plan on getting really loaded after I go to Hebrew class. I should have been on a plane to Tel Aviv tomorrow-there to look at nice Israeli women with big knockers and drink Goldstone beer, but thanks to the lunacy known as the sequester-and the impending layoff I am expecting to receive because of it, it was decided they could not afford to send me. Even though there is a lot of work to be done on my project-that cannot be thrashed out by that bane of my existence-the video teleconference. ( If I could uninvent that abomination, believe me I would.).

So as we count down the hours to yet another fiscal disaster our GOP Galtian overlords have put upon us-I thought it would be a great time to point out that most of what they are telling you about the "problem" is wrong. If they are not outright lying-they are leaving out important bits of context and detail out that change the picture rather dramatically.

Lets start with Lie # 1: Obama was the father of the sequester. It is a complete and utter untruth to say that because it ignores the background and the context. What the House Republicans fail to tell you are that Republicans had threatened to crash the economy on purpose unless their debt-ceiling demands were met, and in the hopes of resolving the crisis, President Obama offered Republicans an overly-generous, $4 trillion "Grand Bargain," which included entitlement cuts and new revenue. Boehner was inclined to accept it, but his caucus balked, forcing the Speaker to walk away from the table. Eric Cantor has admitted this, twice. Instead of a Grand Bargain, Cantor and the House Republicans made a grand bet. The bet failed spectacularly. Obama won the election.

Now lets move on to lie number #2-under President Obama, federal spending has exploded and as a result he has added 1 trillion a year to the deficit. "Its the spending stupid-we have to cut spending! We are robbing from our children".

Well, first of all, "Your children are going to be just fine", and second-its not true. Either on the spending side or the deficit side. Oh there was a President that exploded federal spending-most of it for stupid wars for worthless Arabs and for a lot of things we didn't need, but his name began with a B, and not an O. Consider the fact that for the last several years, federal spending has actually declined.

Now if that were not enough to refute the critics-then consider this little tidbit, federal hiring has also declined significantly too:

And of course there is always my favorite-which shows definitive that it is the tax cuts-combined with the recession and the wars that have ballooned the deficit. Not that deficit scolds like the evil man himself-Paul Ryan-have been paying attention.

One of the most frustrating things about this whole silly "Fiscal Cliff" nonsense is that the people supporting our Galtian overlords never tell you the whole story. They just point out the things that they want you to hear-and hope that you are not smart enough, or knowledgeable enough on tax laws to spot the obvious holes in their narratives.

Take this story that appeared in the NY Post and was taunted forth by Phib.

The Post showed a chart and then told "horror" stories of how very well off people are going to "suffer". Lets look at the chart shall we?

Oh the horror! The misery! Someone making 300,000 dollars a year might be reduced to the ruin of drinking Gallo with dinner instead of a fine French Burgundy! Oh the unfairness of it all!

It must be the fault of those goddamned moochers.

Except of course its not one bit true. The chart is one of the most misleading ones I've yet to see in the recent month-and trust me, I have seen a fair share.

Let's take a couple of the "horror stories" that are cited in Phib's post and dissect it a little more shall we?

“It’s that much higher?” asked IT worker Vikas Kataria, 34, who discovered that his combined household income of about $250,000 per year will cost him nearly $10,000 more in taxes. “I thought it was a couple thousand — but that’s a lot,” said Kataria, who works at Merrill Lynch in Manhattan and is married to a systems analyst for a brokerage firm. “That’s huge!”

 

With higher taxes, the couple would have to cut out on traveling and family vacations.

Give me a fucking break, you, whiny, selfish,  bastard. 

First of all, you work for Merrill Lynch and you can't get decent tax advice? Then you deserve to pay more taxes for being stupid. And second-by your own admission my dear Vikas, you are not going to see your taxes go up by 9730 dollars. Or have you forgotten that Post did not take your dependent deductions into account? Or that it also doesn't factor in many of the probable tax deductions you will take because being a high earner, you have the ability to take them. And lets not forget the Post chart has deliberately left off the tax sheltering effect of even putting the maximum allowed into your 401K-which at 250K per year should be pretty easy to do.

Factor all of those things in, I'm willing to bet your taxes only go up about 5600 or so. 400 dollars a paycheck on someone receiving a pay check of  almost 11000 every two weeks. ( Before taxes and other withholding). 21000 a month.

Yes that is the right number of zero's.

God damn it all-it must really suck to be you. Oh the heartlessness of having to make ends meet on at least  13000 dollars take home a month.

When is the last time I ever saw that much money in a month? Oh right, never. And I still take vacations and drink premium quality beer-and have a piece of my hard earned retirement stolen from me every month by a thankless, fuck less, fat shrew.

But I'm supposed to feel sorry for you and your plight. Uh-huh. Right…………………………………………….

Now journey to the top end of the scale-someone making a million dollars a year is forced by the hand of a draconian government to get by on a paltry 650,000 a year. So much for that new Lexus or my business class ticket to Paris. Good God Man, just how unreasonable can you get?!?

As Mitt Romney showed us-the odds of the 1 million dollar earner actually paying the amounts listed above are slim to none. And that's what this pointless whining fails to highlight-effective tax rates are what really matter. And those tend to be statistically higher for those in lower income brackets. Furthermore, its not going to help anyone if all the country does is continue to just hold down already low tax rates on the rich without addressing the real issues that are at stake in today's economy. And all of this tax talk ignores the fact that neither side is doing what it needs to about addressing seriously the issues of income inequality, wage stagnation, and the forces that are crushing the American middle class. This is why I am not crying any salt tears about the plight of rich people working for Merrill Lynch or business owners who are too stupid to take advantage of incorporation rules that would lower their tax liability. And I am not afraid of the "cliff" except in how it will affect the stock market. The market of course will be affected, primarily because of the whining by people who actually have a lot to be thankful for.

AND TAX RATES WILL STILL BE THE LOWEST IN THE US IN 50 YEARS.  The repeal of the Bush tax cuts will, however,  restore much needed revenue to balance the budget.

That is something these morons crying about tax cuts conveniently forget.

The social costs of an austerity agenda — and, certainly, all the available evidence from those European countries wherein one was imposed — are profound. Whether you like it or not, there has been a general political consensus for the paste eight odd decades that a social safety net is one of the legitimate products of that creative enterprise of self-government, that it is part of what we agree to when we form the political commonwealth. To have an austerity agenda imposed from above, and by a relatively unaccountable political elite, and because of the damage done to the nation's finances by an absolutely unaccountable financial elite, is to make an obvious mockery of that political commonwealth, and to do so hard upon an election in which the existence of that safety net was so directly and democratically validated, is to spit in the eye of a self-governing people. This, in turn, will engage all the worst popular instincts, including ill-directed and abandoned popular wrath.-Charles Pierce.

John Hinderaker and the rest of the contemptible cocksuckers  members of the Liars Club, are all up in arms over an offhand remark that Obama made in a stump speech a day ago. In a speech Obama mentioned his opponents and the crowd quite understandably began to boo-and Obama said, "No, no, no — don’t boo, vote. Vote. Voting is the best revenge.”

Hinderaker and the rest of the echo chamber seem to think that shows some sort of "dark side" to Obama. In the twisted universe they inhabit, only supporters of Rmoney are supposed to have emotions and proud convictions. They are all up in arms about it, making a huge issue over nothing.  Obama was right.

I got news for Mr. Hinderaker, worthless bit of slime that he is, in a democracy governed by laws-voting is the only revenge. As much as they might deserve more. And as much as I would like to see them receive some well deserved suffering for the damage these folks have done to American political discourse-in a proper society that simply is not done.

I voted by absentee some two weeks ago. And yes I voted for Obama. Because he is the guy on the ballot, and a vote for him is a vote against dismal view that Hinderaker constantly sets forth. As my favorite news magazine points out-in far better form than any word Mr. Hinderaker has ever written:

Many of The Economist’s readers, especially those who run businesses in America, may well conclude that nothing could be worse than another four years of Mr Obama. We beg to differ. For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don’t believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.

When I voted for Obama, it was a clear knowledge of the things he hasn't done that I wanted him to. A clear knowledge that he has not gotten out of both stupid wars Bush got us into-he's gotten us out of only one, and that was only with the help of the worthless Iraqis themselves; with the clear knowledge that he has been stymied for the last two years by a group of worthless people in Congress, all of them Republican, who were more concerned about torpedoing the economy for their own political advantage ( witness the debt ceiling debacle);  with a clear knowledge that the ACA while a great step forward is not the best legislation that could have been produced-and had the American people and the Republicans in Congress not been so stupid we could have had much better. I voted knowing all of these things. But in the end the choice came down to this and this alone:

This election does not represent a choice between left and right. It represents a choice between balance and a new, extreme form of conservatism. This new conservatism cannot accept any tax increases as part of a deal to reduce the deficit. For all his attempts to sound moderate in the campaign’s closing days, Romney has not altered the response he gave during a Republican-primary debate rejecting a hypothetical deal involving a 10-to-1 ratio between spending cuts and tax increases. This refusal to acknowledge the need for more revenue is a recipe for eviscerating government—and the cuts, as Ryan’s budget shows, would fall disproportionately on programs for Americans with the lowest incomes.

The new right has broken with conservatism’s past—and our country’s most constructive traditions—by adopting a new and radical individualism that largely ignores our country’s gift for community.

 

 

Hinderaker and the rest are, in part, responsible for that extremism. Being the grifters that they are they are, they live to keep everyone stirred up so that more money flows into their pockets. By voting against the things that he advocates and for a vision for the country that accepts the world is changing-no matter how much  William Jacobson refuses to accept it-I am getting my revenge.  They deserve it too-and if it makes their cherished "conservatives" take a hit, then I will have done my civic duty well.

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UPDATE! It would seem the money grubber in Chief, old Mittens himself is jumping onto this line. "For revenge. Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country,". Ok. Fine.

For love of country, because I don't want it screwed up by yours and the "zombie eyed granny starver's" twisted vision of it, and for revenge on the stupid people who enabled the hollowness of your ideas. Either reason works for me-so long as Mitt Romney loses.

Whenever I get depressed about the sad state of American politics-which in the month of October is just about every day-I don't have to look far for people who should be held to blame for polarizing our politics.

The collective group of idiots who populate the Liars Club.

To review, the Liars Club is that group of conservative bloggers,who no matter what the subject is, will ensure that whatever story they post on their blog is casting the current President of the United States in the worst possible light-and casting themselves in a light of "brilliance". Or at least that is how they want you think they are. They consist of the National Review, Powerline, Gateway Pundit AKA Jim Hoft, also known in saner circles as the "dumbest man on the internet", William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools ( the last word is a correct title-they are fools),  any Town Hall author-but especially Hugh Hewitt. And last but not least, the emotionally crippled children who carry on the legacy of their thankfully expired namesake-Andrew Breitbart.

All of them are quite useless and all of them to figuratively to be beaten to death with a Louisville Slugger.

When they can't find anything news worthy to tar and feather the President or any other Democratic Party member about-they just make shit up.

What probably depresses me the most is that -one can just know when one reads a tag line by them on Memeorandum, that they are completely and certifiably insane. While they all have different day jobs-some are professional   hacks "journalists", others are part time writers-but they are all certifiably stupid. I hate them all with a well deserved passion.

They are as John Cole describes it, Serious Persons:

Serious Person- Also frequently appearing as “Very serious person,” this is applied to a person held in great esteem by The Village, who is repeatedly entirely wrong about everything, usually with tragicomic results. Conversely, those who have pretty much been right about everything the last twenty years are referred to as “not serious.” Serious persons believe the only solution to any foreign policy issue is bombing brown people (preferably Muslim, when at all possible), and the only solution to domestic affairs is cutting entitlements and demanding that the poor and working poor “sacrifice.” 

In other words, they have no fucking clue what they are talking about. Nor do they have any idea at all the world has changed and its not going back to the 80's-EVER.

Why do I hold them to blame? Because they write for an audience that clearly is as ignorant as they appear to be. Notice I say appear to be-because deep down they know what they are doing. They have no desire to have an honest discussion about anything. Their sole purpose in writing is not to celebrate the joy of communicating a well thought idea. And to take the time to do some research about it. Or to even pause to write about the truly beautiful things in life that have nothing to do with politics.

No they do what they do for the purpose of getting people angry. They want their supporters to be angry at the nasty black man in the White House. They want people like me-smarter than any of them-to get angry in return. And then if I write something that actually catches them in their lie-or points out again how they love to lie-they will simply turn up the volume and make it about me and/or some aspect of my personal life.  They truly are reprehensible people.

They exert too much influence in American politics today-and sadly the news media by and large seems to take cues from them. In the case of Fox News, they appear to get story lines from them.

And they get away with it. They shouldn't but they do-because too many Americans are stupid. Right Charles Pierce?

The threat to the country, and to its commitment to self-governing democracy over the previous decade, and especially at the end of it, when the institutions of self-government seemed powerless to stop a cascade of destruction brought down on all of us by the institutions of private capital, the strength of which most of us never had begun to guess. That, through lassitude and a nearly bottomless thirst for snake oil, we had been complicit in the coring out of the strength of the institutions of self-government seemed terribly beside the point at the time, given the ruin that seemed to be looming to all points of the compass. But now, in the first real election conducted entirely after the crisis, and after the depths of the recession that it caused, we do not have that luxury anymore. The stakes are plainly clear. The decision, at this point, may well be irrevocable, and the first opportunity to make that decision is in the simple act of voting, and of explaining to ourselves why we vote. We vote because it is something we do together, for one another. We do not vote to take something back from someone else. We do not vote in a bubble, even if we think we do. Voting is communal, whether we want to look at it that way or not. We will have a self-governing political commonwealth or we will decide not to have one. And, right now, 20 days out, you'd have to be crazy or Nate Silver to think you know what which way that decision will fall.

The lies of the aforementioned members have a lot to do with that. And so I place the blame squarely on them-and hate them with a fervor that will be a flame unrequited until they are exposed as the charlatans they truly are.

I stayed up drinking last night and watched the VP debate. ( Because I have a Sky satellite-a Murdoch product- I get ………..wait for it………Fox News. I held my nose and turned it on for the debate coverage).

I'll make no bones about it-I thought Joe Biden was very good last night and gave the "zombie eyed granny starver" a verbal beating. One he richly deserves. ( He deserves a Louisville Slugger beating too, but somehow the Secret Service seems to object to that).

Charles Pierce, author extraordinaire , hailing from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ( God save it!). sums the debate up well:

 

If you believe that Thursday night's vice-presidential debate was a "draw" because Joe Biden was "rude" and "disrespectful" while Paul Ryan was obviously being disingenuous and uninformed, or that you've decided to go with "disingenuous" and "uninformed" because its manners made it more "likable," then you deserve the inadequate health-care voucher that's coming your way in 2014, as well as the letter from the Social Security Administration that your benefits will be down to 85 cents a month because International Embezzlement LLC went belly-up and took your retirement with it. Tough luck, kids. Them's the risks of an Opportunity Society.

 

Bear in mind: A lot of the elite media was pitching this line of, yes, malarkey while the debate was in progress. David Gregory was on the magic Twitter machine, telling us that his "moderate" acquaintances were wondering about Biden's demeanor. And Luke Russert was being, well, Luke Russert, which is to say somebody who ought to be filing his dispatches every day in Colorforms.

As I pointed out earlier, the actual news in this debate was Biden's ability to make Paul Ryan own his earlier, extremist self on everything from Social Security to a woman's right to choose. Going back over the transcript, on the latter issue, I find that Ryan was even worse than I thought….

Paul Ryan is a truly evil man-save for the fact he does not know he is evil and is convinced he is doing the Lord;s work. Which is only true if you deep down believe the Almighty is a cruel bastard- a concept I refuse to accept. I would have loved it had Joe asked Paul Ryan why, if God is so powerful and the State so incompetent, he doesn't just trust God to mete out whatever comeuppance all those women having , as one of Pierces commentators states: "Brooks- and Clan of the Red Beanie-unauthorized sexytime with their ladybits have coming and leave the incompetent state out of it. If you ask me, Ryan's faith, reflected in his preferred policy, is far weaker and smaller than that of those who hold that the conversation between another person and God is not for them to insert themselves into. And the decision whether or not to have a child? That's about as intimate a conversation as any person will ever have with his or her higher power."

This weekend the New York Times ran an article about Apple and its production of I-phones overseas. Bottom Line Up Front? Steve Jobs could also be a real s**t when it came to his fellow countrymen:

When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley’s top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president.

But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke,President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States?

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

As an American-I am insulted by Mr. Jobs logic. Because if you read on in the article you will find that it would appear that the main reason Apple cannot bring the jobs home is because most American workers would refuse to be treated as slaves-and that somehow there is something wrong with that mindset. 

An eight-hour drive from that glass factory is a complex, known informally as Foxconn City, where the iPhone is assembled. To Apple executives, Foxconn City was further evidence that China could deliver workers — and diligence — that outpaced their American counterparts.

That’s because nothing like Foxconn City exists in the United States.

The facility has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. Over a quarter of Foxconn’s work force lives in company barracks and many workers earn less than $17 a day. When one Apple executive arrived during a shift change, his car was stuck in a river of employees streaming past. “The scale is unimaginable,” he said.

Foxconn employs nearly 300 guards to direct foot traffic so workers are not crushed in doorway bottlenecks. The facility’s central kitchen cooks an average of three tons of pork and 13 tons of rice a day. While factories are spotless, the air inside nearby teahouses is hazy with the smoke and stench of cigarettes.

Foxconn Technology has dozens of facilities in Asia and Eastern Europe, and in Mexico and Brazil, and it assembles an estimated 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronics for customers like Amazon, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nintendo, Nokia, Samsung and Sony.

“They could hire 3,000 people overnight,” said Jennifer Rigoni, who was Apple’s worldwide supply demand manager until 2010, but declined to discuss specifics of her work. “What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?”

 

Well, yea-you could not get Americans to put up with that. But ask yourself why they should have to? What Jobs was in fact saying was that, treating people decently and providing a living wage, needed to come second to his impatient deadlines and the need to clear a gazillon dollars in profit. Foxconn has a documented history of trouble and treating its workers like shit.  The point of the article is that Apple just couldn’t get that done in the US, and if you read the muted Times’ description of Foxconn, or, better yet, listen to those who have told of visiting Chinese factories, it’s easy to understand why. Those workers live in dorms which house 13-15 people in bunks in 12 by 12 rooms. They officially work 12 hour days, but often work for up to 16 hours a day, for a little more than Chinese minimum wage (about $1.30/hour if my math is right). Turnover at the plants is estimated at 10-20% per month. 

What disgusts me the most is that instead of castigating Apple for being an enabler to such inhumanity-there is a whole horde of people who agree with Jobs that it was somehow all right because the ends justified the means. That;s more than just a little wrong-its a criminal mindset. That there are a lot of Americans who agree with this point of view is more than a little disturbing.

Its not true-Americans can and will produce when properly motivated to do so. That they will not allow themselves to be mindlessly taken advantage of is not a flaw-its a feature. The only thing that distiniguishes the United States is its unwillingness to throw a 1/3 of its population under the bus-the way the stinking Chinese have.

And that there are people who think that is the example we should seek to emulate-is another sign the country is losing its mind. I'll say it again-American workers will produce. But they have a right to be fairly compensated for the effort-and they expect to have their private lives and time respected.

And that's the way its supposed to be. Not the other way around.

That's real capitalism and real democracy. Too bad our Galtian overlords have not grasped that. And shame on the Times for  not calling it what it is.

Courtesy of the Reformed Broker:

“Let me help you out, sir.  Finance is one of the things we do terribly in this country, not well.  Alan Greenspan’s policies simply created the illusion that we “did finance well” when in reality, what we did well instead was wealth transference.  We used inflation as a weapon and permitted the privileged few to gorge on a bloated, overly-financialized economy that was fed with debt growth rather than actual production.”

I continue to marvel at the pettiness of the critics of Occupy Wall Street and their inability to understand underlying reasons why these demonstrations are happening at all.

Most of the criticism of the Occupy Wall Street crowd stays away from that key point. Instead it fixates on their hygiene ( which I suspect are isolated instances blown out of proportion). If anything, it is completely arrogant of the people who fixate on: sex and drugs (at least somebody is getting laid), the fact that people are sleeping the streets(unlike your average fat teabagger, a lot of these  folks cannot afford an RV) the fact that they don’t respect teabag conservative values, the idea that everyone who supports OWS is not paying taxes and is a freeloader, the idea that they are all dirty hippies-and finally the idea that Wall Street is totally blameless and without their greed,  we would not have nice things. Other than the fact that just about all of those statements are a lie-it ignores some basic fundamental realities of life here in the Whining States of America.

The folks who started Occupy Wall Street started a website called I am the 99 percent. It has taken off and become viral. Professional conservative douchebag activist and general all around twit, Erik Erikson, started an opposition web site called I am the 53%. It gets its name from the self serving lie that tebaggers in particular and the GOP in general seemed obsessed with-that “47% of Americans don’t pay taxes”. This, apparently, annoys them to no end. Even though it was their tax cutting policies that created this situation. The irony, or course, is lost on them. Part of the reason that over 40 percent of Americans don’t pay federal taxes is because of the continual push to lower them — a cause that conservatives have championed. And 86% pay taxes of some sort-a detail I am sure that most of the people making their pompous and arrogant statements on the web site are too lazy to actually do some research.

Its kind of sad really-but altogether too typical of the way our Galtian overlords think these days. The 53% folks  believe that they and they alone are supposed to represent the opinions of the 53 percent of Americans who pay federal income taxes, and its ( very flawed)  assumption that the Wall Street protesters are part of the 46 percent of the country who don’t. Besides the fact that the numbers are incorrect, there are all kinds of problems with the douchebaggers their approach here, including the fact that they seem to want to increase working-class taxes and also seem entirely unaware of the fact that it was Republican tax cuts that pushed so many out of income-tax eligibility in the first place. There’s also the small matter of some of those claiming to be in “the 53 percent” aren’t actually shouldering a federal income tax burden at all, but are apparently unaware of that fact.

But this is Eric Erikson-a man for whom facts are optional, so lets play everybody’s favorite game, “Rip Erik’s Strawmen to bits!”:

 Take a look at Erick Erickson’s argument, presented in a hand-written message posted to the 53% blog: “I work three jobs. I have a house I can’t sell. My family insurance costs are outrageous. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.”

Just for heck of it, let’s take this one at a time.

The very idea that Erickson works “three jobs” is rather foolish.

Blaming financial industry corruption and mismanagement for Erickson’s troubles selling his house is actually quite reasonable.

If Erickson’s reference to “family insurance costs” is in reference to health care premiums, he’ll be glad to know the Affordable Care Act passed, and includes all kinds of breaks for small businesses like his.

And the notion that victims of a global economic collapse, who are seeking some relief from a system stacked in favor of the wealthy, are “whiners” is so blisteringly stupid, it amazes me someone would present the argument in public.

If there are any actual “whiners” in this scenario, shouldn’t the label go to millionaires who shudder at the idea of paying Clinton-era tax rates?

A good rejoinder if there ever one was one, but I’ll go you one better why you should support the OWS crowd and not the selfish pig crowd over at 53% land. My own recent experience.

For starters, I too am part of the 53%. I pay federal income taxes, I pay state taxes, I pay gas taxes, I pay sales taxes, I pay property taxes, I pay utility taxes. When I travel I pay rental car “concession fees” and vendor taxes. I also pay hotel taxes. If hookers in Wanchai could charge taxes-I’d probably be on the record as paying those too. Do you hear me whining about it? (Just a little) I paid 19% of my income in federal taxes last year-on top of having my “wealth” redistributed in a form of outright theft of my military retirement to the tune of 37.7%- to be given to a fat, non-fucking, worthless whore who does not deserve dime one of it. Yet you don’t see one single solitary teabagger, or Eric Cantor type Congressmen lobbying for repeal of that “unconstitutional law”. ( Which it is-check out McCarty vs McCarty in 1981 if you don’ t believe me).

The reason is simple-paying taxes in those numbers means I brought in some comfortable money-certainly more than I ever saw during any of my time on active duty in the Navy. Rather than complain about it-I rejoice in the fact, that I was granted that opportunity. And that I was able to turn a great percentage of what remained after taxes into equity in a house, savings and retirement investments. Hell, if you think about it-the “safe way” would have been to continue to struggle away as a wage slave making good money and living the suburban Alabama life.

Except of course-it was stifling my soul and driving my spirit into the dirt. Especially in the last year-where you literally have to navigate your way through fat and stupid people every single day. A change was required-and while it was not the “safe” way-it was the necessary way, if I hope to keep my sanity.

Yet, not one bit of that money stopped me from losing my job,  thanks to some incredibly short sighted thinking by the worst agency in the Federal government. Nor it did prevent, me from being forced to re-examine a whole bunch of different options and fall back strategies to avoid falling back into the trap of near bankruptcy. It did not keep me from having to take a decent sized pay cut in order to keep working-all so I can still have 37.7% of that “wealth” redistributed.

Maybe its because I have already stared into the pit of bankruptcy once-that I understand , perhaps better than most, how easy it is to slide right back to that precipice. The ingratitude and sheer shelfishness of retired Air Force weather forcasters ( who have a guaranteed government pension, guaranteed health care, guaranteed educational benefits, and probably a preference in hiring) just appalls me. Especially when you consider that him and many others like him are just one serious illness, just one stupid decision by an arrogant three star that hasn’t been in the line since he was a Cpt, one natural disaster that wrecks his home, or just one downturn in the ( stock market, housing market, or any other source of growing savings income), from going from the 53% over to the 46%. Or to state it more accurately, that 35% of Americans who make 30,000 dollars or less and are just a stone’s throw from the poverty line. As I have pointed out before-the reason these folks are not more grateful and wanting to help others is they earnestly believe it cannot or will not happen to them. Well I’m here to tell the other “52%”-that it can and it will if you are not careful. Even if you are careful-it can still happen to you, you arrogant swine, you.

As E.D. Kain points out, ” More than a few of these people would benefit from the government stepping in against the people who are the cause of their economic distress. ‘Making your own way’ when the deck is stacked against you instead of calling on the government to get rid of the game-rigging seems illogical to me.”

But of course,  they won’t dare think it through. These supposedly hard working people would actually benefit if the bankers were kicked in the teeth. Its they and a lot of others who are being charged to use their own money-so that banks can pay 11 million dollars to employees who fail.

Get back to the facts my tri-corner hat wearing ignorant “ friends”, no matter what your thoughts are on Obama, the facts are still the facts:for the majority of Americans wages and real earning power have declined in the last twelve years. During the same time period the earning power of the top 1% skyrocketed. In the long run that kind of income inequality hurts overall growth and prevents a recovery of any meaningful sort. That is something to be angry about. If your friendly neighborhood teabagger had even a lick of smarts or sense-they would be supporting the crowds in New York, and thankful that the youth are actually informed enough to take the time to get angry. These folks know more about the realities of our current predicament than most of the flag waving fatties knew about health care in 2009. They are being screwed too-they just don’t realize it yet.

I AM PART OF THE 53%!  HOWEVER I SUPPORT THE 99%.  ITS ABOUT TIME SOME FEAR WAS PUT INTO THE 1%.

The more the selfish crowd whines-the longer this is going to go on. Didn’t you guys learn anything from the 60′s?

P.S. Erik Erikson can go fuck himself!

I love the fact that conservative supporters of the selfish, fat, ignorant, pigs teabaggers are up in arms because literally thousands of their fellow citizens exercised the same right claimed by the selfish, fat, ignorant, pigs teabaggers to assemble peaceably to express their displeasure with the government’s obsession with rewarding the top 1% of this country while ignoring the other 99%. Protests based on a flawed interpretation of the Constitution, historically inaccurate readings of a narrow group of historical documents-while ignoring equally valid other commentaries-with people wearing stupid hats and costumes and carrying stupid signs with lies posted on them comparing the duly elected President of the United States to Hitler; those are OK. But people who are outraged at getting fucked over repeatedly, having to struggle to get things that they should be able to obtain by right, people who have been kicked out of their homes, have lost their jobs, have been unable to get another one-those things they are not allowed to be angry about. Got it.

Or as Jon Stewart expressed it:

On Wednesday evening, Jon Stewart gazed at the Occupy Wall Street movement through the lens of Fox News sound bites–especially the condescending and incoherent ones. The negative sentiment was the exact opposite of how the News Corp. property felt when it was fanning the flames of the Tea Party opposition only a year and a half ago. And The Daily Show host makes sure to point out that nonsensical logic (especially jabs at Sean Hannity and Steve Doocey), while singling out one of the budding stars of the protest movement, Jesse LaGreca, along the way. The takeaway line though, was Stewart just leveling: “Look, if this thing devolves into throwing trash cans into Starbucks windows, nobody’s going to be down with that … but these protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party?”

The differences of course are several. One is demographics-the tea party was primarily white, middle aged, overweight, and more than a tad bit selfish and stupid.  Occupy Wall Street protesters are younger, much better informed than their tea party counterparts, and are not being astroturfed by rich bastards like Dick Armey for one thing. They also have a big difference in the use of money and busses:

There is one not so obvious or immediately noticeable difference between the Occupy Wall Street protests and your average Tea Party protest. Sure, the crowds seem to be younger, signs featuring Obama as Hitler are entirely absent, and there aren’t many people who are dressed like Uncle Sam sneezed stars and stripes all over them. There are no guns or demands to see the president’s birth certificate. But the less obvious difference is in buses. While the Tea Party protests always feature big buses covered with flags and eagles, buses at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are used to haul the protesters to jail.

I bring this up because teapartiers like to pretend they’re running their own show. That their protests are grassroots and their organizations are of their own construction. But those buses carting them around from protest to protest didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone paid for them, someone gave them their ultra-patriotic paint jobs, someone’s buying all the gas. All that takes funding and, as much as the ‘baggers like to pretend they’re an independent movement, they’re all bought and paid for— and then moved from square to square like pawns on a chessboard.

It has also been very well pointed out by those who are not watching Fox News, that unlike the teabaggers-the Occupy Wall Street movement does not have herds of Democratic politicians running over to suck their dicks jump on board their band wagon. If anything they have been avoiding them. Greg Sargent points out why:

If there’s one thing that’s growing clearer by the hour, it’s that this is an entirely organic effort, one that’s about nobody but the protestors themselves. In this sense, we’re seeing a replay of the Wisconsin protests. Those ended up falling just short of what activists had hoped to achieve, but their months-long showing was still important — it demonstrated that left wing populism is still alive and well and sent an important message about the mood of the country. The key was that it grew organically with little to no involvement from Beltway Dems and the White House.

If anything, Occupy Wall Street’s lack of outside encouragement from bigfoot Dems has been a strength, rather than a weakness. As major progressive groups debate how they can contribute to strengthening the movement — and how to give it specific direction and a specific agenda — the need to preserve its grassroots nature will remain paramount. Who knows where this will end up, but for now, this is another reminder that the Tea Party isn’t the only voice of popular discontentment over the economy. We don’t necessarily live in Tea Party Nation, after all.

And finally, as Jon Stewart points out very ably, the Occupy Wall Street folks, “don’t feel the need to constantly reassure themselves and each other how ‘patriotic‘ they are. They just are.”

Of course-to a dedicated tea sniffing fanatic, the irony and hypocrisy of their criticism is just lost on them:

Over the last couple of days I have been witness to one of those continuing conversations that can only occur in the one dimensional space that is the internet. You know the kind-that actually go back and forth reasonably well-until the zealot shows up. The zealot of course being that young guy, who hasn’t experienced much of life yet-but is sure he can tell someone 40 years older than him, how the world works and how fucked up he is. ( This is a true story-as Foggy is my witness!).

Now the proper thing to do, would have been to hit the delete key and go have a sandwich. But like a moth to the flame-because its about my favorite subject to attack- the tea party loons, I jumped in.

And now after two days, I can now definitely can confirm that-if these men are any example-our university system is in decline big time.

I’ve learned that:

The Interstate Highway system is unconstitutional. Really? ( How fucked in the head is that?)

Secession for Texas would be just fine because it would cut Texan’s taxes. Now mind you-how they are going to make good the hole left by the departure of the state’s biggest employer ( The US government) was blithely ignored. Same too with how Texas would pay for all the things that go with being an independent country-like an Army or an Air Force.

Madison and the Federalist Papers are Holy Writ. Any other historical commentaries are not worth the paper they are printed on. Oh, and those other 54 guys who signed the Constitution? Just strap hangers for James Madison. Never knew that before.

Judicial review and the power of the Supreme Court to strike down laws as unconstitutional is heresy. Same thing seems to be true with the idea of Judicial Precedent. Wow! Think of the money we could save not having to send lawyers to law school or electing or appointing judges! ( Unless it is striking down a law they didn’t like).

Re: Judicial review: Justice Marshall was a power hungry ego-maniac. ( I must have been sick the day they taught that in Constitutional Law class).

If you believe in a progressive income tax-you are automatically a socialist. Ergo, that great defender of imperialism and American Exceptionalism,Theodore Roosevelt, was nothing but Karl Marx in disguise. Wow. Who knew?

We’ve not crossed the barrier of Godwin’s law yet. But we have established a corollary hypothesis. If you defend raising tax revenue, or stick up for poor people who need health care-you will immediately and rather strongly be labeled a socialist. ( Even if you a practicing physician of 45 years experience and have forgotten more about insurance law than most of these pikers will ever know).

Any taxation is theft-there is no such thing as common contribution for the greater good.

Income inequality does not exist in this country. If a guy is rich, and if the top 1% have 40% of the nation’s net worth-it is because they deserve it more. Trying to regulate complex transactions for the purposes of protecting investors is an abomination against man and God.

There is nothing wrong with throwing 1 million people out of work-if it means the unions will get fucked in the process. (REALLY? How can anyone be that heartless and stupid?)

China is a better country than America because……..wait for it…………..” they have a better environment for business because there is no minimum wage, no labor laws, no EPA. no endangered toads, no Social Security and Medicare employer ‘contributions’ and no SEC. It’s the wild west over there, not unlike the US during the nineteenth century. We’re in decline because of a fat and lazy workforce, shrinking producing population, unchecked illegal immigration, and government strangulation by regulation.” ( That’s a keeper. I suspect the author of that statement has never set foot in China, nor has he seen the headlines that occur almost weekly regarding dead Chinese miners, flooded Chinese towns, poor villagers, Chinese killed in train wrecks, or killed by food poisoning, and corrupt Chinese officials-but other than that, Mrs Kennedy, the place is a true paradise.)

Liberals don’t honestly believe anything in their hearts, they are always after something.

Greed is good, its natural, and its the grease that keeps the wheels of commerce turning. Unrestrained greed that causes people to lose 20-50% of the value of their 401K’s? That’s even better.

And of course, the usual Randian “truths” are thrown in their for good measure:Fannie and Freddie caused the housing crisis, the Community Reinvestment act was never a well intentioned to get more people into housing, Clinton was the source of deregulation-not Bush. And his actions were in no way responsible for the lax enforcement of US banking laws. The wars had nothing to do with the problems with the economy or the deficit. ( All factual evidence to the contrary).

Oh, and here is another keeper: ” If Bush and Congress had done nothing about the financial crises when it hit-the recession would be over now and it would be growth city.” ( paraphrase of a much longer-but equally stupid sentiment.)

And of course the overriding truth-the holy of holies-IT IS ALL OBAMA’S FAULT. A Congress filled with unreasonable men and women, elected by an increasingly stupid or apathetic electorate ( where 50% can’t even be bothered to vote) had not a damn thing to do with the problems we now face.

I write about this for one particular reason: if what you read above does not frighten you to your very core-that so many people could be so insane at the same time-then you are just utterly fucking blind.

This is sad. These people really believe these things. They believe it, like they believe the sun will come up tomorrow. They have no doubts whatsoever-even when presented with facts that prove them wrong. To borrow a line from John Cole’s place: “How do you have a sensible policy debate with people who reject basic facts? It’s like trying to debate members of a cargo cult- the modern GOP carry the crosses but have no idea what it means to be Christian. They talk about free markets, but have no understanding of economics. Just say deregulate and tax cuts a lot, and MAGIC WILL HAPPEN. The cargo cult analogy is closer than many of us are comfortable admitting, and our media has decided to just cover their eyes and pretend that it’s just two sides of the same coin. It’s crazy.”

Second, for me at least, it exposes a really ugly truth about out tea swilling, so called “friends”; what I think is most disturbing about the tea party, is that, under the guise of patriotism-they have been enabled to take truly morally reprehensible ideas, things that 10 years ago no one would have had the gall to utter-and main streamed them. Fuck over Grandma? Sure-she was asking for it, that’s what she gets for being a moocher and collecting her Social Security. Ask the rich to pay their fair share? Goddamn Socialist. Thief! Class warfare! Robbing from the rich to give to welfare mommas in Cadillacs. ( Never mind that today’s welfare queens wear 3000 dollar Brooks Brothers suits and run investment banks).

It also proves why Fox Noise is so effective. Spout the same lies over and over again, and ensure you have a blond with big tits and a nice ass on the screen-and people will think its true. ( Candy Crowley need not apply to Fox News).

And yet, these same people will go to church on Sunday, pat them selves on the back and congratulate themselves on what good followers of Christ they are. And they wonder why I have my doubts about the fairness of the Gospel. Where does it say in the Sermon on the Mount, “Fuck the poor”? I must have missed that verse.

And people wonder, why I am pining to go back overseas. If this doesn’t answer your question-you lost the ball after kickoff.

Paul Ryan as CEO of a major multi-national corporation: