Voter Fraud... Not. Know Nothings press on.

1984 New York Grand Jury Report on Voter Fraud Now Available | Election Law Blog

This is the essence of the GOP argument. Voter fraud happened in Brooklyn once upon a time, 40 years ago. A corrupt Democratic machine with election officials on the take conspired to stack the election. The problem was solved. Regulations and rules put in effect since pretty much ensure that this can't happen again. It doesn't stop the GOP whose crusade to stop "voter fraud" is in itself a fraud. Conspiring to keep possible Democratic Party supporters away from the polls is the actual purpose and lying about voter fraud is the means.

More work to do.

Is Rand Paul as dumb as he sounds? - Rand Paul | Kentucky Senate Republican, Ron Paul's Son - Salon.com

Is Rand Paul as dumb as he sounds? - Rand Paul | Kentucky Senate Republican, Ron Paul's Son - Salon.com

He's trying as hard as he can to make his brand of libertarianism work. His statement is boldly ignorant. It's a premise of the corporate world that you've got to spend money to make money. That Mr. Paul would propose that we can make money but not spend any with a straight face tells me only that he's a thief. But because even thieves have to spend money to get access to their ill gotten goods, I would have to say that he's an ignorant thief. So... yes Mr. Pareene in Salon Mag... He is indeed as dumb as he sounds.

Funny how quirky and radical ideologies sound very ignorant in the light of day.

More work to do.

Bad medicine alert: Austerity in the U.K. - How the World Works - Salon.com

Bad medicine alert: Austerity in the U.K. - How the World Works - Salon.com

Yet another laboratory model to showcase the futility of draconian spending cuts in the midst of a great recession. This is reality, not a made up fantasy world.

Recessions are bad for government finances. For that reason alone, governments should avoid causing recessions. A long-term plan to balance the budget is a fine, upstanding idea. But rash spending cuts in the short term will make achieving that balanced budget goal harder. Just ask the U.K.

It's the Congress Problem Stupid!

Ezra Klein came into my inbox today with this nugget of wisdom:

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office released its latest long-term budget outlook. As always, the scorekeepers offered up two scenarios: In the first, Congress does nothing, follows the laws currently on the books -- which means the tax cuts expire, the Medicare cuts from the 1997 Balanced Budget Act go into effect, and the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented -- and the debt stabilizes. In the second, Congress extends most of the tax cuts, ignores the Medicare cuts and repeals various cost controls in the Affordable Care Act. Debt, of course, explodes.

We have a congress problem, not a deficit problem. The deficit only explodes if the next few congresses vote to detonate it. Congress doesn't have to extend the Bush tax cuts without offering offsets, or put off the Medicare cuts without paying for them in other ways, or do the easy parts of the health-care law without doing the hard parts. The answer to this, however, is not a high-stakes negotiation over the debt ceiling, where one false move could bring down the American economy, but a much-strengthened version of PayGo, where deficit-increasing deviations from current policy need to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere.

Politicians are constantly talking about the need to signal seriousness to the markets, but what could be more serious than saying that they will work from the baseline in which America's deficits are much more under control, and though they intend to change those policies, they do not intend to deviate from the manageable deficit path they've already agreed to? That must be preferable to saying that Congress chooses to believe it will vote to increase the deficit by trillions over the next 10 years, but that the market shouldn't worry as the two parties plan to stop the government from paying its bills and throw the financial system into chaos if the other party doesn't agree to the deficit-reduction strategies they prefer.

It is incredibly stupid to play the totally unnecessary game of chicken the two parties are currently engaged in.  The whole point of that exercise in futility is simple power grabbing.  It's a high stakes poker game they are playing with the entire world economy in the pot.  It's the refusal of either party to let the other have any success at all.  As Mr. Klein says, one misstep and the whole pot explodes....

Extortion is no way to govern. Compromise means that sometimes your political opponents get what they want.  Terrorism means that if we don't get our way, we'll just blow everything up.  Write a letter to your local terrorist congressman and tell 'em to walk away.  Go solve the jobs crisis instead.

More work to do.

David Brooks making sense?

Pundit Under Protest - NYTimes.com

This is the first time I've ever commented on a David Brooks op-ed. He is usually way to establishment and hoi falloi for my taste. His defense of the wall street elite and the condescending manner and tone of his writing has just never done anything for me. I usually simply read about him or what other commentators think of his writing.

That being said, this article bears some notice. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that our political system is limping along, barely functional. His comments about both Republicans and Democrats make some sense, though in the Dems case grossly over simplified. I don't think you can say that when one party is regressively dedicated to the perverse pursuit of the new gilded age of wealth for the few and will bring down an entire economy to achieve their ends that all the other party can propose is the preservation of medicare. It just doesn't work that way. When one party's only goal is to make things intentionally so bad that the only relief possible is to put them back in power, the political equation is hopelessly out of balance.

Mentally, they (Democrats) are living in the era of affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money to pay for them and there won’t be for decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches Medicare.

We don't live in an age of austerity. We live in an age of wealth beyond any one's imagination. The money is in the hands of the corporate raiders of the middle class. The purveyors of the global economy chasing wealth outside our borders. It's not cost effective to continue the American Dream for the less fortunate. They are cast aside as the moneyed interests of the corporate elite pursue ever higher profit margins.

A better analysis of the current doomed political atmosphere we are currently plodding through would be then, to lay the blame on the corporatism that pervades both parties. The insidious infestation of corporate money and influence, openly courted by the GOP and only a little less so by the Dems has pretty much thrown much of Mr. Brooks four shopping baskets under the bus. Mr. Brooks may be covering the coming political campaign under protest, but he'll cover it along with the rest of the corporatist media. It is refreshing though, to read from one of the most establishment, corporatist writers out there, his own admission of the futility of his job. Proposing any programs that might actually help the nation get past the current collective depression is an exercise in fantasy writing. He knows his ideas will be discarded out of hand. Yet he plods on...

More work to do....

But... the Cat's out of the bag...

Top 6 Health Care Myths From Yesterday’s Republican Presidential Debate…In One Minute | ThinkProgress

But.... they've said it. They've said it to their base. The media is reporting everything they said and not the rebuttal. The rebuttal doesn't matter, the media coverage of the falsehoods matters. Now the Democrats or the Progressives or both are faced with putting the cat back in the bag. It's a lot harder than letting it out.

The Big Six liars have gotten a start on the election. The mud had been thrown on the wall, I hope none of it sticks.

More work to do.