Today I'm wondering where exactly in the Constitution, The Bill of Rights, or the subsequent amendments does it say that one must present a photo ID to vote. I've been assured by my buddies on the right that they know the Constitution better than anyone and will, under any circumstances, most definitely adhere to to it.
After all, they wouldn't want to be accused of flaunting the founding fathers like Barack X, would they?
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
The Perils of Pop, or Why Our Economy is Killing Us
A while back Markadelphia asked why everyone is down on soda. Here are some reasons.
Empty calories: 12 ounces of sugar- or corn syrup-sweetened soda can contain 140 or more calories. If a person drinks only 3-5 cans a day, that's a quarter to a third of the recommended daily caloric intake for an average sedentary American. This provides absolutely no nutritional value, which means that its either displacing real food, or people are consuming that many additional calories from real food that provides protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Artificial sweeteners: sugar-free diet sodas may not be any better. Studies have shown an insulin reaction to aspartame in rats, and while this may or may not carry over to humans, it's quite likely that artificial sweeteners promote overall increased caloric intake, as aspartame appears to cause carbohydrate cravings. Sweeteners like cyclamates and saccharine have also been linked to cancer, and aspartame is a serious hazard for those who have phenylketonuria. It has also been linked to severe headaches in some people. Breakdown products of aspartame include phenyalanine, methanol, formic acid, and formaldehyde, which is stored in fat cells and is probably carcinogenic.
Thus, both diet and sugared soda are linked to weight gain and diabetes, which both lead to heart disease, stroke, and a whole host of other medical problems.
Phosphoric acid: many soft drinks contain phosphoric acid, which causes calcium excretion and bone loss, especially in older women who are already predisposed to osteoporosis. Some researchers believe this is simply due to the replacement of milk in the diet; in either case it means women soda-drinkers are more prone to broken bones.
Citric acid: citric acid, which is present in many types of soda, including Mountain Dew, erodes tooth enamel. A popular high school experiment is to place a tooth or mouse in citric acid, which then dissolve away in a couple of weeks. Someone who sits at a keyboard all day sipping Dew — regular or diet — is not doing their teeth any favors.
Caffeine: caffeine is an addictive substance which is generally considered harmless. But it's a full-fledged drug addiction: withdrawal symptoms include headache, muscle pain, stiffness, vomiting and depression. There are also many instances of people dying after consuming too much caffeine. France outlawed Red Bull after an Irishman died from drinking four cans. A fourteen-year-old Maryland girl recently died after drinking two Monster energy drinks over a 24-hour period.
In short, soda consumption has absolutely no positive benefits.
When I was a kid soda was a treat, like a cookie or a piece of cake. But over the last forty years people have begun treating soda as a staple food, replacing juice and milk. This is especially problematic for women and children, who need that calcium. Milk has its own problems with BGH and excessive antibiotic use, but soda is the worst possible replacement. Plain water is far superior in every way.
Going to a fast-food place like McDonald's used to be a treat as well: we would eat there a few times a year, when out shopping or on a long road trip. Today many pork out on pizza, burgers, fries and sodas every day. Even worse, parents regularly bring that stuff home to feed their kids. This diet is the main cause of the epidemic of obesity that is sweeping across the world, but is hitting the United States particularly hard.
When I was a kid, you either brown-bagged a sandwich to school or you ate the school lunch, which was an institutional version of the square meal you got at home. You drank government-subsidized milk for 2 cents a carton. These days most schools have pop and candy machines and some even have fast-food outlets on campus.
The truly awful part is that our economy requires this. Investors demand high returns, and businesses that don't experience at least 5-10% annual growth are viewed as losers and hammered on the stock market. Companies like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Burger King, Pepsi, etc., have experienced growth for years, mostly at the expense of sit-down restaurants and grocery stores.
The push for growth in profits has forced these companies to adopt tactics of relentless advertising, callous indoctrination of the young, increased convenience and ubiquity, and product reformulation to maximize addictiveness. In the process they have completely altered our behaviors and degraded the health of the nation.
But for that kind of domestic profit growth to continue, Americans have to increase their consumption of products that are bad for their health (costing us hundreds of billions more in medical costs), or our population has to increase (unlikely, since that will only happen through immigration), or the price of these products has to increase (unlikely, since the main draw is the cheapness of fast food).
The economic model of endless growth in consumption — and our waistlines — is literally killing us.
Empty calories: 12 ounces of sugar- or corn syrup-sweetened soda can contain 140 or more calories. If a person drinks only 3-5 cans a day, that's a quarter to a third of the recommended daily caloric intake for an average sedentary American. This provides absolutely no nutritional value, which means that its either displacing real food, or people are consuming that many additional calories from real food that provides protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Artificial sweeteners: sugar-free diet sodas may not be any better. Studies have shown an insulin reaction to aspartame in rats, and while this may or may not carry over to humans, it's quite likely that artificial sweeteners promote overall increased caloric intake, as aspartame appears to cause carbohydrate cravings. Sweeteners like cyclamates and saccharine have also been linked to cancer, and aspartame is a serious hazard for those who have phenylketonuria. It has also been linked to severe headaches in some people. Breakdown products of aspartame include phenyalanine, methanol, formic acid, and formaldehyde, which is stored in fat cells and is probably carcinogenic.
Thus, both diet and sugared soda are linked to weight gain and diabetes, which both lead to heart disease, stroke, and a whole host of other medical problems.
Phosphoric acid: many soft drinks contain phosphoric acid, which causes calcium excretion and bone loss, especially in older women who are already predisposed to osteoporosis. Some researchers believe this is simply due to the replacement of milk in the diet; in either case it means women soda-drinkers are more prone to broken bones.
Citric acid: citric acid, which is present in many types of soda, including Mountain Dew, erodes tooth enamel. A popular high school experiment is to place a tooth or mouse in citric acid, which then dissolve away in a couple of weeks. Someone who sits at a keyboard all day sipping Dew — regular or diet — is not doing their teeth any favors.
Caffeine: caffeine is an addictive substance which is generally considered harmless. But it's a full-fledged drug addiction: withdrawal symptoms include headache, muscle pain, stiffness, vomiting and depression. There are also many instances of people dying after consuming too much caffeine. France outlawed Red Bull after an Irishman died from drinking four cans. A fourteen-year-old Maryland girl recently died after drinking two Monster energy drinks over a 24-hour period.
In short, soda consumption has absolutely no positive benefits.
When I was a kid soda was a treat, like a cookie or a piece of cake. But over the last forty years people have begun treating soda as a staple food, replacing juice and milk. This is especially problematic for women and children, who need that calcium. Milk has its own problems with BGH and excessive antibiotic use, but soda is the worst possible replacement. Plain water is far superior in every way.
Going to a fast-food place like McDonald's used to be a treat as well: we would eat there a few times a year, when out shopping or on a long road trip. Today many pork out on pizza, burgers, fries and sodas every day. Even worse, parents regularly bring that stuff home to feed their kids. This diet is the main cause of the epidemic of obesity that is sweeping across the world, but is hitting the United States particularly hard.
When I was a kid, you either brown-bagged a sandwich to school or you ate the school lunch, which was an institutional version of the square meal you got at home. You drank government-subsidized milk for 2 cents a carton. These days most schools have pop and candy machines and some even have fast-food outlets on campus.
The truly awful part is that our economy requires this. Investors demand high returns, and businesses that don't experience at least 5-10% annual growth are viewed as losers and hammered on the stock market. Companies like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Burger King, Pepsi, etc., have experienced growth for years, mostly at the expense of sit-down restaurants and grocery stores.
The push for growth in profits has forced these companies to adopt tactics of relentless advertising, callous indoctrination of the young, increased convenience and ubiquity, and product reformulation to maximize addictiveness. In the process they have completely altered our behaviors and degraded the health of the nation.
But for that kind of domestic profit growth to continue, Americans have to increase their consumption of products that are bad for their health (costing us hundreds of billions more in medical costs), or our population has to increase (unlikely, since that will only happen through immigration), or the price of these products has to increase (unlikely, since the main draw is the cheapness of fast food).
The economic model of endless growth in consumption — and our waistlines — is literally killing us.
Grab Bag Of Irritation
I thought I'd take a break from politics today and put up a Grab Bag. It's been far too long since I've done one and I'm honestly in the perfect mood today.
Soda Popped!
What is it with virtually everyone I know these days completely freaking out about soda?
Somehow, all of the conversations I've had about health and/or food recently have all gone the same way. One of my friends will say something like, "And soda...OH MY GOD, Soda is just the worst thing in the world. It's SOOOO bad for you" followed by semi-violent head shakes and then something like..."Horrible...it's just so horrible for you" as if they were talking about Chernoyl or something.
Yes, I know that soda is bad for you if you drink 89 cans a day but having one on occasion is not the same thing as smoking two packs a day, for pete's sake. It's as if you are instantly going to get diabetes if you have one can of a regular, sugar filled Coke. The descent into anaphylaxis is nearly instantaneous whenever the subject comes up and is blown so far out of proportion that it's driving me completely nuts.
Speaking of which...
The Land of Exaggeration
I know that being Minnesotan means taking some small thing that happened to someone once and turning it into an everyday occurrence that now happens to everyone everywhere is par for the course. But, seriously, I just can't take it anymore.
The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about how I talk about sex quite a bit and in great detail. "You can't do that, Mark. People just don't like it," she pleaded with me. "But why? So what?" I asked.
"Well, you can't go around raping people either," was her reply.
WTF???!!!
So, talking about sex is the gateway to rape? Seriously?!!?
But it's not just with such a touchy subject...it's with fucking everything! I was telling a parent of one of my son's friends that I was going to celebrate my birthday in Nord East (a tres hip area of Minneapolis). She, being the TOTAL suburban mom, commented, "Oh, that's an awful section of town. Back when I was 18 (20 years ago) someone I dated stole a car there once."
To this day, she has never gone back there!
Even smaller things like...it takes me five minutes to drive from my house to pick up the kids at school. They are out at 410pm so I usually leave at 405pm. Yet my wife is constantly on me about leaving at 350. Why?
Or in the past few years (and for some inexplicable reason), people have started freaking out about snow here in Minnesota. The weather douches issue warnings if it is going to snow more than an inch and tell everyone that it is literally going to be the most awful storm in the history of the earth. Again, why?
Because we live in a land of gross exaggeration. This isn't simply true of politics, mind you (Barack Obama is a socialist or Hitler). This is true of just about everything and it seems more prevalent in the Midwest. People that talk about sex are rapists, a car robbery in NE Minneapolis means that it's now East St. Louis, it takes an 20 minutes to get somewhere that's 5 minutes away, and the world is going to end when it snows a few inches in Minnesota. IN FUCKING MINNESOTA!!!
AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Please, enough, people....
A Titanic Obsession
Alright, enough already with the Titanic shit. I realize it's the 100th Anniversary and all but has anyone else noticed that our obsession with this profoundly sad and tragic event is perpetual whether it's the anniversary or not? Seriously, there's something emotionally....well....just fucked about it.
And James Cameron's underwater explorations (which, b to the w, have been waayyyyy over reported) aren't helping. He made a movie about 14 years ago that made a lot of money...big fucking deal. I hated it. The dramatic hysteria literally made me sick to my stomach. It just wasn't that good, folks.
Yet, he continues to revisit it with documentary after documentary and re-release after re-release. Now, it's out in 3D. Whoopee! The only film the guy has made since Titanic was Avatar. How about exploring some new territory there, Jimbo and, oh, I don't know, make a film every five years or something rather than continuing to revisit that awful fucking film every other month.
Whew, I feel much better now that I have gotten all that out!
Soda Popped!
What is it with virtually everyone I know these days completely freaking out about soda?
Somehow, all of the conversations I've had about health and/or food recently have all gone the same way. One of my friends will say something like, "And soda...OH MY GOD, Soda is just the worst thing in the world. It's SOOOO bad for you" followed by semi-violent head shakes and then something like..."Horrible...it's just so horrible for you" as if they were talking about Chernoyl or something.
Yes, I know that soda is bad for you if you drink 89 cans a day but having one on occasion is not the same thing as smoking two packs a day, for pete's sake. It's as if you are instantly going to get diabetes if you have one can of a regular, sugar filled Coke. The descent into anaphylaxis is nearly instantaneous whenever the subject comes up and is blown so far out of proportion that it's driving me completely nuts.
Speaking of which...
The Land of Exaggeration
I know that being Minnesotan means taking some small thing that happened to someone once and turning it into an everyday occurrence that now happens to everyone everywhere is par for the course. But, seriously, I just can't take it anymore.
The other day I was talking with a friend of mine about how I talk about sex quite a bit and in great detail. "You can't do that, Mark. People just don't like it," she pleaded with me. "But why? So what?" I asked.
"Well, you can't go around raping people either," was her reply.
WTF???!!!
So, talking about sex is the gateway to rape? Seriously?!!?
But it's not just with such a touchy subject...it's with fucking everything! I was telling a parent of one of my son's friends that I was going to celebrate my birthday in Nord East (a tres hip area of Minneapolis). She, being the TOTAL suburban mom, commented, "Oh, that's an awful section of town. Back when I was 18 (20 years ago) someone I dated stole a car there once."
To this day, she has never gone back there!
Even smaller things like...it takes me five minutes to drive from my house to pick up the kids at school. They are out at 410pm so I usually leave at 405pm. Yet my wife is constantly on me about leaving at 350. Why?
Or in the past few years (and for some inexplicable reason), people have started freaking out about snow here in Minnesota. The weather douches issue warnings if it is going to snow more than an inch and tell everyone that it is literally going to be the most awful storm in the history of the earth. Again, why?
Because we live in a land of gross exaggeration. This isn't simply true of politics, mind you (Barack Obama is a socialist or Hitler). This is true of just about everything and it seems more prevalent in the Midwest. People that talk about sex are rapists, a car robbery in NE Minneapolis means that it's now East St. Louis, it takes an 20 minutes to get somewhere that's 5 minutes away, and the world is going to end when it snows a few inches in Minnesota. IN FUCKING MINNESOTA!!!
AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Please, enough, people....
A Titanic Obsession
Alright, enough already with the Titanic shit. I realize it's the 100th Anniversary and all but has anyone else noticed that our obsession with this profoundly sad and tragic event is perpetual whether it's the anniversary or not? Seriously, there's something emotionally....well....just fucked about it.
And James Cameron's underwater explorations (which, b to the w, have been waayyyyy over reported) aren't helping. He made a movie about 14 years ago that made a lot of money...big fucking deal. I hated it. The dramatic hysteria literally made me sick to my stomach. It just wasn't that good, folks.
Yet, he continues to revisit it with documentary after documentary and re-release after re-release. Now, it's out in 3D. Whoopee! The only film the guy has made since Titanic was Avatar. How about exploring some new territory there, Jimbo and, oh, I don't know, make a film every five years or something rather than continuing to revisit that awful fucking film every other month.
Whew, I feel much better now that I have gotten all that out!
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
And Speaking of Paranoia, Fear and Shit Your Pants...
Right after I put up the post below, I saw this come up on my dashboard in Blogger.
Good. Lord.
What's sad about this faux intellectualism and truly awful understanding of political theory and history is how perfectly it fits Boaz Point #1.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox (and the right wing blogsphere, for that matter) seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
And if they'll believe anything, they will certainly plunk down their money to buy books with "Get Ready For Armageddon" in the subtitles (hence the main reason why these things keep coming out:)). I used to have, at least, some respect for Kevin. No longer. He's completely given himself over to what amounts to a Doomsday Cult. Ironically, the science of climate change doesn't phase him (it's a liberal plot) illustrating just how completely back-asswards minds like his truly are.
Further, I'm still wondering how Kevin and his regular commenters (some of whom post here) would have made it through the truly tough times in our nation's history...the times of rugged individualism of which they so often lament and pine for...I mean, there weren't antibiotics back then. There's no way a group of such hysterical old ladies would have lasted...crying the end of the world every other day. They would've spontaneously combusted in a fit of anger, hate and fear.
I'd really like to know when the end is coming. What's the time frame? He's been saying it for over 9 years now, according to his writings. I'd like a ball park so when the date that is the furthest away comes and goes, they will perhaps see that they were mistaken. Likely, this will not be the case as they can always point to something bad that happened as evidence of the coming end.
When the only tool in your tool kit is the Apocalypse.....
Good. Lord.
What's sad about this faux intellectualism and truly awful understanding of political theory and history is how perfectly it fits Boaz Point #1.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox (and the right wing blogsphere, for that matter) seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
And if they'll believe anything, they will certainly plunk down their money to buy books with "Get Ready For Armageddon" in the subtitles (hence the main reason why these things keep coming out:)). I used to have, at least, some respect for Kevin. No longer. He's completely given himself over to what amounts to a Doomsday Cult. Ironically, the science of climate change doesn't phase him (it's a liberal plot) illustrating just how completely back-asswards minds like his truly are.
Further, I'm still wondering how Kevin and his regular commenters (some of whom post here) would have made it through the truly tough times in our nation's history...the times of rugged individualism of which they so often lament and pine for...I mean, there weren't antibiotics back then. There's no way a group of such hysterical old ladies would have lasted...crying the end of the world every other day. They would've spontaneously combusted in a fit of anger, hate and fear.
I'd really like to know when the end is coming. What's the time frame? He's been saying it for over 9 years now, according to his writings. I'd like a ball park so when the date that is the furthest away comes and goes, they will perhaps see that they were mistaken. Likely, this will not be the case as they can always point to something bad that happened as evidence of the coming end.
When the only tool in your tool kit is the Apocalypse.....
Check, Check, and Check!
So, Mitt Romney addressed the NRA yesterday at their big convention in St. Louis, Missouri in what was billed as "a celebration of American values." The day before the convention, this piece from AP caught my eye. Here was the quote that made me chuckle.
Although Obama has virtually ignored gun issues during his term, the NRA considers him a foe and plans to mount an aggressive effort against him.
What I truly don't understand here is that President Obama is acting with the exact benign neglect when it comes to gun laws that gun rights folks have so vociferously argued that they want to see from the federal government. And yet...
We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters, sportsmen and those who seek to protect their home and family. President Obama has not; I will.
Uh...huh? That's not what happened. Gun rights have never been looser and violence around the country has continued to drop. What the fuck is he talking about?
In a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection. As he told the Russian president last month when he thought no one else was listening, after a reelection he'll have a lot more, quote, 'flexibility' to do what he wants. I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that, but looking at his first three years, I have a very good idea.
Ah, I see.
Paranoia...
Fear...
Shit your pants...
Check, check and check!
Although Obama has virtually ignored gun issues during his term, the NRA considers him a foe and plans to mount an aggressive effort against him.
What I truly don't understand here is that President Obama is acting with the exact benign neglect when it comes to gun laws that gun rights folks have so vociferously argued that they want to see from the federal government. And yet...
We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters, sportsmen and those who seek to protect their home and family. President Obama has not; I will.
Uh...huh? That's not what happened. Gun rights have never been looser and violence around the country has continued to drop. What the fuck is he talking about?
In a second term, he would be unrestrained by the demands of reelection. As he told the Russian president last month when he thought no one else was listening, after a reelection he'll have a lot more, quote, 'flexibility' to do what he wants. I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that, but looking at his first three years, I have a very good idea.
Ah, I see.
Paranoia...
Fear...
Shit your pants...
Check, check and check!
Friday, April 13, 2012
Ah, Well...
I guess that hopey changey stuff is working out after all...just not for her. I seem to recall DJ from Kevin's blog muttering something about her scaring the hell out of me.
I'm shivering with fear, dude.
Voices in My Head
It's been a while since I did one of these and some discussions in comments have inspired me to return to one of my favorite topics. But first, some clarification.
I have been told that the conservative views that I take issue with are not, in fact, accurately portrayed. Nor are they necessarily the views of my commenters who migrated over from Kevin Baker's site. No, oh no, these are "voices in my head" with whom I am arguing.
It's my view that the former point is complete horse hockey as I am simply relaying the message. I know it must be embarrassing to have to be associated with people that aren't well mentally but I have to live with Dennis Kucinich and Buck Johnson so you're just going to have to lump it. However, I should be a little extra considerate, I know, because there are far more on the right who are simply nuts. So, I will, at least try:)
Regarding the latter point, I also call bullshit because, although it may not be exactly the view of some of my commenters, it sure does sound an awful lot like it. And some of you aren't doing anything to formerly denounce such silliness so you really can't blame me for ascribing it to you. In fact, part of me think that you really do think this way and are (surprise surprise) engaging in a combination of faux outrage and the innocent babe in the woods routine.
Now, I think there is a way we can tell if I am right or not. Take a look at this video.
This is Florida Congressmen Allen West, a Republican and Tea Party favorite. He is also the favorite of Kevin Baker, proprietor of The Smallest Minority gun blog. He believes that there are 79 to 81 members of the Communist Party in the Democratic Party. He states it very clearly in this video which, incidentally, was released by his campaign. So, it's straight from him and not a liberally biased source.
Do you agree with him? If so, why. If not, why not.
Let's see if this is truly a "voice in my head."
I have been told that the conservative views that I take issue with are not, in fact, accurately portrayed. Nor are they necessarily the views of my commenters who migrated over from Kevin Baker's site. No, oh no, these are "voices in my head" with whom I am arguing.
It's my view that the former point is complete horse hockey as I am simply relaying the message. I know it must be embarrassing to have to be associated with people that aren't well mentally but I have to live with Dennis Kucinich and Buck Johnson so you're just going to have to lump it. However, I should be a little extra considerate, I know, because there are far more on the right who are simply nuts. So, I will, at least try:)
Regarding the latter point, I also call bullshit because, although it may not be exactly the view of some of my commenters, it sure does sound an awful lot like it. And some of you aren't doing anything to formerly denounce such silliness so you really can't blame me for ascribing it to you. In fact, part of me think that you really do think this way and are (surprise surprise) engaging in a combination of faux outrage and the innocent babe in the woods routine.
Now, I think there is a way we can tell if I am right or not. Take a look at this video.
This is Florida Congressmen Allen West, a Republican and Tea Party favorite. He is also the favorite of Kevin Baker, proprietor of The Smallest Minority gun blog. He believes that there are 79 to 81 members of the Communist Party in the Democratic Party. He states it very clearly in this video which, incidentally, was released by his campaign. So, it's straight from him and not a liberally biased source.
Do you agree with him? If so, why. If not, why not.
Let's see if this is truly a "voice in my head."
Thursday, April 12, 2012
In A Visual Mood
I'm in a visual mood today so here are some images I've snagged over the last few days.
First one is dedicated to those of you who think the president has done a bad job with the economy...
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Taking Candy from a Baby
I don't know how much stock I put in studies like this, but I found this article in Scientific American. The study found that wealthy people are significantly less considerate of others, and are much more likely to cut you off with their luxury cars. Yeah, I know this fits into the "well, duh..." category.
But the following part was especially humorous:
Now, we all know that some rich people are quite generous. Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates have contributed much of the their time and money to worthy causes. When I was a kid I spent many hours at one of the libraries built by Carnegie throughout the United States and Britain. Gates has spent billions of dollars vaccinating kids in third-world countries.
But we also know that these people are by far the exception to the rule. Most of today's wealthy are nameless brokers, bankers, hedge fund managers, CEOs and heirs who will never make any significant contribution to society.
But this isn't some abstruse academic question. Republicans are on record against compassion and empathy. When President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court he mentioned the importance of those qualities and was roundly derided by Republicans.
Why does this matter? If the people who make policy are wealthy, compassionless men like, say, Mitt Romney (who told us he likes to fire people and doesn't care about the poor), they're going to make decisions that benefit the privileged few and damn the consequences for the majority.
Everyone in this country understands this basic fact. It's one of the biggest reasons that many Republicans don't trust Romney, though they don't frame it that way. They usually characterize him as a closet liberal, but the real knock against him is that he is actually a soulless husk and will simply say anything to get elected. He doesn't really stand for anything except money and power. They know he can't relate to them and just doesn't care about them.
And when Romney endorsed the Paul Ryan budget that would give even more tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting spending for everything else but defense, he almost literally declared his support for taking candy from babies.
As the Republican nomination process cycled through the various Romney challengers, Santorum, Cain and Gingrich, the main draw wasn't the tirades about contraception and 9-9-9 and invented Palestinian peoples. No, it was these candidates' middle-class roots that so many Republican voters were attracted to. They knew the non-Romneys could better understand their lives than a guy whose wife drives a couple Cadillacs and whose only knowledge of football and NASCAR comes from his friendships with team owners.
Santorum ultimately did the best against Romney, but finally had to throw in the towel against the rising tide of cash. He represented the average Republican hope that you could start from scratch and make it to the top (though Santorum has distorted his own family history, implying that they were all destitute coal miners: in reality Santorum has always been well off, his father was a psychiatrist at VA hospital and his mother was nurse).
Romney represents the death of that hope: the Republican realization that only massive amounts of cash from Romney's cronies and multinational corporations can unseat a president who started out where where most American did and truly represents the American success story.
But the following part was especially humorous:
In order to figure out whether selfishness leads to wealth (rather than vice versa), Piff and his colleagues ran a study where they manipulated people’s class feelings. The researchers asked participants to spend a few minutes comparing themselves either to people better off or worse off than themselves financially. Afterwards, participants were shown a jar of candy and told that they could take home as much as they wanted. They were also told that the leftover candy would be given to children in a nearby laboratory. Those participants who had spent time thinking about how much better off they were compared to others ended up taking significantly more candy for themselves--leaving less behind for the children.Yes, the study shows that rich people will take candy from a baby. Shades of Montgomery Burns!
Now, we all know that some rich people are quite generous. Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates have contributed much of the their time and money to worthy causes. When I was a kid I spent many hours at one of the libraries built by Carnegie throughout the United States and Britain. Gates has spent billions of dollars vaccinating kids in third-world countries.
But we also know that these people are by far the exception to the rule. Most of today's wealthy are nameless brokers, bankers, hedge fund managers, CEOs and heirs who will never make any significant contribution to society.
But this isn't some abstruse academic question. Republicans are on record against compassion and empathy. When President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court he mentioned the importance of those qualities and was roundly derided by Republicans.
Why does this matter? If the people who make policy are wealthy, compassionless men like, say, Mitt Romney (who told us he likes to fire people and doesn't care about the poor), they're going to make decisions that benefit the privileged few and damn the consequences for the majority.
Everyone in this country understands this basic fact. It's one of the biggest reasons that many Republicans don't trust Romney, though they don't frame it that way. They usually characterize him as a closet liberal, but the real knock against him is that he is actually a soulless husk and will simply say anything to get elected. He doesn't really stand for anything except money and power. They know he can't relate to them and just doesn't care about them.
And when Romney endorsed the Paul Ryan budget that would give even more tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting spending for everything else but defense, he almost literally declared his support for taking candy from babies.
As the Republican nomination process cycled through the various Romney challengers, Santorum, Cain and Gingrich, the main draw wasn't the tirades about contraception and 9-9-9 and invented Palestinian peoples. No, it was these candidates' middle-class roots that so many Republican voters were attracted to. They knew the non-Romneys could better understand their lives than a guy whose wife drives a couple Cadillacs and whose only knowledge of football and NASCAR comes from his friendships with team owners.
Santorum ultimately did the best against Romney, but finally had to throw in the towel against the rising tide of cash. He represented the average Republican hope that you could start from scratch and make it to the top (though Santorum has distorted his own family history, implying that they were all destitute coal miners: in reality Santorum has always been well off, his father was a psychiatrist at VA hospital and his mother was nurse).
Romney represents the death of that hope: the Republican realization that only massive amounts of cash from Romney's cronies and multinational corporations can unseat a president who started out where where most American did and truly represents the American success story.
An Excellent Job!
Two years ago, during his SOTU address, Barack Obama promised double American exports in the next five years. So far, the first two years of that time period has seen an increase of just under 30 percent or an increase from 140 billion a month to 180 billion a month. At this pace, the president will get close to or achieve his goal. Why is this happening and why is this a cause for optimism?
Tyler Cowen has the answers in his fantastic new piece, "What Export-Oriented America Means."
First, it is the United States that is leading the way in high tech machines that populate the manufacturing industry worldwide. Countries from around the world need to buy them and we make the best ones. But it's not as simple as that.
The more the world relies on smart machines, the more domestic wage rates become irrelevant for export prowess. That will help the wealthier countries, most of all America. This logic works on both sides. America is using less labor in manufacturing, but China is too, even as its manufacturing output is rising. The fact that Chinese manufacturing employment is falling along with ours means that both our higher wages and their lower wages are becoming less relevant for the location of manufacturing decisions. The less manufacturing has to do with labor costs and relative wage levels, the greater the comparative advantage of the United States.
Bingo. But won't this hurt American jobs?
You’ll hear the word “insourcing” more, too, to join the far more familiar “outsourcing.” For instance, in one manufacturing survey from November 2011, almost one fifth of North American manufacturers claimed to have brought production back from a “low-cost” country to North America. The corresponding number from early 2010 was one tenth of those companies, partly because of rising labor costs in developing nations, and partly because labor costs don’t always matter so much anymore.
The core political truth about this, however, is a little awkward: So many of the jobs vulnerable to foreign imports have already vanished that there is little left for voters or less powerful manufacturing-based labor unions to fear from free trade. The new job growth has been in health care, education, services and government, areas that are largely insulated from foreign competition and that will themselves seek out export markets. American higher education is in demand around the world, too, and has little to fear from foreign colleges trying to expand offerings in the United States.
This would be why I constantly harp on education. If you are a low skilled laborer in this country, learning how to operate high tech manufacturing machines should be your number one goal in life-stat! Developing countries of the world will need you to train their workforce.
Second, as I have discussed previously, the US may become the new Saudi Arabia in terms of energy exports. With the shale and natural gas industry starting to boom due to recent discoveries, we are poised to be able to take advantage of world demand and truly become a dominant, energy power.
This demand isn't just limited to energy. The third cause for optimism is that the developing countries themselves As BRICS, for example, continues to develop, their demand for our products to help them in their development is going to grow exponentially.
The leading categories of American exports today—civilian aircraft, semiconductors, cars, pharmaceuticals, machinery and equipment, automobile accessories, and entertainment—are going to be in the sweet spot of growing demand in what we now call the developing world.
That's right. Put all of this together and what do you get?
Export success will resurrect the United States as a dominant global economic power. America will be wealthier, its products will have greater global reach, and it will largely cure its trade imbalance with China. The fear of American foreign policy being determined by Beijing, or constrained by the financial resources of the Chinese central bank, will be forgotten. No one will view the United States as the borrowing supplicant in the U.S.-China economic relationship, and, all else equal, our exports to China will increase friendly feelings toward that country.
No more boiling pit of sewage. Thank goodness!!
All of this shows that we are well on the way to achieving the president's goal and promise that he made. In light of all of this information, saying that he is "destroying free enterprise," is simply not true. In fact, he has shown that his method of governing (the combination of government partnership and knowing when to stay out of the way) has clearly produced positive results.
When it comes to the issue of helping to increase exports, the president has done an excellent job!
Tyler Cowen has the answers in his fantastic new piece, "What Export-Oriented America Means."
First, it is the United States that is leading the way in high tech machines that populate the manufacturing industry worldwide. Countries from around the world need to buy them and we make the best ones. But it's not as simple as that.
The more the world relies on smart machines, the more domestic wage rates become irrelevant for export prowess. That will help the wealthier countries, most of all America. This logic works on both sides. America is using less labor in manufacturing, but China is too, even as its manufacturing output is rising. The fact that Chinese manufacturing employment is falling along with ours means that both our higher wages and their lower wages are becoming less relevant for the location of manufacturing decisions. The less manufacturing has to do with labor costs and relative wage levels, the greater the comparative advantage of the United States.
Bingo. But won't this hurt American jobs?
You’ll hear the word “insourcing” more, too, to join the far more familiar “outsourcing.” For instance, in one manufacturing survey from November 2011, almost one fifth of North American manufacturers claimed to have brought production back from a “low-cost” country to North America. The corresponding number from early 2010 was one tenth of those companies, partly because of rising labor costs in developing nations, and partly because labor costs don’t always matter so much anymore.
The core political truth about this, however, is a little awkward: So many of the jobs vulnerable to foreign imports have already vanished that there is little left for voters or less powerful manufacturing-based labor unions to fear from free trade. The new job growth has been in health care, education, services and government, areas that are largely insulated from foreign competition and that will themselves seek out export markets. American higher education is in demand around the world, too, and has little to fear from foreign colleges trying to expand offerings in the United States.
This would be why I constantly harp on education. If you are a low skilled laborer in this country, learning how to operate high tech manufacturing machines should be your number one goal in life-stat! Developing countries of the world will need you to train their workforce.
Second, as I have discussed previously, the US may become the new Saudi Arabia in terms of energy exports. With the shale and natural gas industry starting to boom due to recent discoveries, we are poised to be able to take advantage of world demand and truly become a dominant, energy power.
This demand isn't just limited to energy. The third cause for optimism is that the developing countries themselves As BRICS, for example, continues to develop, their demand for our products to help them in their development is going to grow exponentially.
The leading categories of American exports today—civilian aircraft, semiconductors, cars, pharmaceuticals, machinery and equipment, automobile accessories, and entertainment—are going to be in the sweet spot of growing demand in what we now call the developing world.
That's right. Put all of this together and what do you get?
Export success will resurrect the United States as a dominant global economic power. America will be wealthier, its products will have greater global reach, and it will largely cure its trade imbalance with China. The fear of American foreign policy being determined by Beijing, or constrained by the financial resources of the Chinese central bank, will be forgotten. No one will view the United States as the borrowing supplicant in the U.S.-China economic relationship, and, all else equal, our exports to China will increase friendly feelings toward that country.
No more boiling pit of sewage. Thank goodness!!
All of this shows that we are well on the way to achieving the president's goal and promise that he made. In light of all of this information, saying that he is "destroying free enterprise," is simply not true. In fact, he has shown that his method of governing (the combination of government partnership and knowing when to stay out of the way) has clearly produced positive results.
When it comes to the issue of helping to increase exports, the president has done an excellent job!
The Wall Street Journal?
I have to echo Joe Scarborough in his recent piece for Politico and go even further by wondering if the editorial staff at the Wall Street Journal has started doing bong hits.
The paper's lead article showcased a study declaring that U.S. companies were emerging stronger from the Great Recession than they were even before the 2008 financial meltdown. The Journal quoted Wells Fargo's former chief economist who said the last few years have made U.S. companies "leaner, meaner and hungrier." That positive sentiment was backed by a WSJ analysis that showed sales, profits and employment higher among the Standard and Poor's companies than in 2007.
This article details how US corporations have returned to pre-recession profits.
An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of corporate financial reports finds that cumulative sales, profits and employment last year among members of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index exceeded the totals of 2007, before the recession and financial crisis.
Deep cost cutting during the downturn and caution during the recovery put the companies on firmer financial footing, helping them to outperform the rest of the economy and gather a greater share of the nation’s income. The rebound is reflected in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a four-year high.
In addition to hiring overseas, companies have been squeezing more productivity out of their employees. In fact, “in 2007, the companies generated an average of $378,000 in revenue for every employee on their payrolls,” while last year, “that figure rose to $420,000.”
Scarborough goes on to mention an article by Walter Russell Mead whom I've recently started perusing at the insistence of regular commenter, juris imprudent. His piece, "The Myth of American Decline," offers a very different perspective of how our country is doing in comparison to what Mitt Romney and the Republicans claim is happening.
The United States isn't in decline, but it is in the midst of a major rebalancing. The alliances and coalitions America built in the Cold War no longer suffice for the tasks ahead. As a result, under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, American foreign policy has been moving toward the creation of new, sometimes difficult partnerships as it retools for the tasks ahead.
I agree. He goes on to discuss the changes in the Trilateral system over the years which echoes many things I have said on here. He concludes on a very upbeat and like accurate note.
Despite all the talk of American decline, the countries that face the most painful changes are the old trilateral partners. Japan must live with a disturbing rival presence, China, in a region that, with American support, it once regarded as its backyard. In Europe, countries that were once global imperial powers must accept another step in their long retreat from empire.
For American foreign policy, the key now is to enter deep strategic conversations with our new partners—without forgetting or neglecting the old. The U.S. needs to build a similar network of relationships and institutional linkages that we built in postwar Europe and Japan and deepened in the trilateral years. Think tanks, scholars, students, artists, bankers, diplomats and military officers need to engage their counterparts in each of these countries as we work out a vision for shared prosperity in the new century.
The American world vision isn't powerful because it is American; it is powerful because it is, for all its limits and faults, the best way forward. This is why the original trilateral partners joined the U.S. in promoting it a generation ago, and why the world's rising powers will rally to the cause today.
This is why Mitt Romney (along with various right wing pundits) don't seem to get and it was evident in their childish criticism of the president's conversation with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. In the final analysis, the American system is the best way forward and because the world is set up the way it is now (liberal economies and free trade), countries will have little choice but to embrace our way of doing things if they want to remain a player in the global marketplace.
Given all of this, how can the right continue to say that America is falling apart and it's all Barack Obama's fault? Now, even the Wall Street Journal (gasp!) seems to be saying that Barack X simply doesn't exist.
The paper's lead article showcased a study declaring that U.S. companies were emerging stronger from the Great Recession than they were even before the 2008 financial meltdown. The Journal quoted Wells Fargo's former chief economist who said the last few years have made U.S. companies "leaner, meaner and hungrier." That positive sentiment was backed by a WSJ analysis that showed sales, profits and employment higher among the Standard and Poor's companies than in 2007.
This article details how US corporations have returned to pre-recession profits.
An analysis by The Wall Street Journal of corporate financial reports finds that cumulative sales, profits and employment last year among members of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index exceeded the totals of 2007, before the recession and financial crisis.
Deep cost cutting during the downturn and caution during the recovery put the companies on firmer financial footing, helping them to outperform the rest of the economy and gather a greater share of the nation’s income. The rebound is reflected in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at a four-year high.
In addition to hiring overseas, companies have been squeezing more productivity out of their employees. In fact, “in 2007, the companies generated an average of $378,000 in revenue for every employee on their payrolls,” while last year, “that figure rose to $420,000.”
Scarborough goes on to mention an article by Walter Russell Mead whom I've recently started perusing at the insistence of regular commenter, juris imprudent. His piece, "The Myth of American Decline," offers a very different perspective of how our country is doing in comparison to what Mitt Romney and the Republicans claim is happening.
The United States isn't in decline, but it is in the midst of a major rebalancing. The alliances and coalitions America built in the Cold War no longer suffice for the tasks ahead. As a result, under both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, American foreign policy has been moving toward the creation of new, sometimes difficult partnerships as it retools for the tasks ahead.
I agree. He goes on to discuss the changes in the Trilateral system over the years which echoes many things I have said on here. He concludes on a very upbeat and like accurate note.
Despite all the talk of American decline, the countries that face the most painful changes are the old trilateral partners. Japan must live with a disturbing rival presence, China, in a region that, with American support, it once regarded as its backyard. In Europe, countries that were once global imperial powers must accept another step in their long retreat from empire.
For American foreign policy, the key now is to enter deep strategic conversations with our new partners—without forgetting or neglecting the old. The U.S. needs to build a similar network of relationships and institutional linkages that we built in postwar Europe and Japan and deepened in the trilateral years. Think tanks, scholars, students, artists, bankers, diplomats and military officers need to engage their counterparts in each of these countries as we work out a vision for shared prosperity in the new century.
The American world vision isn't powerful because it is American; it is powerful because it is, for all its limits and faults, the best way forward. This is why the original trilateral partners joined the U.S. in promoting it a generation ago, and why the world's rising powers will rally to the cause today.
This is why Mitt Romney (along with various right wing pundits) don't seem to get and it was evident in their childish criticism of the president's conversation with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. In the final analysis, the American system is the best way forward and because the world is set up the way it is now (liberal economies and free trade), countries will have little choice but to embrace our way of doing things if they want to remain a player in the global marketplace.
Given all of this, how can the right continue to say that America is falling apart and it's all Barack Obama's fault? Now, even the Wall Street Journal (gasp!) seems to be saying that Barack X simply doesn't exist.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
The Reasonable Middle Ground on Climate Change
It has become Republican dogma that climate change isn't happening. That it's impossible for puny humans to change the climate of this huge planet. That God wouldn't let it happen because, as James Inhofe says, he made a promise to Noah.
The press, afraid of being accused of siding with liberals, still gives conservative climate change deniers a fair hearing, often referring to climate change as a "controversial theory." The idea is that they have to give equal credence to both "sides" of the debate to be fair.
The problem is that the press has fallen into the Republican trap and let the conservatives define a false equivalence between the hard evidence of all serious climate scientists on one side, and a few hand-waving cranks funded by oil companies who say "we couldn't possibly hurt a planet this big" on the other.
The reality is that acknowledging anthropogenic climate change is the reasonable middle ground. Climate change deniers are on the rightmost extreme, and radical anti-humanists are the leftmost extreme. I was reminded of this by an essay that appeared in the Huffington Post. In it, Peter Jay Brown wrote:
The press, afraid of being accused of siding with liberals, still gives conservative climate change deniers a fair hearing, often referring to climate change as a "controversial theory." The idea is that they have to give equal credence to both "sides" of the debate to be fair.
The problem is that the press has fallen into the Republican trap and let the conservatives define a false equivalence between the hard evidence of all serious climate scientists on one side, and a few hand-waving cranks funded by oil companies who say "we couldn't possibly hurt a planet this big" on the other.
The reality is that acknowledging anthropogenic climate change is the reasonable middle ground. Climate change deniers are on the rightmost extreme, and radical anti-humanists are the leftmost extreme. I was reminded of this by an essay that appeared in the Huffington Post. In it, Peter Jay Brown wrote:
We humans are merely passengers on the spaceship Earth. We produce nothing important for a healthy planet, but certainly spare no expense at taking what we need and then some. We are the ultimate planetary narcissists.
Guys like Brown are just as wrong as Inhofe. They whine when wind turbines kill a few birds. They romanticize nature, implying that animals are somehow nobler than men. The truth is, animals behave like the brutes they are. When random fluctuations in environmental conditions happen to favor one species they drastically over-reproduce and lay waste to the land and other species. Just like we do. The difference is that they're not self-aware and can't stop to think about what they're doing before it's too late. We are. And we need to take responsibility for the problems that we're causing. Now.
As the only intelligent tool-using species on the planet, we have become the owners and operators of planet Earth by default. Short of total thermonuclear war, any ecological damage we inflict on the planet will probably only result in our own demise, and not the end of all life on Earth. Life has flourished with high concentrations of CO2 in the past, and would likely flourish again, albeit after migrations and die-offs of certain species. The biggest effects of anthropogenic climate change will likely be inland droughts and flooding of coastal cities, starvation, widespread plagues, world-wide wars over declining agricultural, water and energy resources, and the decline and collapse of human civilization as we go the way of the dinosaurs.
However, if a big enough asteroid or comet smacked the Earth all life would perish, This has likely occurred at least once in the past. Similarly, when the Siberian Traps (volcanoes) erupted perhaps 90% of all species were killed.
If a comet chucked out of the Oort cloud takes a bead on Earth, only a technologically advanced space-faring human race will be able to prevent the destruction of this lovely blue planet. Countering a repeat of the Siberian Traps would be much harder, but in the long run the human race is the Earth's only hope of saving the planet from total destruction.
One could argue that the Earth evolved humans as protection against the larger threats that it was vulnerable to in the past. It is thus our responsibility to further develop our technology to a point where we can save the Earth — and ourselves — from certain doom.
But the truth is, right now we are hurting the planet — and ourselves — with our excesses. The 2000-2009 decade was the warmest on record, and this past March was the warmest in history. Tornadoes struck Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi in January. They hit Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Tennessee in February. In March and April tornadoes hammered the nation's midsection again, and Texas too.
Inhofe's invocation of God's promise to Noah is especially striking because Inhofe so completely missed the point. Noah didn't sit around waiting for God to build his ark. Noah built it because a flood was coming.
Climate change — including floods — is coming. The seven billion humans burning billions upon billions of tons of coal, gas and oil are mostly to blame for that change. We can't just sit around and expect God to clean up our mess.
Most Pesky
Expect this story to have legs as the general election marches onward.
Why Romney's 'dog on car roof' story makes him unfit to be president
In addition to being another WTF moment considering the source, I think this story is going to be most pesky for Mitt Romney. Personally, I'm not a pet person so I could give two shits that he put the dog on the roof of his car for a trip. But as Mr. Davis notes, dog owners (and pet people in general) are a BI-PARTISAN and fiercely steadfast lot who do not tolerate this sort of treatment.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this one.
Why Romney's 'dog on car roof' story makes him unfit to be president
In addition to being another WTF moment considering the source, I think this story is going to be most pesky for Mitt Romney. Personally, I'm not a pet person so I could give two shits that he put the dog on the roof of his car for a trip. But as Mr. Davis notes, dog owners (and pet people in general) are a BI-PARTISAN and fiercely steadfast lot who do not tolerate this sort of treatment.
It will be interesting to see what happens with this one.
A....What?
Now that the general election has more or less started, I'm trying to figure out how Mitt Romney wins with stories like this.
Romney's plan to renovate his La Jolla, California beach house has been known for months. But documents first discovered by Politico, which broke the story Tuesday, show that Romney also plans to add a 3,600-square-foot basement, an outdoor shower, and a car elevator.
Seriously, a car elevator? Nothing says "I know the struggles of every day Americans and can help" like a car elevator in a 12 million dollar home.
I have to give him credit, though, because there some people that are going to buy the fact that someday this is going to be them if only they continue to vote Republican. The haves and the soon-to-haves....
Romney's plan to renovate his La Jolla, California beach house has been known for months. But documents first discovered by Politico, which broke the story Tuesday, show that Romney also plans to add a 3,600-square-foot basement, an outdoor shower, and a car elevator.
Seriously, a car elevator? Nothing says "I know the struggles of every day Americans and can help" like a car elevator in a 12 million dollar home.
I have to give him credit, though, because there some people that are going to buy the fact that someday this is going to be them if only they continue to vote Republican. The haves and the soon-to-haves....
Monday, April 09, 2012
Party of Fiscal Irresponsibility
Ironically, the self-styled party of fiscal responsibility in Minnesota is unable to pay the rent. As mentioned in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Politico has called the Minnesota GOP a disaster. The state GOP is more than a million dollars in debt only a year and a half after engineering a takeover of the Minnesota House and Senate and only narrowly losing the governor's office.
This comes on top of another story from a few days earlier: fired Senate staffer Michael Brodkorb is suing the GOP-controlled Senate for half a million bucks for defamation of character:
Brodkorb made his name for creating the infamous "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" blog. Now he's threatening to expose Minnesota Republicans as well, by airing their dirty laundry in court, bringing into evidence previous affairs that had been uncovered in the Senate (the blackmail and extortion that Ludeman was talking about).
This is exactly the sort of lawsuit that Republicans keep telling us is the absolute worst kind of welfare for trial lawyers. Somehow it's bad for us regular joes to file class action lawsuits against giant oil and gas companies that poison our drinking water, but it's perfectly fine for a Republican to sue his former colleagues in the state senate for getting caught boinking his boss.
The worst part of it is that Brodkorb's lawsuit will cost the state of Minnesota a ton of money in lawyers' fee, even if the state wins. Also quite irksome is the fact that Ludeman refuses to say how much state money he's spending on these lawyers: he's claiming lawyer-client privilege. The way I see it, the state taxpayers are the clients; we should at least have the privilege of knowing how much we're forking out for litigating this ludicrous infighting among Republicans.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are pushing a minority voter suppression amendment to the state constitution thinly veiled as "voter ID," and an amendment to ban gay marriage. Somehow Republicans think that gays marrying will "destroy" marriage, when it's clear that Republicans like Brodkorb (and Gingrich and Limbaugh) are well on their way to destroying marriage all by themselves.
This comes on top of another story from a few days earlier: fired Senate staffer Michael Brodkorb is suing the GOP-controlled Senate for half a million bucks for defamation of character:
Brodkorb's new claim is that Senate Secretary Cal Ludeman defamed him when he told the press that Brodkorb was trying to "blackmail" and "extort payment from the Senate" through his legal case for wrongful termination. Brodkorb was fired in the wake of Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch's resignation from the leadership after senators confronted her about the affair she was having with him.Brodkorb was terminated after his affair with former Senate majority leader Amy Koch came to light (both are married to other people), and she resigned under pressure. He's also suing the Senate for wrongful termination and gender discrimination because he claims women who had affairs with male legislators in the past retained their jobs. And he's suing some of the senators for "invasion of privacy" for outing his affair. This is that same "right to privacy" that Brodkorb and other Republicans don't think women have when they're seeking contraceptives and abortions.
Brodkorb made his name for creating the infamous "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" blog. Now he's threatening to expose Minnesota Republicans as well, by airing their dirty laundry in court, bringing into evidence previous affairs that had been uncovered in the Senate (the blackmail and extortion that Ludeman was talking about).
This is exactly the sort of lawsuit that Republicans keep telling us is the absolute worst kind of welfare for trial lawyers. Somehow it's bad for us regular joes to file class action lawsuits against giant oil and gas companies that poison our drinking water, but it's perfectly fine for a Republican to sue his former colleagues in the state senate for getting caught boinking his boss.
The worst part of it is that Brodkorb's lawsuit will cost the state of Minnesota a ton of money in lawyers' fee, even if the state wins. Also quite irksome is the fact that Ludeman refuses to say how much state money he's spending on these lawyers: he's claiming lawyer-client privilege. The way I see it, the state taxpayers are the clients; we should at least have the privilege of knowing how much we're forking out for litigating this ludicrous infighting among Republicans.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are pushing a minority voter suppression amendment to the state constitution thinly veiled as "voter ID," and an amendment to ban gay marriage. Somehow Republicans think that gays marrying will "destroy" marriage, when it's clear that Republicans like Brodkorb (and Gingrich and Limbaugh) are well on their way to destroying marriage all by themselves.
I Should Start Charging Copyright Fees
Well, now Krugman has hopped on the "Cult" bandwagon.
what’s interesting is the cult that has grown up around Mr. Ryan — and in particular the way self-proclaimed centrists elevated him into an icon of fiscal responsibility, and even now can’t seem to let go of their fantasy.
The Ryan cult was very much on display last week, after President Obama said the obvious: the latest Republican budget proposal, a proposal that Mitt Romney has avidly embraced, is a “Trojan horse” — that is, it is essentially a fraud. “Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.”
I should start charging copyright fees.
The rest of his column is quite informative, though.
The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a big meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate. Actually, there are many problems with that proposal. But you can get the gist if you understand two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million..
So, what do those two numbers mean?
Of these, $4.6 trillion is the revenue cost over the next decade of the tax cuts embodied in the plan, as estimated by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. These cuts — which are, by the way, cuts over and above those involved in making the Bush tax cuts permanent — would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the average member of the top 1 percent receiving a tax break of $238,000 a year.
Gosh I'm shocked.
What about the 14 million?
Meanwhile, 14 million is a minimum estimate of the number of Americans who would lose health insurance under Mr. Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicaid; estimates by the Urban Institute actually put the number at between 14 million and 27 million.
And that would be why I say that Paul Ryan's budget isn't serious. Of course, he can continue to throw out these sorts of dog whistles because he knows that they will never actually be implemented.
It's fine and dandy to play make believe but when you actually have to govern...well...that's a different story.
what’s interesting is the cult that has grown up around Mr. Ryan — and in particular the way self-proclaimed centrists elevated him into an icon of fiscal responsibility, and even now can’t seem to let go of their fantasy.
The Ryan cult was very much on display last week, after President Obama said the obvious: the latest Republican budget proposal, a proposal that Mitt Romney has avidly embraced, is a “Trojan horse” — that is, it is essentially a fraud. “Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.”
I should start charging copyright fees.
The rest of his column is quite informative, though.
The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a big meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate. Actually, there are many problems with that proposal. But you can get the gist if you understand two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million..
So, what do those two numbers mean?
Of these, $4.6 trillion is the revenue cost over the next decade of the tax cuts embodied in the plan, as estimated by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. These cuts — which are, by the way, cuts over and above those involved in making the Bush tax cuts permanent — would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the average member of the top 1 percent receiving a tax break of $238,000 a year.
Gosh I'm shocked.
What about the 14 million?
Meanwhile, 14 million is a minimum estimate of the number of Americans who would lose health insurance under Mr. Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicaid; estimates by the Urban Institute actually put the number at between 14 million and 27 million.
And that would be why I say that Paul Ryan's budget isn't serious. Of course, he can continue to throw out these sorts of dog whistles because he knows that they will never actually be implemented.
It's fine and dandy to play make believe but when you actually have to govern...well...that's a different story.
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