Epistemic Ingemination

“As for the Republicans, how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical American heritage) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

— H. P. Lovecraft

Postulate: We are going through the second grand Know-Nothing Movement in our history (stipulating a few nuanced differences in the various hatreds, loyalties, and choices of subjective ignorance of factual information.)

It’s still about White, Christian, Protestant Real Americans. We’ve been there.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

Regarding the debt ceiling foolishness:

Look. There is no unavoidable crisis here. The “debt ceiling” debate is a canard; it is a will o’ the wisp. A false flag operation.

It is a myth, manufactured. By — And Only By — The Republican Party.

All that we are seeing is the end game of a decade of thievery.

You — all of us — have just gone through the most monstrous (and the most successful) plundering of a public treasury in the history of the world. Ask yourself: where did that money go? It is a massive amount of money — $5 trillion dollars in ten years. That’s 41.6 billion dollars a month over the 120 months. Somebody received that money.

Did you see any of it? I think not.

It went to military contractors; big pharma; insurance companies; huge reinsurance firms; big oil; big banks; big investment banks. And the politicians who enabled the plunder: they have their share of the booty, too; rest assured.

It was such a excessive orgy of theft that it crashed the world economy. It was such an excessive orgy of theft that the Pentagon can’t account for over a trillion dollars that it spent. It was such an excessive orgy of theft that the State Department can’t account for over a billion dollars in *cash* money that it ferried to Iraq. It’s all just “gone.”

Where do you think that it went? Someone has your money, citizen. *Your* money. And it’s not you.

Now that the numbers are in, we are fretting about the horrific results of our lack of engagement with this treasonous behavior. I’m not seeing so much flag-waving at the moment from you, eh, Patriots? Feeling proud now?

Well, you know what? There’s an elephant in the room, and it is not a Republican.

If we do nothing, the Bush tax cuts automatically expire, and we are well on our way to a budget surplus within fifteen years. If we do nothing at all. That is a CBO-vetted fact.

Except. At this time, we need to pass a normal bit of housekeeping that is a standard part of governing: a debt ceiling increase. It’s wholly routine. It has been a routine vote many, many times in the past. All this does is allow the treasurer to borrow money to execute mandates that have already been allocated by Congress. The money is already spent. It has to be spent. By law. Since it has to be spent by law, we have to issue bonds to do it. Pretty simple stuff.

Or perhaps not so simple, in these extraordinarily dense times. Let’s ratchet back. Let me rephrase.

The Republican party stole your money and gave it to their friends. You are on the hook for it. Now the Republican party says that you need to pay it back by giving up your retirement and your healthcare — for which you have been paying all your life. SS and Medicare are not some “government handout” for which you’re being billed. They are insurance that you’ve been paying for, for all of your working life, and the benefits are rightfully due you. The Republicans have no problem with stealing that as well – so that their patrons can keep your money.

The Republican Party is trying to take these entitlements away from you, to try to make up the deficit that they assisted others in stealing. They are crying ‘foul’ on a false, rigged game that they themselves rigged, falsified and have now declared fouled.

…

I run into politically angry people all the time. Fox News Angry. Uninformed angry. I hear them in the grocery line; I hear them at the convenience store; in the bank. Sitting next to me drinking shots at the bar. Family emails. Customers at places I work. Cigarette smokers out in the parking lot.

I don’t usually do politics in social situations; it’s a recipe for heartache. But I have someting to say to such people.

To you flag-waving patriots; you “libertarians”; you “they’re all the same” folks; you “working man” folks; you “America first” compadres; you “American exceptionalism” people; you “free market capitalism” contingent; you “might makes right” folks, and especially you “no taxes” people:

You think that I am calling you stupid. I am not. I hang with you every day, and you are wonderful, intelligent, talented and thoughtful folks, one-on-one. But as a group you are an absolute horror.

I am not calling you stupid; I am calling you much worse: I am calling you a fool. You are an intelligent, thinking human being, and all you do is vote for the best advertised bucket of chicken that stokes your anger and divides your power. I use such a strong word because you don’t take the time to figure out who is on your side. You vote against your own interests again, and again, and again. You vote for the politician who makes you the most pissed-off at the other politician — and that is invariably the politician who is interested in nothing but acquiring your power and your wealth. They are certainly not interested in governing for your best interests.

People you elect make *public policy.* Public Policy affects your life. Whether you choose to believe this or not, it is a fact. Facts do not change whether you choose to believe them or not.

Guess what? The people you vote for don’t care about facts. And if you elect people who make up their own facts, you do not have public policy based upon factual information. Your country is dying, and your hallowed flag is becoming meaningless, because you did not do your job as a Citizen of the country that you so love.

Engage yourself in your own future, fool. Vote for people interested in public policy and facts first and foremost; vote for those who most represent your political interests. And if you can’t do something as simple as that, then don’t vote at all. Because you are killing the country that we BOTH love.

Are we all clear now?

We live in a country half composed of mindless idiots.

You waved your flag for a decade, as the greatest plundering of a public treasury in history took place, destroying the middle class in the process. Now you want to default on your obligations and destroy the world economy, while you balance your thievery on the backs of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

Give me a 100% tax on the profits of investment banks, oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and military contractors (and their subsidiaries, and all of the bonuses and stock options paid to executives in these industries) until the entire debt is paid off. Then we can talk.

Our Discussion

Glenn Greenwald puts *everyone* on the chopping block with regard to Wikileaks. Virtually every sentence in this long piece is interesting; I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more well articulated opinion column. Highly recommended.

WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

Truth becomes known, always.

In this case, it becomes known about 30 years earlier than it might’ve normally been known after being begrudgingly declassified. This is realtime. It is an amazing moment.

Since we own this truth that is done in our name, and since it is a bucket of icewater in the face of business as usual, I strongly support it.

We *have* to work together with those people. They *have* to work together with us. Now we know what we’re working with. All of us.

Damage? There’s no “damage” done here. There’s inconvenience done here. There’s exposure for gamesters. Perhaps some folks might have an early end to their life due to this. But I am inclined to think that no innocents will see that fate.

The net result will be a foundational change in the manner that business has been done. If we have the horse sense to see what this represents.

Spread it far and wide; yell it from the rooftops.

Apropos of the Realist post a couple of days ago; an interview with Lenny Bruce. Starts on page one and you then have to jump to page three. This was 1960, and it has more concentrated insight than is possible these days. And it is as contemporaneous to our time as it can be.

The Realist interview with Lenny Bruce

This is neat. We now have an archive of every issue of Paul Krassner’s The Realist magazine.

THE REALIST ARCHIVE PROJECT

Just a step forward into reality after the election. A very good read — and a correct one.

Democrats didn’t lose the battle of 2010. They won it. – By William Saletan – Slate Magazine

I’m voting against 1 and 2 and for everything else, F.W.I.W…

Chronicle’s explanations and endorsements are here.

Keith Olbermann clears things up nicely. A really remarkable video:

A very concise, good read on why we need single-payer health insurance.

Excerpt:

Currently, health care is treated as a privilege for the wealthy, those employed by the state or a large business, and for those over 65. Leaving everyone else uninsured is not just morally wrong, it is economically wrong. Over half of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and many of those bankrupted had insurance, but were underinsured with large deductibles or limited benefits.

I’m here to tell you that the above is a true statement.

Sen. Olympia Snowe:

“If you establish a public option at the forefront that goes head-to-head and competes with the private health insurance market … the public option will have significant price advantages”

This is the Republican argument against health care reform?

You should watch him in action.

Really.

Roger Ebert does a fine public service.

Read it all, watch the videos, follow the links. Be better.

On a mail list I belong to, we’ve been discussing a good article at the Atlantic entitled The Deficit Blame Game. It’s a scary one, and I recommend it. But I disagree strongly that it doesn’t matter who you blame. I think that it matters a great deal, and here is what I wrote in that vein.

I’m not bothered by the blame game, and feel no compulsion to appear to be even-handed in this argument. We are where we are because of Republican politics and policies. Period.

Pause and think big-picture for a moment. If the Democratic party had been in power for the last eight years, we would *not* be in this condition. Let’s put this another way: if the Republican party had not been in power for the last eight years, we would *not* be in this condition.

Two things to keep in mind: five trillion dollars of public money were effectively transferred into private hands over the last eight years. You’ve just witnessed the largest raid on a public treasury and the largest money laundering operation in history. I know that this sounds like wild-eyed conspiracy-theory hyperbole, but it’s a rationally and factually defensible statement. Follow the money and look at who benefited. Now compare that list to the donor list of the RNC.

The second point to keep in mind is that the current deficits are virtually mandated upon the current administration, due once again to the effects of previous policies of the Republican party. Virtually every credentialed economist on the planet has advised that immediate and massive deficit spending is the only way to avoid an unprecedented global economic catastrophe. There are, of course, policy questions of where and how to do this spending that are completely fair game for disagreement (and I personally disagree with much of what’s been done so far) but we really have no choice in doing it, according to the experts.

These massive deficits and accumulated debt, when combined, are truly dangerous. I think that the correct people understand this, and happily, much of the money is being pointed at infrastructure, health care, and energy efficiency upgrades that will have basic economic benefits to all, and will assist in enabling us to dig our way out in the future. One hopes. We have to start making things again, and we’ll have to live well within our means for a long, long time.

Unfortunately, if the rest of the world stops buying our bonds, then the grand experiment is over. Kaput. Gone. And that could happen this afternoon. (One trillion dollar banknotes to buy a loaf of bread? Don’t be so sure it can’t happen….) In the end, though, I am an optimist who believes that the good guys are usually the last ones standing.

I am all for even-handedness and balance in public discourse. On the other hand, we need to learn from our mistakes, and that necessitates identifying where and how those mistakes were made.

We are where we are right now because of Republican party politics. None of this would have happened if they had not been in power. Let’s remember that.

I think that Linda Sanchez is a Maroon, and I don’t like her politics.

(That’s neither Severe nor is it Repeated. But it is Hostile.)

I think that Linda Sanchez is a Maroon, and I don’t like her politics.

(That’s Hostile and Repeated.)

I think that she should be spanked.

(That’s Severe.)

I should now be fined big amounts or imprisoned not more than two years, or both, assuming that this is something that we want on the books. Heck, let’s prosecute me under Title 18, Chapter 41.875 USC while we’re at it. I could get life.

Sheesh. Where are we, fellow humans? Will you kindly make some noise about this stuff?

Original link is here.

Oh, good. Later this year, we get to observe D.C.’s most structured and formal of their various Kabuki dances — the Confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice.

We’re probably going to hear a lot about the usual Marbury vs. Madison and Plessy v. Ferguson, and Miranda vs. Arizona, Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, Dred Scott, and even President Nixon vs. the United States & Texas v. Johnson, etc., argumentum ad nauseam.

JFTR, I’d much rather see Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad discussed. Or, rather, its presumption of the Corporation as a legal entity having the same rights as a natural person.

We could use a bit of judicial activism on that one. Just a thought.

Health care legislation will happen this year. A letter was sent today:

April 20, 2009

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

For nearly a year, we have been working together toward the shared goal of significant reforms to our health care system. We must act swiftly, because the cost of inaction is too high for individuals, families, businesses, state and federal governments. Comprehensive health care reform legislation will responsibly contain costs, improve quality, enhance disease prevention, and provide coverage to all Americans. We are committed to working with you, and with our colleagues in Congress, to enact legislation to achieve these long-overdue reforms without delay. We are writing to you today to let you know of the schedule for committee action that we intend to follow to meet this goal.

Since our committees share jurisdiction over health care reform legislation in the Senate, we have jointly laid out an aggressive schedule to accomplish our goal. Both committees plan to mark-up legislation in early June. Our intention is for that legislation to be very similar, and to reflect a shared approach to reform, so that the measures that our two committees report can be quickly merged into a single bill for consideration on the Senate floor.

The unprecedented level of funding devoted to health care reform in your budget this year leaves no doubt about your commitment to the goals of expanding coverage, reducing costs, and improving health and health care. We have a moral duty to ensure that every American can get quality health care. We must act to contain the growth of health care costs to ensure our economic stability; to help American businesses deal with the health care challenge; and to make sure that we are getting our money’s worth. With your continued leadership and commitment, and working together, we remain certain that our goal of enacting comprehensive health care reform can be accomplished with the urgency that the American people rightly demand.
Respectfully yours,

Senator Max Baucus
Chairman
Senate Finance Committee

Senator Edward M. Kennedy
Chairman
Senate HELP Committee

Absolutely beautiful political theater. And excellent political tactics.

You can expect immediate hysteria from the wingnuts, and mudslinging from the Republicans surpassing even “Fascist” and “Communist.” They’ll have two whole months to scream doomsday before they even see the bill, and by the time it’s released, the country will be tired of them and ignoring their sky-is-falling pronouncements. A nice bit of old-school LBJ-esque strategy there.

With a little luck, this’ll get McConnell & Boehner so worked up that they’ll have to retire for health reasons. Pun intended.

And he’s not afraid to say so.

An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michelle Malkin

In a time like this, when tempers are riding high and many Americans are close to panic about their jobs and finances, you have a special responsibility to consider the accuracy of what you say and the consequences of inflammatory and erroneous statements. In the last few days, manifestly distorting my words and pulling them out of context, you have accused me of wanting to exclude white males from jobs generated by the stimulus package. Anyone who takes a moment to examine what I actually said and wrote knows this to be an absurd misrepresentation of my position (see this). My goal is and has always been to create as many opportunities for as wide a group as possible, and not exclude anyone from access. There is and has never been any ambiguity about this. The hate mail I have received since your broadcast suggests that the mischievous consequences of your demagoguery are potentially dangerous, in addition to being destructive of rational and constructive political discourse. I urge you to take responsibility for your words. Words and ideas have real world consequences, and you have demonstrated a cavalier disregard for both.

In answer to the question of whether we should investigate the Bush administration’s lawlessness, I think that Eddie has the right take.

Ken Starr spent $40 million investigating a guy who lied about a blowjob. Let’s see how far a special prosecutor with $40 million will take us in investigating corruption, unconstitutional abuses, politicization of the civil service, failure to faithfully execute the laws of the nation, failure to maintain government records, lying to congress, and participation in internationally banned war crimes including torture.

We can all sit down and decide whether it’s worth pursuing further once we’ve used up that initial $40 million. Fair enough?

…Not about Obama, that is. I’m very optimistic about him. I’m cautiously optimistic about us.

President-elect Barack Obama is riding a powerful wave of optimism into the White House, with Americans confident he can turn the economy around but prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems he faces starting Tuesday, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

[...]

79 percent were optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Obama, a level of good will for a new chief executive that exceeds that measured for any of the past five incoming presidents. And it cuts across party lines: 58 percent of the respondents who said they voted for Mr. Obama’s opponent in the general election, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said they were optimistic about the country in an Obama administration.

[...]

“It’s going to take a couple of years at least to improve the economy,” Ms. Harden added. “I think anyone who is looking for a 90-day turnaround is delusional.”

I’m not complaining at all, but when did we suddenly go from “terrorist fist bumps” on Fox to this kind of thoughtful sanity in our public discourse?

Yay, us. Keep it up, America.

One thing that I’ve not heard in the pundit-fest that we’re currently enduring is just one more cause to celebrate. Today ends the possibility of dynasties in our national politics for the foreseeable future.

I’ve spent over half of my life with either a Bush or a Clinton as VP or President. That’s more than enough, and that was my principal (and principled) discomfort with Hillary in the primaries.

We didn’t write a royal line of succession into our constitution, and for good reason. As we’ve seen over the last eight years (and as we saw with John Quincy Adams, our first stolen election), it’s human nature to come into Daddy’s Job with a sense of entitlement and a false sense of transferred osmotic wisdom. In truth, the only thing that is transferred in such a situation is the legacy political machinery, and an ability to effect political manipulations more efficiently. A “Dynasty Presidency” will almost by definition be an excessively political presidency; it will have an available tool that no other presidency has, and politicians utilize the tools at their disposal.

As competent and well-motivated as Hillary is, I believe that she would have fallen prey to the same issue: that of having access to political power that was not earned, and the trap of using it too easily and unwisely.

So, yes, I celebrate GWB being sent off to Dallas in disgrace, and the end of the Bush eras that have so damaged our country over the last 28 years. And I believe that Hillary will be a fine Secretary of State.

But my real satisfaction on this day is the end of the political dynasty in this country, at least for a while. I truly hope that we never fall into that trap again.

There are many things to celebrate today; this is a subtle one that I am adding to my list.

The total accumulated cost of NASA since its inception 50 years ago is $416.7 billion. You’ve given away that much in the last 60 days, to people who refuse to tell you where it’s going.

Discuss.

THE CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTABILITY RESPONSIBILITY AND DISCLOSURE ACT

Senator Dodd never got it to the floor this year. He’s reintroducing it on day one of the new session.

The short form:

Strengthens Credit Card Industry Regulation and Supervision

• Requires banking regulators to evaluate the policies and procedures of card issuers to ensure compliance with card requirements and prohibitions;

• Improves data collection related to rates, fees, and profits;

• Provides each federal financial regulator with the authority to prescribe regulations governing unfair or deceptive practices by banks and savings and loan institutions.

Prevents “any-time, any reason” Increases in Interest Rate and Terms

• Prevents credit card issuers from increasing interest rates on cardholders in good standing for reasons unrelated to the cardholder’s behavior with respect to that card (universal default ban);

• Prevents issuers from changing the terms of a credit card contract for the length of the card agreement (ban on unilateral changes to card agreements);

• Allows customers who close their accounts to pay under the terms existing at the time the account is closed;

• Requires interest rate increases to apply only to future credit card debt.

Requires Fairness in Application of Card Payments

• Requires payments to be applied first to the credit card balance with the highest rate of interest, and to minimize finance charges;

• Prohibits issuers from setting early morning deadlines for credit card payments. 

Protects the Rights of Financially Responsible Credit Card Users

• Prohibits interest charges on debt paid on time (double-cycle billing ban);

• Prohibits late fees if the card issuer delayed crediting the payment;

• Requires credit card statements to be mailed 21 days before the bill is due rather than the current 14;

• Requires that payment at local branches be credited same-day.

Prohibits Exorbitant and Unnecessary Rates and Fees

• Prohibits the charging of interest on credit card transaction fees, such as late fees and overlimit fee;

• Prohibits issuers from charging a fee to allow a credit card holder to pay a credit card debt, whether payment is by mail, telephone, electronic transfer, or otherwise;

• Prevents issuers from multiple over-limit fees for exceeding a card limit, and allows such fees only when a cardholder’s action, rather than a fee or finance charge, causes the limit to be exceeded;

• Requires issuers to offer consumers the option of operating under a fixed credit limit;

• Requires issuers to lower penalty rates that have been imposed on a cardholder after 6 months if the cardholder commits no further violations.

Provides Enhanced Disclosures of Card Terms and Conditions

• Requires cardholders to be given 45 days’ notice of any interest rate increase;

• Requires issuers to provide disclosures to consumers upon card renewal when the card terms have changed;

• Requires issuers to provide individual consumer account information and to disclose the period of time and total interest it will take to pay off the card balance if only minimum monthly payments are made;

• Requires full disclosure in billing statements of payment due dates and applicable late payment penalties. 

Ensures Adequate Safeguards for Young People

• Requires issuers soliciting to persons under the age of 21 to obtain an application that contains: the signature of a parent, guardian, or other individual who will take responsibility for the debt; proof that the applicant has an independent means of repaying any credit extended; or proof that the applicant has completed a certified financial literacy course;

• Limits prescreened offers of credit to young consumers by prohibiting consumer reporting agencies from furnishing reports in connection with firm offers of credit that are not initiated by consumers under age 21.  Allows consumers who are at least 18, but not yet 21, to choose to receive such solicitations.          

You’re going to hearing a lot of stuff in the future, as the new Attorney General nominee Eric Holder goes through confirmation, about Clinton’s pardon of Mark Rich.

Joe Conason has the full skinny, but the two points to remember are: (A) Clinton gave Rich a conditional pardon — Rich must pay tens of millions in back taxes for the pardon to become valid, which he hasn’t done; and (B) Clinton and Holder both came under enormous pressure from Israel to effect the pardon. Mark Rich was and is an informal and important back-channel envoy for Israel. Including to places like Iran.

So it wasn’t a true “full” pardon, and it was motivated by reasons of state, issued the day before the Taba summit talks began. These are nuances that are not being reported. Hopefully they’ll become clear at the confirmation hearings.

In any case, Eric Holder had no power to affect a pardon other than advisory. That is a Presidential-only prerogative instilled in the constitution.

Just keeping you up to date on the opposition’s strategy and tactics…

I’ve just realized the downside of the new security team. The media is already rolling out Christopher Hitchens again, like an old unrehabilitated civil war veteran, so that we can listen to his skriking and howping about Hillary Clinton for the next eight years.

C’mon, MSM. This election is about change. If you must have a Hillary Hater on call, find yourself a fresh one, please? Hitchens has been a screeching broken-record maroon for a decade now. We’ve already heard his viewpoint. Just because his life has meaning again doesn’t obligate you to participate.

I hit the Washington Monthly’s “Political Animal” blog daily — it is one of the finer, nuanced, thoughtful liberal weblogs. But today, Sunday, 11/30/08, it is so far-ranging and succinct and informative that I just have to say:

Forget this noise that you’re looking at. Go read http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/.