Rugged Individual Hangouts

On the Huffington Post comments section about the government shutdown pmttnp posted:

"Our DEBT/Government Spending Problem is RED STATES! THE TAKERS and the low wages

"Take a look at the difference between federal spending on any given state and the federal taxes received from that state. We measure the difference as a dollar amount: Federal Spending per Dollar of Federal Taxes. A figure of $1.00 means that particular state received as much as it paid in to the federal government. Anything over a dollar means the state received more than it paid; anything less than $1.00 means the state paid more in taxes than it received in services. The higher the figure, the more a given state is a welfare queen.

Of the twenty worst states, 16 are either Republican dominated or conservative states. Let's go through the top twenty.

New Mexico: $2.03
Mississippi: $2.02
Alaska: $1.84
Louisiana: $1.78
West Virginia: $1.76
North Dakota: $1.68
Alabama: $1.66
South Dakota: $1.53
Kentucky: $1.51
Virginia: $1.51
Montana: $1.47
Hawaii: $1.44
Maine: $1.41
Arkansas: $1.41
Oklahoma: $1.36
South Carolina: $1.35
Missouri: $1.32
Maryland: $1.30
Tennessee: $1.27
Idaho: $1.21
Does anyone else notice the overwhelming presence of northern "rugged individualist" states, like Alaska, the Dakotas and Montana, along with most of the South? Race to the bottom!"

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-18/politics/30039546_1_blue-states-federal-taxes-red-states#ixzz2OtabJq7d


That's certainly something to ponder.

Meanwhile, another commenter, Beatriz09, was pointing out the idiocy of where the Teapublicans have been going in a great way:

"  Members of the GOP conference acknowledged there was not yet a firm plan. "I think that there are some ideas that are percolating, and I think those ideas are part of this process, and I think that as those ideas get vetted among people in formal and informal discussions, then two or three of the better ones start coming to the top," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.).
WHAT? Their government shut down will soon cost the taxpayer (= INCREASE the deficit by) $3 billion, and they didn even have a PLAN before they started this kind of wasting of taxpayer money? They just want us to pay even more, all while being busy with "thinking that there are some ideas that are percolating" ... NINE days after they did something as radical and expensive as shutting down the government?
You cannot but remember the beginning of the Iraq war. There too, the GOP leadership had lied the American people into something big, then spent billions to launch it, but once Saddam was toppled, Bush STARTED to consider the idea that he should begin to think about HOW to deal with the aftermath, politically and militarily. Result: a decade long war, that could have been ended MUCH earlier, as generals on the ground constantly told Bush and the GOP in the WH. They refused to listen to basic facts ... .
The same is happening today, but now on the domestic front. After having lied about Obamacare AND Obama's debt and spending record for years, the GOP decided that maybe shutting down the government for a while might POLL well. ALL independent experts and this time EVEN Karl Rove warned them that that was wrong, and that it would lower the GOTP approval rate. Now that that's EXACTLY what is happening, they realize that MAYBE they'll also have to come up with a plan that allows them to get out of the mess they created ... . Incredible. I still don't understand what happened to the Grand Old Party since the neocons and TP took over."

That makes for two fantastic ponders from a single article about the Shutdown.

The Death of the TEA Party.

Ultimately Libertarianism is anarchy.  That conclusion, once you ponder the question for a short period of time, is inevitable.  We are seeing the destruction of the democratic system through a continuous waging of radical anarchy.  It is not complicated and we already know where it will end.  The death of the TEA Party (and they will yell at you that they are NOT a party at all) will be swift and violent within the Republican party.  No system can survive anarchy for long.  Creating a Somalia within our borders is going to end badly for Teapublicans.

Senator Warren Is Clear Headed

This small bit was posted on Social Media by Senator Elizabeth Warren:

"We are now four days into a completely unnecessary, completely avoidable Republican shutdown. Now that the House Republicans have shut down the government - holding the country hostage because of some imaginary government health care boogey man – Republicans almost immediately turned around and called on us to start reopening parts of our government.

Why do they do this? Because the boogey man government is like the boogey man under the bed – it’s not real. It doesn’t exist. What is real – what does exist – are all of those specific, important things that we as Americans have chosen to do together through our government. In our democracy, government is not some make believe thing that has an independent will of its own. In our democracy, government is just how we describe all of the things that “we the people” have already decided to do together."

Speech by Senator Warren

Who is Getting Hurt?

There have been sooo many political issues during the last month to ponder that it has been difficult to write a consolidation/distillation of where we are heading and what logic there is for it. 

Today we have several lines coming together in a perfect storm of events.

The beginning of Obamacare (ACA) has seen the web sites have so many people trying to get in that they are having a problem getting into the information.  Simultaneously the Congress has not created a Continuing Resolution to fund the government so there is a shut down of the Federal Government.  In just over two weeks there is fight looming about the Debt Ceiling and yet another period of uncertainty over our national credibility and credit rating.  This is an amazing period.

The Teapublicans do not, repeat, do not want you to get ACA coverage because once you do there will be no going back.  Obamacare will be a political reality for the foreseeable future.  Yet the Teapublicans are willing to fall on their sword to prevent it from happening despite the fact that they cannot unfund it with their antics.  The polls show that the majority of people want the ACA to go into effect.  The Teapublicans have used the tactic of attaching every bizarre idea on their agenda to the Continuing Resolution and sending the resulting bill to the Senate where it is dead on arrival.  Normal would be to send a "clean" bill up without all the nonsense attached to it.  The Democrats swat the bill down and send it back in a clean fashion to be voted on again.   The Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH), has almost no power because if he puts a clean bill on the floor he will lose his position as Speaker.  If Rep. Boehner does allow a clean bill to be voted on there are enough votes that include both Dem's and Repub's that it would pass.  From there it would go to the Senate and pass.  It then would go on to the President and Barack Obama, in wisdom, would sign it. 

But, that is not what is really happening except on the surface.  The second thing to happen might play out many different ways.  The Debt Ceiling must be increased - This is money that has already been spent and the increase is required to pay the bills, including the interest, must be paid or the Credit Rating of the U.S. will be seriously reduced.  Even if you forget how the government works, that is, the Congress produces ALL spending bills (not the President).  They authorize the expenditures through the budget process.  We spend the money and to have the money available we create debt for all or part of it.  We are the owners of most of that debt but so are other countries.  Our currency is used as a base currency around the globe.  Without our being able to easily raise these needed funds we become a deadbeat nation.   There is a provision of the U.S. Constitution that (paraphrased) says that no one shall question the full faith and credit of the country.  The ONLY way that continues to happen is to pay our bills.  The credit rating companies can and will down grade our rating making it harder to have a smooth running economy. 

Further along here is the Political Terrorist mantra at work.  If the Dem's cave into the Teapublican demands it would be government by a minority of the minority rather than by the majority.  That is unacceptable.

The tactic here is to create a crisis to extract a "negotiated" concession.  Follow that with another crisis and "negotiate" a further concession.  In this case, one can create a never ending set of crisis's.  What we have is a set of polls that say that 72% of the people do not want to have a problem - or a continuing problem - in running the government.  The People want to have an end to this crisis... now.

Government by and for the minority of the minority party... what is it about election results don't they get??

The Teapublicans (as opposed to the Republicans) are cheering for the destruction of the government.  They want a failure of the government.  The Congress in the past has always (except for the Newt Gingrich engineered 1995/6 shut down) voted for the Continuing Resolution AND the Debt Limit Increase as often as required.  

What might happen here is that the shut down continues through the next couple of weeks up to the vote for the increase in the debt limit.  That would create a huge problem with any "negotiations" - holding a gun to our heads to get your way is completely unacceptable.  It is therefore impossible to negotiate with terrorists that have the hammer of continuing to hold that gun to our head even after we solve the current problem by caving into their demands.  Terrorists make demands.  Criminals holding hostages make demands.  Negotiating is not an option.  The Teapublicans have made a massive miscalculation here.  They believe that their demands will met.

An irony for all this is that the ACA, by law, cannot be de-funded.  The Sequester did not do it.  The failure to create the Continuing Resolution will not de-fund.  The failure to raise the Debt Limit will only make it more expensive to run government and will not de-fund Obamacare.  The death of the Republican party is a sad thing to contemplate but it may well happen.  Without a viable opposition it will be more difficult to run the country.  In the end John Boehner will lose his precious leadership position because in order to keep it he would have to lead. 

What Sort of Response?

Robert Reich posted:

"Cliff notes on a potentially disastrous decision. (1) Were Syrian civilians killed by chemical weapons? Yes. (2) How many? Estimates vary. (3) Was Assad responsible? Probably but not definitely. (4) Should the world respond? Yes. (5) What’s the best response? Economic sanctions and a freeze on Syrian assets. (6) What are the advantages of bombing Syria with missiles? (a) Highly visible response, (b) no American troops on the ground. (7) What are the disadvantages? (a) Syrian civilians will inevitably be killed, (b) it will fuel more anti-American, anti-Western sentiment, thereby increasing the ranks of terrorists in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, (c) our involvement will escalate if Assad or others use additional chemical weapons or engage in retribution against the us or Israel, (d) we have no exit strategy, (e) most of our allies aren’t with us, and we can’t be the world’s policeman everywhere, (f) it will distract us from critical problems at home, (g) the Syrian rebels are not our friends. (8) So why is Obama pursuing this so vigorously? (Your theory?)"

And that is what drives me a little crazy right now.  I agree with him.  "War weary" does not begin to describe where I am on this Syrian intervention.  We would likely be much better off finding other ways to corner the Syrian government without creating more terrorists in the process.  The current drum beat seems to stem mostly from those seeking even more military action.  We absolutely need the the international community with us... we cannot continue to be the sole player in dramas like this.  The Europeans could probably get behind asset seizure and it the Russians would find the price for that much higher than our bombing hte Syrians.  

There are just too many unknowns to figure out if bombs are going to get the world community where we want to be on this outlawed attack with sarin gas.

Who ARE the Bad Guys Today?

So, let me get this straight. We are going to bomb some targets in Syria that will not specifically aid the rebels, will take out the Syrian government capability to pursue further use of chemical weapons while not killing any Syrian civilians? Does that about cover it? We are the friends of the Syrian people (where have I heard that before) but not of the government. We can't support the rebels because they are our sworn enemy (Al Qaeda) and the whole conflict takes place right next door to our ally (Israel). Could this get any stranger?? There seems to be no move to attempt to try anyone in Syria for war crimes in any jurisdiction. While it is a wonderful thing to see that the President is moving away from the Imperial Presidency so favored by the Teapublican bunch the debate seems to be focused on the wrong questions.

Um, what consequence did we experience when we Napalmed whole villages during the Viet Nam conflict?  Did anyone come and bomb us for the serious misuse of one of the nastiest types of weapons?

Food v. Protest

A recent article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times hit the nail on the head.  Here is the piece that says what so few have seen so clearly:

Hypocrisy of Sound Bites.

Since the start of the Bush Recession conservatives have yammered away at "those" poor people taking up space without paying more into the system.  With what, one might ask?  Wages have been suppressed for the last 30 years.  When you cannot find work there is only the safety net (public and private) to keep you above water until things turn around.

While the economy is getting better the Teapublicans have voted consistently to eviscerate the safety net.  This will cost us all for years to come... even if we fix it soon.

Is it time to protest the acts of these haters, these short sighted ignoramuses?  Yes, I think it is time to push back on the streets and the ballot box.  Without that these takers, the 1%, will continue to load their wagons with our goods and then horde as much as they can in off shore accounts.

Darrell Issa is an Idiot

Representative Darrell Issa has been leaking selected partial quotes from his oversight committee's testimony regarding the so-called IRS scandal.  Other members of the committee have gotten tired of the misdirection and have put the testimony in its entirety on-line.

So, here it is:

Part I

Part II

Okay, now your job is to decide how messed up Mr. Issa is.  Ah, he is a gasbag_blowviator_teabagger you say??  Yes, he is.

Wait, Which Scandal??

"How them Mets??", as a friend says when things just too weird to be believed.  That's bit of where I find myself these days.

I mean, everywhere I look the Teapublicans are trying desperately to gin up some sort of scandal to hit Democrats (and particularly the President) over the head with.  For the most part we are left with Representative Issa pounding the table and foaming at the mouth without any substance to his rants.  He won't release testimony because it does not support his position that the President or Democrats have done something wrong.  For the most his oversight committee is a sham at this point.

But, all this nonsense is really a distraction from the real problems that need fixing.  The list is very long at this point.  High on the issues is the need to unwind thirty years of bad economic theory.  "Trickle down" is a mythological bit of nonsense that is destroying the underpinnings of the country.  We need taxes and we need government.  What has made government problematic is the mega trend to privatize every possible aspect of the job it should be doing.  For this we pay enormous sums more than if government hired people to do the actual jobs that corporations are now contracted to do.  Trickle down has created this connection to the oligarchy and continues to take us down a road of worse and worse government capability.  Even privatizing education will have very long lasting effects.  Charter schools and the additional cost such a for profit system creates is ruining education.  It is not the teacher's being unionized that is the problem.  The unions are actually one of the best things about the public education system.  Voucherizing education leads to fewer controls of what education should be about.  It takes away local control for our systems to work well.  No-child-left-behind has meant the dumbing down of the educational system.  This is by no means the worst of what has happened to us.

One of the large things gone wrong has been the privatizing of our National Security.  We now don't have a government entity actually doing hte work of intelligence gathering... we have a variety of contractors, private corporations, collecting and digging around in our data.  The NSA is just front for a scads of companies sucking our internet, phone and other data dry to suss out the bad guys.  Then we get this idiot, Edward Snowden, acting as if we do not have a representative form of government and saying he released information to help let the people decide what was right or wrong about the information being gathered.  He will likely go to jail for a very long time but the real story is that the company he worked for, Booz, Allen, Hamilton (BAH for an appropriate short handle) should be fired along with all the other contractors doing the job that government should be doing inside.

The press has been snowed by the focus on Snowden but has yet to dig into the real problem.

Working for a Living

When I was an employer and not really having time to think about such things I offered a package of work for pay that seemed reasonable at the time.  There were not positions that paid minimum wage because it was not that sort of business.  We consistently gave raises yearly even in the years we were not doing as well as other years.  No, I was not probably as good an employer as I could have been given my much broader understanding of that now, but we held our own at the time.

Now that I do have time to ponder the situation I read with interest any article that broadens my understanding.  My spouse worked for the welfare department in her state and has explained to me that many she interviewed over the years were told when they went to work for WalMart that they should apply immediately for food stamps, medical assistance and any other help available at the time.  I was flummoxed by this bit of information... but the continued reading has proven this to be true.  What sort of business model preys on its customers in this way?  With the owners of WalMart very firmly part of the 1% I got a clear view of what greed really looks like.

Walmart-Taxpayers-House-Report

The economic theory at work here is not, "we're in this together..." but, rather, "Give me all you got, I got mine...".  It is the bully's way of walking the path.  It is corporate irresponsibility at its greatest.  Years ago I hired a painter to spruce up the house.  He was struggling a bit at the time and decided to take a job outside his field to tide him over in a down economy.  He ended up at WalMart for a time and told me the stories of their employee abuse.  I was stunned then by the system in place to suppress the workers who made the company run.

So, here come the questions.  What is a fair wage for the worker bees?  Why are unions so vilified and suppressed today?  What is a reasonable minimum wage and why?  Who is writing the laws that favor the abusive practices?  What is to be done to correct the abusive power of corporations AND can it be relatively painless? 

I have read several opinions about what the minimum wage should be.  The easiest of these puts the minimum at around $14.75 and hour on the logic that with steady but small steps would have put it there since its last adjustments.  I have noted that Congress rarely takes up this question and generally acts long after the need has become extremely dire.  That is, or seems to be, the model for this rate.  I have also read that if the MW had been upped all along the way since the 1960's (even though it dates from 1938) the current value would be in the neighborhood of $21 and change.  What does that mean?

The minimum wage as a percentage of the poverty level.

(From study by Oregon State University)

I have to ask why is the minimum wage for a full time worker LESS THAN THE POVERTY LEVEL?

If one is working full time to get to somewhere in the area of 60% of the poverty level there would seem to be something seriously broken in the equation.  This means there is no healthcare in the formula and that we have reached a level of indentured servitude not seen for centuries.  This is not freedom.  This is not acceptable either.  The politicians have failed us in providing for the general welfare.  They have crimped economic expansion and eventually it will lead to a deep collapse of the economy.

As an aside here is the history of the Federal Minimum Wage:

Minimum Wage Chart

If you are in the situation of providing for your family at these levels you are incapable of making a meaningful stand against a specific employer.  The threat of job loss is too great.  Even if you are not truly making a living you are fearful of losing what little you do have.  Given that the employee handbook for so many organizations admonishes against talking about your wages with other employees there is every reason to suppose that you are powerless as an employee.  Given too that appointments to the Labor Relations Board have been stalled in Congress for some time the mechanism for dealing fairly with employee complaints has been hamstrung.  There are so many reasons the scales have been more than just tipped against the worker at this point that general unrest and frustration is begin to form the early cracks in the system.

Which means for me... more on this later.

To Ponder the Second Amendment

While the news has shifted, yet again, to other things for the moment I have revisited the Second Amendment and gun violence thought.  Understand that one of my past times is to comment on articles on various news sources but particularly on Huffington Post.  See earlier posts as to why I like that format but here is the point... I enjoy hunting the Trolls and commenting to correct the misinformation they put out there.

A lot of that stuff is juvenile and thereby easily dealt with but others are more thoughtful and it takes deep pondering to chat with them on a realistic basis.  That's why it's such a fun endeavor.  Some of the time it sinks to name calling after one exchange but often enough you have to look further to see what the real question is.  That's the set up for this entry.

Since long before the Sandy Hook tragedy my inclination has been to find a way to understand the path to controlling gun violence in incremental steps.  That means that I get a lot of criticisms saying something like,"...but that would not have prevented Sandy Hook."  Well, that is true enough but irrelevant.

It took a long time to SEE the Second Amendment in a different way simply because the arguments are old... very old at this point.  Some of the misdirection is aimed at obscuring real issues.  So here is the direction I have gone.

Almost every Troll sticks to the idea the 2nd Amendment says that their right to own guns is based on, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."  This is the version that was actually ratified by the states at the time.  There are a few that post differing versions of that but they can be ignored.  What these folks focus on is that the right may not be infringed.  Generally they gloss over the, "...well regulated militia..." part of this so they shout that the right cannot be infringed and it is the right that they have.  The part that says you can KEEP weapons is pretty clear as well, but you need to know what the essential right is before you can begin to bring that into focus.

It took many exchanges to bring this into focus but here it is.  According to this amendment you have the right to bear arms.  Put yourself in the place of the founding fathers and look closely.  It does not even give you the right to OWN a gun (just to keep them).  Okay, back up the bus a bit and look again.  At the time the words were written the concern was that a standing army was a danger to the Republic.  We have all seen in some part of the world the so-called Banana Republics facing their military taking over the government.  We did not want a standing military.  Got that.

Part of an armory at the time of the Revolutionary war.

 

The right to bear arms means that, when called upon, you have the Right to fight against foreign powers.  To maintain that right the amendment further implies that you must be part of that militia!  That you will be part of drills on a regular basis.  That you will be keeping the arms provided for that defense in the armory of the State or the Municipality or some such.  I do not even want to attempt the strange twist in logic that some have made that they have the right to bear arms against their government... in other ways that is called treason.

=================================================

Here are some exchanges that have brought this change in view into focus.  More on this later.

 You wrote:
Look, I don't think anyone... repeat, ANYONE... is trying to TAKE AWAY your guns. There is not an infinite right to bear arms at the expense of all other rights, however. Additionally, there ARE already limits on military style weapons. And, no, every citizen is only potentially a member of a WELL REGULATED militia. The 2nd amendment does imply that your right to bear arms is strong but not infinite. It does not even imply that you have a right to OWN a gun; only to have them available in the event there is a military NEED. Other than that you are not actually reading the amendment.

================================================ 

  You wrote:
The gun folks are not thinking in terms of what is best for the country (once again). Okay, so be it. Waste your time and money on stupid. The restrictions on guns seems a correct one given the off the chain level of gun violence
in the country. I feel safer in some places because there is not some imagined infinite right to carry military weapons around.

But if you really want to exercise your first amendment right to petition the government (first amendment) to attempt to restrict the freedoms of the rest of us to be free from the worry the unrestricted guns create please waste as much money as possible. The lawyers will love you and the rest of us will feel better that you are off the streets and occupied. You cannot hide stupid.

================================================

You wrote:
Look, I don't think anyone... repeat, ANYONE... is trying to TAKE AWAY your guns. There is not an infinite right to bear arms at the expense of all other rights, however. Additionally, there ARE already limits on military style weapons. And, no, every citizen is only potentially a member of a WELL REGULATED militia. The 2nd amendment does simply that your right to bear arms is strong but not infinite. It does not even imply that you have a right to OWN a gun only to have them available in the event there is a military NEED. Other than that you are not actually reading the amendment.

 joeThibo:
Well let's clarify. There is an unconstitutional limit on military weapons, but as you can see if you actually read the second amendment there is no limit applied to military weapons supplied in the amendment. So where does the government get the right to limit the type of arms the people can bear. That's where you have a problem like a lot of other people, they think they can just legislate the rights of the people in the second amendment. That also is not in the second amendment if the founders wanted the government to legislate to regulate the right to bear arms they would have provided that provision.
Since they didn't nobody can infer that their intention was to have the government any government regulate the rights in the second amendment. Since when has the government well regulated anything. They can't regulate a balance budget they can't regulate Banks they can't regulate the mortgage industry. Heck this administration can't even regulate the State
department without getting people murdered. So please the public is better at self regulating than the government. 

The constitution doesn't state the government is the regulator and since they can't regulate anything well the founders had it right to not supply the government should be the regulator of the second amendment.

 You wrote:
Given your failure to connect the dots, this will likely fall on deaf ears.  You cannot own a tank, rocket launcher or machine gun.  It is not a question of Constitutionality that you are prohibited from owning certain weapons at present.  Again, the 2nd amendment SAYS, literally, that you have the right to bear arms... it gives you no particular right (read it again) to OWN any gun.  It is more efficient that you are allowed to own a gun but you have misled yourself in the understanding that leaps from a "right to bear" somehow  means you have a right own.  It does not say that.  Get over it. 

Again, no one is looking to take your gun away but you need to understand that, technically, it is just a privilege not a right.

=================================================

 You wrote:
These days the militia IS the National Guard. Pretty straightforward, really.

 agenda21 wrote:
No it not it is called the National Guard, they purposely did not name it the United States Militia. Go look up the debate when the Nation Guard was started.
The Framers and Founder were very adamant about having any standing army in times of peace. The plan was to disband the Army during times of peace. An Army sitting around inside your country during times of peace is a very bad risk to have around.

 You wrote:
It appears you did not understand what you may have read.  The founders did not want a standing army, that part is true.  AND, the NG is not a standing army.  It is the present day version of the militia... organized by state.  Their weapons are kept in armories just as they were at the time of the founding of the country.  A gun, a musket, at that time was a years worth of earnings.  The state bought the weapon and stored it in the armory.  You might actually do a bit more reading before giving out misinformation.

=================================================

Further Pondering the First Amendment

From the previous post we can see that, indeed, the government is moving against a newsperson and a news organization.  Further that it is doing so under the Patriot Act designed and promoted for use against foreign and domestic enemies.

Hmmm, a reporter is not an enemy but then what are any of them doing with classified information?  They need to back their stories with fact... I get that.  They need to follow an elusive trail... I get that.  But there is a line there somewhere that says a reporter is acting in the same manner as a spy for ill purposes instead of reporting.  It is not clear that either reporters or the Department of Justice knows where that line might be.

Seeking phone records is not the same as listening in on conversations.  That is a large step (or, perhaps, many steps) from what DOJ has done here.  If a reporter is ding the same job as a spy and showing little or no discretion in how those gathered facts are used does that elevate the criminal side of the job? 

Once again, hmmm, what test of fact would be required to say that our first amendment rights have not been trampled?  Before we are neck deep in the swamp, what level of indiscretion is required to say that a reporter is effectively a spy?  Keep in mind that there are five parts to the First Amendment, one of which is the freedom of journalistic pursuit.

1.)  Freedom of Religion

2.)  Freedom of the Press

3.)  Freedom of Speech

4.)  Freedom of Assembly

5.) Freedom to Petition the government to Express Grievances

There are exceptions to every single one of these parts.  You cannot yell, "Fire" in a crowded theater, for instance.  You are not allowed to assemble on private property for unlimited protest without the owners consent.  There are limits to the words used in freedom of speech... and so forth.  So, this freedom of the press must have somme limits as well in all likelihood.

Ponder the Freedoms

DOJ Fox News Phone Records Filing

 

As "Benghazi" Implodes...

So, the Republican staffers altered the emails that they sought testimony over to shout down the critics but were caught in this lie.  As the Benghazi "affair" winds down to a complete halt the Right needed a new crisis.  They "found" one of their new attacks by claiming that the IRS was acting improperly... or, so they claim.

It turns out to be another fiction and the media has not yet caught up (perhaps because they like readership/viewership numbers to rise) and the story is being distorted by the onslaught of Right-side attackers.

My comment back has been (FB):

"Hmmm, let's see here... of groups under review at the time were about 29  Tea Party out of a larger batch and stated that they would undertake political activity (in their applications). The other roughly 200+ were neutral to left (including the NAACP) and these dim-bulbs want to spin this how??? None of the Rightie groups were denied the status. The letter of the law says that ANY political involvement means they should have been denied 501(c)4 status but the IRS, for well over 40 years, has softened that law by saying the primary purpose cannot be political (thereby obscuring the letter of the law). BTW, the NAACP has had the status since 1909!!! At the time this additional scrutiny was occurring the head of the department was a Bush appointee. Hmmm. The president fired the wrong guy, perhaps... Miller was the one to clean up the mess created by Citizen United even if the folks sorting the influx of applications made a poor sorting choice. In any event the groups didn't even have to seek the status of 501(c)4... they could have simply said they were and offered the proof of not making a profit or acting politically. All the hair-on-fire commentators are crazy. Where are the jobs???"

There is more that can be pointed out here but I will save that for later.

Gun Deaths SInce Sandy Hook

On this day there have been 3819 gun deaths in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

For an update go to:  Current Count

Beyond the Pale, or is that Pail?

The Senate vote that failed to give us reasonable background checks for gun purchases is over for the moment, but it is so clearly not over.

While the four Democratic Senators who voted against the bill (not counting Harry Reid who needed to vote no to be able to bring the bill back at a later time) are from Red states.  In pondering the question some my wife and I wondered aloud how many people those four Senators represent?  Well, Sandy looked it up before I got around to it and here is a bit of a window on political logic.

North Dakota     699,628 people
South Dakota     833,354
Montana          1,005,141
Arkansas            731,449

This adds up to the staggering sum of 6,539,144 people represented by those four Senators.  On first glance that calculation seems like a significant number.  If these four Democrats were feeling the heat of their constituents then it makes some sense, if they want to keep their jobs, that they would come down on the side of voting against the bill.  They live in states that may not be in line with the national polls showing that 90% or so of the people who want to have background checks for gun purchases.  It takes a bit of pondering to see what Heidi Heitkamp, for example, had in mind when explaining her position after the vote.  What she said was, paraphrased, that the problem is what is in peoples minds not what is in their hand.  In other words, mental health is what she wants to see worked on rather than directing our efforts at gun control of any sort.  Hmmm, for a Congress that is shorting the funding of everything in sight she might as well have said that there is no real reason she voted, "No" on the bill.

Given that there is another observation about the population number that bears repeating.  While 6.5 million people are hounding the Senators from those Red states if you look at just the population of New York (19,570,261) or even just 90% of New York City (8,244,910) you might notice that these Red State Dem's are not focused on the real questions about reducing gun violence.

In the last few days I heard one commentator say that perhaps we just don't understand the gun culture in the middle of the country and that we have to give these Senators some slack because they live where people hunt more.  I know of no state where there is no hunting and as far as I can see there are guns everywhere anyway, even without hunting.  We actually do UNDERSTAND gun culture more than that.  In fact, we understand it so well that we have ignored that there are about as many gun deaths in United States per year as there are automobile related deaths.  We have worked together, as a country, to lower the automobile deaths and have had considerable success in reducing the number and percentage of fatalities over the years.  We have done virtually nothing to slow the gun related deaths since 1994.

Representative government means that we have people putting our wishes, the majority wishes, into law.  It is not just the four Democratic Senators that failed us, of course.  There are the Republicans that voted to kill the gun violence despite the will of the people... it's just that we noticed the four stand out votes more than those from representatives who have blocked some much legislation in the last 5 years.  It is shameful but I don't have much expectation for those Senators anyway. It is a question of how we bring this up for a vote again as quickly as possible.  It is just a drop in the bucket.

Poison From CPAC

In a week of continuing news cycle craziness the Teapublicans are showing their stripes at CPAC.  Essentially they are talking about how to get the vote back in their corner.  They are saying the same things that they have been saying the last many years but more vehemently.

The message they continue with includes the War on Women, mouthing the Voter Fraud idea to get people off of the voter rolls, repeal of ObamaCare (ACA), Gerrymandering at the State level, destruction of the Electoral College, moving the most insane of the John Birch Societies ideas forward, continuing racist ideals and any number of further ways to cut services to the general population while spending for welfare for the richest among us.  The gun debate is populated by even more of the same dead ideas as well.  Ignoring what the 2nd Amendment actually says and claiming it MEANS that everyone can own MORE guns.  With ALEC on the lose with legislative dung to further a state level attack on democracy the Teapublican push for more of the same idiotic "stuff" they believe will hold us down for the future.  The science deniers making science policy for the planet is yet another insanity we have been handed by these folks.  As a comment I saw recently said, "It seems like handing national gun control legislation over to the hands of the NRA makes as much sense as handing laws regarding rape over to rapists."

They have money to further their craziness while it feels like a cockroach-a-minute attack.  If you can squish the first cockroach ten more come out of the cabinetry.  The lock step Fox News nonsense continues as hate disseminating commentators ask the easy questions to further Righty agenda.  This total lack of critical thinking is in line with dumbing down the public.The continuing of the conspiracy-theory-of-the-day approach to news has made it Faux Nooz and people are turning away from it but not replacing it with information... or, that's what it feels like anyway.

The question before us is rather than beating the cockroaches as they come out is there a more positive, proactive way to fight back against this tide of stupid??  Can anyone ever get in front of these crazy people? 

Math Not the Strong Suit... for Teapublicans

Pretty much says it all... even though the Republicans believe the mythology that has them proposing this sort of legislation.  Of course, in Florida the Governors wife just happened to own a string of drug testing clinics.  What a sham.

The poor are not in a position to be the drug users that Teapublicans want to claim they are.  It is incredible that they continue to spout that they are hanging out with lots of free time and means to pursue drug use.  By and of necessity the poor live far more cautiously and conservatively just to stay alive.  Dumb ass Teapublicans, shame is upon you.

Oh Yeah, Where IS the Outrage??

From FB post by a friend.

What Interests??

Something that has been rolling around in my thinking lately has been the phrase, "In the national interest..."

When I hear that now days I wonder what interests those would be in the case of wars we start (or just get into) or where we have Americans (not necessarily military personnel).  Increasingly I hear this "National Interest," thing when we have people threatened in some far away place.  What ARE our collective interests?

Often, I hear this when there is an oil supply line that is threatened.  We send war ships and personnel into harms way to secure a seaway or perhaps an airport overseas.  We are protecting a corporate interest... a profit source, or a "vital" resource needed to manufacture things.  Some of the things manufactured are for civilian use but often enough they would be to further the military use.  Rare metals are a national interest we have... no matter where they are found.  Food sources or medicinal crops are further national interest items.  We often mask this by talking about the creation of democracy and/or freedom elsewhere on the globe.

In any case, the translation for what a national interest is seems to come down to protecting something that may not necessarily be "ours" but, rather, something we want.  Or, think we need. 

What makes this important is that when something is deemed to be in the national interest we are then justified in spending a lot of money to secure that item, product or whatever, disproportionately to its "real" value.  That is, we don't have a final product cost (price) that reflects the resources to used to procure the item.  That is a tax dollar asset that is spent to secure a corporate need.  Then we allow the corporation, through tax loopholes as often as not, to pay less tax than individuals.  The argument that money is taxed twice if we charge the corporation for the monies made is often heard in this connection.  All money is taxed multiple times as moves through the economy but that has never stopped some folks from yammering away on this so-called point.  If we had to pay for the cost of protecting the national interest at the counter where we purchase the end product what would the price actually be??  How much tax would individuals actually need to pay for an item that included the cost of protecting the seaway and covering the pass through for taxes that corporations inevitably charge us?

Lately I have heard this, "national interest," stuff from Republicans when they feel any threat to the military budget.  Never mind that we spend more than any country (and many combinations of countries) on our military.  It is one of the primary purposes of the Federal government, under the Constitution, to keep us safe. 

It has been said that we are building things for the military that they haven't asked for and probably don't even need.  That large budget item is not reviewable either.  I have heard more than once that there is no way to get one's arms around the entire military budget because it has so many moving parts.  So much for civilian oversight.  Military entities are not generally designed to be efficient.  It is built into their nature to throw lots of resources into and expect big corresponding result.  We rarely get that sort of result.  We do, however, spend a lot of money for mediocre results.  Is it in the national interest to continue doing this?

Has this path helped in the pursuit of happiness?  Really?

Avoid the Sequester with Real Balance

The discussion around averting the sequester brought the following comment.

From elfish as a comment on Huff Post:

""Notably absent from the revenue component of the bill is a hike in the tax rate on carried interest, the income stream for financial managers."

If people really understood "Carried Interest" deductions, they'd demand that it be stopped.

It is gives a Big Tax break to people who don't deserve it and have done nothing to earn it:

1. CARRIED INTEREST. Carried Interest allows ordinary income from management fees to be taxed at the capital gains rate of 15% instead of the top marginal rate of 35%.

2. CAPITAL GAINS ENCOURAGES INVESTMENTS. Because investments are risky things to do, the government wants to encourage investment by lowering the tax rate on people who make money by investing. Normally, you get Capital Gains tax rates when you invest your own money and put your own money at risk.

3. FUND MANAGERS RISK NOTHING. But Fund Managers do not risk their money and neither do the companies they work for. The people who risked their money are the ordinary investors that put their money into the hedge funds. They are the ones who should get the deduction.4. CARRIED INTEREST TRICK. Fund Managers get the Capital Gains tax rate by using an accounting trick called "Carried Interest." The "Carried Interest" trick allows ordinary income from management fees to be treated as Capital Gains.

5. SUBVERTS THE PURPOSE OF CAPITAL GAINS. Since Fund Managers are not risking their own money and instead are risking his clients money, their clients are the only ones who deserve the Capital Gains tax rate. Capital Gains rates are not meant to help fund managers because they aren't taking any risks and that doesn't encourage increased investment.

6. NO DOUBLE TAXATION. Fund Managers justify their the low rate of taxes because by saying that "the money is taxed twice." That simply not true.

A. First, the money that Fund Managers receivs uses another accounting trick called "Pass Throughs." "Pass Throughs" allow money to be funneled to managers without paying any corporate taxes.

B. Second, as the CBO points out, 60% of US Corporations pay no taxes. If a corporation pays no taxes, the money can't be taxed twice.

Companies like GE, Exxon, Coors/Molson, Liberty Media and Well Fargo paid 0% taxes on Billions in profits. Even those that do pay taxes, pay such a low rate that it might as well be zero. For example, Google paid 2.4% taxes on $8.68-billion profits.

7. DOESN'T ENCOURAGE INVESTMENT. Carried Interest doesn't encourage investment. In fact, just the opposite. It encourages the fund managers to charge higher fees. The higher the fees they charges, the more money he can shelter from the Top Marginal rates. That encourages HIGHER FEES."

There is more to it that the Dem's can do... first to do is to get a plan out there to counter the Idiotic Republican non-plan.

Get the Attention of Lawmakers

Sign the petition.

Gun Violence - re deux

Email to my representatives:

"One thing I will watch closely will be any and all votes on gun violence legislation.  We need far more than has been proposed thus far.  We need national gun registration and a complete halt to prior legislation limiting or denying the ability to study the problem.  Without registration there is no way to figure out with any certainty how guns end up in the wrong hands.  Without real study the forces of the NRA can shout down my first amendment rights. 

Before the amendments I have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that trumps all the misstatements about what the 2nd amendment might mean."

My comment on a Huff Post article sums up the real underlying issue:

"Actually, the assault weapons ban is a nonstarter and does not matter nearly as much as some things that are not being discussed.  1.) Cancel prior legislation that prohibits even studying the issue.  The NRA has pushed for this sort of backward move.  2.) We actually need a national gun registration.  You can OWN any sort of weapon you want but it must be registered so that effective study of gun violence can be made.  While one can make all the misstatements about the second amendment they want, after all it's still free country, it should not be allowed to diminish my right to, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," which current levels of gun violence most certainly do."

A Quick Note

The idea that you can keep the same old message but spruce it up to disguise how it works is becoming popular again with Republicans.

New ways to say the same old thing.

No doubt this will fix everything... or not.

Name Calling

Borrowed from Being Liberal

A Huffington Post article pointed out (once again) just how far off the beaten path the Republican shell is:

Republicans Shocked, Shocked I tell you...


"That is just fall down funny!!! If Right Wing is name calling then "Rethuglican" must really get to them. If Right Wing is a problem then "CONservative" must set them back a bit more. If Right Wing is really, truly too harsh then "Idiots" must be over the top!! Give me a break, Sleaze-balls, for the names you call the Left Wingers and the insults hurled at the Center and the obstruction to progress that you inflict on the rest of us you should reconsider you language of choice. Let's reset the meter to the middle and see where "insults" land. The old saying, "Eff-you and the horse you rode in on..." comes to mind."

 Not to mention "TeaBagger", and other such terms.  If you are so sensitive that this bothers you then I would suggest that you stop calling the rest of the country names.  Derisively lying about the opposition would be a great start to fixing the real problems of the country.  Relying on the Republican echo chamber to reinforce bad ideas and poor logic would also help but then you have to be able to recognize good and positive logic in the first place.

Mass Hysteria

From Occupy Tucson

If you think that there is no class warfare you have been asleep for the last thirty years.

Favorite Radio Shows

One of my favorite radio (Liberal) Talkers is Randi Rhodes.  Often she has a unique way of bringing things down to a common sense notion of what a controversy is really about.  When you visit her web site you get a homework assignment or two get you thinking.  The following link is one of those... about guns:

Gun Lies & Truths

It's About the Money

 From The Hippies Were Right:

"It's irritating when people pick and choose how to interpret or use the Constitution to justify their wants. I've done some research, here is what I've found.

In 2001 it was ruled that the 2nd Amendment (when referring to automatic assault weapons) only refers to "collective rights" of the state to arm it's citizens in a case challenging the Assault Weapons Ban, then (funded by a Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute) came a 2nd case; in this case, the court ruled in favor of "individual rights" to bear arms due to an extreme 1975 weapons ban in DC. It stated that people have a right to handguns, shotguns or rifles, and it interpreted that "regulated militia" referred to proper training and education.

Automatic weapons, semi automatic weapons, large clips etc are not currently your constitutional right to "individually own". The states you live in are simply allowing you to own them.

The gun industry is a very profitable industry. Don't think for a second the gun debate going on right now has anything to with your rights, this is all about money."

As friend Jeff pointed out it's NOT rocket science!

NRA Promotes Idiocy

 NRA President David Keene continues stupid.

     David Keene is trying to line up so he can submarine the proposed changes. He is not reasonable, he is not particularly sane and he is a corrupter of the democracy. Claiming that 2nd Amendment "rights" somehow trump our 1st Amendment rights and the right to be (and feel) safe is just wrong headed nonsense. Keene's members are only 3 to 4 million against 300+ million of us demanding anti-gun violence measures. Sportsmen and others who appreciate guns in a variety of ways agree very strongly in the polls that controls are a good idea. In swimming up stream the NRA is showing us who their masters are... the gun manufacturers. Profit is not more important than our right to safety.

      Ignoring the call to control the parts of violence is the short path to political obscurity in this case.  The NRA is making claims that are not backed up by fact.  They ran a truly sleazy ad claiming that the President is elitist because his kids are protected by the Secret Service.  That sort of attack is unprecedented and extremely dangerous.  The Obamas are targets for the crazies.  It is good that they are protected from the likes of the insane.  Stupid ad.

     Going down the to the level of insanity of the worst of us is not a way to conduct our policy on any subject.  On the issue of gun violence it is wrong to ignore the idea that we can do something about it right now, today.  No solution is, by itself, the perfect end all solution.  Every step you take is closer to good than not doing anything.

Ruthless

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

That's where the NRA is on the current debate over gun violence.  That's where they try to focus attention away from the real issues.  Sure, mental illness is a part of the problem; okay, the video game industry might well be part of the desensitization of youth to killing; alright, the 2nd amendment to the constitution exists and you might misinterpret it to say that the right own a gun may not be limited, AND, Holy Crap, we can completely ignore the rights of a free people to live free from violence.

Spinning the Constitution is probably the worst of these claims but the rest have been used as distractions over the core issue in all of the debate.  Guns are a part of killing people.  No, the gun, in and of itself, does not kill people.  Without it the violence against innocents would be far more difficult however.  Sensible limitations on the types of equipment that are allowed legally in the hands of citizens is reasonable.

We HAVE a well regulated militia.  It is called the National Guard.  You do not hunt with an AR-15 toting a 30 to 100 round clip.  A military style gun belongs in the hands of the military.  If you claim you may need protection against the government (YOU, btw, ARE the government) then you are talking about being treasonous.  Remind me again what the penalty for treason is.

The Constitution explains that one of the primary functions of government is to provide for the general welfare.  Since when does gun ownership trump the general welfare?  My RIGHT to not risk being shot by a gun nut is not less, somehow, than a limited right of gun ownership.  If you are not a registered member of a well regulated militia what right should you have?  We may well need a Second and a half amendment to clarify what the framers of the Constitution intended when they included the amendment in the first place.

When the revolution was over after our declaration of independence the debate was how America could defend itself from foreign invaders without having to maintain a standing army.  The idea was to have registered members of state based militias capable of responding to an external threat.  It was about war and defense of the country.  These were also much simpler times.  Knives and single shot muskets were the technology of the day.  No one argued for the private ownership of cannons.  The framers did not envision the advent of mass killing machines that took another half century to begin to develop... as weapons of war.

This was not about hunting.  Much of the rural population of those days hunted... as is the case today.  There are rifles made for hunting.  They generally have a few shots before reloading but not more than ten.  Pistols are not hunting weapons.  Although I was glad when a friend had a pistol as a water moccasin tried to steal a fish from my catch, it was not a matter of hunting.  Target practice is a recreational use of a weapon.  There are even Olympic events using target weapons.  But, you have to take note that these contests are not carried out with mega-clip weapons.

Put your thinking cap on and try to concentrate... the debate is about the unforeseen changes in weapon technology as much as it is about how to define the problems we, law abiding citizens, face as a result of the upgrade in technology.  We need a discussion that includes all of the side issues but the central problem is the lack of limitations on guns has, de facto, taken away my liberties.  My rights are threatened by the unthinking adherence to antiquated gun laws.  The second amendment does not, repeat, NOT defend my right to free speech any more or any longer.  It threatens my right to free speech.  The inflexible attitude shown by the gun lobby says volumes about how little they think of my right to free speech.

Spending or Paying?

Whooping Crane looking for lunch

 
A commenter on Huffington Post, msgirlintn, wrote:

"The President needs to hold a prime time address to the nation and explain to them what the debt ceiling is, how we got here and why the Republican game is so risky for this country and the world's global economy.

The debt ceiling has nothing to do with spending.  It has everything to do with paying the bills that Congress has already spent the money for.


Bush campaigned against PayGo and when he took office, he and the Republicans repealed PayGo.  He went on to put two wars, two tax cuts and a Medicare Part D insurance plan on the national credit card.  Orrin Hatch admitted that it was "standard practice not to pay for anything".  Bush's VP said "deficits don't matter" so Bush spent more than any President in recent history, followed closely by Reagan.


The last government shutdown stunt that the Republicans pulled in 2011 cost the taxpayers over 18 Billion.  It also resulted in the nation's first downgraded credit rating, which the S&P blamed on the Republicans and the Tea Party.


If government shuts down, there will be no SS checks for the elderly and the disabled.  There will be no Medicare for them when we are in the middle of a flu epidemic.  There will be no pay for active duty military.  There will be no Veterans benefits or VA hospital

Reagan warned about this in the 1980's.  It seems today's Teapublicans want to talk about Reagan a lot, but they don't want to govern like Reagan did."

 

Here is where the ultimate Low Information Republicans/Rush Limbaugh devotees go bouncing off the walls.  They want to dumb down the universe by saying this is all about spending.  Seriously?  It is about money that they already spent.  That should be clear to even the least informed but, of course, people disseminating stupid are attempting to twist it so that you are up in arms about the President spending.  The debt was  racked up by the Congress spending more than they took in.  Period.

 

It has so far just cracked  me up that Limbaugh, the chief of the Low Information ditto heads, has co-opted the term Low Information!!  Once again, pay the bills you created and let's get on with life.  If you don't like how YOU spent that pile of cash create a different future path.  The blame is still on Congress and prior Presidents accepting that spending.  Thus far President Obama has made a solid mark on spending less than prior administrations.  An improvement of massive proportions. 

Violence & Guns

It is all the NRA rage to be in our face about not regulating guns... in any way.  They endlessly cite the Second Amendment as the justification for not limiting guns in the hands of citizens.

This is completely wrong and wrong headed.  The founding fathers wrote the second amendment to put in a place a way to defend the country that would not require that we have a standing army.  To this day all Army appropriations are for no more than two years.  The Navy, and Air Force can be open ended but the Army; two years maximum.  What the writers of the Constitution were talking about was a WELL REGULATED MILITIA being something that was good... not gun ownership.  That is a twist that gun crazies have passed off on the public and it is time to stop their lying nonsense. 

My reply on line to a post by a friend who was getting static from a gun believer was: 

"??The Constitution does NOT allow for the ownership of assault weapons. It allows for a WELL REGULATED MILITIA... what part of that is vague?? The U.S. founders did not want a standing army and having a militia was the way to accomplish that. IF one follows the intent of words we can regulate the bejeeeesus out of all guns."

In addition what part of "well regulated" is problematic?  It is not about keeping guns at one's home... the regulation could be that the guns in question need to be kept at a barracks or depot.  It could be said that only guns of a certain sort can be kept at all.  It was not the intent that guns should be kept in order to keep our government in line... that is insurrection and there are lots of laws and legal precedent to say that is treasonous to take up arms against our government.  

"Well regulated militia" also implies regular training from core military personnel.  

The pass that congress has given the gun companies to dodge legal responsibilities for their product is another of the misunderstandings that the NRA has allowed.  This too is wrong headed.  More on that another time.