brainiac conspiracy

Neolibs

I never bought into the bullshit about Democratic overreach in the '60s, '70s and '80s and how the party had grown so ideologically extreme that it had to be dragged back to the center by the centrist Third Label No Way types. The narrative was always a conservative device to portray Democratic standard-bearers like George McGovern (who was a bomber pilot in World War II) as a dangerous radical compared to heartland conservatives such as Ronald Reagan (who spent the war on a studio lot in Culver City), and that's likely why neoliberalism-as-tonic originated with so-called "New" Democrats who hailed disproportionately from conservative, right-to-work states like Arkansas and Tennessee---traditional Democratic strongholds that were trending gradually rightward due in great part to racial politics. Did we have our radicals? I suppose, if you want to call people like Tom Hayden or Bobby Seale "radicals." But leftists who held elective office in those days, like Seale and Hayden, were relegated to the fringes by their own party leadership. They never held positions of power and prominence within their own party. There's just no comparing them to people like Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz today.

I think the real driver behind the embrace of neoliberal governing principles was, as it is with so many other things, money. The old farmer-labor alliance that supported Democratic officeholders had pretty much evaporated by the 1980s, and a fresh source of campaign cash was sorely needed. Enter an opportunistic Governor like Bill Clinton, who learned the hard way that nothing gets done in a state like Arkansas unless the Walton family, the Tyson family, and the JB Hunt family agree to it, and voilá! a brand new political entity that soft-pedaled corporate regulatory reform and hewed to the center on culture-war issues: A Democratic party even Republicans could love! Of course, that didn't happen, and for unilaterally dragging his party several degrees to the right, the President was rewarded for his efforts by getting impeached.

But none of this should mask the reality that the grand unifying theme underlying neoliberalism isn't keeping the party "relevant" in a post-New Deal era but Machiavellian expediency: Because it's a lot easier to shake the loot out of corporate America if you give corporate America most of what it wants.

---Baron V

Passive-Aggressive

I'll never understand why our liberal leaders are so averse to considering the viability of a Platinum Option. It's like, they think that executive power is something that should only be exercised by bombing people or spying on them. Bomb we must, then, but they should consider the money bomb, too.

---Baron V

We Could Try Letting The Bad Guys Dig Their Own Graves

Instead of trying to do it for them and inadvertently killing lots of the wrong people:

The US is running to drones every time its counter-terrorism efforts fail. On each occasion the public rage against al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula grows and its image is tarnished, and the US---via drone strikes---restores it again. In its recent actions, the US has become al-Qa'ida's public relations officer.

Of course, this could be a matter of policy working as intended because gravy, but perhaps if we sent them some money bombs that they could use to build schools and hospitals, some of them might decide they'd rather earn a living in construction, say, or as a teacher's aide, rather than as a suicide bomber. It's worth a try! Because current policy seems to be yielding poor outcomes that only benefit strongman governments, religious fundamentalists, and D.C.-area defense contractors, all of whom have a vested interest in exacerbating, not ameliorating, a state of perpetual war.

---Baron V

Midday Music Blogging

Because no one has anything new to contribute to our hollow political discourse.

---Baron V

Encore Performance

Looks like they've got two more years before they decide to blow up the world again:

In a major concession, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday gave Goldman Sachs Group two more years to comply with a requirement that it divest part of its derivatives business to a separately capitalized unit . . . [T]he measure was set up to have riskier credit derivatives trades take place in a separately capitalized unit so that any trading failure there would not have access to the institution's commercial bank division, which is backed by insured deposits and taxpayers through the Federal Reserve's discount window. Other agencies last month reportedly notified Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other institutions that they would have an additional 24 months to comply with the regulations. In addition, bipartisan bills have started to advance in the House and Senate seeking to transform the provision and allow some commodity, equity and credit derivatives tied to asset-backed securities (such as packaged mortgage securities) to take place in the federally-insured bank.

Why wouldn't they? If you knew the government would cover all of your bets, wouldn't you be touting long shots and lost causes to your investors at every available opportunity? Regardless, however, it should be a lot of fun in this country a few years from now, when Fed Chairman Hubbard announces another trillion dollars of easing, Attorney General Christie unveils a settlement with the banks that allows them to steal homes for $1,000 per unit, and President Rubio officially proclaims economic recovery while unemployment holds steady at 12.6%. Yes, that's expecting the absolute worst, but given all that has happened these last few years, is there any conceivable reason why we shouldn't?

---Baron V

Bullshit

This:

Democrats are preparing to escalate the dispute this summer by scheduling numerous confirmation votes in a short period of time. If, as Democrats expect, Republicans block those nominations, Mr. Obama and his allies hope the public will notice. With enough public pressure, some Democrats hope that they could change the Senate rules to prohibit filibusters on judicial nominations and in some other areas. "A single blocked nomination may not generate much publicity, but by blocking so many nominees at once, the Republicans are overplaying their hand," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, told reporters on Thursday. "The other side must be careful. If they think they can win a debate over whether the Senate should change its rules, they might very well be mistaken."

This is just another excuse to do nothing. The public doesn't pay attention to circuit-court appointments or cloture motions---most people don't even know what the hell they even are. Most people don't even get what the damn filibuster is all about.

You want to confirm some judges, then confirm some judges. I've never been too sanguine about filibuster reform, but if that's what it takes, then that's what it takes. But stop waiting for "public pressure" to change the game. We already saw how much good "public pressure" did to achieve some sensible background-check legislation, didn't we?

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

Max Baucus.
Mark Begich.
David Pryor.
Heidi Heitkamp.

Three of them are up for re-election next year. Am willing to predict right now that each of them will lose because Democratic officeholders who adopt Republican policy positions generally, well, they lose.

---Baron V

$37 Billion

We could buy a lot of nice things for that amount of money. Here in the Marxist dystopia, we could build our high-speed rail system with it! You can probably think of some productive uses in your home state as well.

Unfortunately, these things are not as important as being a global force for good:

The estimated price to build each Littoral Combat Ship has doubled to $440 million. Cracks and corrosion plagued the first completed vessels. The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester has cited flaws with the ship’s guns, said its helicopter isn’t powerful enough to tow mine-hunting equipment and questioned whether it could carry on its mission after being hit in combat.

---Baron V

Morning-After Ruminations

Well, the sushi was especially delicious last night. (My local fish house is a tiny little hole-in-the-wall that I can walk to in five minutes. It serves a limited menu, but it's fresh and quite inexpensive as these place go---four sushi courses, a seaweed salad and Sapporo for only $23.) Guess I was surprised Team Democrat did as well as they did since I assumed (not unreasonably) that the Real Americans would steal two or three of the big battleground big states since (a) nothing less than the Fate of Western Civilization® hung in the balance and (b) they had four years to prepare for it.

One thing I did last night that I don't normally do is watch the Fox people analyzing the late returns. Watching Karl Rove flat-out lie about the victory margin in Ohio while the on-screen vote tally proved the point was amazing. Do they really just pull numbers like this out of their butts the way he did last night on a regular basis, no matter what the graphics say? I guess they do, since I see examples of it all the time at Media Matters, but witnessing it in person is just astounding. How so many people can watch this channel for more than five minutes and not see how many ways they're being conned, I'll never understand because, really, Fox's act is just about as transparent as what you see on Trinity Broadcasting during Praise-a-Thon Week. But it was cool all the same to behold all the somber faces and hushed voices on-camera.

Now? Well, time to keep the pressure on Team Democrat and our conciliator-in-chief not to offer any budget damn concessions to last night's losers---because there's a reason why they, you know, lost---even if it means letting all the tax cuts expire. It's not too terribly inspiring, but at this point we need to summon the resources to postpone Austerity on The Installment Plan for as long as humanly possible. Not too fired up about it, but ready to go.

---Baron V

Alt-Shift-1972

Interesting question arises today: Suppose George McGovern had won the '72 election. Would we know much of anything about the Watergate scandal today? The "third-rate burglary" passed in and out the public eye rather quickly over the summer of that year, and about all we knew by Election Day were (1) that some cash intended for the Nixon re-election campaign had been laundered through a slush find into the bank account of one of the burglars, and (2) that the FBI had established that the break-in was one component of a dirty tricks campaign being waged by the Nixon camp. But that's all anybody knew.

So the question becomes: with Nixon on his way out of town and a new President about to be sworn in, does the Post keep a pair of city beat reporters on a story that has lost a great deal of its timeliness? Look at it how it might have been argued at the time: Whatever the outline of the dirty-tricks campaign might have been, it certainly wasn't effective, because the conspirators got caught and their candidate lost. Much ado about nothing, in other words. Wouldn't the paper's resources be put to better use running down stories about the incoming President and his transition team, features on his wife and family, recaps of the just-completed presidential campaign, and details of the District's inauguration prep?

Keep in mind, too, that the link between the burglars and the White House wasn't established on the record until FBI directorate nominee Patrick Gray testified to it in February '73: Specifically, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If George McGovern had won the White House, that testimony would've likely never been heard because someone else almost certainly would've been nominated for the job.

My guess is, with a new administration about to be sworn in, Watergate would have been quickly pronounced Yesterday's News, and we wouldn't have heard much more of it beyond some cursory notice in the Post's back pages of the the burglars' trial and sentencing. The rest of the story would have likely been lost in the backward rush of history's rear view. In that sense, Nixon's landslide could be said to have paved the way for his downfall because it ensured that a number of the scandal's key players---John Mitchell in particular, who ran the re-election campaign---would maintain a high public profile for the next four years instead of fading into electoral obscurity, out of sight and out of mind. That's my hunch, but it's an interesting scenario to ponder either way.

---Baron V

About Last Night

Have to confess, I couldn't bear to watch it. Between the guy with the on-air mannerisms of a TV evangelist holding a fund-raising drive, and the other guy who grimaced and fidgeted in his chair like an impatient seventh-grader, I could only assume that our theatrics-obsessed DC media would proclaim the minister of the Gospel the clear-cut winner and facts be damned, so after 20 minutes I switched channels and watched the end of the Yankees-Orioles game. Also too, the moderator: yes, her questions were crisp and direct, but honestly, devoting the first 15 minutes of the debate to Libya and Iran? These are not front-burner issues with voters unless you're trying to protect your flanks from a rear-guard attack by Team Teabilly.

So how bad was it? Did Team Democrat punt away their last chance, or did Joe get them back in the race?

---Vitelius

Lazy Overpaid Government Employees

To be fair: Yes, they exist, and yes, some of them are vastly overcompensated:

The statewide average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in California rose to an all-time high Monday, the third record-setting day in a row that is prompting calls for a federal investigation into the price spike.

The average price in the state hit $4.668, according to AAA. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate, saying residents need to be protected from "malicious trading schemes."

Spokesmen for the FTC in Washington didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. Feinstein in her letter Sunday asked the FTC to determine if the price spike was caused by illegal manipulation of the market and to start monitoring the market for fraud, manipulation, or other malicious trading practices.

"Publically available data appears to confirm that market fundamentals are not to blame for rising gas prices in California," she wrote.

Yes they are, you idiot:

A series of events have conspired to limit supplies, causing gas inventories in the West Coast region to fall this week to their third-lowest level in 20 years on a seasonal basis, government data shows.

A fire closed Chevron Corp’s Richmond, California, refinery during the summer. A Chevron pipeline that carries crude oil from the state’s Central Valley to refineries in the San Francisco Bay area has also been closed since mid-September.

More recently, Phillips 66 shut two plants to conduct planned maintenance, while a power outage hit Exxon Mobil Corp’s refinery in the Los Angeles-area city of Torrance on Monday, disrupting operations for days.

On Friday, Exxon said the Torrance plant had resumed operations, which helped ease supply fears.

In another complication, California refineries had already cut production in anticipation of switching over to a seasonal winter blend of gasoline next month. Gas stations in California are set on Nov. 1 to begin selling winter-blend gas, which releases more smog-causing substances than summer blend.

Of course we know commodities prices can be manipulated, and often are. But please, get real. This is what a major regional supply-chain disruption looks like. If you really wanted to do your fucking job, Senator, you'd be telling the voters that this is what the future looks like, that the era of cheap gas is over, and how it should all remind us of the need to carpool more, to patronize public transit whenever possible, and create more incentives for carmakers to build high-mileage cars by, well, buying high-mileage cars. But I guess no-resistance headline-grabbing is a lot easier than actually leveraging a temporary spike in energy prices like this to provide a teachable moment for your constituents.

That said, I really should've pulled the lever for Orly Taitz when she ran against Feinstein in the Senate primary last June. I'll confess, I was tempted!

---Vitelius

News, Sorta Good

But bigger picture, sorta not really:

The 7.8 percent unemployment rate for September matches the rate in January 2009, when Obama took office. In the months after Obama's inauguration, the rate rose sharply and had topped 8 percent for 43 straight months.

So basically, after all the sturm und drang of the last four years, we are pretty much back to where we were when the Party of Hope and Change™ rode into town promising hopeful change and changeful hope and Working Across the Aisle with a gang of crazy people, which didn't really work out, now, did it. It's a sign of progress, sure, but at a frightful cost since the labor force has been downsized substantially, and by all appearances, more-or-less permanently---which means that fewer taxpayers are working for lower wages and hence providing less revenue to government at a time when government's present and future obligations, i.e., to fully fund Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security et al---are rising rapidly as a generation of Boomer workers retire. Which naturally means we can't . . . well, y'know, we just can't afford these unsustainable entitlements anymore, hence the urgent need to "reform" them in a smart and sensible manner. Amazing how things worked out that way!

---Vitelius

A Clear Clash of Ideologies

Of course that's what the chatterers would like us to think we're watching---and yes, one some of the peripheral hut-buttom social issues (unborn babies, homo agendas, etc,), there are some noticeable difference between the candidates. But as noted previously, the only meat-and-potatoes issue this election is going to settle definitively revolves around the daily portion of pet food the unworthy peasantry is to be allotted in the future. One scoop or two?

“Simpson-Bowles is a brand that’s very well accepted by most Americans,” says Gregg, the former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “It’s a vehicle that has great credibility, because it’s the only vehicle that is bipartisan and substantial on fiscal reform. It’s a hugely significant starting point.”

To build support for the plan, Gregg and Bowles have met with a bipartisan group of roughly 40 senators who are wrestling with the end-of-the-year tax and spending questions. The group has hosted discussions and dinners with think-tank scholars from the Concord Coalition and the American Enterprise Institute, as well as with roughly 100 executives from Fortune 500 companies [...]

“The Bowles-Simpson group is the best example of what can be accomplished,” says Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. It can serve as “a consensus bipartisan template.”

It offers “a conscientious way to address the debt and deficit,” says Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga.

Simpson-Bowles helped foster and fuel the ongoing push for tax reform. The commission was for changing Medicare before changing Medicare was cool. There is a growing feeling on Capitol Hill, says Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, that something like the Simpson-Bowles “framework” will ultimately be passed by Congress and feted at a signing ceremony on a sunny South Lawn.

Would love to be proved wrong as always, but I have yet to be persuaded that the fix isn't already in. Guess it's time to brush up on my college Italian.

---Vitelius

The Beltway Consensus

Already seems to be forming around the idea that adding Ryan to the GOP ticket is a net positive for the country, since it will now force us all to debate Bold & Serious Policy Solutions™ instead of tax returns and leveraged buyouts and boring ol' stuff like that since now, after all, we have a clash of clearly defined ideologies to analyze and discuss. But I think Tristero cuts the crap as well as anyone I've read today:

It would be nice if that were true. But Randism isn't so much an ideology as it's a cult, roughly akin to Scientology. Randism has as much intellectual integrity as intelligent design creationism or birtherism. As a result, "two distinct ideologies" aren't at play. There is only one: centrism, represented by Obama. What Romney and Ryan offer is just battiness, not a truly coherent vision . . . Any way you look at it, this is terrible news.

It would also be a mistake to think that we would ever be allowed a fair and honest debate about these conflicting ideologies, if in fact they existed at all. That's never going to happen, because if our media watchdogs subjected Ryan's agenda to impartial analysis, and honestly reported its policy implications in all their austerian awfulness, it would by definition be guilty of betraying its Liberal Media Bias. So, for every policy-heavy dispatch the Beltway press corps churns out over the next three months, we'll also be treated to thoroughly neutered fluff jobs like this one in the Post today.

I will admit, one paragraph in this offensively vacuous profile really jumped out at me:

On Capitol Hill, Ryan has been known for his intense pursuit of his hobbies. In the House gym, he participates in grueling morning workouts, using the P90X regimen. On the weekends, press reports have said, he enjoys bow-hunting and “noodling,” which is catching catfish using a hand stuck down their gullets.

That's a pretty apt metaphor for what Ryan and his Randian cohorts have planned for the nation at large, but it begs the question: Is this a common practice among fishermen? I've done my share of freshwater fishing---including for catfish---and I've never heard of anything so, well, creepy. Does anyone else think this is rather bizarre, or do I simply not get out often enough?

And as for bow-hunting, well . . . 'nuff said.

But as to the original point, it's hard to see this pick as anything more than the continued mainstreaming of irrational thought into our national political dialogue. Unless the arbiters of discourse in the DC policy and media elites decide at long last that it would be in the best interest of the commonweal to brand crazy ideas as, well, crazy. Which would be a terrible breach of etiquette, which is why it won't happen.

---Vitelius

The Last Inaction Hero

Just fucking shoot me:

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting back into the movie business with a lineup of six film projects–but at one point, things might have gone a very different way.

Mr. Schwarzenegger was approached by White House officials about a cabinet position around the time he left office in January 2011, according to people familiar with the matter.

The entreaty to the centrist Republican governor wasn’t completely out of the blue.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, who was in office for more than seven years and continues to promote his vision of “post-partisanship,” acknowledged earlier in his career that he’d welcome a cabinet post.

A grateful nation thanks the former Governor for reaching the wise conclusion that his path to future greatness lay elsewhere. But what on earth were the President's people thinking when they made such a grand conciliatory gesture? What, that his proven track record of success as a governor made him fit for a Cabinet slot?

Then again, considering the stellar nature of some of the President's other Cabinet appointments, perhaps Arnold would have been right at home in the West Wing. But I suspect the Republic is better off for never having had the opportunity to find out.

---Vitelius

No One Could Have Possibly Predicted

That there would be no real tax increases on rich people because asshole Southern Democrats:

Senate Democrats, who are united in support of higher income tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, are paralyzed by disagreements on how to tax the estates of the wealthiest Americans.

Lobbied by business owners and billionaires, Democrats including Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana resisted a proposal from President Barack Obama to tax individual estates of more than $3.5 million---roughly three in 1,000---at a top rate of 45 percent. The split among Democrats, who control the Senate, will give Republicans more influence on the issue after the Nov. 6 election.

“It’s something that’s really divided and perplexed our caucus about what’s the fair way to move forward,” said Landrieu, who supports repealing the estate tax and wants to reach a compromise with Republicans. “We don’t have the votes to do anything, really, with it.”

Even if it costs them the Senate for another few years, Team Democrat would be far better served in the long term by letting these people lose their re-election bids and concentrating their resources in districts and states where Real Democrats, not Blue Dogs, can win. Just cede the entire Old Confederacy to the GOP---every single seat---and the Teabillies still only control a quarter of the Senate. Time to fucking give up on the Rahm Emanuel 1990s Blue Dog experiment already because yeah, okay, it won Congressional majorities for Democrats---at the cost of sabotaging the Democratic policy agenda. Unless elections aren't about policy at all but are simply popularity contests.

---Vitelius

Motivational Reekers

I smell lawsuits:

Fire officials in California say at least 21 people were treated for burns after attendees of an event for motivational speaker Tony Robbins tried to walk on hot coals.

The San Jose Mercury News reports reports that at least three people went to a hospital and most suffered second- or third-degree burns.

Robbins was hosting a 4-day gathering called "Unleash the Power Within" at the San Jose Convention Center. Witnesses say on Thursday, a crowd went to a park where 12 lanes of hot coals were on the grass.

Robbins' website promotes "The Firewalk Experience" in which people walk on super-heated coals.

In the pantheon of '80s buncombe peddlers---and there certainly was no shortage of them, was there?---I always thought this clown slotted somewhere between Dave Del Dotto and Benny Hinn. Thirty years on, it's amazing to me that people are still buying the bullshit. But we humans do have strong impulses to trust our authority figures, now, don't we.

---Vitelius

Two to Tango

Professor DeLong is shrill:

The failure of marginal Obama 2008 voters to turn out for down ballot candidates in 2010 was a disaster for America.

True. But why did this happen?

• Who appointed Tim Geithner and re-appointed Ben Bernanke? Who volunteered to shield the Five Families from angry voters with pitchforks?

• Who watered down the Recovery Act with $300 billion in tax cuts in exchange for nothing whatsoever?

• Who invited the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies to co-author the Affordable Care Act? Who jettisoned the single most viable policy option for driving down long-term health-care costs?

• Who utterly fumbled the foreclosure crisis? Who's still fumbling it now?

• Who protected known war criminals from prosecution? Who's still doing it now? Who's adopted many of their most regressive counterintelligence policies?

• Who has claimed executive privilege to assassinate American citizens?

Marginal Obama voters didn't do any of these things. The Obama administration, and their allies in Congress, did. Discouraged Democratic voters, in particular dispirited young people, stayed home or voted Republican in the next election cycle, which was doubly disastrous because it occurred in a census year.

All of this was entirely predictable at the time, as in fact it was.

The social contract that exists in this country between its citizens and its sovereign follows a really simple outline: Give they voters what they want, because if you don't, they won't re-elect you. What voters want from their government has not changed noticeably over the last three years, and our government still hasn't given it to them. As a result, we may have a new government next year. This ain't rocket surgery.

---Vitelius

Our Best and Brightest™

Sometimes don't seem so best or bright:

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president told CBS television in an interview, "the mistake of my first term---couple of years---was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right."

"And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times," Obama said in an excerpt of the exchange with Charlie Rose.

At least he couldn't have picked a better interviewer to ply with vacuous boilerplate.

Snark aside, people aren't mad and impatient because the President's men spent too much time trying to get the policy right. They're made and impatient because they didn't get the policy right. Worse yet, they embraced a failed narrative that most people don't give a shit about when what voters really want is jobs, and money, and mortgage relief, as well as the vicarious pleasure of a little retribution for the billions they were swindled. If the President wants a good story to tell, perhaps he should try this one: Crime Doesn't Pay.

---Vitelius