Month: August 2010

We’ll Always Have Venice

Anthony Gottleib reports on the electoral process of the Venetian Republic:

Thirty electors were chosen by lot, and then a second lottery reduced them to nine, who nominated forty candidates in all, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors in order to pass to the next stage. The forty were pruned by lot to twelve, who nominated a total of twenty-five, who needed at least nine nominations each. The twenty-five were culled to nine, who picked an electoral college of forty-five, each with at least seven nominations. The forty-five became eleven, who chose a final college of forty-one. Each member proposed one candidate, all of whom were discussed and, if necessary, examined in person, whereupon each elector cast a vote for every candidate of whom he approved. The candidate with the most approvals was the winner, provided he had been endorsed by at least twenty-five of the forty-one.

And yet I feel like that would still work better than today’s Senate.

And now, they’re coming for your Social Security money – they want your fucking retirement money – they want it back – so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later. Because they own this fucking place. It’s a Big Club: and you’re not in it.

George Carlin

Pause

unsolicitedanalysis:

I’m a fucking nihilist, because the thought of saving all of this evil from itself makes me shudder.  Let’s hasten our own demise, for the good of the rest of the world.  Stop listening to people like Paul [Krugman] who can’t seem to get it through their thick skulls that a functioning American economy is no more likely to serve the poor than it ever has been, but it’s certain to oppress the planet.  And that just isn’t acceptable to me, even considering the alternatives.

[…]

Bye.

Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, but at least it’s an ethos…
And: goodbye, Unsolicited Analysis. Your writings and general willingness to engage issues on the merits using the facts at hand were appreciated; here’s hoping this is ultimately more of a pause than an end.

At Mr. Ryan’s request, [the CBO] produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.

And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.

[…]

So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense.

Paul Krugman grinding the aforementioned Paul Ryan into a fine powder-like substance.

Second House Indistinguishable from Health Care

Shatner: “Here’s my premise, and you agree with it or not. If you have money, you are going to get health care. If you don’t have money, it’s more difficult.”
Limbaugh: “If you have money you’re going to get a house on the beach. If you don’t have money, you’re going to live in a bungalow somewhere.”
Shatner: “Right, but we’re talking about health care.”
Limbaugh: “What’s the difference?”
Shatner: “The difference is we’re talking about health care, not a house or a bungalow.”
Limbaugh: “No. No. You’re assuming that there is some morally superior aspect to health care than there is to a house. …”

I think it’s ok if gays can get married, I just wish they’d call it something else.

Random NPR man on the street which Atrios refers to as “Great Moments In Random Dumbassery”.
Dumbassery it may well be, but it’s critical for progressive hopes going forward that this phenomenon is understood and planned for. To the vast, vast majority of Americans, marriage as a concept is inextricable from Lord Jesus and their church. Thus, these same people hear “gay marriage” and immediately think Big Government is going to force their church to change its liturgy to include Teh Gay or else seize assets put the whole lot of them into jail.
This is precisely why Democrats should today and forever more be talking about getting the government out of ALL marriage. Eliminate all marriage-based tax benefits and redefine survivor’s and spousal rights to extend to anyone whom you choose to confer them upon. The words “basic human rights” should always be in the sentence, and, quite frankly, such broad and fundamental reforms would be a real boon to both gay and straight couples. This, of course, is why it will never happen. Optimism!

The main criticisms of the piece have come from Republicans, and their argument (for example, David Frum’s—still doing the hard work of keeping both sides honest) is that what looks to the left like obstruction is really only the minority party reflecting the public’s reservations about Obama’s agenda, and, beyond that, fulfilling the Senate’s constitutional mandate. (Mitch McConnell offered a rebuttal in this Post article today.) I would answer that, on health care, for example, where the public was truly divided and, by some polls, increasingly skeptical, the Senate Republicans should have tried to negotiate a less sweeping bill. Instead (as Frum himself famously pointed out), they shut down negotiations altogether, leaving Olympia Snowe as the lone party holdout, and not for long. They weren’t trying to legislate better; they were trying to prevent any legislation at all. The same with the stimulus bill and financial reform.
…
And the daily toll of legislative blockage is also staggering. The filibuster has become the everyday norm in this Senate—which has nothing to do with the constitution, moderation, the saucer that cools the coffee, or anything else written and said two hundred twenty years ago.

George Packer, defending against criticisms for his article here (via jonathan-cunningham)

This is exactly right. And, not just on health insurance reform. There is no example available in which the Democratic majority pushed legislation for which the GOP presented “Our Conservative Plan” for comparison and/or consideration. At most, they’ve run out what amount to platform planks: broad, non-actionable concepts and mission statements as opposed to actual legislation for debate.
The notable exception here is Paul Ryan. I think it speaks volumes that the rest of the GOP summarily runs and hides (or blathers about not needing to “pay” for tax cuts) whenever his three trillion dollars (or more) in painful (but specific) cuts are trotted out. If we, as a country, can ever get to actually discussing issues and engaging the general public in such a “The Ryan proposal is (A): these are the cuts and changes in it, the Obama proposal (B) saves such and so programs, but cuts this and does this other thing with tax rates” debate we will have made substantial and potentially Republic-saving progress. I am not optimistic. The GOP and the media at large will continue yelling about non-issues until the whole thing collapses around us. And then blame the Democrats as the last inch of railing disappears below the surf.