Based not on a subjective assessment of the Tea Party’s viability or [NYT reporter David Barstow’s] opinion of its desirability but only on facts he knows about the state of politics and government since Obama’s election, is there any substantial likelihood of a tyranny replacing the American republic in the near future?

Jay Rosen
asking an excellent question about the editorial content (or lack thereof) in this piece. The ongoing and steadfast refusal to reflect objective reality, even when uncomfortable, is a major problem.

Is the world round? Opinions differ.

Pity Poor Iowa

Iowa representative Steve King thinks the terrorist attack on the IRS building in Austin was completely justifiable, perhaps even legitimate:

KING: It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.

TP: So some of his grievances were legitimate?

KING: I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back.

As with returning the colonies to Her Britannic Majesty, nothing would make me happier than exempting Iowa from compliance with the IRS and from the painful reality of receiving any of those pesky federal dollars:

Iowa taxpayers receive more federal funding per dollar of federal taxes paid compared to the average state. Per dollar of federal tax collected in 2005, Iowa citizens received approximately $1.10 in the way of federal spending. This ranks the state 24th nationally and represents a rise from 1995 when Iowa received $1.06 per dollar of taxes in federal spending (then ranked 26th nationally). Neighboring states and the amount of federal spending they received per dollar of federal taxes paid were: Minnesota ($0.72), Wisconsin ($0.86), Illinois ($0.75), Missouri ($1.32), Nebraska ($1.10), and South Dakota ($1.53).

Seriously. Let’s get the “thumb” out of their back once and for all. I’m sure they’ll be much happier. Any other states care to apply? Maybe they’d like to watch the example of Iowa first.

Code Brown: PAM

ryking reports that:

the Teabaggers were going apeshit over Brown’s vote for the jobs bill on Twitter and I almost wet myself laughing at the vitriol. I guess these imbeciles thought he’d vote like a typical GOP automaton. News flash, imbeciles: Brown knows he won a protest vote in Massachusetts; he wants to be re-elected after he serves out the last two years of Ted Kennedy’s term so he can’t — and therefore won’t — march in goosestep, er, LOCKSTEP, with the America-hating GOP.

I wish I thought this was an accurate analysis. Unfortunately, I’d say this is an example of the GOP leadership knowing that a lockstep vote here, coming hot on the heels of the Brown mania, would be an all-too-clear and inescapable indictment of their current anti-democratic ways.
Of a piece with that, repeatedly bottling up jobs bills just isn’t going to play for any of them. Thus, Brown is given the go-ahead to vote for cloture, and a few of the moderate GOPers also scurry in to join him. The key vote, though, comes later: when the bill will pass 98-0 or some-such. The GOP Senate knows well that people don’t pay attention to anything, and certainly not the vagaries of cloture votes. No price will be paid for their delaying or otherwise weakening bills; after all, the GOPers can still just run on having voted “for” it in the end. They know that neither will their enablers in the media ever bring up the inconvenient cloture votes nor will the Democrat ever stoop to being so impolite as to mention such a thing in public.

It’s basically stimulus 2.0: take all the glory of anything that works or turns out to be popular, while doing none of the actual policy work needed to bring it about. In fact, you fight all that every step of the way and use the legislative mayhem to further inculcate the sense that DC is fundamentally off the rails. Rest easy that nobody on any side of the aisle or in the media will say or do anything about it. It’s an entirely cost free position that, so far anyway, is working like a charm.

So, no. I don’t feel the need to advance our Code Brown independent vote counter past 0. That happens in the unlikely event of his taking a difficult stand, one clearly against the leadership’s wishes. When FOXnews hollers about a vote, or he’s forced to apologize for some perceived slight, or prostrate himself before Rush: then and only then the 0dometer will advance. And sorry, it’s just not going to happen.

Starve the Beast

Paul Krugman notes that the GOP has collectively been working for around three decades to bring on the catastrophic nexus, “preparing the ground” for the moment at which they can cut wildly popular programs like Medicare and Social Security in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” Unfortunately, with that day all but at hand, the GOP finds itself unwilling to pull the trigger and say these long-held beliefs publicly:

At this point, then, Republicans insist that the deficit must be eliminated, but they’re not willing either to raise taxes or to support cuts in any major government programs. And they’re not willing to participate in serious bipartisan discussions, either, because that might force them to explain their plan — and there isn’t any plan, except to regain power.

Absolutely right. And but Krugman goes on to note in today’s column that the state of the California health insurance system generally and the recent Anthem move to raise rates by ~30% specifically put to lie everything the GOP is saying about national health insurance reforms:

some claim that health costs would fall dramatically if only insurance companies were allowed to sell policies across state lines. But California is already a huge market, with much more insurance competition than in other states; unfortunately, insurers compete mainly by trying to excel in the art of denying coverage to those who need it most. And competition hasn’t averted a death spiral. So why would creating a national market make things better?

More broadly, conservatives would have you believe that health insurance suffers from too much government interference. In fact, the real point of the push to allow interstate sales is that it would set off a race to the bottom, effectively eliminating state regulation. But California’s individual insurance market is already notable for its lack of regulation, certainly as compared with states like New York — yet the market is collapsing anyway.

Finally, there have been calls for minimalist health reform that would ban discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions and stop there. It’s a popular idea, but as every health economist knows, it’s also nonsense. For a ban on medical discrimination would lead to higher premiums for the healthy, and would, therefore, cause more and bigger death spirals.

So California’s woes show that conservative prescriptions for health reform just won’t work.

To which we say: yep, even though Krugman starts with a straw-man in there. Some? How about “GOP leaders in the House and Senate say” or any other construction there? Some? That’s Bush league usage.

But, I think the synthesis of these two articles is what actually provides the way forward. We’ve said it before: Democrats can’t bring themselves to move good policy and the GOP categorically can’t resist bad policy, so combine the two. Spend a few years “preparing the ground” just as the GOP did on forcing government into the present fiscal situation in hopes of eviscerating the New Deal once and for all. Make it such that, when the inevitable happens, the end result will require the desired policy solution.
This means that you just pass into law the super-popular and death-spiral inducing community rating and tack on whatever meaningless and ineffective tort and state-lines “reform” the GOP wants to make that poison pill pass. Both sides celebrate. Then wait five years. Even conservatives agree that:

the country will face a choice: allow the numbers of uninsured to continue shooting up, or enroll more and more people directly in taxpayer-funded government insurance plans.

At the collapse of health insurance in this country, the GOP will be forced to roll out Medicare for all; after all, there will be no functional private insurance industry left to protect. Even the very rich will be priced out. Nothing gets the GOP’s attention more quickly than a situation like that.
Just think of the day that Single Payer is finally signed into law by President Palin. Likewise, the new Democratic majority will return to a Senate free from the filibuster as, everyone knows, that will be the first thing to go once the GOP is back in charge over there.

Somewhere, off in the distance, a dog barked.

For what it’s worth, if [A. Joseph Stack] had somehow survived, he should’ve been read his Miranda rights and tried in a civilian court. He should not have been tortured. These people are small and we – and our traditions and values – are big. They lose when we remember that, and they win when we forget it. Yesterday, they lost. An act of terrorism was committed, but we were not terrorized.

Ezra Klein on the Austin IRS domestic terrorist attack. Amen, brother.

Lee Fucking Marvin

Lee Marvin: “What?”
Michelle Triola: “I said Jean Seberg has good insides,” Michelle said.
Lee Marvin: “Jesus Christ, I’m living with a dyke!” Marvin said. Whistle! Pop! “My ex-wife had something about Playboy when I read it”
Michelle Triola: “Playboy exploits women,” Michelle said. “Women’s liberation is against Playboy.”
Lee Marvin: “Against Playboy?” Marvin said. “Whyever more?”
Michelle Triola: “It exploits women,” Michelle said. “It presents women as sex objects.”
Lee Marvin: “Why not?” Marvin said. “Take a snatch away from a broad and what’s she got left?” Marvin spread his legs and breathed deeply.” Oh me oh my, why must I be a sex symbol? Why won’t they let me act?”

Are you an American who was earning less in 2007 than in 2000? The document has nothing to say to you.

  • Did you lose your home or job or savings in the crisis of 2008-2009? Blank to you.

  • Are you worried about the loss of your health insurance – or how you will pay for nursing care for your aged parents – or what 20% youth unemployment will mean for your newly graduated child’s life chances? Not our department.

  • Do you wonder whether we are winning or losing the war on terror? Do you want an explanation for why it took so long for a conservative administration to react to military disaster? No answers here.

  • Do you generally agree with conservatives – but wonder whether there is room in the conservative world for nonwhites, or the disabled, or the secular-minded, or the gay? The statement does not say “no,” but it does not say “yes” either.

  • What about the environment? Economic competition from China? The moral implications of the biotech revolution? Illegal immigration? Educational standards? Well – what about them?

The document answers one question and one question only. If you agree that Barack Obama is engaged in a deliberate and relentless attack on the American constitutional order, well be assured: the conservative establishment is on your side. But if you think those worries are a hysterical distraction from the country’s actual problems? To you, the conservative world says: go away. We have nothing to offer you.

David Frum, a Conservative I Can Believe In, discussing this
nonsensical Mt. Vernon Statement

[What often goes unmentioned is] the extent to which the deficit hysterics are also deficit peacocks. They’re full of bombast, and eager to shoot down anything that might reduce unemployment. But when it comes to serious proposals to bring the long-run fiscal outlook under control — which means, above all, doing something about health care costs — all we get is the sound of crickets chirping.

Paul Krugman