Right now we have a retirement system that has the great virtue of not being intrusive: Social Security doesn’t demand that you prove you need it, doesn’t ask about your personal life, doesn’t make you feel like a beggar. And now we’re going to replace that with a system in which large numbers of Americans have to plead for special dispensation, on the grounds that they’re too feeble to work for a living. Freedom!
10-2006 McCain: “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it,” McCain said in October 2006 to an audience of Iowa State University students.
Early 2010 McCain: [Gates told the Armed Services Committee, “I fully support the president’s decision.”] In response, McCain declared himself “disappointed” in the testimony. “At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” he said bluntly, before describing it as “imperfect but effective.”
11-30-2010 McCain: In all due respect, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not directly in charge of the troops. The Secretary of Defense is a political appointee who’s never been in the military. And the president, obviously, has had no background or experience in the military whatsoever. […] I’m paying attention to the commandant of the Marine Corps.
Lemkin: Good to know who we’re going to for military policy, this week, anyway. What happens when the commandant comes around? For all of Obama’s minor flaws, it’s good to remember that putting up with Movin’ Them Goalposts, McFlipflopper McCain would have been utterly unbearable.
…because it is always 1980, right wingers are incapable of seeing that monetary policy functions very, very differently in an inflationary and a deflationary environment. They seem utterly incapable of comprehending constraints like the zero-bound problem, which sets a floor on how low interest rates can go. They are also incapable of seeing the exchange value of the dollar except in macho terms, which demands that the dollar be strong at all times. […] [The dollar] must be allowed to adjust freely for changes in supply and demand or the result will be imbalances–too much will be imported if the dollar is overvalued, too little exports, thus increasing American’s international indebtedness. Indeed, it was right wing saint Milton Friedman who taught economists the truth of this mechanism.
[…]
The sad thing is that Pence at least spent five minutes [on monetary policy]; most other Republicans don’t appear to have spent even that much. They just have interns watch Kudlow’s show and write down whatever slogan was highlighted and then repeat it.
In which TechCrunch tells us about their browser stats. It’s sort of moderately amazing that Chrome is (already) edging out Firefox, but what I find most astounding, the thing that 2003 me would not have believed at all, is that Safari is third. Even more amazing: the article notes that 10% of Safari’s score is coming from the Mobile Safari variant, meaning iOS devices like iPhone and iPad.
tl;dr: Mobile Safari is now within striking distance of IE, and Safari as a whole is cleaning its clock, at least within the obviously gadget-obsessed demographic that reads the source. Let’s all pause to reflect on that for a few moments, because it’s fairly incredible, especially when you count the number of sites (and tech-support scripts) out there still “optimized” for IE6.
…conservatives and Republicans who had no problem with strong-arm security measures back in the Bush 43 days but are upset now. Charles Krauthammer is the classic example: forthrightly defending torture as, in limited circumstances, a necessary tool against terrorism, yet now outraged about “touching my junk” as a symbol of the intrusive state.
Paul Begala: Yes but I do think his point about capitulating [and just offering up a freeze on federal pay] rather than negotiating is a valid one with this president. The pay freeze is probably a good idea but should have come out of negotiation. What do the Republicans give, when the president gives…
Gloria Borger: Why not give something first though? People don’t like government and this is an easy gimme for the president.
Begala: What are the Republicans proposing? Then you get it on the Republicans turf. Why don’t you say I’ll freeze federal pay and cut this in return for this and that program but you guys need to come with taxes on the rich at least say people who make over a million bucks don’t get a tax cut. My Lord …
Borger: Well maybe there’s something else he can negotiate.
Digby: I’m sure there is. Why not throw in debtor’s prisons? It wouldn’t be enough to totally appease [the Republicans], but it would go a long way toward proving they are “responsible.”
John Kampfner makes some excellent points about the media’s own docility in the face of institutional power being what’s ultimately behind their suspicion of and outright derision towards Wikileaks:
All governments have a legitimate right to protect national security. This should be a specific, and closely scrutinised, area of policy. Most of our secrecy rules are designed merely to protect politicians and officials from embarrassment. Documents are habitually over-classified for this purpose.
[…]
Rather than throwing stones, newspapers should be asking themselves why they did not have the wherewithal to hold truth to power.
Bruce Schneier gives a cogent opinion:
Exactly two things have made airplane travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers they need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money. Add screening of checked bags and airport workers and we’re done. Take all the rest of the money and spend it on investigation and intelligence.
This is exactly right, though it clearly elides the cesspool that our investigation and intelligence apparatus currently is, a critical problem that the government shows zero interest in taking on.
The 9/11 Commission pointed it out and the reaction has been to add another layer or two of middle managers and most definitely not to drain the swamp and rebuild a reactive and reasonably transparent national intelligence apparatus. Easier just to scan our junk, I guess. Kick all other cans down the road and then roundly blame the other party when the next big (but plainly avoidable) intelligence failure happens.
It’s like eating a spoonful of Drano: Sure, it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside.
If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation […] want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. […] Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Lemkin 