Sabotage, Detailed

... If you look back at recent monthly data ... you’ll see that this particular green shoot should have poked through the ground months ago, but was stymied by the GOP’s debt ceiling hostage drama. ...

That’s a year’s worth of data. Taken in the context of the collapse of the credit bubble, it’s a pretty small blip ... But it’s a pretty big hit to a fragile recovery. It was only by November that total consumer credit returned to where it had been before the standoff on Capitol Hill. Look at the graph and you’ll see that the growth we just experienced could have come in July and August in the absence of that fight.

I realize post hoc doesn't necessarily mean propter hoc, and, as I've said many times, I'm no economist. So I leave it to others to confirm or dispose. Still, it's compelling. And, in my mind anyway, there's not the tiniest doubt that the aim of Rs during the debt ceiling posturing was to hurt the country, and therefore Obama, with not the slightest care about anything else but their own power.

Gay Marriage On The Brain

In times like these, it's beyond comprehension that fighting gay marriage continues to be an important rallying point for conservatives. People like Rick Santorum and those who love him make me feel I'm on another planet; their kind of primal pigheadedness on the subject (to put it more gently than I'm inclined) is as foreign as breathing sulphur.

Never mind "times like these." Why is it an issue at all, ever? In what way does the marriage of Adam and Steve or Ellen and Eve affect anyone else; why do so many people find it in need of outlawing? Outlawing! As I've written about it, and wondered, I think I've danced around the truth of it, tried to bring into focus what, in retrospect, I never fully articulated: if you believe the Bible is the literal word of god, and if your sense of well-being, your very life, in your mind, depends on it; and if you observe that gay marriage is acceptable to some -- to anyone -- then your world falls apart, the props underneath it crumble away. Here's a piece that says, much better than I ever did, what I'd been trying to say, trying to understand. The fact is, it's not about rationality at all, and rational questions are irrelevant:

... Santorum and other homophobes cannot speak frankly because their real motivations are private, emotional, and incoherent. It’s not as though Santorum dispassionately selected Catholicism from a menu of religious ideologies. He believes because he feels. Even before his wife’s miscarriage (in 1996), before his political career, some concatenation of circumstances installed what some have called religious “software” in his brain. Things are good when religion is dominant, bad when it is not. This is the truth of his experience.

I’m reminded of a story told by Tim LaHaye, notorious author of the apocalyptic “Left Behind” series. LaHaye was ten years old when his father died, and obviously devastated by the loss. As LaHaye tells it, it was during a pastor’s eulogy for his father that he truly came to believe. The pastor explained how his father was now in heaven with Jesus, and the young LaHaye knew this to be true, felt it to be true. Indeed, he must have wished it to be true as well. Of course he did; what ten-year-old boy wouldn’t?

That, not evolution or homosexuality or any other point of dogma, is the real issue for people like LaHaye, Santorum, and Chambers: the fundamental comfort that religion provides. If people evolved from apes, according to this logic, Timmy LaHaye’s father is not in heaven with Jesus and Rick Santorum’s son died for no reason.

And this is why we cannot argue with people who subscribe to this framework: there is simply too much at stake for them. They have wedded their fundamental sense of okay-ness to the truthfulness of a set of doctrines. Not only is sociology not at issue for Rick Santorum, Romans isn’t either. What is at stake is his very sense that the world is a good place, that things are basically okay, and that he himself is okay as a result. That may be expressed in a theological framework, but it is a psychological reality. If I marry my partner, therefore, Rick Santorum is not okay...

The phrases bolded by me distill it perfectly. But if they answer the question, they also suggest there's no hope, ever, for changing minds of people like Santorum. If belief in your god is the only barrier between you and emotional collapse, and if that belief says homosexuality is against your god, nothing -- no science, no studies; in short, no reality -- will change your view. The only hope, I guess, is that there are enough emotionally-healthier people out there to keep reason alive. It's an open question. In my state, the (outgoing) governor has just announced her support for legislation legalizing gay marriage. Already the self-righteous initiatives are being filed against it.

The author of the above article ends with a thought that, given the truth of what he'd previously argued, might just be whistling in the dark:

The fake secularism, the fake science, the bogus constructions of homosexuality—all of these are so transparently false because they are mere props. As one after another of them collapse, anti-gays will eventually be left only with their convictions, and the reasons why they have them. Perhaps only then, echoing Portnoy’s therapist, might we say “Now vee may perhaps to begin.”

Lasted More Than Four Hours

In case it hasn't been obvious on its face to everyone but teabaggers, here's but one example of the stupidity of the oft-heard Republican claim that American health care coverage is already universal, because we have emergency rooms for the uninsured.

TEXAS CITY — A woman injured in a wreck by a wrong-way driver claims a hospital’s $20,211 fee is unreasonable for four hours of examination and diagnostic tests.

[...]

According to Torres’ court filing, her hospital chart showed her total treatment time was 4 hours and 2 minutes.

“She was not admitted as an inpatient, and her treatment consisted of an examination and diagnostic testing,” the filing claims.

The hospital filed a lien on her property in Galveston County, the filing claims.

I can tell you -- and so can anyone else in the medical profession or anyone who's made a trip to the ER -- that this is anything but a singular experience. And yet the impenetrable wall of noise from the RWS™ and Fox "news" drowns out what ought to be easily-understood reality. Hence, unencumbered by any voice of reason from our so-called "liberal" media, and ineffectively retorted by D politicians, R candidates, to a man, proudly proclaim -- to the cheers of those most at risk of medical bankruptcy in their lifetimes -- their plans to undo The Affordable Care Act the minute they plunk their asses in the Oval Office.

Best health care in the world. What a country!

Job Creators

The above is based on these data. Any questions?

And, as long as we're doing charts, here's (big surprise) the projected effects of Romney's tax plan:

It's the same old shit, done during every era of the red part of the first graph. So, let's just sit back, relax, and let the jobs roll in, right?

Fair's Unfair

Just because Mitt Romney lies the way the rest of humanity urinates (freely, standing, sitting, asleep, awake, in dribbles, in great geysers), and just because he famously takes Obama's words out of context the way other people take out the papers and the trash, it doesn't mean it's okay when lefties take Romney's words out of context -- Romnification is bad no matter who does it.

So let me say that this sudden ecstasy over Mitt's saying "I like to be able to fire people" is pretty pathetic. Fact is, when he said it he was making a point about competitiveness, about choice in health care; fact is, when he said it, I thought it was a decent argument against single-payer. Unconvincing.* But, given the power of sound bite over complexity, potentially effective. (To be fair to lefties, they're not the only ones doing the piling on.) I also thought it was a dumb way to put it, since he ought to know better than anyone how words get used against people: he's the Platonic ideal of doing so. (And, like diarrhea follows salmonella ingestion, he complained that "Obama people" like to take things out of context. The man has no shame.)

Nevertheless, I hate it when it's done, no matter by whom or to whom. It speaks ill of the distorters, and it speaks ill of our "system," wherein such manipulations are expected (because it's true) to be effective: voters nowadays, most of them anyway, can't be bothered to look behind the rhetoric.

Meanwhile, it's nice to see the message of "Occupy Wall Street" is finally getting through:

"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful or rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, in fact, somehow, a little bit of a flawed system," he said to a packed audience of reporters in Manchester. "So I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and leaving behind a factory that should be there."

Quoth .... wait for it .... Newt "I will BE the nóminy" Friggin' Gingrich, abandoning conservative principles (while inadvertently acknowledging what OWS has been all about) to criticize Mitt.

_______________________________

* Here's a few responses from people who gave it more thought than I did.

Preview Of Coming Attractions

[click image to enlarge.]

Of course, all of the R presidential candidates are sensible. And that "50% want another war" thing? After all we've seen, the horrific costs, the physical and mental* destruction of the troops who fight them, surely, despite the constant fear-mongering of the RWS™, the transparent propaganda of Fox "news," the obvious lies of the candidates that minimally thoughtful people must see through, right?, exceptional Americans all: couldn't possibly be true, right?

So we're good.

___________________

*Read the link to the end. Tip of the deep and deadly iceberg: how many more damaged young people are coming home from our neocon adventures? But, oh, how RWS™ love war; especially those (virtually all of them!) who never served.

Iowa

Saw the above on The Dish. Unnecessarily profane in a couple of places, but otherwise a nice insight.

And here's something even more interesting: that caucus over which political watchers gratify themselves relentlessly every time it happens? This year it garnered the votes of 5.4% of registered Iowans. Long run for a short slide, huh?

Who Is This Guy?

Gone, it seems, is the wishy-washy guy some have seen in the White House. Awake, it would appear, is he to the fact that there's nothing -- not a damn thing -- he could do around which Rs and RWS™ would not rally against him. Now, we're talking.

With the frothy... spittle still a-foamin' on the chins of the screamers after President Obama made the bold and absolutely necessary move to make a recess appointment to the consumer protection bureau, he's done something the crazies will see, even more, as evil incarnate: he's making rational and needed cuts in the Pentagon budget. The Pentafriggingon! Budget!!

Whatever else it might or might not be, it's damn brave; a clear-cut placement of the needs of the country above his own political future. Because only the most doctrinaire of right-wing zealots think we can balance the budget only by cutting needed services, necessary functions such as education, infrastructure, research, and all of the things now threatened out of existence by R economic policies. Along with cuts in some domestic spending, and raising some revenue, cuts in military spending -- which is and will remain more than twice as much as the next spender, and double the percent of GDP of any country except Saudi Arabia, who spends most of their money buying our stuff -- are absolutely unavoidable and necessary.

But forget reality: let the accusations begin. He's deliberately weakening us so our enemies (of whom he's been a part since his foreign birth and secret upbringing, planned by his overlords since pre-conception, probably including some sort of microchip implantation) can produce Sharia law in every township and crossroads. Right under our noses. Before we know what hit us. (Question for the conspiracy theorists out there: if it were true, wouldn't he wait until he was reelected?)

You can be sure it'll be on Mitt's lips even as I type: Obama hates America. Doesn't believe in it. What better proof than streamlining our military, focusing less on unnecessary wars and more on counter-terrorism and intelligence gathering? The bastard!

It's An Outrage, I Tell You.

Hey. Have you heard the latest?? Obama has made another recess appointment. "Unprecedented," Rs are crying. A blatant power grab, they scream. Why, it's just, it's horrible, it's....



Never mind. [click image to enlarge]

And let's not forget what this is really about: Rs hate the fact that the consumer protection agency became law. Law. Passed by duly elected members of Congress, signed by the president. In filibustering Mr Cordray, they are, in effect, subverting the law of the land. Why? Simply because they don't like it.

That's the R version of democracy for you. That's the constitutional issue. Which action more threatens the working of government as designed by the Founding Fathers (of whose genetic material, like a vulpine sperm bank, they claim exclusive ownership) and enshrined on parchment?

[Update: here's the serious work Congress is doing, by way of claiming it's not in recess. Who's playing games, and who's governing?]

Theory

Fact: Pat Robertson says God has told him who'll be the next president. (Refuses to spill. No one asks him to write it down and hand it over to a third party for safe-keeping.)

Fact: Only moments after announcing he was going home to Texas to reassess his campaign, Rick Perry says it's on to South Carolina.

Theory: Pat gave Rick a call and told him God says he's good to go.

I Wonder...

A plurality of people think the present Congress stinks, consider it among the worst ever. (Proving whatever it is that it proves, 1% claim it's been fabulously fabulous.) So. The question is, will they reelect those hidebound, doctrinaire, conspiratorial, uninformed, hypocritical, phony and self-centered newbies who've made it the worst ever; or will they be persuaded that, in the name of actually dealing with our most serious issues, they need to dis-elect the obstructionist lunatics and put in place people with brains that are functioning and minds that are open? I think the answer is pretty clear.

No.

A couple hundred times no.

The electorate have proved beyond doubt -- enough of them, anyway -- that they'd rather ignore stuff, pretend there are simplistic answers even when they've been discredited; that politics have become like religion -- for them, it is religion -- in that the need to believe the unbelievable overrides everything else, including reality. So, no. A few million times no.

And while we're at it, since it looks very possible the Rs will take a majority in the Senate (and, gods help us, the White House could soon be occupied by a guy with no core [political] beliefs other than the willingness to lie about everything to get there), there are two questions to the answers to which I sort of look forward (like looking forward to the scary parts of a movie, to get them over with): 1) will the Ds muster the cynicism of Rs and filibuster everything they propose, the way Rs have done, unprecedentedly, to the Ds; and 2) if they do, will Mitch McConnell scream like someone who screams a lot and demand, as he did when GWB was president, "an up or down vote" on everything? Without the slightest twinge of self-consciousness?

And, since 1) and 2) are really mostly one question, here's another: When Ds do filibuster and Mitch does cry like someone who cries a lot, will the teabaggRs think there's sort of a double standard at work? Or will they, like the leaders they love, flip their morality like it was a pareidoliac pancake?

Cri de Coeur

The above is from another blog, quoting Eric Erickson, Red State guru, as the Iowa results trickle in. Almost makes you feel sorry for the poor bastards, doesn't it?

Except it doesn't. Conservatives stopped deserving sympathy when George the First left office, and Karl Rove became their paragon.

Why I Might Not Survive This Election

“I think President Obama wants to make us a European-style welfare state,” said Romney. “Instead of being a merit society, we’re an entitlement society, where government’s role is to take from some to give to others. What I know is that if they do that, they’ll substitute envy for ambition. And they’ll poison the very spirit of America and keep us from being one nation under God.”

I simply can't read shit like that without wanting to shoot my computer.

Nutcase In A Nutshell

Hey, watch this! It's absolutely perfectly illustrative -- the perfect distillation -- of how the right-wing scream machine works: ignore facts. Deny facts. Demand the exclusion of facts from the whole conversation. Anything to keep the false narrative alive.

And do so with the confidence that your sheeplike followers, having been beaten into submission by your constant peddling of fear and hate and lies, won't bother to know the truth. Won't want to know it. Won't even care. Because, as we see daily, they won't and they won't and they won't.

New Year Greeting

For the new year, I've turned off the word verification requirement for comments. (That'll affect about four people on the planet, but still...) It doesn't seem to stop spam, is somewhat of a pain in the ass for readers, and I'll still moderate comments.

BFD, right?