Not Good

I suppose time will tell, after arguments and counter-arguments, more books, more evidence and spin. But I don't like the implications of this book, if true:

Mr. Nasr said that he refrained from publishing his new book before the United States election in November to avoid the impression that he was trying to meddle in the American political debate. “I did not want it to be a political book,” he said. 

Having returned to university life, Mr. Nasr said he thought it was important to provide his analysis of policy decisions to counter the view that the time for an activist foreign policy has past. 

And his verdict on the United States’ handling of the war he worked on at the State Department is harsh. “The precepts were how to make the conduct of this war politically safe for the administration rather than to solve the problem in a way that would protect America’s long-run national security interests,” he said.

There's a very lengthy excerpt from the book, here. (Requires free sign-up.) My inclination, of course, is to give President Obama a certain measure of doubt-benefit. The wars weren't his initial doing, and each presented nothing but impossible choices. Still, I'd have hoped, at minimum, that he'd have been able to collect a team that would rise above the clichés of para-presidential power struggles and gamesmanship.

On the other hand, Barack Obama has said from the beginning that he'd end the war in Iraq, and he did; and he's said for years that combat will end by 2014 in Afghanistan, and that seems on track. Is the infighting and turf protection just another way of describing legitimate disagreement and back and forth argument? Is it the inevitable accompaniment to finding solutions to the solutionless? Is the writer embittered for not being closer to the center of it? I don't know.

It'd take a lot to convince me we'd have been better off with John McCain as president. But I still don't like reading it.

[Image source]

Conversation

I find myself uncertain about this sequester thing. There's certainly been heat leading up to it: accusations, lies, bad reporting, exaggerations from both sides, maybe. I've been saying for as long as I've been writing (and President Obama has been saying the same) that budgetary balance would require giving from both sides, and that it would need to include revenue as well as cuts. And that the cuts would need to come from the military budget as well as from domestic spending.

So in some sense this isn't entirely different from what I've thought was needed. The problem, as I see it, is that in the sequester the domestic cuts are wrongly aimed at the most vulnerable and, not coincidentally, at the least politically powerful. The kind of cuts I've advocated were aimed at reconciling such benefits as Medicare and Social Security with need.

My guess is the military will be fine; in fact, I'd say there's more cutting to be done there. Not that it'll happen. We need to eliminate the cap on income subject to Social Security withholding. Not that it'll ever happen. We need to charge more for or lower Medicare benefits to those making above a certain level of income, or having a certain level of net wealth. Not that it'll ever happen. We need to specify the magical mystery loopholes of Romney and Ryan fame and get rid of them. Not that it'll ever happen.

What we really need to do is have that much referenced "national conversation" about what we consider the current and future needs of a functioning society, one which acknowledges certain unpleasant truths: such as the fact that in such a diverse society there will always be people in need of help; and the fact that it costs money to provide stuff that most people consider important. Schools, roads, cops... The conversation ought to include realistic assessment of what the needs are and best guesses at what they'll cost, now, and in the future; and it should ask what are the fairest and most effective ways to collect the money to pay for them. People will need to be made to understand that even if they've gotten what they need already, a functioning and continuing society needs to provide the same things for the next generation, and that those who no longer need it still are obliged, as Americans, to play their part.

Not that it'll ever happen.

[Image source]

Column

Here's my weekly column that's appearing today in our local paper.

Putting on my doctor hat again, for an oxymoron alert: “Alternative Medicine.” There’s no such thing. If a treatment is effective, it’s not alternative medicine, it’s medicine. “Alternative,” in other words, means either ineffective or untested. Colon cleansing. Liver flushes. Detoxification. Various “natural” concoctions. Homeopathy. Chiropractors (appearing between miracle cloth and car wax at county fairs) for anything except back problems. 

Ridiculous on its face, homeopathy might be the most risible of them all: potions of supposed disease-causing material, diluted to non-existence, given as treatment. Not only is it an idea born in a vacuum; it’s been tested repeatedly, and found to be no more effective than placebo (“sugar pills.”) I’ve been known to criticize today’s Republicans over their recently acquired distaste for facts. But this is among the things that bug me about many liberals. For some reason, they trust this stuff with the same credulity as followers of our huckster native son, Glenn Beck, buy his weepy fear mongering. And not just liberal “civilians.” Tom Harkin, Democratic Senator from Iowa, has shepherded millions of taxpayer dollars into researching this baloney. And when the results, predictably, showed it to be just that, he didn’t stop. 

Our minds are at once spectacularly creative and mystifyingly fallible. Or maybe it’s all the same: when things get too tough to handle, we can head for the heuristic hills, make stuff up to feel better. This tendency is manipulable, for good and for bad. (For non-medical “bad,” see Rush Limbaugh, to identify someone other than Fox “news” for a change.) As a military doc, I treated lots of aches and pains. Back then there was a great pill, called Parafon Forte. Touted for muscle spasms, it was a real showstopper: not only did the very name scream potency; it was a honking horse pill. And it was green! And eight-sided, like a STOP sign!! Testing eventually showed it to be about as effective as placebo, but boy did it look the part. When I ordered it, I’d write “No Refill!!!” on the prescription. (I used it when nothing stronger was needed; and before its minimal effectiveness was known.) Was I calling upon the placebo effect? Sure. But at least I knew it. I don’t think that’s true of dispensers of, or believers in, “alternative” medicine, which, to the extent that it works, does so the way Parafon did. Despite an immense body of proof, they deny that. 

I guess so-called complementary medicine is different. Unlike alternative medicine, which represents itself as something to be followed instead of mainstream (i.e., tested and proved) medicine, “complementary” treatments are promoted as adjuncts to it. When my patients asked me about such things, I never discouraged them, as long as they were also following a sensible plan. When it comes to meditation or massage or other relaxation techniques, why not? Acupuncture? Certain kinds of nerve stimulation can lessen pain, which makes its usefulness theoretically possible. But in most studies comparing it to sham poking, it’s no better. Reiki, well, I guess it’s really just massage; so okay. But the touchless kind? Manipulating Qi? Gimme a break! Pure placebo. Which is not to say entirely useless. But let’s recognize what it is: Parafon. 

I readily acknowledge that modern, research-based medicine is imperfect. But it constantly questions its own claims, and self-corrects as evidence demands. Better drugs, operations, approaches are appearing all the time. Alternative medicine, for the most part, doesn’t change. For centuries, in some cases. To its credit, our local bastion of naturopathy, Bastyr University, has occasionally conducted credible testing. Echinacea, they found, for example, doesn’t prevent or shorten colds. Elsewhere, ginger has been shown to be effective in treating nausea. Which makes it medicine. Like aspirin, discovered in willow bark. 

I always tried to promote a positive outlook: although studies show it has no effect on cure, it speeds recovery from treatments. If any modality helps that, it’s a good thing. So where’s the harm, you ask? Here: Several years ago this newspaper reported the story of a woman who’d previously had breast cancer successfully treated by standard therapy. Years later, when cancer arose in the other breast, she chose alternative treatment from a crackpot doctor in Seattle. The glowing and credulous three-part series ended with contact info for the charlatan. What wasn’t covered, except in the usual way, was the obituary it ran several months later.

[Image source]

Some Facts

I'm no Nobel Prize winning mind, but when yet another Nobelified economist says everything I've thought was true about our economic situation, I begin to think I might be right. It's so succinct I'm reprinting it in full, possibly breaking a rule, if not a guideline. It's by Robert Solow, appearing here, in the NYT:

THE significance of America’s national debt is a serious question, but you would not know this from the current political rhetoric, which consists mostly of vague apocalyptic warnings. I want to present a calmer view, by emphasizing six facts about the debt that many Americans may not be aware of. 

Roughly half of outstanding debt owed to the public, now $11.7 trillion, is owned by foreigners. This part of the debt is a direct burden on ourselves and future generations. Foreigners are entitled to receive interest and principal and can use those dollars to acquire goods and services produced here. If our government had used borrowed money to improve infrastructure or to improve the skills of workers, the resulting extra production would have made repayment easier. Instead, over the last decade, it used the money for wars and tax cuts. 

The Treasury owes dollars, America’s own currency (unlike Greece or Italy, whose debt is denominated in euros). So the Treasury can always make payments when due — unless it is prevented from doing so by political blackmail over the statutory debt limit, which is now due to be reached in May. Notwithstanding the unprecedented credit-rating downgrade by Standard & Poor’s in 2011, no foreign lenders realistically expect us to default. If they did, they would be insisting on higher interest rates, which they aren’t. Of course, if we were stupid enough to default even once, the cost of borrowing would go much higher, for a long time. 

One way to effectively repudiate our debt is to encourage inflation. When prices rise, interest and principal are repaid in dollars that are worth less than they were when they were borrowed. (This applies to Treasury’s borrowing at home as well as abroad.) The Federal Reserve has promised to keep buying bonds and to maintain near-zero interest rates until unemployment eases, a strategy that some fear could lead to uncontrolled inflation, though there is no indication so far that that will happen. 

Treasury bonds owned by Americans are different from debt owed to foreigners. Debt owed to American households, businesses and banks is not a direct burden on the future. Of course the payments of interest and principal are a burden on current and future taxpayers, but they will ultimately be received by American people and organizations, many of them taxpayers. Some of our grandchildren would be paying off others of our grandchildren; the result will be a net transfer from American taxpayers to American bondholders. 

The real burden of domestically owned Treasury debt is that it soaks up savings that might go into useful private investment. Savers own Treasury bonds because they are seen as safe, default-free assets, and the government can borrow at lower rates than corporations can. If there were less debt, and fewer bonds for sale, savers seeking higher returns would invest in corporate bonds or stocks instead. Business investment would expand and be more profitable. 

But in bad times like now, Treasury bonds are not squeezing finance for investment out of the market. On the contrary, debt-financed government spending adds to the demand for privately produced goods and services, and the bonds provide a home for the excess savings. When employment returns to normal, we can return to debt reduction.
In the long run we need a clear plan to reduce the ratio of publicly held debt to national income. But for now the best chance to reinvigorate the economy, spur business investment and encourage consumer spending is through public borrowing and spending. Instead, we’re heading into an ill-advised, across-the-board austerity program. (Bold, of me.)

Can't comment on the inflation part, which seems like a sword with at least two edges; but the rest makes sense.

[Image source]

Another One Bites The Dust

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

In recent years I'd already begun to think the burnish on Bob Woodward had become a little hazy, but this latest incident has removed whatever admiration I had for his journalism. And I don't mean the fact that he's been wrong about who did what to whom in the sequester nonsense, or where the goal posts are. It's his claim that he was threatened by the White House. Reading the email exchange in question, it's clearly not a matter of innocent misinterpretation. The man has deliberately gone to right-wing crazies and lied. And severely edited his characterization, to boot. Is there no right-winger anymore who isn't a raging asshole and a deliberate liar? Is there no conservative "journalist" (as Sean Hannity, to whom Bob Wayward ran, likes to characterize himself) who'd check things out before raging at the president? Here's the primary source, in part:

Bob:
I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. My bad. I do understand your problems with a couple of our statements in the fall — but feel on the other hand that you focus on a few specific trees that gives a very wrong perception of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. 

But I do truly believe you should rethink your comment about saying saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim. The idea that the sequester was to force both sides to go back to try at a big or grand barain with a mix of entitlements and revenues (even if there were serious disagreements on composition) was part of the DNA of the thing from the start. It was an accepted part of the understanding — from the start...

So not only was it not a threat, it was a claim that because he was clearly wrong in his reporting, he'd regret having said what he said. As a reporter. Being embarrassed. Not because of retaliation. Because he was wrong. How threatened did poor Bobbie feel? Well, here's how he responded to the outrage, poor little maligned fellow: 

Gene: You do not ever have to apologize to me. You get wound up because you are making your points and you believe them. This is all part of a serious discussion. I for one welcome a little heat; there should more given the importance. I also welcome your personal advice. I am listening. I know you lived all this. My partial advantage is that I talked extensively with all involved. I am traveling and will try to reach you after 3 pm today. Best, Bob

Boy, does that ever sound like a guy who'd been threatened, right? You can practically smell the fear.

Naturally, and per usual, without knowing the facts but leaping at the chance, Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™ have picked it up like dog poop in a little blue bag and run with it to the garbage bin of their listeners' heads, who'll think the stink is perfume.

Meanwhile, Woodward has revealed himself to be a shallow and partisan opportunist. And really stupid. Did he think the emails would never surface? Journalism. Liberal media. What a bunch of bullshit. What a sorry statement of who we are and where we're headed.

I will admit, though, that after the above was revealed, some of the RWS™ cooled off a bit. Not Fox, of course. Let's see if we hear from Laura Ingraham, who compared Obama's "threats" to Soviet Russia.

[Image source]

So Much For Originalism

Antonin Scalia is revered by the hard-core rightists for his self-described and oft-touted Constitutional "originalism." Funny thing about that: in the arguments regarding the Voting Rights Act, the dishonesty of that view of him was revealed. Not that it hadn't already, many times, as he's steadily dropped any pretense of political impartiality over the years.

The Reagan-appointed jurist said lawmakers keep reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act out of fear of political repercussions. In a sarcastic tone, he described it as odd that congressional renewal has passed with growing margins over the years in spite of the fact that racism is widely acknowledged to have become less severe in the covered jurisdictions since 1965.

The core struggle in the case is between the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, and the 15th Amendment, which tasks Congress with enforcing a ban on discriminatory voting laws.
Scalia signaled that he fears Section 5 will be repeatedly reauthorized into perpetuity, regardless of whether it’s justified, unless the courts step in.
“This is not the kind of question you can leave to Congress,” he said. (Emphasis added.)

Yeah, well, see, the thing is, turns out the Constitution has actually weighed in on the matter:

Amendment XV: “SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”  (Emphasis added again, in case the point is too subtle.)

What a phony asshole. Who me, legislate from the bench?

[Image source]

The Two Brains Of Humankind

(I wrote this a while back but never published it. With no inspiration for today as we await whatever happens vis a vis the sequester, I've dug it up.)

Here's but a partial snippet from the summary portion of a comprehensive report on climate change, involving 240 scientists, who, according to deniers like a certain two-initialled reader here, must all be in cahoots for as-yet unspecified reasons.

Report Findings 

Global climate is changing, and this is apparent across the U.S. in a wide range of observations. The climate change of the past 50 years is due primarily to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels. 

[...] 

Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and there is new and stronger evidence that many of these increases are related to human activities. 

 [...]

Human-induced climate change is projected to continue and accelerate significantly if emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to increase. 

[...] 

Impacts related to climate change are already evident in many sectors and are expected to become increasingly challenging across the nation throughout this century and beyond.  

[...] 

Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases transmitted by insects, food, and water, and threats to mental health.

If I could come to understand why it is that climate change denial is exclusive, in this country, to today's Republicans; if I could come to understand why it is that climate change denial, in terms of national policy, is exclusive to the US, I think I'd know everything I've ever wanted to know, and could die unhappy.

Actually, I have a pretty strong inkling: it relates, somehow, in ways I haven't entirely figured out but which seem intuitively correct, to the connection between Christian fundamentalism, Biblical literalism, and the Republican party. There's a mindset that needs to believe certain things, the believing of which requires denying reality. That much, I think, borders on the obvious. It's the "why" that's so puzzling to me. The "what is it about them?" It's as if we're separate subspecies. (I'd say "species," but I know that cross-fertilization, in the genetic -- not cognition -- sense is possible.)

Whatever the explanation, it bodes deeply and widely ill for us as a nation, and, given this nation's influence in the world, as a species. This short-circuited thinking process, this overriding need to deny what's obvious, be it climate change or the age of the earth or economic policy or the nature of sexual preference or the value of torture, has become an unbridgeable gap between the two political parties in general, and between human beings occupying this land, in particular. There's simply no avenue for the meeting of the minds, no bridges between the two versions of reality. Which shouldn't be surprising, given that one version exists, while the other doesn't.

It must be -- and this is part of the mystery -- that human brains have evolved in two separate ways. Maybe at one time it was useful to have separation of powers, as it were: shoot-from-the-hip reactors, tough-guys, no-self-doubters; and planners, creators, think-of-the-consequences sorts. Maybe, for all its impressive powers, the brain, as it was developing, couldn't handle both kinds of thinking, and since both were necessary when, you know, we had to ride on dinosaurs, there was a division of mental labor   which, because it's too late now even though it'd be better if it weren't, is becoming a fatal flaw for humanity.

That which got us though tough times back in the days before the days, is killing us now. One can only hope that whatever sentient beings arise from the literal ashes of our current denialism will find a way to leave magical thinking behind and deal with the world as it is. It might keep life going until the sun goes all nova on us.

[Image source]

Pundit

By a series of unlikely connections, I'm on a list of potential community panelists for Huffington Post Live. Yesterday morning I got a call (from an unknown NYC number; generally I don't pick up unknowns, but I thought it might be from my niece); turns out it was HuffPo asking if I'd like to participate in a panel later that day. A discussion of current events, topics to be determined at the last minute.

Well, I thought, why not. So later that day, around 1 pm local time, I found myself part of a video panel listening in and commenting when asked. First up, high on my list of things I think about, was Kanye West and his statement, hot off the presses, that he doesn't give a fuck what President Obama says. (Obama has twice called him a jackass.) I sat there as the HuffPo entertainment editor was interviewed, offering wisdom about Kanye's psyche, while I barely suppressed the desire to make a well-known hand motion indicating mental masturbation. Eventually I was asked my opinion; is it unusual, the host seemed to be asking, that an entertainer has influence on a president. Influence, I increduled? I think he has zero. I think he's a talented entertainer but I stopped listening to his opinions on anything a long time ago, I added. If he starts talking about how to remove a gallbladder, I might pay attention.

Another topic was the administration's announcement that access to research paid for by taxpayer funds will be freely accessible. Sounds fine to me. A young woman panelist said she thought all internet content should be free, and it's not right that some newspaper sites have a paywall. I said I agreed about taxpayer funded research, but that I didn't think providing high-quality news content for free was a viable business model. Otherwise, I said, you'd just get stuff like my blog, where I shoot off my mouth couple times a day, no charge.

The final topic was about an upcoming PBS show on the Women's Movement, to be aired, I think, tonight. The lady who produced it was interviewed, and was very nice. The host asked me something about whether women could get equal pay in a law firm, or access to med school. To which I replied by saying my grandmother had been the first president of the Oregon League of Women Voters, my aunt had been the first practicing female lawyer in Oregon; so I came from a family in which success for women was assumed. I pointed out that there are more women than men in med school nowadays, and that the place where I got my surgical training recently had a class of surgical interns that was all female. I could have added that the chairman (chairperson) of the department of surgery there is also a woman, but I forgot.

There was another segment about a Craig's List ad for dates to a wedding. At that point I was making faces. I was ready to say my son is getting married next month and I already had a date. But by then, they'd cut me off, I think.

[Image source]

Why We're Screwed, Part Who Knows

On the question of whether budget deficits are getting bigger, smaller, or staying the same, 96% of Americans have it wrong. That rounds off to everyone. Pretty amazing. To what should we attribute such misinformation? How about constant lies and distractions spewing from the right, including but hardly limited to Fox "news." How about the fact that Rs have long since given up even pretending they care about facts? How about teabaggers who take actual fierce pride in not knowing what they're talking about?

Well, sure, those are easy. But 96% includes a lot of Democrats. What is it about them, too? Is it that, rather than making an effort to educate people, President Obama has had to spend his time responding to the idiocy and deceptions of John Boehner, and, just the other day, David Brooks? Is it that our media are so vapid and superficial that such matters take back seat to haircuts?

Whatever the reason, it's clear that not many people pay as much attention as I'd like to think. This stuff is pretty important; yet people simply don't care, or are too lazy to look beyond the crap they're fed, or are too invested in believing falsehoods in order to maintain their sense of self.

Well, I guess the good news is that even if this blog had more readership it still wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. We've become a nation of narrow-minded, unthinking, self-deluding and self-destructive idiots, well past critical mass. Well, I suppose on some level it's freeing.

[Image source]

Compatability

Since my Sunday newspaper column is, once again, on a local matter, I offer instead the above thoughts on the compatibility, or lack thereof, between science and religion. Seems a decent Sunday topic.

I've puzzled many times over the fact that some people I know, doctors of very high caliber (by some definition, scientists), are deeply religious. So it's not exactly true that the two are in all ways incompatible in vivo; observation tells us otherwise. It's just that, in order to be both a scientist (meaning anyone who understands and accepts the scientific method, and one who considers her/himself a realist who prefers to base beliefs and actions on demonstrable fact) and a standard-issue religionist, one has to create certain lacunae of thought, entry into which is self-prohibited.

For those who need it, it seems to work. But it's not really compatibility at work: it's compartmentalization. Like potassium and water: they're fine together, long as you put the potassium in a water-tight box.

And She Can Dance...

Message Fail

I wrote the following for my weekly newspaper column. And then I realized that, having already sent one in for this Sunday, it couldn't be published before the deadline. So I'll just plug it in here, rather than entirely waste the effort. Sorry for a certain redundancy vis a vis a previous post:

Working my way through the “sequester” fiasco as best I can, I conclude it’s a microcosm of everything that’s wrong in D.C. nowadays. And, yes, it reveals much more about the venality of today’s Congressional Republicans than it does about Democrats. Sorry, but when a thing is true, there’s no way to pretend otherwise. 

The sequester, as we’ve all heard by now, is the nonsensical name for the effects of a bipartisan agreement made many months back, in order to get Rs to buy into the Ds temporary fix to an impending fiscal crisis: if Congress couldn’t subsequently get its act together to address our budgetary problems, such drastic cuts would occur – in domestic spending that Ds would abhor, and in defense dollars that Rs would find impossible to countenance – that, surely, they’d act like adults and get to work. Yeah, right. 

Each side claims the monetary high ground at this point: Ds say they’ve offered cuts in domestic spending far beyond what they’d choose,and President Obama says he’s open to more; Rs say that since they agreed to slightly higher taxes on slightly hardly anyone, they’ve done all they need to do. We can argue about how much of which concession is the greater (or we can simply do the math and acknowledge that Ds agreed to far more in cuts than Rs agreed to in revenue.) 

But at this point Rs have taken all further revenue off the table; even the highly touted and lowly specified Romney/Ryan tax loophole closures are no more. It’s up to Ds, they say, to provide a wholly R-centric budget; meaning, they must do it entirely by cuts to get a single R vote, no matter the impact on the economy, or jobs, or our ability to educate our kids, leave them a livable future. We’re done, say the Rs, literally and literally. 

Okay, well, at least they’ve made clear their priorities: lower taxes, despite being half of what they were in the time of their hero, Ronald of Reagan. But what’s most revelatory of who and what they are is their attempt to characterize this sequester as the sole responsibility and fault of Barack Obama. Sure, they fictionalize history as policy (witness their intent to return to the policies that nearly killed us); but have they still not noticed that there are videos nowadays, and detailed records of what happened mere months ago? 

At the time of its inception, the sequester was welcomed as a policy victory by such congressional luminaries as John Boehner and Paul Ryan, the latter considered their finest fiscal mind. A majority of Republicans voted for it: you can look it up. Now, though, as President Obama is pointing out the real consequences of their fiscal intransigence, suddenly they’d have us believe it was rammed down their gullets. That’s the part I find so emblematic of who they are, and who they think their public is: dumb, and dumber. 

Over the last several years, thanks largely to their message maven Frank Luntz, Rs have been undeniably brilliant at messaging, making Orwell’s fiction and Goebbels’ reality look positively incoherent. “The Clear Skies Act, The Patriot Act, Government Takeover Of Healthcare, Death Panels.” But now, as if admitting they’ve run out of ideas or have given up even pretending, they’re using the term “Obamaquester.” Really? From the people who gave us “Death Tax?” That’s the best they can come up with? Doesn’t even scan. 

Pick a number: if the sequester happens, Rs get 87% of the blame. If forced, I’ll go down to 84, but really there’s not much wiggle room. At this point they’ve explicitly ruled out helping, while arguing that they’re innocent as lambs. The facts speak otherwise. But then, since deciding to cling to forty-year-failed Reaganomics, when have facts mattered? 

Boehner wrote an op-ed the other day in which he simultaneously blamed the sequester on Obama, claimed it will wreck the economy, and said he’s fine with letting it happen. Even conservative pundits went slack-jawed over that one. I’m almost feeling sorry for the Speaker, heading, as he does, a party chewing off its own head. He didn’t elect his Tea Party members; voters did. And until those voters think harder next time they have a ballot in their hands, there’s nothing anyone can do.

[Image source]

Idiots. Nasty, Stupid, Dangerous Idiots.

Puzzle: What do you get when you combine reflexive hatred with chronic stupidity, mixed with such longstanding disregard for fact that you no longer can recognize reality, nor care to, and add in levels of credulity that most sentient humans left behind when they graduated kindergarten?

This:



These people got into Congress by being elected. There are voters out there who knowingly send people like that to represent them in influencing the policies of the United States of America. Who listen to Fox "news" and Rush Limbaugh, and read Breitbart's ghost-site, and buy it; believe it like they believe Jonah really set up shop inside a whale; believe it like they believe teabaggers arose from the roots of the greenest grass, like they believe Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor and John Boehner and Paul Ryan have their best interests at heart.

As long as there are people like that electing people like that based on listening to people like that, we're  simply and totally screwed. What a deadly combination of all the worst traits possible in humankind. What irony that they call themselves patriots. How thoroughly they've destroyed democracy. How blind.

I guess I should stop. There's no point jumping out the window: I'm on the first floor.

Sequestration

On my cardiac surgery rotations in training days, a prof used to like to ask interns for a list of reasons for seeing unoxygenated blood in the heart when on total cardiopulmonary bypass. To my surprise, I came up with one of the more obscure ones, pulmonary sequestration. I remembered that gem as I thought about writing concerning the upcoming "sequester." There's no relation, other than the fact, I guess, that things are about to get bloody.

It's the perfect symbol of everything that's wrong with our politics. Having been a bargaining chip proposed originally by President Obama as a way to get Rs to agree to be half-way reasonable, it was approved by a majority of Rs at the time. It was, in fact, lauded by none other than the teabaggRs monetary mandarin, Paul Ryan, who, naturally, is now furiously trying to weasel out of his words from back then. [Added: John Boehner himself thought the idea was peachy at the time, too.]

Rs, usually pretty good at coming up with Orwellian wordplay to disguise their real intentions, have tried again, pretty pathetically, calling the imminent sequester "the Obamaquester." If that isn't a sign that they've just about run out the string, I don't know what is. 

But if the newspeak is atypically laughable considering their previous efforts, like "clean skies" and "patriot act," the intent is par for the discourse. Rs are happy to wreck the economy and will do everything they can to pretend it's Obama's fault. And, if recent history tells us anything, Fox "news" and the usual RWS™will beat it into the heads of their gullible and frightened teabagging listeners, convincing them easy as pie.

All revenue is off the table, say Boehner and McConnell. Having previously agreed to a tiny fraction of it, in terms of total deficit reduction, they've closed the door on anything more, not even the "loophole" closures sung so strongly by The Rominee and his boy wonder; while Obama and Ds continue to be open to further spending cuts. But not, so they say, at the price of our future. I can only surmise that, somehow, Rs are convinced that if they succeed in stopping the recovery and causing another recession they'll be able to turn that into votes in 2014. And I suppose they're right, assuming they manage successfully to shift the blame to our president. 

Can they pull that off? They'll have to come up with something more Lunzian than "Obamaquester," that's for damn sure. On the other hand, teabaggers will buy in no matter what. People that can send a despicable McCarthyite like Ted Cruz to Washington will believe anything.

Politicization

[Source]