"They'd Never Do It Again!" - Think AGAIN!

The problem with too many Americans, as I've often observed, is that they are unpracticed and untutored in deep politics (which is why so many adhere to the "middle") and they have the political memory of gnats. This is why politicos can play them over and over again, and they never advance their insights as to what is happening to them and why. It is also why author Gore Vidal once referred to our nation as the "United States of Amnesia".

Yes, yes, when one tuned onto the nightly news one beheld the usual procession of interviewed 'Muricans, as in Milwaukee last night (on NBC nightly news) professing how disgruntled they are with "those politicians" in D.C.  Who? WHICH politicians? The sentiment of most of these Beer City Burghers is that they are "all" to blame and "they need to learn to compromise".  HUH?  Don't any of you have any clue at all as to who the perps were in this fiasco?

Can you say T-E-A    B-A-G-G-E-R-S?

Such nonsense responses by Milwaukeeans caused me to despair that the rank and file of Americans, voting Americans even, will ever get it. Their consistent inability to separate the political wheat from the chaff and pin the tail on "all of 'em" - as opposed to being able to discriminate, is disheartening. Why? What is the problem? Are they so overworked in their jobs they can't access basic facts? Or is it because too many are brainwashed by watching FOX News? Well, that is sad.

Any normal functioning brain, of even normal IQ,  exposed to the facts of the past three weeks ought to have processed that a bellicose clique in ONE PARTY nearly succeeded in bringing the U.S. government to default, which would have been catastrophic. Why was this so hard to grasp by those interviewed Milwaukeeans, and why did the idiotic term "compromise" even enter? Compromise over WHAT?

As Rachel Maddow accurately (and assertively!) pointed out last night, there is NO THIRD WAY! You don't get to fucking threaten to shut the government down because you want to impose  your will to stop Obamacare! If you lost in the forum of a 2012  general election and the Supreme Court also ruled against you, then you need to pack up your little toys and go home and cry alone. You don't get to extort concessions you couldn't get honestly in the other two venues. In other words,

YOU LOSE!

Go back, regroup, get set for another general election, where you can take the Presidency, and oh - also the Senate, THEN try again! If them apples don't suit your sorry little ass or fancy, then try for another Supreme Court ruling to overturn the Roberts one. But don't threaten government shutdown by pressuring your House reps with being "primaried" if you didn't get your way in legitimate democratic forums. And don't hand anyone the unmitigated,  proto-Confederate codswallop that you are entitled to do it because "this ain't a democracy, it's a Republic!" Uh, no Jethroe! It may be a Republic but it still operates on democratic principles!  As in majority votes win elections (except in 2001, but Gore would have taken the electoral as well if 170,000 African-Americans in Florida hadn't been put on felon rolls by Choicepoint.)

So the question becomes: What are the chances we all have to go through this bull shit again in three months? Many talking heads this morning, including several on 'Morning Joe' and also  Sen. Chuck Schumer,  think it's out of the question. Given the Repukes' political damage (they suffered a lot more than the Dems and Obama as they SHOULD have!) the argument is that they'd not do it again in a million years: hold the gov't hostage to nix Obamacare.

But the people that make such assertions have no remote idea of the morons they're dealing with. They also don't seem to grasp these people hail from extremist, backward districts with backward, ignorant and extremist people - many who pine for era of the old Confederacy. They detest that a black man holds the highest office in the land, and with every fiber of their being. Given they are at least semi-clever they realize they'd be seen for the knuckle draggers they are if they espoused outright racism - they use the subterfuge of attacking his signature law instead.

They are also enraged they've been losers in the last general election and haven't been able to swallow it since. So, no, they aren't going to go gently into that good night - they're going to return in ways that'd make "Freddy Krueger' proud.

Last night, Chris Hayes asked one of the Georgia tea bagger reps what he and his clique gained over the past 16 days.  As Chris put it, "the CR (continuing resolution) could have been passed over two weeks ago without all the damage." The guy looked Chris in the eye with a weasel's grin and actually said:

"Well, we showed our beliefs and our BRAND. We demonstrated our principles to the country"

Your brand?! Your principles? At the expense of the principles of the country?  He also implied this could go on again, and another Dem rep later interviewed by Chris agreed. According to that Dem, "they will do this every few months, leading up to the 2014 general elections, and they will pay dearly".

Make no mistake they will! Their ignorant, half-educated constituents will demand no less. If their current reps don't comply, a dopier ass right wing nut will be found in some backwoods moonshine joint to primary the original rep....on the right. Recall the original "model" for the primary on the Right tactic was unleashed in Delaware when Mike Castle, a nine-term Republican House Rep  and former governor was "primaried" by a bimbo name Christine O'Donnell (See below).


That success energized the Tea Party morons and made them realize they could threaten any "establishment" Republican with political extermination  - by picking some nitwit to run against him - if he failed to comply with their demands.  That model has since been used with enormous success and there is no sign - not one, the denizens of the Tea Party will cease and desist.

That means that in another few months we will likely face another economic Armageddon and more economic damage, Ironically, these fools who bitch so much about the national debt have-  with their silliness  -  increased it by over $22 billion. They've also slowed growth and ensured we have a deeper hole to dig out of, not to mention world markets' confidence being  undermined by our crisis politics. Do they care? Hell no!


An article on salon.com  ('GOP's Huge Tea Party Mess Has Just Begun') noted this morning:

"Republicans can spin it among themselves as a Democratic concession, but they can’t rightly look back at the ruin of the past month, and the content of the deal, and expect that they can extort unreciprocated concessions from Democrats next time around.The questions on everyone’s mind are, Will they try anyhow? And what will the coming months look like if they don’t?

Republicans didn’t just sacrifice an incredible amount of public cachet in this fight. Their leaders also revealed, for the second time this year, that they’re not willing to actually allow the country to default just to preserve party unity or pressure the president to cave. Unless they’re stricken with a nihilistic sense of bitterness and the feeling that they have nothing left to lose, there’s little reason to think they’re going to approach coming deadlines the same way they approached these past two. Before you object on the grounds that the past month’s events won’t make conservative House hardliners any less bloodthirsty: I agree. They can’t fight their nature, or their incentives, and they don’t even seem to want to.

My suspicion, though, is that the right will have about the same amount of sway in the months ahead as an erratic general who led his soldiers into a massacre, then re-assimilated unnoticed far down the chain of command. He’s still there, he’s still cranky, but other officers can now point to the slaughter and everyone will ignore his guidance."


Well, many other percipient observers, such as on MSNBC last night (interviewed by Chris Hayes) believe Boehner has emerged as more powerful politically for backing down, and also that he may use this leverage in the upcoming battles. So  no, don't look for the Tea Party faithful to "overlook his guidance". If those of us who are suspicious are correct, we will see an even more bitter replay in January - with another shutdown - and in February, with another debt ceiling face off.

We are informed by the pundits the ongoing discussion will now be about cutting "entitlements" but don't believe the ACA won't also factor in. Obama has held strong so far, without folding like a two- bit suit, but we must expect that he will continue to preserve his spine and not become too mesmerized with a "bipartisan deal" with proven hostage takers!

YES! The Tea Baggers Are Nuts Enough to Crash The Government!

Rebel traitor Jefferson Davis, whose visage still appears on many Southern license plates, must be smiling from his grave at how his neo-Confederate ideological descendants have brought the government to the precipice and will now likely toss it over the cliff.

"If you listen to right-wing radio, watch FOX News and read their online media and take it seriously (because they do) then you would know that many on the right don’t want to live in a country that has Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, the minimum wage, Food Stamps, immigration, public schools, infant nutrition programs and the rest of the things government does to make our lives better. And they don’t want anyone else to live in a country that has those things, either."-  Dave Johnson, 'Misunderestimating Who They Are', smirkingchimp.com


Okay, I admit I was wrong. Way wrong! In my fulsome over optimism (which only occurs a few times a century) I had actually predicted the government shutdown would end after a week and never ever bleed into the debt ceiling deadline. I had somehow expected rationality to eventually prevail so we wouldn't have reached this point. But, alas, I'd underestimated the supreme idiocy and insanity of the Tea Bagger neo-Confederate band of loons holding this country hostage. Many of whom, let's be clear, don't even think a default matters or will have consequences. Thanks to these assholes, all of us will experience real consequences!


Ol' Jeff Davis must be smiling from his grave, to see his ideological and other economic descendants (in the Tea Party especially) are on the verge of crashing the federal government into what many financial analysts have called "Armageddon" if the debt ceiling isn't raised by midnight tonight.

Already credit rating service Fitch has put the U.S. on a watch list for credit downgrade, below its current AAA bond rating. If that happens, and if no solution is reached by midnight, then we are headed to default. The U.S. Treasury will be able to borrow no more money, and risks not being able to pay Social Security, Military Vets benefits, or bond interest. In this case, which could transpire by Oct. 31- Nov. 1 (as Steve Rattner noted on Chris Hayes' All In on Monday) then people will see pain across the board. Start with your student loans, home loans and car loans all going up. As Rattner noted, every 1% increase in interest means $20b not available for purchase of goods and services. One financial analyst firm already estimates the shutdown has cost this fragile economy $22b.

Meanwhile, this morning, John Chambers -   Chair of the Sovereign Ratings Committee at Standard and Poor's -  has noted that each week of shutdown has cut 0.3% of GDP from the 4th quarter output This alone is parlous, given the GDP in any given year remains unbelievably low at 2-2.2%.  Chambers noted that if we go past the point the government can't borrow any more, "one of two things can happen": 1) You'd have to cut government spending (other than debt service) by over a quarter of gov't spending, which would put the economy in recession, OR  2) refuse to pay bond interest coming due  -leading to absolute default. In this case, the outcome would be "much worse than Lehman in 2008". For those who don't recall, Lehman paved the way for the massive stock market crash (and credit meltdown) that year,  with most 401ks losing up to 40% of their value - from which many ordinary citizens have just started to emerge.

Chambers also dispelled a long standing myth among the ignorant Tea Bagger crowd, i.e. that the debt ceiling being raised allows spending.  In fact, as Chambers pointed out, "the spending has already been approved as per acts of congress, but now elected officials are balking at funding that spending."

And let's get it straight WHO these assholes are: they are entirely the Tea Bagger nutsos who have threatened Goopr  weak sister John Boehner with his Speakership unless he conforms to their idiotic, insane agenda - defunding the Affordable Care Act.  This is why Boehner, wussie that he is, turned down the reasonable bipartisan solution worked out in the Senate yesterday- which was really the last best chance to conclude a deal.  That deal would have re-opened the government at least until January, and raised the debt ceiling without any major strings attached, until February. So anyone prepared to blame the inability to go to military monuments (including Vietnam War Memorial) in D.C. on Dems or Obama needs to get their heads on straight about who the real culprits are here. (Oh, and stop watching FAUX News!)


Because as soon as the rational re-opening solution was sent to the House, Boehner's rebellious crew warned him it was a no -go. No way would they vote for it, because "it didn't go far enough". Now note- this was after GOP Senate stalwarts like Mitch McConnell, had already backed it. So WHO are the crazy whackjobs here? WHO are the ones responsible for this bullshit? They comprise a kernel of about 44 -odd,  recycled proto-Jeff Davis backers in the House - about 1/30 of the whole gov't holding the rest hostage.

Chris Hayes had a feature segment on 'Who Is Shutting the Government Down?'

At the top of the list, Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia's 10th district, about whom Chris played several clips, including showing this asshole stating:

- The South was victimized by "Yankee Aggression" in the Civil War

- Climate change is the "biggest hoax of the century"

- " Evolution, the Big Bang Theory and Embryology are ALL lies from the Pit of Hell".

Get this, this delusional psychotic jackass sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology! You want to know why your government is shut down, look no further than under -educated Tea Party pawns  like this. Though he claims to have an "M.D." degree, it could only have been awarded by Smokehouse Online Bible College since he professes the Bible governs and dictates science. And no real scientist would ever make a statement (following his fulminations against evolution, etc.)  like:  "It's these lies that try to keep me and all the folks who are taught from understanding that they need a savior".

Again, HOW the fuck can this fool be a member of any Science and Technology committee? Shit, how the hell could he even be a member of congress? The only explanation is half wit goobers in his district no more educated or informed than he is, electing his sorry ass!  And it is because of 44 such districts across these United States (mostly in the South), with hundreds of thousands of such halfwits (many pining for the glorious days of Jeff Davis and his lot) that we have 44 Tea Bagger traitors in the House ready to turn this country upside down to try and get their way. Are we now into appointing blithering imbeciles? Well,  figure it out for yourself when you next consider another Tea Pea moron backing the shutdown and default: Doug Lamborn.

Lamborn hails from El Paso County, Colorado, where he's been re-elected by the goober hyper military nuts ensconced here. Though these goobers piss and moan about "welfare" (Medicaid) for a pregnant mom working at Walmart unable to make ends meet from a piddling wage, they are quite happy to snatch military welfare benefits.  This includes defense contractor benefits such as Lamborn has proposed to construct a $1 billion 'combat air brigade" here in the Springs, defended as "necessary for training support in Afghanistan" - despite the fact the U.S. is supposed to be leaving next year.

In other words, $1 b down the drain, and that's not even figuring in the tens of millions wasted each year in fuel costs with 122 choppers flying hither, thither and yon.

Lamborn has also gone on record to defund any health care act, especially the ACA, which allows birth control. He also is against contraception, period, and demands a "personhood" amendment to "protect the unborn citizen".  Thus, he advocates passage of a new personhood amendment currently on offer, which penalizes any pregnant woman with up to 5 years behind bars if she is caught riding on a motorcycle, skiing, or drinking alcohol - which would be "voluntary manslaughter of the unborn citizen."

Now you know the basic psychological profile of the Tea Bagger assholes shutting the government down, and holding a gun to our collective heads as we near the 11th hour. Don't fucking blame Obama for any of this! He's finally standing his god damned ground as he should have the first time these fucks tried to extort concessions in 2011. Blame the Jefferson Davis, neo-Confederate dickheads who are hell bent to avenge the South's surrender to "Yankee aggression",  by taking down the current federal gov't led by the first African-American President.

To read more about the issue under discussion, see:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/07/shutdown_shows_the_civil_war_never_ended_partner/

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/13/the_south_is_holding_america_hostage/

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/52150/tea-partys-war-memorial-rally-was-another-let-him-die-moment

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jack-lessenberry/52151/meet-the-gop-Taliban

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/52148/misunderestimating-who-they-are

Why Boehner is a Liar, Weasel, Punk and Traitor

"They wanted to defund Obamacare, and they lost, and they know it. Now, thanks to the fact that they are frightening everyone, they want the prize they've been seeking since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For the record: if the Obama administration, in its bottomless desire to Do Something Really Big And Bi-Partisan, actually goes and takes this bait, they should be brought up on three hundred million counts of negligent homicide, because they will have killed the country for all time.-  William Rivers Pitt,  'Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', smirkingchimp.com


So this whole freaking shebang shutdown has been all for show, to show the Obama administration, the country and the world that the old South is ascendant again and will call the shots (using 'hostage politics')  whenever the hell it wants. Tea Bagger nation, make no mistake, is the reincarnation of the Confederate traitors in modern form with John Boehner as Chief Enabler.

We now learn, as per the analysis of Chris Hayes last night on MSNBC, the GOP always felt the repeal or defunding of 'Obamacare' wasn't feasible and what they wanted all along was a ransom to extract "entitlement" cuts without having to raise taxes. Who'da thought? Well, we should have realized it was all an act.

As per a recent article in TIME ('Loss Leaders'. p. 24) Boehner never believed that challenging Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) was a viable option since two days after Obama's re-election. According to the article:

"Two days after Obama's victory, Boehner was asked whether Republicans would continue to pursue a repeal of health care reform.

'I think the election changes that', he said, 'Obamacare is the law of the land'.

He flatly rejected the idea of tying funding for the bill to the larger fiscal battle.

'Trying to put Obamacare on a budget resolution risks shutting down the government."

So why in the hell did Weepy Johnno turn around and do just that? As TIME notes it was because his Tea Party Caucus wanted nothing less than Obamacare defunded. Since all those reprobates are invincible in their districts - never having to worry about being 'primaried' on the Right, so long as they adhere to the Teapee line-  it didn't matter to them. It did to the weasel punk  Boehner, who stood to lose his Speakership if he refused to cooperate. So despite his earlier refusal to put the ACA on a budget resolution, the little traitor did just that:  placing his Speakership above the national welfare, to appease his proto-Confederate minions.

Hence, pushed by his whiny punk zealot TPs, here we stand at the precipice of a possible credit default. And a never before event: The nation failing to honor its bond responsibilities for the first time in American history.  Is this "harsh language"? You're damned straight because harsh language to call these cretins out is what's required. Being "civil" is exactly what they don't grasp, and what they interpret as weakness. This is a point Obama needs to comprehend as I noted yesterday.

But lo and behold the demands have now changed. No longer does the GOP- at least its saner elements-  demand defunding Obamacare, , but  rather the full scale slicing and dicing of Social Security and Medicare - with no tax strings attached. Only then will they allow the debt ceiling to be raised and national economic catastrophe to be averted.

Of course, Obama can't give in to this new variant of extortion any more than the old. As blogger William Rivers Pitt has aptly put it ('Boehner, Obama and the Triple Dog Dare', www.smirkingchimp.com):

"President Obama's most significant achievement, his legacy for all time, will be facing down these cretins, holding the line against any and all concessions on elemental pieces of legislation like the budget and the debt limit, and ending the vile and vicious cycle of hostage politics that has done so much damage already.

If he doesn't, well...that's a legacy, too."


To which I totally agree. For Obama to even remotely consider doing a "grand bargain" that includes cutting Social Security and Medicare to allow even a temporary increase in the debt ceiling would be an abomination to tarnish his legacy permanently.

Does Obama Understand That He's in a WAR, Not Leading a College Debate Team?

"It does seem like this group of really hardcore Tea Party types may not really be impressed (by a stock crash). They seem to believe that the cause of justice is on their side, and that they are making some sort of glorious last stand or avenging the surrender of the South in 1865 or something. They may not listen."
- Doug Henwood interviewed in salon.com piece, 'Tea Party's Shutdown Lunacy: Avenging the Surrender of the South'

As I write this the news is that, once again, Obama plans to “talk with the GOP”. Does he not grasp that the time for rhetoric and talk is over? Does he not grasp that he is in a war, and not participating in a college debate society face off? Sometimes I wonder.

On the line is the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, and the restriction of payments such as to Social Security ($25b due on Nov. 1st) and for Medicare providers, as well as disability for vets. Already, death benefits have ceased. Meanwhile, the nation’s largest creditors, China and Japan (to the tune of over $2.14 trillion) have warned of the consequences of a default, or failure to raise the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, asshole Tea Baggers compare the ACA to the “Fugitive Slave Act” of 1850 and some of these nincompoops even profess that a default won’t be any biggie!

How much more of this bullshit is Obama going to take? How long will he yap with these Teabag Confederates before he understands they are just game- playing him? Already, a new AP poll shows his approval rating is in the tank, at 37 percent, barely 2 points above Bush Junior’s before the 9/11 maneuver to jack it back up .

But all I hear is rhetoric and blather. Why is it the man refuses to boldly act as a leader against these traitors? By that I mean doing one of two things: 1) minting a trillion dollar platinum coin and depositing it in the Treasury, de facto raising the debt limit in one fell swoop on his own, OR 2) invoking Section 4 of the XIV Amendment via Executive Order to do the same. Obviously, neither can be termed 'prosaic', but letting us become a deadbeat nation and allowing a stock market crash, not to mention credit default ….merits extraordinary action…..to my way of thinking. Which is preferable under the circumstances: a constitutional crisis (acknowledging the Civil War is active once more), or a worldwide recession? I will take the former any day of the week, twice on Sunday!

As the great former Barbadian Prime Minister J.M.G.M. 'Tom' Adams once noted, after one of his several constitutional debates in 1972:

“When ordinary means are insufficient to change those who would seek to undermine our polity, then the true leader must use extraordinary means to re-establish it.”

Is Obama a true leader, like John Michael Geoffrey Manningham ‘Tom” Adams? (Who used fiery street oratory as he traveled round the Barbadian nation to mobilize public opinion against a plan to change the Barbadian Constitution). I don’t know, but so far the indications are he is not. He fears conflict and “unintended consequences” which is exactly what a real leader must not fear. And despite avoiding what he might assess as “precipitate actions” (in minting a $1T coin, or invoking the 14th) his approval polls keep falling like a lead weight.

Nor does he see his opposition for what they really are: rabid, proto-Confederate rebels who’d rather trash the nation than see his signature law gain traction. Instead, he continues to labor under the delusion that he’s dealing with reasonable and rational men. Hence, the endless rounds of confabs …never amounting to squat. It almost makes one believe the narrative that Obama is a consummate campaigner but a leader…..not so much.

As a recent salon.com article already pointedly noted, this standoff on the debt isn’t about fiscal issues or debt at all, it’s about the Old South (via the old Confederacy) attempting to “avenge the surrender of the South”. See e.g.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/tea_partys_shutdown_lunacy_avenging_the_surrender_of_the_south/

In an earlier, similar piece on the Tea Party's Southern heritage it was observed that the Civil War never really ended. A "truce" or armistice was merely signed, similar to the one halting the Korean War. What we now see, is the Civil War re-activated via the Tea Party's government shutdown and soon enough, refusing to raise the debt limit.

In their terrific book, Banana Republicans, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber observed that the reason Republicans usually emerge victorious in political battles is because they treat them as "warfare", while Dems typically treat them as "college debate society meets". Hence, adopting a milder modus operandi etc. they consistently get their asses beat. It's time for this shit to cease, especially now with our financial future at risk.

The sooner Obama grasps the dynamic here, the sooner he will also grasp that talking with unreasonable, ideological puppets is useless, so is rhetoric via presidential speechifying. The time for timidity is over. Either mint that damn coin, sir, or invoke the 14th. Don’t dismiss them if you don’t want the nation taken to perdition by these latter day Johnny Rebs! ACT!

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Addendum Note: From Bernie Sanders

“Yesterday, the Republicans were using the Affordable Care Act as the reason why they had to shut down the government and not pay our bills. Today, it’s ‘reforming’ Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. What will it be tomorrow?

“Social Security, which is independently funded through the payroll tax, has nothing to do with the deficit.  The deficit -- which has been cut in half since 2009 -- was significantly caused by the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the Wall Street-induced recession, which led to a significant decline in federal revenue.

“The Republican Party and Paul Ryan cannot be allowed to get their way by threatening the American people with a continued government shutdown and a default unless Congress cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  That is not what the American people want.  Rather, we should be passing legislation which rebuilds our infrastructure and creates millions of new jobs, address the crisis of low wage employment by raising the minimum wage, make college affordable and fight for equal pay for equal work."

Below is a recent interview that Bernie did on CNN with Wolf Blitzer which discusses these issues.

Could Cuts to Social Security Lead To Another Recession? Probably!

While the Neoliberal, free market hacks (like Robert J. Samuelson and John Kass) continue to harp on "entitlements" - and the Tea Bagger terrorists holding the gov't up to ransom have made it clear Social Security and Medicare cuts are on their chopping blocks too (along with the ACA) it appears none of them realize what would happen if granted their wishes. That is, if they get their cuts we could see a progressive reversal of economic growth leading to another recession, or even depression.

How so? First, know that we remain in a parlous, low aggregate demand economic environment which means too little spending to support the financial flows, markets and overall economic vitality. This was made clear in a new report published by the AARP Public Policy Institute and appearing in The AARP Bulletin ('Social Security's Impact', Oct., p. 34).

The report notes that contrary to some myths circulating, seniors receiving Social Security aren't hoarding their money or saving for a rainy day. Instead, they're spending it on goods and services- which means pumping it right back into an ailing economy. They're buying groceries, prescription drugs, paying the 20 percent for medical treatments that Medicare won't, purchasing the dental care that Medicare won't, buying airline tickets for vacations, as well as booking hotel rooms - and helping put grand kids through college. If they have enough left over, they also remodel assorted rooms in their homes, like kitchens or bathrooms (as we just got done doing).

Given this, businesses then use this influx of income to purchase more goods and services, and to hire more employees. These employees, in turn, spend their wages on more goods and services which creates more aggregate demand by more and more people. In other words, Social Security money doesn't just terminate its effect at an elderly person's bank, it has a multiplier effect with ramifications throughout the whole economy.

How much of an effect? The AARP report found that for every dollar in Social Security benefits paid out, roughly $2 in output is generated for the whole economy. In hard numbers, that translates to roughly $1.5 trillion in economic output (adding in the derivative spending by businesses.) This in turn supports more than 9 million jobs in the national economy, with 4 million of them created in ten industries with the major impact accruing to: food services, real estate, health care, and retail industries.

As the author of the AARP piece notes, given Social Security inputs also helped 21.4 million Americans  including 1.1 million children, and 5.8 million adults under 65, it means lawmakers in D.C. can't look at the program through a narrow lens of "spending cuts". Indeed, even imposing something as seemingly benign as a chained CPI could have devastating corrosive effects down the road. Major cuts or privatization, meanwhile, would likely usher in a new recession or depression.

Are any of our "patriotic" legislators aware of these stats? Do they even care? Will the Tea Baggers, who purport to be so very concerned about the economy process them? We will have to wait and see.

IMF Warns of "Debt Catastrophe" if Debt Ceiling Isn't Raised - As Obama Takes the 14th Off the Table

Depiction of Obama from two years ago when he basically allowed the country to be extorted by the Reepo Economic Terrorists. This time he needs to approve the debt ceiling limit increase under Executive order- under the 14th amendment - even if brings on a constitutional crisis. The nation's interest must trump political interests and elections next year!

Incredibly, it appears that - despite strong advice from former Clinton aides- Obama does not have any intention of using the 14th amendment to raise the debt ceiling limit unilaterally, if the Tea Bagger driven Reepos continue their shutdown foolishness into the debt ceiling deadline of October 17th.  This despite the fact that according to a Financial Times article yesterday, the IMF has warned of a "debt catastrophe" if the U.S. doesn't pay its bills.

Let's be clear of the impact if the debt ceiling isn't raised by the due date. First, we may have about two weeks 'grace period' but then on Nov. 1st the Treasury must make a $25 billion payment to Social Security. This cannot be made if the ceiling isn't raised and that means that Social Security payments likely will be seriously delayed or not go out at all. Next, the Treasury must make a bond interest payment (on Treasury securities) of $30 billion by November 15th.  This payment assures creditors that the U.S. claim that bonds are "protected by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government" is honored. If it is not, and it won't be if the money isn't available via debt ceiling being raised, the markets will freak out. That includes the bond markets and the stock market. Two years ago, the latter dropped 17% as a result of GOP terrorism. What will it be like this time? Who knows?

Meanwhile, The Treasury Department has stated in a report:  "A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic. The negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse."

As I noted in a previous blog (last month) The Constitution (Amendment XIV, Section 4),  is clear on the U.S. debt responsibilities:

The validity of the Public Debt of the United States, authorized by law, includes debts incurred for payment of pensions ....and shall not be questioned.

It is clear to me that if the Republican Congress refuses to act to raise the debt ceiling (and thereby honor the validity of paying the Public Debt) then President Obama can certainly issue an Executive Order to override a putatively derelict Congress and invoke Article 4 of Amendment XIV to raise the debt ceiling himself. 

But according to a UK Guardian article, Obama has no intention of doing so, thereby taking his most potent 'weapon' off the table. According to the Guardian:

" 'Using the 14th would show the Republicans he means business,' one former aide to Bill Clinton told the Guardian last week.

But the White House ruled out the option on Thursday, ending days of Washington debate about whether this obscure legal authority might provide a way out for Obama – at least from one half of Republicans' fiscal pincer movement.

 'The administration does not believe the 14th amendment gives power to the president to ignore the debt ceiling,' said spokesman Jay Carney.

'The fact that there is significant controversy around the president's authority to act unilaterally means that it would not be a credible alternative to Congress raising the debt ceiling and would not be taken seriously by the market.' "


But this is nonsense, and Carney's blather doesn't even pass a basic laugh test. Is Carney serious?  First, the President would not be "ignoring the debt ceiling"  - but rather respecting it given that a dysfunctional element in congress has obstructed its being raised!  Second, Carney's excuse that, 'There is significant controversy around the president's authority to act unilaterally'  is codswallop given  this is a prez who regularly (and unilaterally) orders drone strikes on targets from Yemen to Pakistan to Afghanistan - without any "approval" from congress.

While his drone strikes putatively address American security compromised by terrorists, clearly invoking the 14th would address Americans' domestic financial security compromised by the GOP and the incipient threat to the economic stability of the nation. Certainly, if Yemen merits a drone strike owing to incipient terrorist threats, the Repuke congress merits the 14th landing on their asses, given the Constitution clearly states. debts incurred for payment of pensions ....and shall not be questioned

So is Obama not obliged to uphold the Constitution, and in WHATEVER manner is required? I believe he is, given that the refusal to honor the nation's debts is a basis for intervention by an adult - and making specious arguments to avoid taking that responsibility  (to probably avoid political repercussions in the mid-terms next year) does not cut it. Not one bit!

Those who encourage Obama to grow some cojones believe 100% - contrary to Carney's PR blatherskite - that the power to use the 14th does inhere in the Executive if congress forfeits its own responsibilities.  In that case, Obama is obliged as the last adult in gov't to step in and seize the power to use the 14th. So yes, the power to use it  DOES EXIST IF Obama takes it. If he projects authority, and goes on the air to make clear the reasons for this extreme action, he will be as legit as JFK when he faced down U.S. Steel in 1962 and stopped them from raising steel prices.  Many in the corporate world at that time believed he "didn't have the authority to interfere in the markets" - but he did. Because he had balls, and he knew the national interest trumped petty political concerns.

Make no mistake also that the markets, contrary to Carney's nonsense, would definitely take such a move seriously, given what the alternative is!   Does Carney,  or whatever advisor is feeding Obama this foolishness,  really believe the markets would rather see a credit meltdown, default and a drop as big as the one in 2008? Puh---leeze! Do Carney and his clique really believe the markets would rather see a credit downgrade and the country's image damaged irreparably?

Will Obama have the balls to act, or will he allow the Repuke anarchists and terrorists to get the better of him again? We have to wait and see! In the meantime let's hope there are no further smokescreens giving BS reasons not to act, and more intelligent justifications for doing so. To give the Reeps a shot over the bow and show them the WH isn't going to come to a gunfight with a sling shot this time around.

The Corporate Media Needs Its Ass Kicked Over Its False Equivalence Shutdown Narrative

"The Tea Party is acting like lemmings, just going over a cliff. You shouldn't be taking your toys and just throwing a fit and threaten government shutdown, and that's what this strategy is."

Devin Nunes (California Republican) on CBS Early Show today

"the 'they're all bums' reaction is off-base. This shutdown, the first in 17 years, isn't the result of two parties acting equally irresponsibly. It is the product of an increasingly radicalized Republican Party, controlled by a disaffected base that demands legislative hostage-taking in an effort to get what it has not been able to attain by the usual means: winning elections.Call it the Tea Party shutdown. The group will wear the badge proudly. (USA Today, editorial, 'The SHutdown Party')

Right now, unbeknownst to most Americans, we are in the middle of a new Civil War. No, there are no bullets, not yet anyway , but the consequences in terms of pillaging the nation's treasure are just as real. The last time a shutdown happened, in 1996, it cost $2.1 billion in today’s dollars. Breaching the debt limit would be far, far worse, likely destroying this country's credit and ruining the savings of millions of Americans. But don't blame "congress"   What we have is one (mainly former Confederate ) faction of one extreme Right party -Repukes-  comprising maybe 50 in number, holding all three branches of gov't hostage to a terrorist demand: defunding an already passed and legit LAW.

As Chris Hayes aptly put it two night ago, on his 'All In' program,

"We have one thirtieth of the government holding the whole nation hostage".

And yes, I use the term "terrorist" responsibly, because that is what the fuck they are. Anyone who doesn't believe so is either brain dead, or a Tea Bagger. Let's get it clear here: These Tee Pee -driven Republicans are demanding that Democrats unwind their signature achievement – a piece of legislation that took 18 months to pass, survived a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election – in exchange for a stopgap budget resolution. On Saturday, they tacked on a provision that would limit access to contraceptives. Are you kidding me? Every REAL American with real blood in his veins ought to be up in arms and bombarding the Tee Pee fruitcakes to tell them to stop this barbarism.

Idiots and fools like Condi Rice (this morning)  - but more often the whole blow-dried corporo-punditry axis of bimbos and himbos keep saying they "hope both sides can sit in the same room and settle this."

Both sides? Let's get it fucking clear here once and for all that there is no "settling" anything when one side (a minority contingent of extremists) has a loaded gun to the other side's head. The gun in this case is effective repeal (they call it "defunding") of an already passed law.

Apart from the fact that this is ALL on one side, so silly talk of "congress" being responsible misses the point (it's a core of assholes within congress) think of the god-awful precedent being set. Imagine if after a repuke administration got a defense funding law passed, a majority liberal caucus in the House held the nation hostage via a shutdown unless they got their way - having it repealed or "defunded".

The whole country would erupt in outrage.

But the corporate media, the wimps who looked the other way while the NSA went hog shit wild in mass spying, are trying to portray it as a "pox on both houses" - equally blaming Repukes and Democrats. This is pure unadulterated codswallop.

Blogger Joshua Holland has exactly the correct take on BillMoyers.com:

"Beltway reporters who see their professed neutrality as a higher ground bear an enormous amount of responsibility for encouraging this perversion of democratic governance. With a few notable exceptions, the media have framed what Jonathan Chait called “a kind of quasi-impeachment” in typical he said-she said fashion, obscuring the fact that the basic norms that govern Congress have been thrown out the window by a small cabal of tea party-endorsed legislators from overwhelmingly Republican districts."


He goes on to observe (again, spot-on) that the "corporate media treat unprecedented legislative extortion as typical partisan negotiations, and in doing so they normalize it."

Indeed, by normalizing it the "fifth estate" betrays its responsibility to inform and educate the American public. Yet only ONE person, interviewed last night in an ABC News segment, correctly pinpointed the Tea Bagger faction as the ones responsible - all the others employed generic mush references to "they" and "congress". Can't these people THINK? Well, it's hard when: a) one isn't already a political junkie and b) one can't depend on the press to clarify issues.

But why be surprised at this media obfuscation and irresponsibility? It's been going on for years, hell decades! Look at the media's inability to properly  discuss the JFK assassination in context without employing their usual dopey "tin foil hat" narrative BS. Michael Parenti in his book, The Dirty Truth, as well as his essay The Gangster State, has well documented how the media has become committed to the "one lone nut" myth almost since the Warren Commission received its specious benediction from LBJ. It didn't help that CIA disinformation hirelings were ensconced at both The New York Times, and Washington Post, so controlled any anti-Warren narratives. This was documented by Kathryn Olmstead in her book, Challenging the Secret Government (University of North Carolina Press, 1996)

In the same sense, to use an analogy, what is happening now in the U.S. shutdown coverage would be like German media equally blaming holocaust deniers and holocaust survivors,  offspring for any new civic turmoil over the trial of  Nazi Beate Zschäpe,   see e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html


But make no mistake that sober publications, like The Financial Times, put the onus foursquare where it belongs on the Tea Bagger- controlled House Republicans.  There are also responsible bloggers and media people in the U.S. that do the same - but one must make an effort to find them, But if you believe the shutdown crazies are wreaking havoc, wait until the debt ceiling fight begins and these terrorists take it to another level!  As reported by Ezra Klein:

In return for a one-year suspension of the debt ceiling, House Republicans are demanding a yearlong delay of Obamacare, adoption of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s tax-reform plan, construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, more offshore oil drilling, more drilling on federally protected lands, looser regulations around ash coal, a suspension of the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of carbon emissions, more power over the regulatory process in general, reform of the federal employee retirement program, changes to the Dodd-Frank Act, more power over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, repeal of the Social Services block grant, expanded means-testing for Medicare benefits, repeal of the public health trust fund and more.

Are we going to stand for this? Isn't there some punishment for treason? Isn't it hanging or putting before a firing squad?  All of the above to me indicate blatant nativist, domestic extortion and terrorism (hence treason)  no different from what American "enemy combatants" are using, as in Yemen and Somalia. If those fuckers can be taken down by a drone.....well.....don't get me started!

Obama Must Be As Good as His Word and Not Let Himself Be Rolled Again by the PUKES!

Depiction of Obama from two years ago when he basically allowed the country to be extorted by the Reepo Economic Terrorists. This time he needs to approve the debt ceiling limit increase under Executive order- under the 14th amendment - even if brings on a constitutional crisis.


In a heartening speech yesterday Obama basically said that the nation was being held hostage on two counts - with the upcoming potential gov't shutdown if  Obamacare isn't defunded for a year, and with raising the debt ceiling to pay the nation's bills. In the latter case, if the GOOPs are allowed their extortion gambit again, it may well mean another credit downgrade, stocks crashing and people suffering.  One news anchor, Scott Pelley, on CBS New last night noted from his correspondent (Nancy Cordes) in the field, that Social Security checks could well stop going out by early November if a shutdown ensues and the debt ceiling isn't raised. For sure, all 401 National Parks will close, and service members' checks as well as military death benefits will be delayed. Thank your local Tea bagger fascist for that!

Obama responded that such a debacle would "not occur on my watch". In other words, he is not prepared to deal again with these terrorists "with bombs strapped to their bodies"  - which is literally what it amounts to. In this case, an economic "bomb" that will affect tens of millions of innocent citizens.  But will Obama hold strain, or allow himself to be rolled again by the extremists in the Tea Party? As Bill Clinton observed last night on a CBS news segment, their tactic is simply to try to dictate to Obama their terms, and not negotiate at all. This is the standard terrorist modus operandi, and in that case it requires the standard response: NO deals, no matter what transpires.

Now, it is a shame, a pity in fact, that some 33%  (in a recent CBS News poll) place the blame on the Dems for this impasse and impending economic crash, but they are either congenitally dumb, fundamentally ignorant or Reepo Foxites.  Anyone with more than air between the ears knows the reprobates are those who threaten a nation via extortion , i.e. "You will do so-and-so or these will be the consequences.",  or seek to dictate their own terms with horrific results for millions if they aren't accepted.

This time the way to deal with these thugs is obvious. In the case of the potential shutdown, given more sane Reeps are against it in the Senate, there is no issue on refusing to make any deals. The fallout will be largely on the heads of the Teepee House which Boehner has shown he can't control. That means someone must exercise adult authority over them, and that has to be Obama. So, don't give in, let the cards fall where they may, but don't yield....not one inch, not one nanometer!

They will demand "spending cuts" in return for paying debts already owed, but this nuts. The graph below shows the spending cuts ought to have occurred under Bush II's term, since the spending increases were actually MUCH greater during his rein, yet the debt ceiling was raised 7 times without fanfare!
The numbers in the chart come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead, stupid or outright lying to gain specious political advantage.

One can easily see that over his tenure Bush's deficits consistently increased and at his last budget showed a $1.4 trillion deficit. This was fobbed off directly onto Obama.

Bush's overall spending increase was 88% over his time, vs. 7.2% for Obama. If anything, Obama's spending immediately after he took office wasn't enough, and we ought to have had at least double the stimulus he implemented and with NO tax cuts!


In the case of the next round, over the debt ceiling, the solution is also clear as day. If the Reepos won't raise it to pay existing debts then Obama needs to do so on his own, and fuck them and their terrorist ways. The Constitution (Amendment XIV, Section 4),  stipulates:

The validity of the Public Debt of the United States, authorized by law, includes debts incurred for payment of pensions ....and shall not be questioned.

It is clear to me that if the Republican Congress refuses to act to raise the debt ceiling (and thereby honor the validity of paying the Public Debt) then President Obama can and MUST issue an Executive Order to override a putatively derelict Congress and invoke Article 4 of Amendment XIV to raise the debt ceiling himself. If this triggers a "constitutional crisis" then let it be! If the Reepos are going to act in an extremist way you must be MORE extremist in the interest of the nation. You cannot roll over again. Or evince a scenario such as depicted in the bottom cartoon from two years ago.

We have in fact, because of the Teepees and their lot, been leading up to a showdown for some time, given the polarization in the country. What better way to resolve it than via a constitutional crisis?  I am fully convinced, given what's at stake, that even the Roberts Supreme Court will see where the national interest lies and side with Obama  - if he has the courage to raise the debt ceiling limit on his own authority - given the congress has devolved into reckless simpletons who can't be trusted with the keys to the congressional rest rooms, far less the nation's economic welfare.

Give in to these turds again, as he did two years ago, and Obama will only be recalled as a weak and timid wuss who was unable to deliver more than tough rhetoric in the nation's moment of need.

The Monied Vermin Seeking Government Chaos Via Extortion and Shutdown

As I showed in an earlier blog, i.e. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/yes-there-must-be-higher-taxes.html

the liars, thieves and Rightist extremists are on the wrong side of why the deficit has reached $16.7 trillion. In fact, it has been THEIR unpaid for wars and tax cuts that have largely driven us into this position. Also, they extorted the nation back in 2011 and they plan to do it again. This according to a new front page story in The New York Times, exposing who these groups are and how they extort by way of election-based fear of all those House Reepos that don't cooperate.

Consider the case of Aaron Schock, a conservative Republican from Illinois. Schock became a "traitor" when he (sanely) voted to increase the debt ceiling in 2011 (as had been done perfunctorily 7 times in the Bush Jr. years), and, in 2012, compounded his "crimes" by voting for a stopgap spending bill that prevented a government shutdown. Worse, he refused to vote to defund the Affordable Care Act. ("Obamacare"). 

Nor is Schock the only person now in the cross hairs. The Time notes that besides him, "10 other lawmakers considered suspiciously squishy by the Club for Growth were designated as RINO’s (Republicans in name only), and the club has vowed to find primary opponents and support them with cash — a formidable threat considering that it spent $18 million backing conservative candidates in the 2012 cycle." 

Thus, we identify the Club for Growth, as really "the Club for Chaos" who obviously can't wait to wreak havoc not only on health care, but also would have no qualms about suffering vets denied their VA disability checks, or oldsters who can barely scrape two coins together for bread and meds being denied their Social Security. For these assholes, the only thing that matters is making the rich richer and if they have to squash government to do that, so be it.

So who comprises the rest of the monied,  vermin network?

Well, readers won't be surprised, if they have followed my ten or so blogs on the Tea Party, that Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers group- is also involved up to its ears stirring the shit storm toward shutdown.  Like the Club for Growth's rich renegades,  the billionaire Kochs are hoping Americans will be stupid enough to screech against a sane debt ceiling increase, in order to make the nation safer for the wealthiest. Never mind, according to the Denver Post yesterday (p. 19A) the nation's billionaires are even wealthier than they were two years ago, with Bill Gates alone worth $72 billion and all of them in concert equal to the net worth of 100 million ordinary Americans. I mean, is this insane or what? How much more are we going to give these people?

How many MORE of these $65,000 all copper bath tubs :
do these fuckers need? Ten? Twenty? Can Bill Gates or the Kochs sit in all of them at once? How many 150,000 sq. foot homes do they need? Ten? Fifty? Why isn't there a rational limit to the money - property, that they can own in order for those with less to have a roof over their heads and some food? What kind of nation are we to allow such inequity?  But I digress. Sorry, after being privy to REAL poverty - seen in places as remote as the villages near the Pitons in St. Lucia - where women are infested with schistosomiasis parasites merely from washing clothes in the river - I have little patience or tolerance for people with excess wealth. I do not suffer them kindly, or the fools that seek to defend them. There it is. What can I say?


Anyway, the Koch brothers group has already spent millions on ads fighting health reform,and (as the Times reports) is beginning a new campaign to delay the law’s effects. Why can't ordinary people - families struggling with stagnant wages- have what these rich turds have: decent health care? And by that I mean access to care without going bankrupt.

But this is what we've come to expect from the economic barbarians. But who are the rest of these extremist vermin? Vermin who, while puffing "patriotism" out of one side of their mouths, have no problem destroying the basis of positive government with the other - by defunding it - unless they get their nefarious ways. And in so doing they spit on the will of the people and the general welfare held up in the Preamble of the Constitution.

Add to the Club for Growth and Americans for Prosperity, the National Liberty Federation, (amazing how many of these right extremists appropriate the term 'liberty') another “social welfare” group that- as the Times notes-  "sees dollar signs in shutting down the government." In other words, they see dollar signs in depriving impecunious seniors of their Social Security, and paralyzed vets of their disability benefits. Some Americans these! They sound more like Nazis, and no, that's not overblown. Not from where I sit.

How determined are these traitorous vermin to take down the government if they don't get their execrable way? According to The Times,  very determined - citing a Republican operative (Brian Walsh) who recently noted in U.S. News and World Report that the Right is now spending more money attacking Republicans than the Democrats are. He said: “Money begets TV ads, which begets even more money for these groups’ personal coffers. Pointing fingers and attacking Republicans is apparently a very profitable fund-raising business.”

The idea is clearly one of blackmail and extortion. Vote the way we demand, to defund or shut down the government (sending vulnerable citizens down the crapper) or we will take you down from the Right. We will get an even more extremist (but cooperative) pawn to help us achieve our goals. And the Devil take the hindmost or most of the nation!

Citizens need to be aware of the forces at work at this new debt ceiling crisis unfolds, and a government shut down becomes more imminent. Know who the enemy is, and in the next cycle of elections, i.e. next year, refuse to vote for any of the extremists' pawns!

The Upcoming Debt Ceiling Deal: There MUST be HIGHER Taxes!

Graphs showing how wars and tax cuts have contributed to most of the deficit - and why Obama must not let himself (or the nation) be held hostage to the repukes again in the debt ceiling coming increase.

"Beltway insiders are brandishing the phrase "national security" like a rusty scabbard, but it is impressive that they can do it with a straight face. It is estimated that each of the hundreds of missiles that we intend to attack Syria with costs around $1 million.

One has to wonder: Where are the deficit hawks? You know, the "courageous" ones that step up to the plate to make the "difficult choices" for fiscal probity, such as cuts in meals for needy seniors, cuts of school lunch programs for children, gutting our mail delivery, undermining pensions, letting cities go bankrupt. The ones that destroy our government's credit rating by balking on payment of debts already incurred.

The silence is deafening. It is challenging to avoid the conclusion that all the commotion about the deficit is a lot more about shifting income up to the .01 percent than it is about budgetary integrity. We should never listen to it again." - Letter from  Steve Milligan, in The Colorado Springs Independent, Sept. 13


As the next deadline for increase in the debt ceiling approaches - in less than 3 weeks-  the Reeptards are screaming for even more spending cuts - in order to approve meeting  debt obligations already on the books (which is what the debt ceiling increase is about) . Of course, this will invite a crisis and likely credit downgrade such as transpired 2 years ago.

According to a Denver Post piece 10 days ago the government is set to run out of money by mid-October. However, more recent estimates put it at the beginning of October.  As the Post notes:

"The mid-October date creates a new cliffhanger for Washington, one that's earlier than many analysts had expected. 

In exchange for raising the $16.7 trillion debt limit, Republicans are demanding significant new spending cuts and some are insisting on defunding or delaying Obama's signature health law."

 Of course, the reeptard demands are absolutely insane. First, because the debt limit raise isn't about mainly getting new money into the federal pipeline, but paying off existing debts to our creditors, such as China etc. Refuse to do that and the nation is placed in the same precarious position as a person who refuses to pay off credit card debt- the credit rating is destroyed. In the case of the country, the parallel is "credit default" -   which would be catastrophic. Don't the Reeps care? I doubt it, as their past actions in 2011 disclosed they prefer to be traitors to the nation's general welfare.  Will they now (again) ignore Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's warning that serious consequences will ensue if we do this again, with a likely credit downgrade?  Make your own bets!

Second, because reeptard  policies, legislation -  mainly tax cuts and wars (actually extended  occupations)-  have created nearly one half the deficit. This is shown in the accompanying graphics. Examining the left side chart we see that current debt without the tax cuts and wars would have been about 40% of GDP.   Add in the effects of the Bush II "Medicare Modernization Act" (2003)- which disallowed bargaining any for lower prescription drug costs (like the VA does) and paved the way for private "Medicare Advantage" plans to bleed the standard Medicare and you get to 45% of GDP by 2019.With the wars, unpaid for tax cuts,  the projected deficit soars to 85 percent by 2019. (See right side chart) Add in projected additional defense expenditures and security budgets and you're at more than 90% by 2019.  Attribute any minor decreases in total percentages to the current sequester, mainly affecting the domestic side of the budget. (i.e. total Medicare spending cut via Obamacare.)

Let's also get clear the Reeps are hypocrites more than anything else! They had no problem living with huge deficits during the Bush Junior years, but then those were all about THEIR kind of deficits - for wars and unpaid for tax cuts!   In the fiscal year ending 2011 alone, according to CNBC, there were more than $530 billion in government contracts awarded to defense contractors. That's almost as much revenue as will be raised in a decade by the recent fiscal cliff deal: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42494839/10_Companies_That_Make_Billions_From_The_US_Governmen

 Did Democrats block any debt ceiling increase during the Bush Jr. years? NOOOO.....! Congress instead voted SEVEN times to raise it ! But now, with a DEM in the WH, all bets are off and these gutter rats refuse to see their own contradictory behavior, as they hold Obama and the nation to a different standard. No wonder wifey said she wants to drop all the reep- turds off at Komodo Island to fend for themselves without any guns, and only a pocket knife to share between them,  vs. 4,000 monster reptiles .....hungry for human reptiles.

Part of the problem also, let's concede, is Obama and the Dems' failure to demand higher taxes nine months ago when the "fiscal cliff"  deal emerged. Instead of sticking to what he promised during his 2012 campaign : raising taxes on all incomes over $250k/yr. (which would have pretty well covered a lot of the deficit, Obama punked out and agreed to remove the Bush tax cuts only for the top 1% - those earning $359,000 or more per year (increasing their marginal rates to 39.6%). Instead, as The Financial Times noted three years ago, ALL the Bush tax cuts  (i.e. including for the middle class) ought to have been expired when their termination date arrived, instead of being renewed. See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/democrats-must-stop-playing-politics.html

The other failure had to do with not seeing madness when it's staring you in the face, i.e. Obama and Dems approving a sequester deal, in order to be the putative "stick" to make both parties come to an agreement on the last debt ceiling fracas, with the stick being $1.2 billion in cuts supposedly shared equally between defense and domestic support. Well, we saw how that turned out! One side, the reepos, actually were mad enough to say 'Fuck the deal' and allow the sequester in - hurling us nonstop toward austerity as it slows growth.

Now, we're in an austerity environment, a seriously low aggregate demand environment - in which whole states - like here in Colorado - are facing nearly $50 billion in repairs, maintenance and re-building costs after these floods are finished. Consider: over 40 miles of highways and roads smashed and washed away, 30 bridges destroyed (20 seriously damaged), 20,000 homes destroyed, and whole towns (e.g. Jamestown) so utterly mashed up by floodwaters they will have to be relocated. Anyone believe private enterprise will step in to do all this? If so, I have a plot of land in Barbados to offer you for a buck! Nope, the only logical source is the federal government.

But what is really rich, what half amuses me, is these reeptard assholes who sit in their little dens in Florida, feeding on the government tit, say with a VA disability check, then howling about how "liberals and socialists want to keep people government dependent by soaking the rich". Are you kidding me? The latest econ stats show the rich are now doing better than ever! The Gini coefficient for inequality is now worse than for the Philippines! The reason? Too low taxes to pay for the expanding needs of a nation, including for disaster relief and hey .....repairing the crumbling infrastructure. Yet these jackwads want to cut everything ....oh, except for defense....while they collect checks which themselves would be sliced or nixed if they got their dumb wish!

In her guest blog from Jan. 3rd this year, Jayne Lyn Stahl put it superbly:

"There is rape, and there is legitimate rape. So, when you hear legislators from the right wing side of the aisle cry out for the urgent need for "deficit reduction," to make much needed changes to Medicare, Social Security, end extensions to unemployment, and curtail food stamps; if they're allowed to prevail, consider yourself raped, America, legitimately or otherwise."

WHY The Need for so many Military Attacks? It's the Defense Contracts, Stupid!

On the ABC Sunday Morning discussion program with George Stephanopoulos, Mideast  correspondent Martha Radditz noted Obama must proceed cautiously on the Syrian front because he will need another war authorization "in a few months" for an attack on Iran. SAY WHAT?! An attack on Iran? What is this bullshit? How many attacks are we going to be making in the volatile Middle East? Has this country totally lost its fucking marbles?

Actually no, okay let me qualify that! There is method to the madness. The method is that the more conflicts, attacks that can be expedited the more ordinance, bombs, cruise missiles, etc. are destroyed in the process of attacking and hence the more additional ordnance, bombs, cruise missiles etc. have to be manufactured to replace them! Can't have any inventory building up on the defense contractors' shelves, now can we? Oh no! That would mean loss of profits and also, god forbid, that the products already manufactured are sitting there being wasted and unused.  The idea - as with all consumption  - is use, use, USE ....so more have to be manufactured and more paid for!

This is the dirty little secret of our "war" economy highlighted by the key graphic shown above, disclosing how much of the budget the military industrial complex sucks up annually.  Here's another dirty little secret about the "sequester": there are no real cuts to military spending in any absolute terms, but only an estimated "trim down" of roughly 23% in the projected INCREASES in Pentagon spending over the next ten years!

The point here? Contrary to the bloviators' bollocks of "jeopardizing national security", just the opposite is true: the Pentagon base budget will still be larger than it is today by 2021! This necessarily means, given the zero sum resources we have, everyone else will be much poorer. That means an even more shattered and useless infrastructure with crumbling roads, cracking sewer and water mains and collapsing bridges....and a much more likely intolerable domestic environment over all.

Meanwhile, you can just imagine the weapons makers having wet dreams now over this Syria thing. At last a believable excuse has been found in some Youtube images of gassed Syrian civilians to justify firing a thousand Tomahawks at those Syrian bad guys - and letting God sort them out.  He will have to, because there likely will be as much collateral damage - with maybe twice the number as killed in the gas attack, as Syrian forces annihilated.......errrrr.....punished. 

Oh yeah, let's bear in mind it's a "limited strike" maybe a few days at most, maybe 300 or so Tomahawks in all. But what no one is admitting is they will have to go in again if another gas attack takes place, no matter who did it - including al Qaeda operatives trying to snag us into another expensive, long drawn out war. Sounds almost like Oceania in George Orwell's '1984' - endless war, but the purpose of which is not to win...not anything but (in the immortal words of "Goldstein"):

"War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. "

But bear in mind, unstated by Goldstein, is that any kind of war - or even a limited attack as Obama claims he has planned for Syria - has the ancillary purpose of requiring additional stores of munitions, missiles, bombs, etc. to take the place of those destroyed in the attacks - hence means more defense contracts and more profits for the Pentagon-linked parasites who are sucking us all dry. And if more chemical attacks are committed by whatever bad guys? Well, that means we have to go in again and use up more cruise missiles so that when they are blown up, more will need to be made to replace them! And on and on it goes! Since, hell, once in for a penny, we're in for a pound. As long as any sort of "violations of international norms" occur, we will have to come back and bomb the suckers again!

And then, oh yes, a major assault on Iran lies in our future! Think of how those defense contractors must be having orgasmic spasms right now contemplating the new contract bounty from THAT! Hell, maybe 10,000 bombs and cruise missiles will have to be replaced!  And HEY! Since Iranian underground nuclear facilities are fortified with "ultra-high performance concrete" (UHPC) that means the most expensive bombs (at about $5m each) will have to be used!

These, of course, are the Massive Ordinance Penetrators ("MOPS' ), which can break through 60 m of ordinary concrete, but will not necessarily be a walk in the park. That means that an enormous supply will likely have to be available, and also if all those are used up, maybe 1,000 more will have to be made. Oy! Think of the profits!

Well, it is fairly clear who wins in each of these attack scenarios, and hint, hint, it ain't the American people. It will be the MIC and the defense profiteers.

Meanwhile, the American nation is sped into further decline especially if the debt ceiling isn't properly increased next month, but we face yet another showdown.

 Btw, contrary to what some uninformed dummies assert, the 'Commander in chief' is really only a puppet who ultimately must fulfill the will of the militarists who run the Military Industrial Complex.  Their main agenda is consuming the gross domestic product for military use and they will have it done one way or the other.  Read the book, In The Shadow of War, by Michael S. Sherry. JFK's courageous mistake was to buck the militarists by issuing National Security Action Memorandum 263 (to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965), and he paid the ultimate price.

A Tea Party Plot to Destroy Government?

Today is sequester day and we all know the cumulative spending cuts won’t hit at once but be more of a slow rolling calamity. Though assorted idiots make light of the amounts (Joe Scarborough referred to “only $44 billion” in real hits this morning) but make no mistake that even a billion is a LOT of moola if hundreds of thousands depend on it.


Meanwhile, a clip of John McCain played on MSNBC this a.m. with the Arizona Senator screeching his lungs out at the audacity and recklessness of slicing $46 billion from the Pentagon budget. McCain would have done better to point the finger at his own Tea Party faction. This group ultimately is behind the cuts and not allowing John Boehner to accept reasonable tax increases after the Repukes nearly drove the nation off a real cliff with their deficit spending (on wars, prescription drug payola to PhrMA, and tax cuts) during the Bush years.

As a deep politics researcher, my job is to spot actual conspiracies (not "theories")  before the empty suits in the mainstream media do, and I spot a big one here. In fact, it doesn’t even take a deep politics background to see it, but merely looking at recent and past events and applying rigorous logic.


First some history: Sequestration emerged as a hopeful and presumptively rational counter-strategy soon after the TeePees took over the House in 2011, then proceeded to hold hostage the full faith and credit of the United States during the debt ceiling debacle. This,  notwithstanding the Constitution’s injunction that the public debt of the United States “not be questioned.” At that time, I’d repeatedly implored Obama not to cave in to these miscreants but to invoke the 14th amendment instead, even if it meant a possible “constitutional crisis”. See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/will-there-be-blood-in-water.html

And: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/is-obama-serious.html

Meanwhile I’d exposed the Tea Party’s myths about the Constitution here:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/time-to-take-constitution-back-from.html

Anyway, having taken the only feasible weapon (in the 14th amendment) off the table, Obama and the WH agreed with the TP-driven Reeps to harsh and arbitrary “sequestered” spending cuts if they couldn’t come up with a more reasonable deal in the interim. Be aware too, the Tea Peas had no intention of agreeing to a more reasonable plan. They knew the only way to dismember the federal government was through large spending cuts without tax increases and they knew they could get their own side howling with patriotic fervor by including steep defense cuts too.

This debased fringe cabal knows of the pain to come but they don’t care. Their ideology drives all, just like fanatic ideology drove Hitler’s National Socialists to tear apart the German Reichstag as a positive governing force ca. 1933, setting the stage for a fascist dictatorship. The National Socialists knew, like the Tea Peas do now, that when the masses sense their security is undermined they will often yelp for a strong directing arm, or man. They got it in spades with Adolf Hitler. (As my sister-in-law Krimhilde frequently reminds me!)


Thus the Tea Peas, like the National Socialists 80 years earlier, yearn for the next hit they can make on government for the people by denying any extension of the government’s spending authority, which expires March 27. This means they are prepared to send the nation into credit default in order to try and twist Obama’s arm to cut “entitlements”. But if he plays into this tableaux again, he’s an even bigger played- for -fool than he was in 2011 when he left his biggest 'gun' on the table while expecting rationality from his opponents.


Do the Tea Party skunks welcome more joblessness because they want Americans to be even more fearful and angry? Of course! Tea Peas consistently use fear and anger in their war against the government – always blaming the anemic recovery on government deficits and the government’s size, and selling a poisonous arsenic/snake-oil  mix of austerity and trickle-down economics as the remedy.

Like the National Socialists in Germany in the early 1930s, the Tea Party wingnuts are prepared to use the ensuing disruption and paralysis to try to persuade Americans their government is palsied and necessarily dysfunctional, and American politics is inherently bad. Thus, the inevitable continuing showdowns and standoffs are part of the plot, much like the Nazis' aims after the 1932 elections in Germany. (The SS beat the hell out of workers and forced national slowdowns, strikes and turmoil to send the country’s debt into the stratosphere as they sowed dissension)

What is Obama’s response? Evidently, from the  White House website he still wants a so-called “grand bargain of balanced spending cuts” (including cuts in the projected growth of Social Security and Medicare) combined with tax increases on the wealthy. Tragically, actual facts haven’t measured up to the rhetoric since he has agreed to a gross imbalance, over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Republicans’ $600 billion in tax increases on the rich. This was why many of us were hopping mad at the fiscal cliff travesty noting that the $400,000 income level for tax raises was nuts, and would by its anemic level of revenue, force more spending cuts.


The existence of the plan on the WH site discloses Obama apparently still believes Republicans are serious about deficit reduction, when in fact the squalid Teepees running the GOP only care about dismembering the government. Obama, then, extends an unrealistic excess of good will (and respect) to the other side which they do not deserve. In this way, he pathetically resembles Weimar Republic President Paul von Hindenburg before acquiescing to Hitler’s Chancellorship in 1933. As one history website (historyplace) puts it:


“In January 1933, Adolf Hitler took the reins of a 14-year-old German democratic republic which in the minds of many had long outlived its usefulness. By this time, the economic pressures of the Great Depression combined with the indecisive, self-serving nature of its elected politicians had brought government in Germany to a complete standstill.”

A complete parallel to what the Tea Party Nazis now plan to do, and believe me they are elated to do so. If you don’t believe me, please read this on the GOP House's effusive reaction to the coming cuts:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/politics/house-republicans-cheer-boehners-refusal-to-negotiate-on-cuts.html?hp&_r=0


Hence, like Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, Obama can’t or won't see the vile evil before him and its intent. If he did, he’d never agree to the “grand bargain” he has allowed on the WH website. Besides, as Robert Reich has noted in a salon.com piece, “the deficit is now down to about 5 percent of GDP – where it was when Bill Clinton took office”. Maybe Obama is blinded by a secret desire to appease the Beltway Neoliberal  Gurus (like Bob Woodward) in order to himself be regarded as a "serious President", thereby establishing the basis for a "serious legacy". But this would be a tragic error! (Unless Obama is a secret Neoliberal himself. After all, he did praise 'free market capitalism' barely 2 years ago.)

Meanwhile, the ebbing growth trends have little or nothing to do with government programs but a continued low aggregate demand environment. In fact, Medicare is far more efficient than private health insurance as I will show in a near future blog.

My advice to Obama? Forget about making any “grand bargain” with a gaggle of extremist rats. Stop talking about the “budget deficit” and playing into the Tea Peas’ hands and start talking instead about the widening inequality – as you did in the campaign.

Lastly, grow up and cease seeing the Reeps as seriously interested in making a deal, since any such will be contaminated by the Tea Partiers who now run the Republican Party.

As Robert Reich put it: Obama would do better to drop the rose-tinted glasses and “see the Tea Partiers for who they are — a small, radical minority intent on dismantling the government of the United States”. So long as Obama allows them to dictate the terms of public debate they will continue to hold the rest of us hostage to their extremism, like the National Socialists did in the early 1930s in Germany.

How Obama Can do an 'End Run' Around the 'Pukes in the Debt Ceiling Battle

It was amusing to see extremist anti-tax troglydyte Grover Norquist on a TV spot recently ( replayed on the Ed Schultz show) yapping about how the GOP House could hold Obama hostage to spending cuts by bringing up the debt ceiling as a lever every month. He went on to bloviate:"And only when they do what we demand, with those cuts, will we raise their allowance!"

Hey, brainiac! There's no "allowance"! The increase in the debt ceiling is to ensure repayment of the money already spent! It is money you OWE, birdbrain!

Here are some other lesser known facts about our debt before I go on to show how Obama can do an end run around these Goopr fools without having to have new Treasury Sec Jack Lew mint a $1 trillion platinum coin, or for Obama to invoke the 14th amendment and probably incite impeachment proceedings.

- Of the $16.3 trillion up to today, only $5.5 trillion is owed to external nations (e.g. China, Japan etc.)

- $6  trillion is owed to individuals within the country - as in federal pensions ($2.9 trillion) and Social Security (to its Trust Fund) $3.1 trillion, from borrowing to support "wars"

- Another $4.8 trillion is owed to investors within the country, including to bond holders (Treasury bonds and bills) and others.

Technically speaking then, the true national debt (as defined as being owed to outside nations, interests) is only 33.7% of the total. I mention this because this is how most other nations measure their national debt. They do not reckon in what they owe themselves, internally! (For example, Switzerland)

Obviously, as may be seen from the above, several things pop into view:

1) A good chunk of the money, e.g. for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was raided from Social Security monies, the Trust Fund namely - which trillions the government now owes beneficiaries.

2) The canard that the Social Security Trust Fund bonds are only "IOUs" cannot possibly be true if they are in fact counted towards the debt! On the other hand, if they were "only" IOUs and possessed no fiscal gravitas, then that $3.1 trillion would be subtracted so we'd "only"have a deficit of $13.2 trillion. Bottom line? If we measured national debt and deficits in the standard ways other nations do there wouldn't have been half the kerfuffle about it. (And since Social Security is funded separately, so long as the payroll tax is there at 6.2%, then it can't contribute to the debt nor does it have any creditors.)


Now how can Obama do his end run and come out ahead in the upcoming debt ceiling brouhaha? The solution was recently offered by Edward D. Kleinbard, a former chief of staff at the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, and currently a law professor at the University of Southern California.

He recommends that President Obama threaten to issue scrip or  “registered warrants”,  to issue to existing claims holders (other than those who own actual government debt) in lieu of money. Recipients of these I.O.U.’s could include federal employees, defense contractors, Medicare service providers, Social Security recipients and others.  This money would be as good as actual hard currency or any electronic input. Best part?  Scrip would not violate the debt ceiling because it wouldn’t constitute a new borrowing of money backed by the credit of the United States. It would merely be a formal acknowledgment of a pre-existing monetary claim against the United States that the Treasury was not currently able to pay. The president could therefore establish a scrip program by executive order without piling a constitutional crisis on top of a fiscal one.

How ingenious can you get? Much more sophisticated than having to go out and  mint a trillion dollar coin, eh? (Which, however, is permitted under several obscure clauses in the Constitution to do with the duties of the Treasury Secretary as pertaining to minting coins).

Of course there is the possible problem of confusion with actual Treasury debt. Hence, to be consistent with the law governing claims against the United States more generally the scrip would not pay interest in most cases. And unlike debt, it would have no fixed maturity date but rather would become redeemable in cash only when the secretary of the Treasury was able to certify that there’s enough money available in the Treasury’s general fund to cover it.

Finally, as the professor notes: "the scrip would be transferable, allowing financial institutions to buy it at a high percentage of its face value, knowing that the political crisis would almost certainly be resolved before long."

Kleinbard does point out that the federal "Anti-Assignment Act" generally prohibits the transfer of claims against the United States from one private actor to another, but "the government could waive the act’s application, which is what the president would do here".  Ingenious!


Kleinbard agrees that the strategy "may sound far-fetched, but it has been used before: in fact, California relied on it as recently as 2009."  Beginning in July of that year, California addressed its budget crisis by issuing 450,000 registered warrants, totaling $2.6 billion, to individual and business claimants, including recipients of aid programs, recipients of tax refunds and government contractors.

 Kleinbard adds:

"A federal scrip program, importantly, would not explicitly challenge any constitutional allocation of powers. Nor would there be confusion in the marketplace between valid Treasury bonds and this new paper, which would have a different name, financial terms and legal status. And because the scrip would be transferable, claimants forced to accept it would be able to turn it into immediate cash in private markets, for as long as the Treasury was unable to issue new debt."

Lastly, it is a way of doing an 'end run' in the oncoming debt ceiling crisis, but clearly can't be a final solution.In Prof. Kleinbard's words: "It would be the least awful way to defang the most extortionate demands of Congressional hard-liners — and one that would not permanently damage America’s fiscal standing in the world."

Let us hope Obama uses it when the time comes, as opposed to capitulating to Repuke demands as he did in 2011!