Tyranny of Tyranny - Reactions from the wingnut-O-sphere

NRO Editors on the Chief Justice’s folly:

The dissent acknowledges that if an ambiguous law can be read in a way that renders it constitutional, it should be. It distinguishes, though, between construing a law charitably and rewriting it. The latter is what Chief Justice John Roberts has done. If Roberts believes that this tactic avoids damage to the Constitution because it does not stretch the Commerce Clause to justify a mandate, he is mistaken. The Constitution does not give the Court the power to rewrite statutes, and Roberts and his colleagues have therefore done violence to it. If the law has been rendered less constitutionally obnoxious, the Court has rendered itself more so. Chief Justice Roberts cannot justly take pride in this legacy.

Don't worry, be happy. This winger is not worried about Obamacare

We aren’t going to spend X trillion dollars on Obamacare, because we do not have X trillion dollars to spend. The trick is for voters to get that through Washington’s thick skull before the bond market does.

The Court may not have been on our side today, but the math still is.

Williamson, Cornerite

From a Douchebag:

"Let's talk about [US Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts. I'm going to tell you something that you're not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to. It's well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication. Therefore neurologists will tell you that medication used for seizure disorders, such as epilepsy, can introduce mental slowing, forgetfulness and other cognitive problems. And if you look at Roberts' writings you can see the cognitive disassociation in what he is saying,"

AM Radio Warrior - Michael Savage.

From Starbursts:

Chief Justice John Roberts famously defined himself as an umpire in his confirmation hearings. But an umpire is willing to make the toughest calls.

In his Obamacare decision, Roberts the umpire blinked. By issuing a decision that forestalled the tsunami of criticism that would have come his way had he struck down the law (as an activist, a partisan, and an altogether rotten human being), Roberts effectively rewrote the constitutionally problematic portions of it. He overstepped his bounds. The umpire called a balk, but gave the pitcher a do-over. The ref called a foul, but didn’t interrupt the play.

As a result, there’s Obamacare as passed by Congress. Then there’s Obamacare as passed by the Supreme Court.

NRO Editor Rich Lowry

Standing Athwart History Shouting BACKWARDS!!!!

A Winger's Lament. The Country's been going to hell in a hand basket since 1787:

Every time I visit Washington, D.C., I am struck by a single, terrible thought: It is not just that conservatives are losing the various battles over big government, but they have been losing the war for generations. The most conservatives are ever able to do is tinker at the margins – and celebrating small victories like lowering marginal tax rates is a sign of just how low our sights are set.

Why has this happened? After all, this was a country founded in direct opposition to unlimited governmental power. How have we arrived at a point when the feds can do just about anything they want?

It is because, at critical moments in the nation’s history, the advocates of limited government were on the losing side of the political equation, and the opposition was very effective at consolidating its victory. Not only did big government advocates implement policy changes, they also brought about huge structural innovations to the way the government functions.

Cost via the Weekly Standard (which was formerly named after a brand of toilets)

The first critical moment or big battle over the role of the state was lost by the Anti-Federalists.  The articles of confederation were replaced with the US Constitution which supported the formation of an administrative system suitable for that age (just as it supports an administrative system suitable for  the strains and stresses of the twenty-first century). It's been all down hill since then.

One of the first things the First Congress did was to pass a health care mandate for shipping firms and launch public infrastructure program to build what would be later called Cincinnati.  There no way that bullshit would have happened under the Articles of Confederation. But as we know, the forces of limited government lost that battle just as they have most every time the public demands a solution to a problem which the government is the best means to achieve.  Shit happens.

As life gets more and more complex and the economy ever so-much more specialized, the public will inevitably demand that the administrative system adapt.  Who should regulate nano-technology engineered products? How should nuclear energy security be managed?  Should society rely on technical administration by experts with decades of education and experience or on a group of folks selected from the Wasilla phone book?  I'd prefer not using the Wasilla phone book, but that is just me.

Deep Thoughts

If I were running a restaurant and Judge Scalia came in for a meal, no matter what he ordered, I'd serve him broccoli. I'd blame Obamacare if he raised a fuss.

Meanwhile in a parallel universe

Let me add a final word on the Supreme Court.

Before the arguments began, the overwhelming consensus among legal experts who aren’t hard-core conservatives — and even among some who are — was that Obamacare was clearly constitutional…. [F]our justices dissented, and did so in extreme terms, proclaiming not just the much-disputed individual mandate but the whole act unconstitutional. Given prevailing legal opinion, it’s hard to see that position as anything but naked partisanship.

The point is that this isn’t over…. The cruelty and ruthlessness that made this court decision such a nail-biter aren’t going away.

But, for now, let’s celebrate. This was a big day, a victory for due process, decency and the American people.

K-Thug Spiking the Ball

Had President McCain asked Health and Human Services Secretary Romney to implement nationalized Romneycare, there would have been no controversy nor case. 

Nationalized Romneycare would be attacked from the left for being too market centered and not including a public option among others things. It would accepted as better than the status quo, but something that could be improved on in the future.

From the right Nationalized Romneycare would be hailed as a triumph of the Market to solve a generations old problem.  Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy would have found some other matter to be outraged over. They would have found it and been mad about what ever it was. 

MEAN SHIT found on Web

I wish I would have written this first:

Just remember, as Bruce Bartlett noted on his Facebook page,

“A government with the power to force us to buy health insurance can also force restaurants to serve black people.”

Be afraid.

But they'll probably be served broccoli though.  The tyranny never stops.  On the other hand, steamed broccoli is really good.

Adventures in Progressive Movement Rhetoric

This is how you kick it old school style:

"In the city of San Francisco we have drunk to the very dregs the cup of infamy. We have vile officials, we have dad rotten newspapers. We have men who have sold there birthright. We have dipped into every infamy. Every form of wickedness has been ours in the past. Every debased passion and every sin has flourished.

But we have nothing so vile, nothing so low, nothing so debased, nothing  so infamous in San Francisco as Harrison Gray Otis. ….  He sits there in senile dementia, with gangrened heart and rotting brain, grimacing at every reform, chattering impotently at all things that are decent; frothing, fuming, violently gibbering, going down to his grave in snarling infamy.  This man Otis is the one blot on the banner of Southern California; …. he is the one thing that all California looks at when in looking at Southern California they see anything that is disgraceful, depraved, corrupt, crooked and putrescent-that is Harrison Gray Otis.” 

Hiram Johnson, 102nd anniversary  Edition, discussing organized labor's public enemy number 1. Johnson, it is alleged, riffed out this rhetoric off the cuff - free association style. Man he's good.

This quote recently came to mind while pondering what Chief Judge Roberts had in mind for Obamacare. I also find myself thinking about it when reading unpleasant invective found on right wing blogs.  You would just the delete the "Harrison Gray Otis" line and replace it with a 21st century equivalent.  Ad homonym can feel good at times.

Now it seems that it was mean spirited of me to be thinking such things as Roberts has stuck to his pledge of incrementalism over reactionary activism and upheld decades of precedence and the law. Of course this is what he should have done.  Nevertheless he will be applauded for doing the right thing as doing the right thing is not always the easiest path to take.  Playing along with his confederates would have been the easier road to take - in the short term.

This type of rhetoric, it seems, is misplaced on Roberts.  Besides he smiles too much.  Scalia on the other hand fits the bill more and more every week. I can dig that. Just delete the "Harrison Gray Otis" line and let Johnson do the rest.

Pre-Obamacare Predictions

Yesterday Powerline Blog:

If [Obamacare is upheld], liberals will once again go crazy, which will be sad but entertaining. Here is a firm prediction, however: if the Court goes the other way and upholds Obamacare, conservatives will not become hysterical, will not proclaim the death of democracy, and will not accuse the liberal justices of racism, or whatever. Notwithstanding the high stakes involved, conservatives will respond in a reasonable and dignified manner.

Let’s hope, however, that that prediction is not tested.

Today from a Georgia Republican:

With #Obamacare ruling, I feel like I just lost two great friends: America and Justice Roberts.

— Jack Kingston (@JackKingston) June 28, 2012

Georgia again. It figures.

The Switch in Time that Saved Nine, times Two

The wingnet is calling out Chief Justice Roberts as a turncoat (in fevered places) who may have originally signed on to sabotage health insurance reform, but then switched to up hold the law.  One nutter is even wondering whether Roberts or his family was threatened, but that is nutpicking and nutpicking usually violates the rules of the internets. 

Here is how a less fevered place puts it:

Back in May, there were rumors floating around relevant legal circles that a key vote was taking place, and that Roberts was feeling tremendous pressure from unidentified circles to vote to uphold the mandate. Did Roberts originally vote to invalidate the mandate on commerce clause grounds, and to invalidate the Medicaid expansion, and then decide later to accept the tax argument and essentially rewrite the Medicaid expansion (which, as I noted, citing Jonathan Cohn, was the sleeper issue in this case) to preserve it? If so, was he responding to the heat from President Obama and others, preemptively threatening to delegitimize the Court if it invalidated the ACA? The dissent, along with the surprising way that Roberts chose to uphold both the mandate and the Medicaid expansion, will inevitably feed the rumor mill.

The first Switch in Time that Saved Nine happened in 1937 to save key portions of the New Deal.  It saved the court from the possibility of a court packing scheme which would have added more justices to the bench to dilute the reactionary block.

This second switch in time may have saved the reputation of the Nine.  Invalidating a part of the law championed by your party for decades (GOPsters came up with it in the late 80s) because the other team stole the idea from your side and enacted it into law would not bode well for the court's reputation as impartial arbiters of the law.  By following precedent and upholding it, Roberts saves the Nine.

Oh, that Willard!

Willard Romney on Court’s decision to uphold the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act - he is still against the mandate:

“Let’s make clear that we understand what the court did and did not do,” Romney said. “What the court did do today is say that Obamacare does not violate the Constitution. What they did not do is to say that Obamacare is good law or that it is good policy. Obamacare was bad policy yesterday. It’s bad policy today. Obamacare was a bad law yesterday. It is bad law today.”

Instead Willard would prefer 50 state health insurance mandates. Nationalized Romneycare is bad. 50 State Romneycare programs would be good.  What a weasel.

One Step at a Time

 One elitist thinks Ranks of Climate Deniers  is being culled:

Time was, after all, when U.S. fossil fuel industry majors were united in a climate “skeptic” stance, under the aegis of the anti-Kyoto Global Climate Coalition. Nowadays, in contrast, even ExxonMobil has dropped off as a chief source of support for the climate denial machine—see investigative reporter Steve Coll’s great new book on this—and the extreme to which the Heartland Institute went with its billboards [ed note: comparing climate scientist to the unibomber] says a great deal about the intellectual weakness of the climate denial case today. The denial of global warming is no longer mainstream within corporate America or the fossil fuel industry, then—and that can only be considered a major achievement. And yet at the same time, it is stronger than ever among Tea Partiers and the Republican Party itself.

The Wingnuts are still on board, of course, but only a good FEMA camp could change that. Send them all to Camp Bachmann and maybe some good will come of it.  The misinformed tea partiers are still on board, but that is because so many are systematically lied to. However some of the heavy artillery is backing out of the climate denial game. I guess that is a good sign.

The Roger B Taneyisation of the Supreme Court, Cntd

Did not happen today as Chief Justice Roberts was not prepared to turn the court into a partisan weapon by sabotaging health insurance reform.

While all the smart people were writing that the court should uphold the law and decades of established precedent, but will overturn the law anyway, something told me that this was a bridge too far. Acting so brazen would give mean people more than ample opportunity to label John Roberts a 21st century Roger Taney.  Who wants to be compared to the guy who wrote the partisan hackery that was the Dred Scot decision? Not Roberts, that's who.

But maybe I just got lucky.

Deep thought of the Day

Maybe Judge Thomas should recuse himself from the health insurance reform decision as his wife is an anti-health insurance activist. This cannot help the High Court's image.

I believe right wing blogs were all over the Prop-8 appellate panel because the wife of one of the judges was a supporter of marriage equality.  In that instance wingers

Since certain members of the Supreme Court are known to be influenced by right wing blog posts, if I could get some of these winger Prop-8 posts in front of Judge Thomas, we may be able to convince him to recuse himself from the decision due to the appearance of impropriety.

Just a thought.

Wingnutology for the Day - Are Today's Wingnuts more Crazy than they used to be?

Brad DeLong:

It used to be that crazy people were more-or-less evenly divided between the (northern) Republican Party and the (southern) Democratic Party. Now they are concentrated in the Republican Party. This matters--and is a source of great terror and dismay for the non-crazy Republicans, and for us all.

But there has been no net increase in craziness.

I am not so sure this is completely true.  While the observation that craziness has consolidated within the GOTP is indeed correct, I am unsure if net craziness has remained constant.  We can categorize craziness several different ways.  First is the Crazification Factor which is tells us that within a given population, it is likely that 27% are batshit crazy.  This is accepted as an established law of the internets.

However one can also measure craziness by other factors such as by intensity, frequency  (or rate of reoccurrence of craziness) and amplification.

As to the intensity factor I believe, human nature being what it is, that Today's Wingnuts are just as Crazy as wingnuts in the old days.  However, I also believe that the democratization of communication has increased the frequency of craziness.  Since today's wingnuts have lower barriers to communicating craziness to larger audiences, they able to do it with greater frequency.  Thus we experience the craziness more often. And because the Wingnuts are now consolidated in the GOTP, this frequency leads to an amplification factor.   The Amplification factor uses the economy of scale that GOTP consolidation provides to influence decision making of non-crazy republicans.  See example of Orrin Hatch below.

To summarize:

Today's wingnuts are not more crazy that they used to be (intensity factor). However today's wingnuts have more tools and fewer barriers to project craziness (frequency factor) and more opportunity to influence public opinion due to consolidation within the GOTP (amplification factor).  And of course, the crazification factor of 27% is presumed to be accurate.

Odious Orrin Beats Back Teahadist Challenger

Operation Purity failed to "bag" another prime target last night in Utah's GOTP Senate Primary as Orrin Hatch survived to move onto what should be his last election in November.

And since this is Orrin's last rodeo, I believe it is time for Orrin to be Orrin and shake off the bonds of tea party extremism.  No longer should Orrin parrot screeds from right wing blogs on judicial nominations. He should cast aside conspiracy theories and delusions of the fever swamp. He should stand tall like a man and castigate those who mercilessly teabagged his colleague Bob Bennett in 2010.  Two years of kissing up to assholes to avoid Bailout Bob's fate has to be worth something.

 Now is Orrin's last time in the sun and his last opportunity for a legacy other than as a pathetic party hack.

Let Orrin be Orrin.

The Roger B Taneyisation of the High Court?

If the alternate to Obamacare is Medicare for All instead of private insurance based health care system, which the court could not touch, surely the debate over whether the mandate is outrageous tyranny is manufactured.

Brad Delong:

In all previous Constitutional Moments, the stakes were political, but the stakes were also large, and the stakes were fundamental: about what kind of country we were going to be. Marbury vs. Madison was about whether the Supreme Court was going to be another anti-majoritarian brake on the powers of legislative majorities that were possibly transient. Lochner was about whether freedom of contract--or freedom to exploit--was going to be a core right. SiT [switch in time that save nine in 1937] was whether social democracy would come smoothly or would require an economic-regulation constitutional amendment, et cetera. 

The interesting thing about the Constitutional Moment that now perhaps looms is that it is the first one in which the stakes are purely partisan, and purely political. The probable Supreme Court majorities in the ACA case have shown no inclination to restrict congressional power when it is a matter of exceeding black-letter patent clause authority to provide a payoff to Disney or to prohibit the medical use of marijuana--and will show no inclination to revisit and change those decisions in the future.

From my reading of the internets all the smart people have come to the conclusion that if the Supreme Court follows established precedent it will uphold the law. However most smart people do not expect the High Court to follow established norms of behavior.

When Judge Roberts came to town, he promised just to call balls and strikes and not to pretextually undo a century of precedent on federal power for partisan purposes. But most folks are expecting him to do this on Thursday in the role of a party apparatchik.

When Judge Roberts helped create new gun rights and new speech rights for corporations, he was arguably expanding liberty. Here are some new rights. Enjoy. You see, being on the side of an expansion of liberty is relatively easy. Freedom Good. Less Freedom bad. Easy Argument.

However striking down Health Insurance Reform for partisan reason in a manner that will damage your reputation forever and the High Court's reputation for the immediate future is different.  I am not sold on what he will do yet.  We know that he is a party-man, but he's gonna have to take one for the team on this one in a big way by sabotaging health insurance  reform.

Foxnews Operative Transferred to Vatican

Via the Arch Libraservative:

Fox News' Rome correspondent, a numerary of Opus Dei, becomes the director of the Vatican's media operation. It's what they call a lateral move.

I guess this means there is an opening at the FNC/RNC .

Judge Scalia Plays a fun game, cntd

More on Judge Scalia's latest outrage in the Arizona immigration Supreme Court ruling. Here is a riff from a Mean Person on the Internets:

...according to Scalia, if Arizona had known what was coming from his colleagues yesterday, they never would have joined the United States. No other state would have either. The Arizona ruling, in Scalia’s telling, would have destroyed the country even before it was born.
And what authority did Scalia cite for his broad conception of the role of the state? He went back into history to examine the role of states in policing immigration. He pointed out that

In the first 100 years of the Republic, the States enacted numerous laws restricting the immigration of certain classes of aliens, including convicted criminals, indigents, persons with contagious diseases, and (in Southern States) freed blacks. State laws not only provided for the removal of unwanted immigrants but also imposed penalties on unlawfully present aliens and those who aided their immigration.

It’s worth pausing to remember what kind of immigration the states (especially the Southern ones) handled in those bygone days; much of it had to do with slavery, of course...

Sweetly Mean!

But is it really a good idea to use the Sovereign State of South Carolina's immigration policy circa 1788 to justify a ruling addressing a 21st century law?  Don't you just open yourself up to needless bitchslapping over the whole slavery thing?

Good one Judge.

Judge Scalia plays a fun game

Angry, Angry, Angry:

"Are the sovereign states at the mercy of the federal executive's refusal to enforce the nation's immigration laws? A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the states conceivably have entered into the union if the Constitution itself contained the court's holding? If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state. ... To say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind." 

Judge Scalia, boggled and emotional

It is an interesting thought experiment. Would South Carolina entered into the Union if Brown vs. the Board of Education was contained in the Constitution? Would Massachusetts or any other free state have entered into the Union knowing that the Dred Scot Decision was the law of the land?

How many states would have declined to join the Union if the Heller decision was incorporated into the constitution? Pre-Heller, there was not an individual right to own a Musket.  Rather the second amendment was conceived to affirm that a “well-regulated militia” of citizen-soldiers would preserve “the security of a free state,” principally by lessening the need for a republican government to depend on a standing army.  The founders were quite leery of standing armies. Nevertheless this fact did not stop Judge Scalia and his confederates from updating the constitution to include his preference for the new civil right of gun ownership.

What would any State decline to ratify the constitution had the Citizen's United decision been incorporated into the document. Pretty sure that Madison and others would have been apoplectic upon any proposed constitutional provision enshrining the rights of Transnational Corporations in the electoral system. Judge Scalia did not care about this transgression from originalism either. He simply did what felt good at the time.

All in all it is a pretty fun game that Judge Scalia is playing. But why is he so angry. He gets to make lots of the rules, just not all of them. He could always take his ball and go home, I guess.

If I had a brother in Jail and another one in Georgia, I'd bust the one out of Georgia First, cntd

In this installment of why Georgia may be the most backwards place in America, we give you Sheriff Roger Garrison, a Gold Member of the Cherokee County Republican Party and sometime KKK impersonator .

[video]

To be fair Georgia faces stiff competition from a variety of states such as Oklahoma,  Mississippi and fill in the blank for all around backwardness.  But when it comes to churning out embarrassing republicans, Georgia right up there at the top.  Well, actually Texas is at the top of producing embarrassing Republicans, but Georgia scores high in other embarrassing categories. It does well in the all around category.

Fists of Fury or Fits of Fury or Fast and Furious or Obama lied, Mexicans died or something like that

The wingnuttery can be a powerful tool, man. Take Operation Fast and Furious for example, a take off of the Bush era program, wide receiver, where ATF agents used arms sales to straw purchasers illegally buying and funneling firearms to thugs who cannot buy them in the US in order to trace the sales to a larger pattern of arms trafficking in Mexico. These programs would have the effect of increasing the number of guns along the border in order to identify the gang leaders. 

The program (not the Bush part - that was OK, see link below) which sounds like a bad idea at first glance has been incorporated within wingnut mythology to be a deliberate attempt by the Obama Administration to enact domestic gun laws in the US.  This demand for increased gun control would come about in response to escalating violence from illegally armed drug gangs along the border. According Obama's diabolic plan, people would die in large numbers. Then the American public would demand gun restrictions and the next thing you know there will be a UN guard posted in front of your house.

From the Fever Swamps:

It’s really about stealth gun control

Even before Obama was inaugurated, gun control was high on his wish list, including the restoration of the Clinton-era ban on “assault weapons.” So the most plausible explanation for the fine mess the administration currently finds itself in is this:

Wishing to “prove” the lie that 90% of the guns used in Mexican drug violence originate in America (the real figure is closer to 17%), Justice used the failed Operation Wide Receiver as the model for a larger operation deliberately designed to fail.

That way, they could point in feigned horror at the recovered American weapons and crack down on legitimate gun dealers — the very dealers they had forced to sell weapons to the cartels via “straw purchasers” in the first place.

In short, the truth is that Fast and Furious was most likely a murderously cynical assault on the Second Amendment — and one whose multiple ghosts will now haunt the Obama administration’s remaining days.

In other words the wingers say they are outraged that Obama lied, Mexicans died (h/t instapundit).  But there is just one problem with this rhetorical attack on the President: conservatives don't care about Mexicans.  Everybody knows this. 

More problematic is that the House of Representatives is threatening (yet again, sigh) to use Fast and Furious as means to a constitutional show down. Even more problematic is that everyone can tell that this conspiracy theory is batshit crazy, too. 

So what do you do if you are a leading wingnut and see looming disaster of an election year constitutional show down? You try to talk the conspiracy theory down without insulting your fellow teahadists:

The theory cannot be ruled out. However, I don’t find it persuasive[ED Note - nice touch].

First, Fast and Furious does not appear to have been the brainchild of President Obama or Attorney General Holder. Rather, the program reportedly was formulated by the ATF in Phoenix in response to an edict from Washington to focus on eliminating arms trafficking networks, as opposed to capturing low-level buyers, as had occurred under traditional interdiction programs. If Fast and Furious had been the product of a conspiracy by the administration to promote gun control legislation, the program would have come from the top down, not from the bottom up.

Now, it’s possible that a thorough review of documents would show that, contrary to current understanding, the plan originated in the White House or with Eric Holder. But it seems unlikely. For if this had happened, those who have been blamed for the program would likely have said they were following edicts from the highest reaches of the government.

...

Second, Obama and Holder probably would not have believed that increased violence in Mexico could lead to tougher regulation of guns in the U.S. Americans simply don’t care enough about Mexico to alter domestic policy based on what occurs there, especially when it comes to an issue as passionately and endlessly argued as gun control. Americans view violence in Mexico the way they viewed violence in Colombia – unfortunate, typical, and not our problem at any fundamental level.

It was always possible that a few Americans, especially some involved in law enforcement, would be killed with guns that were part of Fast and Furious. But in this event, the probable consequence is what we have witnessed – major embarrassment for the administration, not an effective vehicle for advocating more gun control. On balance, it seems unlikely that the administration would come up with a program this risky in the pie-in-the-sky hope of increasing gun control.

That's the thing with systematically deceiving your voters. They sometimes cannot be reeled in before doing real harm, like nominating fellow Teadists for office (See, O'Donnell, Christine, et al.), launching a debt ceiling kamikaze mission or sabotaging the economic recovery.  The misinformed teahadist actually thinks is he doing good works by engaging in the crazy.

On the other hand after the Second Amendment is toast, odds are that Obama will go after the Third Amendment prohibiting the quartering of soldiers in your house - because the UN troops will need somewhere to sleep while they are stationed here.

If it feels good, do it. That's a big basis of modern conservatism

A big part of the so-called conservatism is a backlash against expertise.  Wingers don't like smart folks who tell them inconvenient things about the folks ways. 

And while we’re looking at evidence for Congress abdicating its responsibility, let’s not forget Senate Finance Committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus, who said: “I don’t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. . . We hire experts.”

Question for the senator: If you’re going to hire experts to do the heavy lifting, why should we bother with you in the first place?

 Wingnut Welfare Recipient and Powerline Blogger Hayward

Why listen to the advice of experts on a particular topic when you can go with your feelings instead? 

Modern society is complicated. Understanding the moving parts is hard. Why put in the time and effort to understand how the economy works or the health care system works or what climate science is about when you can just go with your feelings? Going with you feelings is far easier. While doing hard work and learning that the folk ways don't work in modern society is unsettling.

Would you want to put Sarah Palin in charge of nuclear power plant safety?  You if she was a Government official with tons of experts doing all the heavy lifting for her.  But that is not how wingers tend to roll these days. Administration and Expertise tend to be  bad because they hurt their feelings.

I feel that health insurance reform is tyranny, so it is.  I don't want to believe that the climate is warming due to manmade causes, so just claim all the experts are engaged in an elaborate conspiracy. On and on and on. This is another reason why we could use some good FEMA camps.

Seriously, the Laffer curve may be part of Sharia Law for all we know

So I am reading Francis Fukayama's new book on political order from prehistory to the french revolution, I know that he is a conservative and a quasi-reformed Neo-con and all and that's fine with me.  I look at it as a form of intellectual history, which helps you understand how folks think. He lets neo-conservatism slip here are there, but I know it when I see it.  All and all it is good to understand different ideologies and how people apply them to current events.  This is very useful. Plus understanding different idea sets makes it easy to label Paul Ryan a Social Darwinist, because he plagiarizes so many riffs from the Old Line Darwinists.

Last night I learned something new that I would not have learned on my own. Namely I read that the Ottoman Empire was influenced by the Laffer Curve as it set tax policy. This set my bullshit detector off so I had to check this claim out. And sure enough, according to the internets, it turns out that the laffer curve is not an invention of Supply Side Economics.  No it goes back much further than that to the days of the Islamic Caliphate (cue scary music):

I don't know much about Sharia Law, but when folks say that they are concerned about the encroachment of Sharia Law into America, they may be talking about the laffer curve and if they are, I agree with them.  Those who practice Lafferism and promoting ideology based upon the Laffer Curve may need to be shipped to Guantanamo.  As far as I know Art Laffer may be free and walking the streets of your home town at this very minute.  Something seems wrong with that.

I am wondering what Cabinet Position Joe the Plumber will be nominated for a Romney Administration

During the last presidential election, John McCain put his hopes in winning the election in the hands of two sketchy characters:  Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Sarah, bless her heart, did her best.  And many wingers thought, Joe the Plumber would inspire America and turn the election in favor of McCain. It did not work out however.

This leads me to observe that the state of the GOTP is in shambles. It can no longer claim to be the party of ideas. It can claim to be the party of the ideas of Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, but it cannot claim an intellectual mantra. Example: left to Joe the Plumber, school kids would use the bible as a science text book.

Lots of folks are rightfully embarrassed that they supported John Edwards after learning what caused his crash and burn.  However, Edwards is persona non grata in the party.  Contrast that with Poor Sarah and to a lesser extent, Joe the Plumber. These character continue to garner party support. In Sarah's case The FNC/RNC pays her a million dollars a year to pop off on television.  That is a big difference between to two parties.  It is also a sign of political decay and another reason why the GOTP should be shut down now.

Fire Rich Lowry! NRO's continuing White Supremacy Problem

In the past, it the was more overt at the National Review.  However overt racism just ain't cool anymore even at the NRO.  As a matter of fact it is embarrassing as the National Review has had to can two writers recently, Derbyshire and Weissberg, for writing offensive things. 

But that's life for a conservative operation like the NRO.  If you are running that place, you know your organization is going to attract loons on the fringes that dig your conservative ideology. You know that some of them may be bigots. No surprise here.

 That's life, again.  But that is also why conservative outfits like the National Review should have official company procedures for screening out people with known racial animosity:

If I was a bigwig at the National Review, I'd empathize with Rich. It has to be a tough job to corral all the craziness going on over there and navigate around each bright and shiny object that wingers periodically fixate upon. For some, the crazy may be a belief that starbursts emanate from Sarah Palin when she is speaking. For others, it is the outrage of the day over some grievance either real or imagined. For others, it may be white supremacy. Who knows, it is all in a good day's work over there.

With that said, as a bigwig at the NR, I'd see to it that the Human Resources department prepare a users' manual on how to spot and fire a racist on staff. The manual may contain a checklist to help the editor out with questions like this:

Does the writer associate with Hate groups? If yes, move to step X unless particular hate group is an anti-immigration outfit. These are evaluated on a case by case basis. Some anti-immigration outfits are just misunderstood. If the hate group is anti-gay, this is usually ok. Go ahead and hire this writer.

Does the writer link to content at hate group websites? If yes, beware.

Has the writer ever written a racial diatribe that is so bad that it offends other NRO writers? If yes move to step X. You may want to consider mitigating factors. When was it? Has he apologized? Etc.

Does the writer hang with Nazis or other white supremacist organizations? Hint: the Klan is definitely a no-no. If yes move immediately to step X.

Has the writer ever admitted to being a racist? If yes move to step X 

Step X. Fire the Son of a Bitch immediately. Issue brief blog post indicating that you are shocked by such conduct and do not condone it. It is imperative that ties are severed immediately. We get enough accusations of racism as it is. It is better to be thought by the general public as just a bunch of assholes rather than as racists.

It is just a thought. If you are the bigwig, you don't want to set your employees up to fail. It is inevitable that some racists may sneak in unnoticed. When this happens, you need to give your employees the tools they need to succeed. A written procedure with these steps (and more) could come in handy.

Well with two writers gone within the last three months it looks like the NRO needs to banish a third: David Yerushami.

Islam was born in violence; it will die that way. Any wish to the contrary is sheer Pollyannaism. The same way the post World War II German youth were taught by their German teachers and political leaders to despise the fascism of their fathers, with strict laws extant still today restricting even speech that casts doubt on the Holocaust, so too must the Muslim youth be taught from the cradle to reject the religion of their forebears.

But wait there's more:

There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country's founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously. Why is that? Were they so flawed in their political reckonings that they manhandled the most important aspect of a free society - the vote? If the vote counts for so much in a free and liberal democracy as we 'know' it today, why did they limit the vote so dramatically.

Believe it or not according to Mr Yerushaimi, white folks are genetically superior to black folks. Who woulda thunk that the NRO would have brought him aboard?

This was entirely predictable. And it was predicted. That is why Rich Lowry should be fired for failing to lead that operation.  He needed to ensure that the tools were in place to allow his employees to succeed at their jobs.  An ineffective writer screening program that allows misfits to sneak onto the pages of the NRO is just not tolerable.   If you are running that outfit, you know that a number of job candidates are going to have racial biases. This is a known known. You know that this is going to happen.  And when it does happen, then the rest of your writers are tainted by association with the known bigot. Poor Jonah Goldberg.

It is just sad, really, but it is time to fire Rich Lowry.

Well Someone will have to pay for those Proposed Tax Cuts for the Super Wealthy

Predictable:

The tax reform plan that House Republicans have advanced would sharply cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and could leave middle-class households facing much larger tax bills, according to a new analysis set to be released Wednesday. 

The report, prepared by Senate Democrats and reviewed by nonpartisan tax experts, marks the first attempt to quantify the trade-offs inherent in the GOP tax package, which would replace the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent. 

...So although households earning $100,000 to $200,000 a year would save about $7,000 from the lower tax rates in the GOP plan, those savings would be swamped by eliminating major deductions, according to the report by the Democratically controlled congressional Joint Economic Committee. 

The net result: Married couples in that income range would pay an additional $2,700 annually to the Internal Revenue Service, on top of the tax increases that are scheduled to hit every American household when the George W. Bush-era cuts expire at the end of the year.
Households earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually. 

“According to this report, while millionaires will receive a huge tax break, earners making under $200,000 will see their taxes rise significantly,” said Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who chairs the Joint Economic Committee. 

“Ryan seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too, and this report shows that you can’t,” added Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who requested the analysis. “If you want to cut taxes on the rich and not raise the deficit, you’re going to have to basically clobber the middle class.” 

House Republicans called the report premature and unfair.

By premature and unfair, they mean factual.

The Apex of the Southern Strategy?

Pumping up the White Vote has been the GOP's electoral strategy for over 40 years.  It started with appeals oriented toward racial prejudice in the first twenty years of the Southern Strategy. It shifted toward incorporating white evangelicals during the last twenty years.  And since President Obama has been elected, the GOP has turned to vile teabaggery and right wing populism to ensnare the white working class.

All in all it has been a fairly consistent GOP electoral strategy to capture increasing majorities of the white vote in order to win elections. With that being said, not everyone is surprised that the internets have reported that the Willard Romney campaign is not vetting Marco Rubio as a VP candidate because Willard's electoral strategy appears to be designed to cater to entirely different demographic from the one Rubio appeals to:

[T]he conventional wisdom that Romney needs to cut his large deficit with Latino voters to prevail over Obama may also be missing the mark.  On his bus tour this week, Romney spent time in the white, working-class Rust Belt, hitting small towns without much of a Hispanic presence.  It’s becoming as important for Romney to win over white voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as it is to appeal to Hispanics in Florida, Nevada and Colorado.  As Ron Brownstein noted last week, Romney could win the election even if he loses the vast majority of minorities, thanks to Obama’s Mondale-like standing among white voters.

That means Romney could badly use a running mate with working-class appeal.  Ohio Sen. Rob Portman is at the top of many pundits’ lists, but it is another Midwesterner who campaigned energetically for Romney over the weekend that is getting renewed attention in Boston: former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Targeting white folks. Who would have thought that?

But T-Paw, the creator of the scary Obamneycare Slur, may be just the man for the job.  Of course he exudes the energy of sleepy Fred Thomson and has the charisma  of Mitt Romney. But he is white and from the working class. Check that one off.

Personally I prefer Sarah Palin.  She would do a wonderful job as Romney's VP choice in my  opinion.

The problem is that the GOTP can't rely on getting increasing majorities of white folks forever.  Sooner or later they run out of voters.

Life under the Iron Fist of the Wingnuttariat...

….will be markedly different than under the benevolent rule of President Obama for some:

"Bypassing the sucking, hopeless, sinkhole that is the U.S. Congress, Obama announced a new immigration policy, one that invokes an old, and therefore legal, power: He is taking 'deferred action' on whether to proceed against hundreds of thousands of people who came to this country illegally."

"It is not permanent. He, or any other president, can revoke it. And therein lies part of the brilliance..."

"The choice for Hispanic voters is now simple: Vote for Obama and you are guaranteed a humane immigration policy for your children, relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow Hispanics for the next four years. Vote for Romney and you get the uncertainty of which 'setting' he chooses to take."

 Roger Simon talking head

That sounds about right to me. How Romney can manage a xenophobic base better that George W Bush could is beyond me.  Bush tried some outreach on immigration reform but retreated after the backlash from the Base.

I guess if the Foxnews and the AM Radio starts cranking out the propaganda to the unwashed teabagging masses, a President Willard could have a shot at civilizing the masses, but this seems a little early in the game to me.  In order to civilize the masses, the political scientists tell us that they first must come to know despair. Deeply. Intimately. 

A Willard victory in November would lead to anguish for many folks, but I suspect only a few wingers will share this despondency. Likely a Willard victory will leave the unwashed masses less willing to compromise on matters such as immigration.

Wingnuts say the Strangest Things

On the nameless faceless bureaucrats who attend global warming confabs just for plush vacation travel and to, of course, plot and scheme to enslave us:

The real agenda, I suppose, is to force the rest of us to be vegetarians. The hoaxers and bureaucrats who stir up global warming hysteria would no more stop eating filet mignon than they would give up their private jets. They just want power over the rest of us. Thankfully, hardly anyone is silly enough to believe that humanity can regulate the Earth’s climate by eating tofu instead of bacon. Still, next time you are in a restaurant, it might be fun to order a 32-ounce Porterhouse. In addition to all the usual reasons, you will be defying some of the world’s most obnoxious busybodies. 

Powerline Blogger Hinderaker

I think it would be fun to build a community of underground hobbit sized houses as a model of what America will look like after the evil international bureaucrats confiscate everyone's guns and enact Agenda 21. Ideally, such a community could be built in Michele Bachmann's congressional district and would be funded by stimulus money employing local construction workers.  And just to piss off the wingers, it would be labeled a "shovel ready project." Which of course it would be, because it is part of a scary UN Plot.

Other "shovel ready projects" include Chattanooga's new bicycle sharing program modeled after Denver's bicycle sharing program which as every winger knows is part of a UN plot to takeover America and is the first step in imposing Agenda 21.  And before too long there will be no more cows. And then everyone will live in a hobbit sized home without a gun.

And when that day comes, picture Powerline Blogger Hinderaker sitting in a rocking chair on his ridiculously small front porch grumbling that if only people would have listened to his warnings back in the old days America would still be free like it was before Medicare.

Wingnut says whaaaaat?

I'd just call him Willard:

If you disagree with both Mark Steyn and Kevin Williamson about something, you don’t have a terribly realistic chance of being in the right, but I’ll take my chances on this one. As Katrina reports, President Obama has taken to using “Mr. Romney” instead of the more appropriate “Governor Romney.” Mark and Kevin think that’s just fine. I think it’s sadly undignified on the president’s part.

Mario Loyola, NRO Guy [em-mine]

First. There really are lots of things that are sadly undignified in the world.  Newt Gingrich is a good example of one. But calling Romney, Mr. Romney is not one of them. Personally I prefer using Romney's given name: Willard.   

Second, there is an above average chance that you won't be wrong if you disagree with NRO-bots Mark Steyn and Kevin Williamson.

It is kinda like the Whelan Constitutionality Principle where you have a gray area of unsettled constitutional law. First step is to determine NRO Legal Commentator Big Ed Whelan's position on the subject.  The next step is to flip a coin and choose one of the remaining feasible alternate positions on the subject.  Your choice may ultimately be incorrect, but your chances of being correct are higher than Big Ed's chances.

PROGRESSSS!

 

I say relegate it to the dust bin of history:

A legal battle to fly the Confederate flag from the street light poles of Lexington died today at the hand of a federal judge.

In a written opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Wilson dismissed a lawsuit against the city filed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The lawsuit challenged an ordinance, passed last year amid public furor, that limited the types of flags that can be flown from city-owned light poles.

Lexington City Council's decision to fly only the city, state and national flags was "eminently reasonable," Wilson wrote in a 10-page opinion released late today.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans had claimed that the city abused their free speech rights — banning the Confederate flag because of its controversial nature.

I think this pattern of wingers using civil right arguments to oppose modernity is set for the foreseeable future.  Here, various wingers have had their feelings hurt because THE MAN won't let them display their confederate flag in a time and place of their choosing. I don't know if these wingers represented themselves as victims in this particular instance, but others are.

Take gun rights as another example. In the Heller decision, the Supreme court invented gun ownership as a new civil right. What hadn't been before now was. The constitution is a living document not a relic of 17th and 18th century political theory after all. Five of the Nine justices on the Court believed a new right fit in with the times and was not overly inconsistent with themes in the constitution, so they created it. Shit happens. Right Wing Blogger and Reported Law Professor Instapundit even wrote a gleeful academic paper on the exciting new rights the Supreme Court could find in the penumbra of the 2nd amendment some brave new  day in the future. Brave New World.

Religion can't be far behind.  There be some winger who is unable to reconcile some archaic religious belief with modernity and will seek justice through civil rights protection - the Law conflicts with my belief system, therefore my 1st amendment rights are violated.

Oh well, at least the streets of Lexington will be free from one more source of blight. That is progress.

Fairly busy…..

…..have not had much time, if any, to check out all the stupid things that have, undoubtedly, been going on. 

What little time I have had free has been spent reading Francis Fukayama's new book on political order.  I suspect that it won't make it into popular culture as Fukayama is a reformed-neocon. This means large numbers on the right and left won't touch it.  

I also would guess that theoconservatives would find the book's discussion of religion as systems of myth and ritual which evolved over the course of history due to the ability reinforce social order as downright offensive. 

Oh well, you can't please everyone.

Reality Based Conservatism LIVES!!!

Passage of the Day:

There is a regrettable part of me that wouldn’t mind seeing President Obama reelected — just so I could enjoy watching the heads of Jennifer Rubin and Glenn Reynolds and Victor Davis Hanson and other right-wing drones explode.

Take this latest tripe of Rubin’s, and cue the diabolical laugh soundtrack:

 President Obama, I have frequently argued, has been fabulous for the conservative movement. He spurred the creation of the tea party. He helped the GOP win the House majority in 2010 and make big gains in the Senate. His Obamacare has helped revive the Commerce Clause and given a boost to conservative jurisprudence. His refusal to support human rights has caused a bipartisan revulsion and reminded us that foreign policy must be girded by American values. He’s sent independents running into the GOP’s arms. He’s forced conservatives to think hard and express eloquently principles of religious liberty, limited government, free markets and Constitutional democracy.

It’s impressive, this mode of thinking that can so monomaniacally overstate the powers of one man and one office — that can so breezily dismiss exogenous factors, that is so utterly incapable of even entertaining notions that require an appreciation of nuance or subtlety.

Rubin’s blogging is like a daily comic strip, a window into the inner workings of the propagandistic mind — except it’s all too real.

 There can be no accurate short-term narrative about the Obama presidency that does not take into account the state of the global economy as well as the successful efforts of a dogged opposition party. And much of the conservative soul-searching she describes, including the Tea Party backlash, would have happened anyway, in one form or another. These were institutional reactions to the Bush years as much as to Obama’s agenda.

Scott Galupo, AmCon Blog

I guess this is reality based conservatism that you don't see very much on the internets.

And I'll admit, one of the benefits of Pres Obama's re-election will be to watch right wing drones go into full melt down.  As far as Rubin and Reynolds are concerned, they are propagandists, who most notably in the case of Rubin, don't likely believe the dribble that they write. Their propaganda is to serve the cause which transcends truth.  The rubes are merely their play things.

Notably, Rubin is a Neocon. A central tenet of neo-conservatism is deception as neocons believe that liberal democracy is too fragile to be entrusted to the hands of the voters. Thus deception is a mainstay of molding public opinion.

Hanson, I believe, may be deranged or, in a best case scenario, just unmoored from reality firmly within the grip of the enchantments of right wing counter-culture.  If the latter is the case, a good stay at Camp Bachmann may be enough to bring him back to reality - if only they existed.   But either way, an Obama win will certainly lead to uncontrolled furious diatribes via the NRO. This will be a sight to behold.

The LOOMING Mormon card, Cntd

Despite being a pro-Vietnam war activist in the 1960s,Willard Romney spent 31 months in France during the height of combat. Of course since Willard found a way around serving someone else went to Vietnam instead. 

Here is a subtle way showing how it is done:

Romney had four student deferments and he chose to hear God(s)' call for missionary service in France where he suffered the slings and arrows of Gallic indifference.

The use of the term "God(s)," is a subtle reference to the polytheistic nature of Mormonism, not that there is anything wrong with polytheism.  I believe Thomas Jefferson is quoted as having said:

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

So if Jefferson said one should not discriminate against atheisms or polytheism, then that's good enough for me.  But that is just me. I am tolerant that way.  Others are not so tolerant. 

The party of NO ideas….it fails to EVOLVE.

The GOP used to label itself as the party of ideas.  It had solutions to complicated problems so it claimed.  Now we know that the GOP only has two approaches to any problem. First is to cut taxes for rich folks and the second is deregulation. .  Maybe this approach was beneficial in the 1980s, but it is an impractical blueprint for future leadership.

Then - Fareed Zakaria November 2008 

Conservatives have dominated Western politics for the last three decades because they proposed solutions to the problems of the 1970s -- slow growth, social unrest, and Soviet adventurism. But those solutions don't work anymore. 

They don't address the problems of today -- an out-of-control financial system, rising inequality, unaffordable health care, poor infrastructure, a broken energy policy

Now - David Frum June 2012

"Here are two of the smartest men on the economic right, one [Phil Gramm] a former chairman of the Senate banking committee, the other [Glenn Hubbard] a former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Yet they insist on treating today's economic crisis as a repeat of 1979-81—and Europe's agony as a debt crisis (which it isn't), not a currency crisis (which it is). Why? Well you will consider only one policy solution—cut taxes and regulations—then you must insist that there can be only one policy problem. 

Yet in almost every way, today's economic problems are exactly the opposite of those of 30 years ago. Then we had inflation, today we are struggling against deflation. Then we had weak corporate profits, today corporations are more profitable than ever. Then we had slow productivity growth, today it is high. Then the to-individual income-tax rate was 70%. Today it is 36%. Then energy regulations produced energy shortages. Today the removal of banking regulations has produced an abundance of debt," 

 It think the real problem is that the GOP has failed to evolve and adapt to its environment.  Under Darwinian conditions, the answer to this problem would be extinction. Actually this is the preferred solution to the problem. The GOP would just go away and a more fit party(s) would rise in its place.

Unfortunately, much like failing communist regimes were able to survival well beyond their expiration date by sucking out the resources of their people and nations, today's GOP continues to survive past its expiration date due to the patronage of rightwing billionaires and the creation of alternative media such as the Foxnews.  In this regard, instead of adapting to the environment, Today's GOP occupies an artificial counter culture of its creation build on a unstable foundation of party doctrine and bullshit ideology.

This example shows us that political parties do no always evolve in Darwinian terms, but sometime regress to more primitive means of social organization.  Evolution, in this sense, does not imply progress. It can be the opposite of progress. The GOP is case in point.

Furthermore with all these Darwinian comparisons to the GOP it seems to me more than a coincidence that Rep Paul Ryan is now advocating a return to social darwinism of the 1880s with his Ryan Road Map to privatize Medicare and gut Medicaid in order to pay for even more tax cuts for rich folks.  It is as if the GOP is regressing at light speed.  I hope we will not need a meteor to save us from this party.