Krugman Hits It Out Of The Park (Yet Again)

Click here for an article at Salon by entitled "Paul Krugman condemns 'compassionless conservatism': Politicians don’t know how Americans actually live."

Sample quote: 

I am not, or not only, talking about right-wing contempt for the poor, although the dominance of compassionless conservatism is a sight to behold. According to the Pew Research Center, more than three-quarters of conservatives believe that the poor “have it easy” thanks to government benefits; only 1 in 7 believe that the poor “have hard lives.” And this attitude translates into policy. What we learn from the refusal of Republican-controlled states to expand Medicaid, even though the federal government would foot the bill, is that punishing the poor has become a goal in itself, one worth pursuing even if it hurts rather than helps state budgets.

Go to it for the link to the Krugman article in the NYT.

"Corruption Is Legal In America" - A 5-Minute Video

This video is taken from a post by Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo, a video portrayal of a Princeton study:



And he adds this George Carlin video (WARNING - NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

Iraq Wasn't A Mistake - It Was A Crime

Click here for Paul Krugman's take on the newly emerged discussion of the Iraq war -- a decade too late.

MoDo Gets It Right

Click here for what I think is Maureen Dowd's best column in years: "He is Heavy. He's My Brother." Commenting on Jeb's tough week of trying to escape his brother's legacy of the Iraq war, she pretty much rips W. to shreds. The intelligence wasn't wrong: It was manufactured in the White House and the Pentagon. Her final paragraph:

And consider this: Jeb hasn’t even been asked any questions yet about W.’s dark contributions on waterboarding, the deficit and the near-total collapse of the American economy.

Iraq: The "Faulty Intelligence" Lie

Click here for an article in The American Prospect by Paul Waldman entitled "The Myth of 'Faulty Intelligence.'"

Words Of Wisdom From Eisenhower

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Coffee's Good For You!

Click here for an article in The New York Times by Aaron E. Carroll entitled "More Consensus on Coffee's Benefits Than You Might Think."

Climate Change - Act Now

Click here for an article by Bill McKibben at HuffPo entitled "The Next Decade Will Decide What the World Looks Like for Thousands of Decades to Come."

The next 10 years will be decisive when it comes to the planet's future—what we do (or don't) will play out over geologic time.

It could, if we set our minds to it, be the decade when the planet's use of fossil fuels peaks and then rapidly declines. We've built a movement that, for the moment, is starting to tie down the fossil fuel industry: from the tarsands of Alberta to the (as yet unbuilt) giant new mines of Australia's Galilee Basin, the big players in coal, gas, and oil are bothered and even bewildered by a new strain of activist. They're losing on the image front: when the Rockefeller family, the Church of England, and Prince Charles have begun divesting their fossil fuel stocks, you know the tide has turned.

And with it comes the sudden chance to replace that fossil fuel, fast and relatively easily. Out of nowhere the price of solar panels has fallen like an anvil from a skyscraper, dropping 75 percent in the last six years. Renewable energy is suddenly as cheap or cheaper than the bad stuff, even before you figure in the insane monetary cost of global warming. So in Bangladesh they're solarizing 60,000 huts a month; the whole country may be paneled by 2020.

That rapid change wouldn't be enough to stop global warming—we're already seeing drastic changes, as anyone living through California's drought can attest. We'll continue to see record-breaking years (like 2014. And like 2015 so far). We'll have to deal with record flooding. The ocean will grow more acidic. But maybe, if we really ratchet up the transition we'll avoid a challenge of civilization-scale.

Or, of course, we could change slowly, the way the Koch Brothers would like. (And for that matter, most political leaders). We could do nothing out of the ordinary, and wait three or four decades for solar power to replace fossil fuel. It would rattle the fewest cages in the short run.

And in the long run it would, by most of the computer models, condemn us to four or five degrees Celsius of global warming—enough to take the world utterly out of the rhythms of the Holocene, enough to call into question our ability to grow sufficient food or find sufficient water.

The next decade is decisive because trajectory counts for so much; if we bend it now, we may slide the car to a halt with just the front tires hanging off the cliff. But if we sail on for a few more years, it's pretty clear we're fast and furiously going airborne—that's what happens when, say, Arctic permafrost starts to melt in earnest, releasing clouds of methane.

So it's not too much to say that the next decade will decide what the world looks like for thousands of decades to come. We all get front row seats—but we can all be actors too, if only we'll join the growing movement to do something about it.

Vitai Lampada - Sir Henry Newbolt, 1897

Vitai Lampada

THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night -
Ten to make and the match to win -
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks,
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

This is the word that year by year
While in her place the School is set
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

Pre-9/11 Intelligence Failuree

Click here for a Charlie Pierce article at Esquire Magazine entitled "Old Spy's Tale: A 9/11 Fable Lives Again."

Charlie tells us that, contrary to Marco Rubio's lies, there were plenty of opportunities to monitor a 9/11 hijacker named Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego.

Louie Gohmert (sigh)

Click here for an article by Hunter at Daily Kos entitled America's Dumbest Congressman weighs in On 'Jade Helm.' Who owns the distinction of being known as "America's Dumbest Congressman"? Louie Gohmert, of course! It's a good article describing the wingnut paranoia over a U.S. military exercise which designates certain areas as "hostile" -- including the state of Texas. Gohmert:

Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution. When the federal government begins, even in practice, games or exercises, to consider any U.S. city or state in 'hostile' control and trying to retake it, the message becomes extremely calloused and suspicious.

My favorite paragraph:

While godforsaken desert hellholes do tend to skew conservative all over the world, can't imagine why, I'm going to guess it's a coincidence. That said, one of the points of conducting such training exercises is that in a real conflict troops will probably be working in "hostile" or "uncertain" territory, and so the pretended-at map of the exercise ground probably has to mark out at least some area as "hostile" or it wouldn't be much of a war game, now would it. An exercise in which all areas are labeled "super-friendly" or "puppy playdate center" would be grand if the sitting president wanted to invade Lollipop Mountain, but as of now most such conflicts take place in blisteringly hot desert hellholes with poor infrastructure, heavily armed roving gangs of authority-defying nutjobs, and led by hostile theocratic regimes that think the American president might be the devil. If some group of military leaders considers all that and thinks "Texas?" you have only yourselves to blame.

Republicans Are From Mars, Democrats Are From Venus

Members of the two parties view the world in entirely different ways.

Here in its entirety is an article by Joan McCarter at Daily Kos entitled Republican voters once again consumed by fear and "values."

People who still self-identify as Republican live in a totally different world than the rest of us, one made up primarily of fear. At least that's the findings of the the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. When asked to rank what issues were most important to them:

Republican primary voters' leading response was national security and terrorism (27 percent said it was their first choice).

That's followed by the deficit and government spending (24 percent), job creation and economic growth (21 percent) and religious and moral values (12 percent).

By comparison, the top priority for Democrats in the poll was job creation and economic growth (37 percent)—followed by health care (17 percent), climate change (15 percent) and national security and terrorism (13 percent).

As if Republican primary candidates needed more incentive to base their campaigns on fear and God and—never forget!—all the money the federal government spends on the poors.

America's Sheriff

Click here for an article at Daily Kos by Mother Mags entitled What county sheriff might spend $10 million to get elected? You guessed it: Arpaio.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost the people of his county nearly $45 million in lawsuits that were filed by victims whose civil rights were violated—people who were unfairly harassed, illegally detained or arrested, tortured or even killed. Arpaio was charged by the Department of Justice with abuse of powers, and a federal judge ruled that his office engages in racial profiling. The former county attorney and most of the sheriff's senior staff have been disbarred or fired for their role in helping to build Arpaio's police state.

Currently Sheriff Arpaio is in the middle of a civil contempt hearing for ignoring federal court orders to cease his immigration patrols and turn over evidence. Previous to the hearing, Arpaio admitted his guilt and tried to block the contempt hearing by offering to donate $100,000 to a civil rights organization. The judge declined that offer and the hearing began last month. During the first phase of the proceedings, which continue next month, Arpaio revealed that his attorney had hired a private detective to investigate the judge's wife. You can't make this shit up.

Arpaio is running for sheriff again in 2016, when he will be 84 years old. He's raised $5.5 million in campaign funds in the last two years and has $2 million on hand, and contributions from wingnuts all over the country keep pouring in.

People often ask: How and why do voters in Maricopa County keep electing this blowhard? He costs you money and he's not a good lawman. But it matters little to his base that, in addition to the millions in lawsuits, his office misspent nearly $100 million on tanks and other toys. Nor does it matter that he mishandled hundreds of child sex abuse cases. The wingers don't care, they really don't.