Jeffrey Toobin On The Legacy Of Antonin Scalia

Click here for Toobin's scathing review of Scalia's career, entitled "Looking Back," in The New Yorker magazine.

Republican Obstructionism - A Comprehensive View

Click here for a MARVELOUS article at Daily Kos by Jon Perr, entitled "How Republicans turned the unprecedented into the new normal." It's a long article, but it's well worth taking the time to absorb it all. It covers Republican obstructionism in court appointments and appointments of administration staff nominees, and taking the debt ceiling hostage.

The article points out how the Democrats repeatedly reacted far differently when the party roles were reversed. As Perr says:

Why did Democrats choose cooperation where Republicans chose sabotage? Because it’s not true that “both sides do it.” Because we’re living in age of “asymmetric polarization” in which one political party has now normalized the previously inconceivable. As Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put it in summing up their 2013 book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks:

"Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem."

Krugman Economic Wisdom On Trump, Rubio, And The GOP

Click here. A must-read article by the great Paul Krugman.

Donald Trump, Truth-Teller

Click here for an article by Jonathan Chait in New York magazine entitled "Crazy Nut Donald Trump Thinks George W. Bush Was President on 9/11."

Trump claimed in the South Carolina campaign that Bush failed to take action which might have prevented 9/11 -- refuting the previously unanimous Republican position that George W. Bush "Kept Us Safe." He also claimed that the Bush administration knew there were no WMDs in Iraq but lied about it to bolster support for the invasion they wanted to make. (Chait doesn't go that far; he says rather that they relied on faulty intelligence, but repeatedly cherry-picked and manipulated ambiguous information to justify invasion.)

A Trump Zinger -- Well Played, Donald!

[Trump] added that praising the former president [W] for what happened after the Sept. 11 attacks was like saying the opposing team “scored 19 runs in the first inning, but after that, we played pretty well.”

What Digby Said

Here's the inimitable, redoubtable Digby again:

Yesterday on MSNBC some South Carolina Republicans were shown Trump being profane and juvenile on the stump and they didn't like it. The implication was that Southerners are more genteel than northeasterners and won't like his crude personality. I don't know if that's true or not but perhaps it is.

What is astonishing to me is that everyone in the Republican Party knows they cannot attack him for his barbaric proposals to deport millions of people, build walls, ban Muslims, kill and torture suspects families, waterboarding "and worse". These are all things the GOP base favors and they dare not challenge it. The only thing they can go after him for are that tepid bowl of mush in the Club for Growth ads, none of which are deal breakers for anyone.

Trump is the ultimate expression of the Republican base and they're stuck with it.

Beautiful! The establishment desperately wants to take Trump down, but he's only articulating -- and trumpeting -- the things the bigoted racist element of the GOP feels, but has felt unable to say.

John Podhoretz Thinks Democratic View of America Is Dystopian

Here's a piece by Digby from Hullabaloo that's too good to let go, but I find myself unable to link to it, so I have to painstakingly cut and paste it, page by page. The Republican worldview is that Obama has ruined the country and it's on the brink of collapse; Hunter Thompson was 40 years to early with "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail." I wish Hunter were here to offer an opinion on the 2016 Republican race. Digby:

"Here is a hilarious observation from conservative writer John Podhoretz about last night's Democratic debate:

The message from Thursday night’s Democratic debate is that everybody in America should get on a leaky rowboat and find somewhere, anywhere, else in the world to live — because life in the United States is a nightmare from which millionaires and billionaires and the Koch brothers and the Republicans will not allow us to awake.

"Has he listened to any of the Republican debates? In their view American is a dystopian hellscape of epic proportions on the brink of total ruin at the hands of foreigners who are making us eat beans tacos against our will, terrorists who are plotting in our own neighborhoods to kill us in our beds and require the survivors to live by Sharia law, and gays and feminazis forcing everyone to have abortions and marry members of their own sex. And that's just for starters.

"The frontrunner for the nomination openly says:

“This country is a hellhole, and we’re going down fast.I want to make this country great again.”

"Here's just a sample from the last debate:

Bush: The idea that somehow we're better off today than the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated president of the United States is totally an alternative universe. The simple fact is that the world has been torn asunder.

Carson: You know, when you go into the store and buy a box of laundry detergent, and the price has gone up — you know, 50 cents because of regulations....And everything is costing more money, and we are killing our people like this....It's the evil government that is putting all these regulations on us so that we can't survive.

Trump: Our military is a disaster. Our healthcare is a horror show....We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people....Those two young people — those two horrible young people in California when they shot the 14 people....Many people saw pipe bombs and all sorts of things all over their apartment. Why weren't they vigilant? Why didn't they call? Why didn't they call the police?...We have to find out — many people knew about what was going on. Why didn't they turn those two people in so that you wouldn't have had all the death? There's something going on and it's bad. And I'm saying we have to get to the bottom of it.

Rubio: This president is undermining the constitutional basis of this government. This president is undermining our military. He is undermining our standing in the world....The damage he has done to America is extraordinary. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America.

Kasich: In this country, people are concerned about their economic future. They're very concerned about it. And they wonder whether somebody is getting something to — keeping them from getting it. That's not the America that I've ever known.

Christie: When I think about the folks who are out there at home tonight watching....They know that this country is not respected around the world anymore. They know that this country is pushing the middle class, the hardworking taxpayers, backwards, and they saw a president who doesn't understand their pain, and doesn't have any plan for getting away from it.

"In the Republican psyche it is midnight in America.

"And by the way, I haven't heard any Republicans touting the improved economy lately, have you? Have any of them talked about the low unemployment rate? I guess I may have missed those comments on the stump. I listen to and read a lot of right wing talk. They are convinced that Barack Obama has turned this nation into a third world nightmare from which we may never recover. In fact, they are in a daily state of full-fledged panic over it. Sanders' abstract indictment of the financial system and Clinton's dry list of policy improvements are downright cheery and Reaganesque by comparison."

Rubio A Moderate? Krugman ...

Professor Krugman had the following to say, while discussing the results of the Iowa caucuses, where Cruz and Trump finished first and second:

Let me add that someone horrifying also came in third. Marco Rubio may seem less radical than Cruz or Trump, but his substantive policy positions are for incredibly hawkish foreign policy, wildly regressive tax policy, kicking tens of millions of people off health insurance, and destroying the environment. Other than that, he's a moderate.

It's always been a source of some amusement to me that Rubio touts himself as a new-generation politician; the policies he advocates are truly paleo-Republican.

Jeb Bush: "Please clap."

Cringeworthy moment on the Bush campaign trail.

Paul Krugman's Accurate Prediction For The Iowa Republican Caucus

Click here for a Paul Krugman article in The New York Times entitled "Post-Iowa Notes":

"Well, in my pre-Iowa notes I called the Republican primary right:

"I know what will happen on the Republican side: someone horrifying will come in first, and someone horrifying will come in second.

"Let me add that someone horrifying also came in third. Marco Rubio may seem less radical than Cruz or Trump, but his substantive policy positions are for incredibly hawkish foreign policy [complete with torture in secret prisons], wildly regressive tax policy, kicking tens of millions of people off health insurance, and destroying the environment. Other than that, he’s a moderate."

Darryl Issa Spills The Beans

Issa admits in a self-satisfied fashion that 20 years of Republican nothingburger smears, capped by his and Trey Gowdy's witch-hunts which have come up empty, have achieved their purpose:

You know, people often ask Trey Gowdy and myself, what did our investigations do?” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Boston Herald Radio on Friday morning. Gowdy currently chairs the House Select Committee on Benghazi, while Issa conducted his own investigation in 2012 when he served as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“Well what they did is that they opened up an opportunity for the American people to sort of smell what’s in the garbage can,” Issa said. “And I think that’s the reason that a devout socialist who wants to nationalize almost everything in America is close to and probably will beat Hillary here in New Hampshire. It’s not because they like Republicans. It’s because they don’t trust Hillary.”

Yes, Issa, they don't. So your party's 20 years of lying implications, and your and Gowdy's part in that, have accomplished their purpose. Congratulations, you miserable piece of crap.

A Video The Donald Doesn't Want You To See

Here's a 2-hour UNFLATTERING documentary about Donald Trump's rise to his present position:

Republican Sabotage

Click here for an article at Daily Kos by Jon Per entitled "How the Obama economy overcame Republican sabotage."

It's a long article, but well worth the read.

La Dowd On Palin's Endorsement Of Trump

Click here for MoDo's article in The New York Times entitled "Sarah Palin Saves Feminism." The devastating finale:

But Palin has done us a favor by proving that a woman can stumble, babble incoherently on stage and spew snide garbage, and it isn’t a blot on the female copybook.

Minnesota Turnover - Pawlenty to Dayton

Click here for an article in the Huffington Post by C. Robert Gibson entitled "This Billionaire Governor Taxed the Rich and Increased the Minimum Wage -- Now, His State's Economy Is One of the Best in the Country."

When he took office in January of 2011, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton (billionaire heir to the Target fortune) inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7 percent unemployment rate from his predecessor, Tim Pawlenty, the soon-forgotten Republican candidate for the presidency who called himself Minnesota's first true fiscally-conservative governor in modern history. Pawlenty prided himself on never raising state taxes -- the most he ever did to generate new revenue was increase the tax on cigarettes by 75 cents a pack. Between 2003 and late 2010, when Pawlenty was at the head of Minnesota's state government, he managed to add only 6,200 more jobs.

Dayton raised the state income tax (from 7.85% to 9.85%) on individuals earning over $150,000 and couples earning $250,000 filing jointly; he raised the state minimum wage to $9.50 (in increments until 2018). Since Dayton took power from Pawlenty in 2011, Minnesota has added 172,000 jobs to the economy; Pawlenty added a meager 6,200 jobs -- in two terms.

Even though Minnesota's top income tax rate is the 4th-highest in the country, it has the 5th-lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent. According to 2012-2013 U.S. census figures, Minnesotans had a median income that was $10,000 larger than the U.S. average, and their median income is still $8,000 more than the U.S. average today.

Despite the fearmongering over businesses fleeing from Dayton's tax cuts, 6,230 more Minnesotans filed in the top income tax bracket in 2013, just one year after Dayton's tax increases went through. As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Gov. Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools. And according to Gallup, Minnesota's economic confidence is higher than any other state.

Minnesota is far outperforming its Republican test-tube neighbor Wisconsin under conservative star and Koch brothers' pawn Scott Walker.

It's official -- trickle-down economics is bunk.

More NYT Book Reviews

Two more recent NYT reviews of "Why the Right Went Wrong" and "Too Dumb to Fail," by E.J. Dionne and Matt Lewis respectively. Click here for the article.

NYT Review of Jane Mayer's "Dark Money"

Click here for the full article.

By the mid-term elections in 2010:

The [Koch] brothers had spent or raised hundreds of millions of dollars to create majorities in their image. They had succeeded. And not merely at the polls: They had helped to finance and organize an interlocking network of think tanks, academic programs and news media outlets that far exceeded anything the liberal opposition could put together.

Mayer believes that the Koch brothers and a small number of allied plutocrats have essentially hijacked American democracy, using their money not just to compete with their political adversaries, but to drown them out.

Cat Learns To Use GoPro - Takes Better Selfies Than I Do

Click here for a the article from Team Notey.

The W. Economy

Answer to a question in Quora, by Chris Joose:

The Bush administration came into office with a budget that paid down not just interest on the debt, but principal as well- and Clinton was pushing to pay the debt down more aggressively still, to the tune of paying it off entirely by 2015 (tho he never did get that through congress).  Granted, he came in with a somewhat soft economy, as the market had corrected after the .com bubble, so it's not unreasonable to hedge by saying that everything wasn't all daisies and rainbows on the economic front.  That said, the Bush administration had every ability and opportunity (politically and economically) to manage costs and keep the budget under control- but it simply did not.

Bush entered office with a budget surplus, and a majority of the house controlled by his party.  After his first mid-term election, his party controlled both houses of congress, meaning his party controlled both the executive and the legislature for 4 years.  During this period, the following happened:

• Tax cuts, primarily for the wealthy.
• Wars. Not paid for, not even put on the budget. One aspect of these wars, new in our era, is that they were largely conducted by mercenaries and contractors, who happened to have generous contract terms and close personal relationships with members of the Administration.
• Medicare, part D- which forbade the government from negotiating drug prices- in effect, a great big taxpayer-funded giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.
• 'benign' non-enforcement of any sort of financial crime you can describe, which led to the biggest financial meltdown in living memory
• A series of recessions, each characterized by 'jobless recoveries', loose monetary policy, continued tax cuts, and the creation of a new security agency with enormous cash flow and zero accountability for it
• General mismanagement and enormous growth of the government, but without even a sop to controlling costs, unless you count this: the administration cut the budget for government auditors, whose function is to control waste, fraud, and abuse.  Typically, a dollar spent on an auditor returns 20 in prevented waste, and it's clear from history that it was not an accident.

Politically, the Bush administration had everything it needed to continue paying down the debt.  When Clinton left office, we were paying down principal on the debt.  But it seems to have deliberately made choices to siphon as much money into the pockets of the well-connected as possible, with disastrous fiscal results

8 Tai Chi Breathing Exercises