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V.B. Price's Weekly Column — American Conservatism 2021: Pointless, Hypocritical, Chaotic and Crooked to the Core

American Conservatism 2021: Pointless, Hypocritical, Chaotic and Crooked to the Core V.B. Price

It was naïve of me, no doubt, to believe as a kid that conservatives in America are supposed to preserve tradition, slow inevitable change to a pace the human mind can deal with, be the guardians of the national ethos and conserve resources with the spirit of enlightened frugality. It’s the way my mother and some of my older relatives thought about conservatism in the 1940s. Even then, though, conservatives saw poverty as a moral failure and really didn’t like foreigners very much, or people who didn’t look like white people. They did, indeed, champion hard work but saw “labor” as the “enemy” and were miserly with wages, benefits and social safety nets, as if effort was enough to ensure success without good luck and the leg up of status, class and the “right” race and gender. Still, there seemed to be something honorable about their frugality and their belief in the virtue and practicality of work and saving. My late father-in-law was as honorable and as conservative a person I’ve known. We agreed about virtually nothing when it came to policy. But there wasn’t a crooked bone in his body. He was, in the best sense, an American gentleman — kind, respectful of women, hardworking, generous, neither a spendthrift nor a hoarder and a staunch Republican. He was a straight arrow and an environmentalist. He truly believed it was your duty to leave your camp site cleaner than when you found it. So what happened to his political party? How did conservatives become aligned with a profligate, egomaniacal, misogynist gold-faucet jockey, a tax evader and grifter like Donald Trump, a man who thrives on bankruptcy, who doesn’t pay his bills, who stiffs contractors, who thinks environmentalism is a form of communism, who is a sexual predator and who is adored by white supremacists and bigots, a person who would flagrantly taunt and stalk and mock his female presidential opponent during a televised debate? It has something to do, I know, with a combination of the entitlement of patriarchy, a political party that has shown itself to be generally anti-feminist, embracing a greed for power that is bonded in the psychology of self-righteousness, blaming the other, rationalization and sense of privilege that stimulates hypocrisy at every turn. What could be more hypocritical than the posturing of a Reaganesque Gentleman Cowboy like the conservatives who run the Texas legislature, who recently created an abortion ban that is as deeply disrespectful of women, and as profoundly threatening and dangerous for them, as any misogynist law in America? And on top of that, these conservative gentlemen, the upright guardians of conservative American culture, authorized in that same law private citizens becoming snoops, moral police, prying and spying on their neighbors and more than likely accusing them of being accessories to illegal abortions, all without probable cause. And to top it off, the conservative gentlemen on the Supreme Court refused to give the women of Texas a chance to contest the constitutionality of such law before it wreaks havoc on their private lives and reproductive health. So much for the gentlemanly respect for women. Hypocrisy drives people crazy. Young people in particular find it maddening, especially when adults tell them not to do something then turn around and do it themselves. “Never hit or hurt or disrespect a woman,” is the cowboy gentleman’s code. But not when it comes to abortion in Texas. Hypocrisy used to be hateful, and hypocrites used to be seen as reprehensible moral vagrants trading on their privilege while indulging their worst vices. But we don’t seem to mind much anymore. In fact, hypocrisy seems to be the dominant MO of a vast segment of our business and political leadership. Not all of it, but a troubling great swath of it. Some pundits say it has to do with American “exceptionalism” and the arrogance it spawns. But virtually every nation thinks it’s the best. The Chinese do, so do the Russians; certainly the British and the French and the Brazilians do. No nation can live up to its own hype, especially if it’s so riddled with hypocrites that its national pride seems pointless. Can a whole culture be without purpose? It can be if it’s become the victim of a class of parasites willing to say anything and do anything, damned be the consequences. We seem to be a culture that’s come to waste itself pursuing, as political scientist Richard Fox has said, “endless wars to achieve endless peace.” We’re a culture that allows whole cities to be nearly destroyed by flood and storms, like New Orleans, because we — and the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians and virtually everyone else in the industrial world — denied climate change and its dire predictions for so long that we’ve actually let them come true. We live in a culture in which a large minority of our people have been hoodwinked into believing, by arch hypocrites, that wearing masks and getting vaccinated in a deadly pandemic is an act of political coercion, a con game of “junk science” swindling them of their freedom. We live in a culture that demonizes people from other cultures, that is still racist, practicing segregation in multiple gross and subtle ways, a culture of crippling poverty and obscene wealth, a culture in which poor people are lambasted for using food stamps and rich people are thought to be clever for evading taxes, a culture that boasts of its democratic form of government while working strenuously in some states to make it next to impossible for people of modest means to vote, a culture in which a class of charlatans with political power claim the validity of “alternative facts.” Yes, we also live in a culture in which a still slim majority of us believe what Rabbi Danya Ruttenbergsays that “our job is to take care of one another. To fight for a world where everyone is safe, is free, is whole. All of us. In this together.” But ours is the same culture in which a large minority apparently believe we should only take care of ourselves and let the devil take the hindmost, a world in which even good men, seemingly selfless servants of the people can offend, threaten, sexually molest and generally abuse their female associates and employees while supporting policies that further the cause of economic and environmental justice. Hypocrisy isn’t just the province of conservatives. *Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it Comments can be left at the Mercury Messenger. They can also be posted on this blog, but V.B. Price won't see them.   "Do you mind if I sit back a little? Because your breath is very bad." - Donald J. Trump.

V.B. Price Opines: 'Why Is Voting Under Attack?'

Here is V.B. Price's weekly column.

Why Is Voting Under Attack

The all-out war over voting going on in our country at the moment has a paradoxically profound and inspirational message. What it’s telling us is that voting is still the single most important public act in American culture.

If it wasn’t, the Republican party would not be turning its death ray against it, risking everything, even the party’s honor, dignity and good name to undermine the foundational right and duty that empowers all Americans.

Winning the vote is everything. In the messy grind of the daily news cycle, many of us overlook the enormity of this truth.

Even a would-be tyrant with a well-oiled Big Lie propaganda machine, who owned the Justice Department and all its means of intimidation, who had both houses of Congress in his pocket, as well as many state governments, and a majority on the Supreme Court, could still be voted out of office in America. We are not a totalitarian nation quite yet. And the GOP doesn’t like it one little bit.

That’s why Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito would debase himself in support of bald-faced, racist anti-voting election laws in Arizona, just to diminish the demographic advantage Democrats have over Republicans — some 49% to 40% — according to the Gallup Poll, the largest in nearly a decade.

When Alito wrote the majority opinion supporting new voting laws in Arizona that forbid the collection of absentee ballots by any one or group other than a voter’s relatives and caregivers, he was sanctioning a direct attack on the voting rights of rural Native Americans across the country, especially those on large reservations, such as the Blackfeet in Montana and the Navajo in northern Arizona. Voters there often have to travel many miles to find a mailbox or a post office — much farther than most urban dwellers. They prefer to pool their signed and sealed ballots and let a third party deliver them in a batch to be mailed, saving perhaps thousands of voters from having to drive long distances. Republicans say they think this increases the opportunities for voter fraud, indirectly accusing Democrats of tampering somehow with the ballots.

Alito’s majority opinion supporting such a rule went like this, according to NPR's Nina Totenberg: “Just because voting may be ‘inconvenient for some,’ Alito wrote, doesn’t mean that access to voting is unequal.”

If access to voting is convenient for some but inconvenient for others — by rule of law — I’d say that represents a fundamental and unconstitutional inequality.

To make voting legally more difficult for people who live far away from postal services is penalizing them for geographical and cultural circumstances beyond their control. That this is directed largely at rural Native Americans makes such a law a form of racist hate crime against a cultural class of voters. And of course the GOP would do that now that New Mexico’s Deb Haaland — a member of Laguna Pueblo and a Native American rights activist — is President Biden’s Secretary of the Interior, in charge of Bureau of Indian Affair (BIA).

Diminishing the number of Democratic voters is so important to Republicans that they shamelessly brand themselves as haters of Native Americans who they imply are more prone to committing election fraud that non-Native Americans.

The Republican Party has detached itself from the moral core of the Constitution that’s carved in stone over the entrance to U.S. Supreme Court: “Equal Justice Under Law.” It’s not the fault of rural Native Americans that many of them live prohibitive distances from a post office. It’s the fault of the federal government that there’s not enough post offices on reservation land.

So the “inconvenience” suffered by some in voting is not only unequal to the “conveniences” of others, it's an inconvenience imposed by government policy. That’s about as far away from fairness and equality as you can get.

The attack on voting by political interests that tend to lose big elections because they are not in the majority has been going on for decades. And it hasn’t all been about Jim Crow, though that’s still the most egregious and disgusting. After the Goldwater defeat in 1964, for instance — a loss describedas the most crushing presidential defeat in American history — the notion that voting really wasn’t very important started seeping into the national dialogue, almost part and parcel with the rise of economist Milton Friedman’s free market fundamentalism and his class-based denigration of the wisdom of the “lesser classes” known as the “general public.” Voting was considered the privilege of the advantaged few, not of the disadvantaged multitude.

That piece of propaganda is an early conservative Big Lie directed at young people in particular. Voting was portrayed as a useless waste of time. After all, it’s only one vote, so why should you bother, the argument went. A general feeling of disempowerment seeped across the country through the counterculture and the left. Then, the 2000 election came along and the so-called uselessness of voting was reinforced when the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court actually decided the election in favor of the loser, George W. Bush. In doing so, the Court might also have signed the death warrant for an inhabitable climate around the world by sending into political oblivion one of the most effective anti-climate change crusaders, Vice President Al Gore.

Then eight years ago, a five-vote conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court all but eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by absurdly ruling that its prime provision — making previously notorious Jim Crow states get federal approval before passing new voting laws — was no longer needed because racism had been solved in America.

Soon we’ll see again, in the wake of the 2020 census, how successful the attack on voting has been when conservatives in various state legislatures work furiously to fiddle with party proportions in election districts so that they give themselves an artificial advantage that their actual numbers do not warrant.

There’s only one sure way to end this attack on the right to vote. Vote the attackers out of office.
 

*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it

(Image from Get Out the Vote Campaign poster by Angie Cibis)

"When you invent the ship, you invent the shipwreck." - Paul Virilio

The Fourth of July: Independence and RAPPS

In between the fireworks, auto and furniture sales, and barbecues, take a few minutes today to read the Declaration of Independence and the remarkable Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which came along 11 years later:

Download Const

Download Usdeclar

Mary Frances and I do so each July 4th.

If you are an American citizen, thank your lucky stars for those 56 guys who signed the Declaration in Philadelphia in 1776 and started this thing rolling.

While you are at it, give extra thanks for the First Amendment, which guarantees five fundamental rights, which you can remember with the mnemonic RAPPS: religion, assembly, press, petition, and speech.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two giants in American history - friends, then opponents, and finally friends again - both died on this day in 1826. As I get older, I think less of Jefferson and more of Adams. Both were great men, but the former 'talked the talk' but didn't always 'walk the walk' (e.g., slavery) whereas the latter tried to do both.

Enjoy the day, and enjoy RAPPS!

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." -- Declaration of Independence

"...a Republic, if you can keep it." -- Benjamin Franklin, at the end of the Constitutional Convention, when asked, "What have you wrought?"

The Donald Trump Blow-Up Sex Doll Hits the Streets

Get your own Donald Trump sex doll - it's far more useful than the real thing. Proceeds will help Syrian refugees, according to Syrian artist Saint Hoax.

Keep those Syrian refugees out of those damn Trojan horses!

Check out this article.

"You know, it really doesn`t matter what [the media] write as long as you`ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass." –Donald Trump

Jimmy Carter, National Treasure

Great cartoon by Mike Luckovich at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Regardless of your opinion of his presidency, you'll have to admit that since he left office, Jimmy Carter has entered the realm of a national treasure. He's bypassed golf courses and gazillion-dollar speaking fees before hedge fund managers to make the world a better place.   

"We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles." - Jimmy Carter

How Donald Trump Sees the World

From David Phillips.

"An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud." - Donald J. Trump on Twitter, 6 August 2012

Beware of Greeks Bearing Debts: New ATMs Appear in Athens

These new ATMs should provide some relief to the beleaguered Greeks....

Who is Katie Hopkins, you ask? Check for yourself.  

Looks like our plan to eat more Greek yogurt has not helped much.

"Η φτήνια τρώει τον παρά." - Greek proverb [English equivalent: "If you buy cheaply, you pay dearly."]

Oregon: About to Pass New Jersey on a Tankful of Self-Pumped Gas!

Few people know it but Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states in our union that forbid people from pumping their own gas. In all fairness, each has exceptions.  Oregon has limited exceptions for commercial drivers and motorcyclists. In New Jersey, you can pump your own gas if you are a politician, know Governor Chris Christie, or are a member of the Mafia. 

That may soon change, folks. Oregon's moving into the latter quarter of the 20th century

Today's Oregonian reports that our legislature passed a bill allowing us to pump our own gas in counties with fewer than 40,000 residents (half of our 36 counties) between the hours of 6 PM and 6 AM. The bill now goes to Governor Kate Brown for her (presumed) signature.

One concern: in a state that just legalized marijuana, perhaps this is not a good idea. 

"Today I voted for limited self-service gas in extremely rural areas late at night. Am I still a real Oregonian?" - Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis

Former HP CEO and Savvy Business Maven Carly Fiorina's Campaign Gets a 404

So what do you see when you go to carlyfiorina.org? Try this:

You then scroll down past row after row of frowny faces till you reach the end:

I doubt Ms. Fiorina does her own domain-name registration so I can't really call her out for failing to do so. But it does not reflect well upon her campaign, especially for someone who touts her business acumen. 

And here is what you get when you visit TedCruz.com:

"If you're not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you." - Mike Tyson, in the New York Observer, via The Week. 

Marco Rubio: Forward Thinker Rebrands S.O.S.

Wonderful cartoon (click on the image to enlarge it) from The Week and Bill Day.

And don't forget Rubio's 21st century Cuban foreign policy!

“I’m not making any comparison between Barack Obama and Castro from Cuba—but…” - Marco Rubio

TIME for More! Hillary the Devil & O.J. The Criminal

TIME magazine is getting grief from some quarters for their recent cover depicting Hillary Clinton with horns. Uh-huh.

The magazine says that 34 other covers have shown the same effect.

Not nearly as bad as the infamous O.J. Simpson 'mug shot' cover:

which should have looked like this (unretouched):

"Beware of stupid people who are motivated and energetic." - Margaret Catley-Carlson 

Dana Milbank Comes Close, But Gets It Wrong About Hillary Clinton: It's About Entitlement

Dana Milbank, the Washington Post columnist, is one of my favorites.

But he missed the point in his recent column about Hillary Clinton and 'Emailgate'. Here is what he says about Clinton in his latest missive (the picture is from his column):

So it turns out Hillary Clinton will face a serious challenger in the primaries, after all. Her name is Hillary Clinton (italics mine):

This week’s revelation that she used only private e-mail to conduct her public business as secretary of state is not a knockout blow to the likely Democratic presidential nominee; she has weathered worse. But it is a needless, self-inflicted wound, and it stems from the same flaws that have caused Clinton trouble in the past — terminal caution and its cousin, obsessive secrecy.

In trying so hard to avoid mistakes — in this case, trying to make sure an embarrassing e-mail or two didn’t become public — Clinton made a whopper of an error. What’s troubling is that she’s been making a variation of this mistake for nearly a quarter-century.

Yes, Milbank got it right - terminal caution and obsessive secrecy are at fault, but they stem from the fundamental 'Clintonian charcateristic' - entitlement. 'Billary' thinks they are better than the rest of us and don't need to play by the same rules. Transparency? That's for the little people.

Bill gets away with it more easily than Hillary because of his personality and 'Aw, shucks, down home' persona. 

The Clintons are not the only politicians who possess this trait, but we're not talking about other politicians.

Did she break the law? Apparently not. Did she do what she criticized others for doing? Yes.  

But she's still better than the Republican wannabes. Oh, yeah.

She ought to learn not to shoot herself in the foot.

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." - Hillary Clinton

Jeb Bush's Campaign: Hitting the Ground Tweeting!

Jeb Bush's PAC's new staffer is an adept Tweeter. So send Ethan Czahor a Tweet - below are examples of some he sent a few years ago. Let's give Ethan a warm civil welcome! He Tweets @czahor.

Wonder if Czahor is a Catholic high school grad? Just sayin'.

"I don't think a party can aspire to be the majority party if it's the old white guy party." - Jeb Bush

Anti-Vaxxers, Meet Anti-Handwasher Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)

This story comes from the Daily Kos (thanks to Eric Fitch).

Wash your hands after using the bathroom, right?

Here is a video (link here) of the 'eloquent and substantive' new Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who opines on the application of free-market economics to employee 
handwashing:  

 

If we require restaurants to place signs saying that they do not require their employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom that's regulation, right?

Here is what his website says about the Senator:

Through hard work and dedication Thom quickly moved up the corporate ladder, earning his degree at 36 and becoming a top-level executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM. Thom’s 22-year private sector career in technology and management consulting has provided him with a deep understanding of policy-making and the management of complex organizations.

Apparently the transmission of germs and disease by dirty hands was not in the cards during his meteoric rise to the U.S. Senate.

And what excellent timing, Senator! I wonder if he vaccinated his children.

My late mother, a proud, intelligent Tar Heeler, must be rolling over in her grave.

Where do they get these guys?

At least Tillis supports clean water.

By the way - an Israeli Twitter follower of mine says they don't use the term 'anti-vaxxer' but 'pro-diseaser' instead. Nice ring to that.

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." - John Stuart Mill

Mitt Quits, Will Spend More Time with His Money

Great one from The Week.

 "I'm happy to learn that after I speak you're going to hear from Ann Coulter. That's a good thing. I think it's important to get the views of moderates." - Mitt Romney - right before Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot"

The Elephants in the Room: Republicans' 12-Step Program

From the Funny Times. 

Enjoy!

 "I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly." - Winston Churchill

So You Think Barack Obama is a Muslim?

From Jeffrey Levin.

Here's a worthwhile piece on the subject of religious violence from Baby Dokes.

 "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'" - John 8:7 (KJV)

'Proud To Be British' Hoodie: Grammatical Error or Political Statement?

From The Independent. Cute.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves, anyone?

"The reason why the sun never sets on The British Empire is because God doesn't trust the British in the dark." - Unknown

Visions of the 'Six Californias' Concept

What can I say? Read the story.

 

"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." - George Carlin

The Moronic Montana Mouth Opines

Looks like former Montana governor Brian 'La Boca' Schweitzer didn't really want to be POTUS after all. But, hey, what a charming buffoon (he's the one without the tie in this WaPo photo).

Most of this is from a piece by Aaron Blake in the WaPo. 

First, Schweitzer's comment about Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the National Journal:

Schweitzer is incredulous that Feinstein—considered by her critics to be too close to the intelligence community—was now criticizing the (National Security Agency). "She was the woman who was standing under the streetlight with her dress pulled all the way up over her knees, and now she says, 'I'm a nun,' when it comes to this spying!" he says. Then, he adds, quickly, "I mean, maybe that's the wrong metaphor—but she was all in!"

Wrong metaphor? Ya think, Brian?

Next, Schweitzer opines on the femininity of Southern men and Eric Cantor in particular:

Last week, I called him on the night Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated in his GOP primary. "Don't hold this against me, but I'm going to blurt it out. How do I say this ... men in the South, they are a little effeminate," he offered when I mentioned the stunning news. When I asked him what he meant, he added, "They just have effeminate mannerisms. If you were just a regular person, you turned on the TV, and you saw Eric Cantor talking, I would say—and I'm fine with gay people, that's all right—but my gaydar is 60-70 percent. But he's not, I think, so I don't know. Again, I couldn't care less. I'm accepting."

You go, Brian! Montana will be a good place to be in 2016.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein

Home, Home on Deranged

From The Week by John Cole.

From Cole's blog:

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s long-running feud with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management came to a head last week after BLM agents squared off against Bundy and an armed gaggle of self-identifying “patriot” militia-types. After decades of argument and lost court cases, Bundy still refuses to acknowledge the federal government’s claim to vast tracts of Western lands and pay the grazing fees for his cattle. More detail can be found here.

The feds were correct in standing down last week. The situation was spiraling out of hand and the risk of bloodshed was real. Any show of significant force likely would do nothing more than turn Bundy and his supporting militia into martyrs of the far right, which already has concocted a witch’s brew of conspiracy theories for the standoff involving Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, his sons, a Chinese solar company, the BLM and perhaps even the Trilateral Commission.

"Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large
groups." -- John Kenneth Galbraith

Republicans Contract Cat Scratch Fever, Seek to Expand Base with Ted Nugent

Of course the Republicans are wearing a Ted Nugent hat - they are courtng the gun-toting, crossbow-shooting moron vote.

Ted, you've come a long way since Journey to the Center of the Mind, (good song, actually)! But it looks like the Cat Scratch Fever has finally taken hold!

By Randall Enos, from The Week.

 “Anybody that wants to disarm me can drop dead. Anybody that wants to make me unarmed and helpless, we’re gonna literally create the proven places that where more innocents are killed called ‘gun-free zones,’ we’re gonna beat you. We’re gonna vote you out of office, or suck on my machine gun, you can take it whichever way you want.” - Ted Nugent, interview with Piers Morgan

The New Yorker: Don't Play in Traffic, Chris!

Barry Blitt takes Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) to takes for holding up traffic.

Here is a link to The New Yorker's coverage of 'Bridgegate'.

And check out this wonderful video by Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Fallon.

 

"Governor, let me in, I want to be your friend. There’ll be no partisan division.
Let me wrap your legs around your mighty rims, and relieve your stressful condition.
You got Wall Street masters stuck cheek to cheek with blue-collar truckers.
And, man, I really gotta take a leak; but I can’t.
I’m stuck in Governor Christie’s Fort Lee, New Jersey, traffic jam." - Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen (to the tune of Born to Run)

'Look What I Netted!'

From Jack Ohman at the Sacramento Bee.

Net neutrality? See this article.

“He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.” – Chinese proverb

Jimmy Fallon & The Boss: 'Gov Chris Christie’s Fort Lee, New Jersey, Traffic Jam’

Jimmy Fallon and 'The Boss' - hilarious! Thanks to friend Michael Dale.

Originally from Brad Warthen.

 

“Chris Christie is dealing with a scandal after it was revealed that a top aide shut down access to the George Washington Bridge to get back at a Democratic mayor for not endorsing him. Christie was furious when they blocked the bridge because he thought they said they were blocking the fridge.” – Jimmy Fallon

The Bully Pulpit: Ignorance Is Chris

Love the front cover of today's New York Post.

But read the story from the New York Times.

 "You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain't going to be jobs, sweetheart." - Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), to a female heckler

Life Support: The Week 31 December 2013

Love this cover from the 31 December 2013 issue.

By the way - did you know the deficit is falling? Read about it here.

"According to a new report, more than 700 fake Obamacare websites have been created. Security experts say it's simple to identify the phony sites because they are easy to log on to." – Jay Leno

Wishful Thinking? A Word Cloud for Our Leaders in 2014

From Forbes - read the article here.

 

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." —Publilius Syrus

One Graph, One Life: Nelson Mandela

Hard to think one could do justice to Nelson Mandela's transformation of South Africa with such a simple graph but I think Dylan Matthews did a pretty good job.

Thanks to Ezra Klein.

“It always seems impossible until it's done.” - Nelson Mandela

Maps & More: In Which of the Eleven American Nations Do You Live?

Fascinating map and article by Colin Woodard in the Tufts University alumni magazine.

Woodard is the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

Here is the map:

Reid Wilson offers a quick synopsis in his Washington Post blog post:

Yankeedom: Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions.

New Netherland: The Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world when New York was founded, Woodard writes, so it’s no wonder that the region has been a hub of global commerce. It’s also the region most accepting of historically persecuted populations.

The Midlands: Stretching from Quaker territory west through Iowa and into more populated areas of the Midwest, the Midlands are “pluralistic and organized around the middle class.” Government intrusion is unwelcome, and ethnic and ideological purity isn’t a priority.

Tidewater: The coastal regions in the English colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware tend to respect authority and value tradition. Once the most powerful American nation, it began to decline during Westward expansion.

Greater Appalachia: Extending from West Virginia through the Great Smoky Mountains and into Northwest Texas, the descendants of Irish, English and Scottish settlers value individual liberty. Residents are “intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers.”

Deep South: Dixie still traces its roots to the caste system established by masters who tried to duplicate West Indies-style slave society, Woodard writes. The Old South values states’ rights and local control and fights the expansion of federal powers.

El Norte: Southwest Texas and the border region is the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas. Hard work and self-sufficiency are prized values.

The Left Coast: A hybrid, Woodard says, of Appalachian independence and Yankee utopianism loosely defined by the Pacific Ocean on one side and coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas on the other. The independence and innovation required of early explorers continues to manifest in places like Silicon Valley and the tech companies around Seattle.

The Far West: The Great Plains and the Mountain West were built by industry, made necessary by harsh, sometimes inhospitable climates. Far Westerners are intensely libertarian and deeply distrustful of big institutions, whether they are railroads and monopolies or the federal government.

New France: Former French colonies in and around New Orleans and Quebec tend toward consensus and egalitarian, “among the most liberal on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in the economy,” Woodard writes.

First Nation: The few First Nation peoples left — Native Americans who never gave up their land to white settlers — are mainly in the harshly Arctic north of Canada and Alaska. They have sovereignty over their lands, but their population is only around 300,000.

Interesting read!

"With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable that some new alliance could form to tip the balance." - Colin Woodard

The NewYorker: Try Ctrl-Alt-Delete

This week's New Yorker has another wonderful cover by Barry Blitt: 'Reboot'.

 “We’re going to do a challenge. I’m going to try and download every movie ever made and you are going to try to sign up for Obamacare — and we’ll see which happens first.” — Jon Stewart to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on The Daily Show, Oct. 7

The A-Team Arrives! Healthcare.Gov Fix is Imminent!

Wonderful cartoon from Joe Heller.

"Why would the heathcare.gov website be designed in such a way by an outside contractor? Because coders often price jobs by the number of lines of code they will have to write." - Daryl Rowland, after learning that the number of lines of code in the website is around 5x that of a large bank's. 

New York Daily News: Stiil the Same, But in Color - Los Tres Chiflados!

Glad to see that the New York Daily News of my youth is still there, but now in color!

Gotta love 'em!

The Three Stooges ('Los Tres Chiflados' in Spanish) - keep on truckin', guys!

"Oh, you're an intelligent imbecile!" - Moe Howard

Congressional Research Service Report: 'Honduras - US Relations'

Fascinating report from CRS analyst Peter J. Meyer.

Download CRS_Honduras_US_Relations

Summary

Honduras, a Central American nation of 7.9 million people, has had close ties with the United States over many years. The country served as a base for U.S. operations in Central America during the 1980s, and it continues to
host a U.S. military presence and cooperate on anti-drug efforts today. Trade and investment linkages are also long-standing, and have grown
stronger in recent years through the implementation of the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). Migration is another central concern in bilateral relations; over 702,000 Hispanics of Honduran origin live in the United States——nearly two-thirds of whom are foreign born. Although the U.S.-Honduras relationship was somewhat strained as a result of the 2009 political crisis in Honduras, close cooperation quickly resumed in 2010. Since then, broad U.S. policy goals in Honduras have included a strengthened democracy with an effective justice system that protects human rights and enforces the rule of law, and the promotion of sustainable economic growth with a more open economy and improved living conditions.

Political Situation

Porfirio Lobo, who was inaugurated president of Honduras in January 2010, is now in the final six months of his term. Lobo assumed power after seven months of domestic political crisis and international isolation that had resulted from the June 2009 ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. While the strength of Lobo’’s conservative National Party in the legislature has enabled his administration to pass much of its policy agenda, Lobo has had limited success in resolving the many challenges facing Honduras. His efforts to lead the country out of political crisis, for example, have helped Honduras secure international recognition but have done little to rebuild confidence in the country’’s political system. Lobo is constitutionally ineligible for another term, and presidential, legislative, and municipal elections are scheduled for November 24, 2013. Several new parties have been established to contest the elections and early polling suggests that Honduras’’ traditional two-party system is fracturing.

Security and Human Rights

The poor security and human rights situation in Honduras has continued to deteriorate under President Lobo. Honduras has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, and common crime remains widespread. Moreover, human rights abuses——which increased significantly in the aftermath of Zelaya’’s ouster——have persisted. A number of inter-related factors have likely contributed to this situation, including the increasing presence of organized crime, weak government institutions, and widespread corruption. Although the Honduran government has adopted a number of policy reforms designed to address these challenges, conditions have yet to improve.

Economic Conditions

President Lobo also inherited a weak economy with high levels of poverty and inequality. Honduras suffered an economic contraction of 2.4% in 2009 as a result of the combined impact of the global financial crisis and domestic political crisis. Although the economy has partially recovered, with estimated growth of 3.3% in 2012, the Honduran government continues to face serious fiscal challenges. The central government’’s deficit has been growing in recent years. As it has struggled to obtain financing for the budget, public employees and contractors occasionally have gone unpaid and basic government services have been interrupted. Honduras also continues to face significant social disparities, with over two-thirds of the population living in poverty.

Congressional Action

Members of Congress have expressed considerable interest in Honduras since the 2009 political crisis, focusing in particular on the state of the country’’s democratic institutions as well as the significant security and human rights challenges that have plagued the country in recent years. These issues have continued to attract interest in the 113th Congress. Members of both houses have sent letters to the State Department expressing concerns about human rights abuses, and Congress chose to maintain human rights restrictions on aid to Honduras in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-6).

This report examines current conditions in Honduras as well as issues in U.S-Honduras relations.

Not a pretty sight.

"When the blind leads the way, woe to those who follow." - Honduran proverb 

¡Vota por El Partido Anti Corrupción (PAC) en Honduras!

Something exciting is brewing in Honduras, and it's not coffee! In an effort to 'refresh' the political system, a new (2011) political party, El Partido Anti Corrupción (PAC), is fielding candiates for national and local offices at the end of November 2013.

Salvador Nasralla is running for president on the PAC ticket.

My good friend Rolando López is running for a diputado (deputy) seat in the National Congress. Honduras has a unicameral legislature with 128 deputies.

And another friend, Gustavo Cabrera, is running for mayor (alcalde) of Omoa.

¡Buena suerte!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

The Fed Chair Choice Made Simple: Janet Yellen v. Larry Summers

From Jen Sorensen at AlterNet.

"I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted." - Larry Summers

Carlos Danger aka 'The Weinermeister' or 'The Complete Package'

Great cover by John Cuneo on this week's The New Yorker.

Yeah, Weiner is the 'real deal', or as he might say, the 'complete package'.

What a jerk. Someone take his smartphone away. His wife?

Weiner is proof that a smartphone user does is not as smart as the phone.

"We're trying to get to the bottom of where the picture came from, and we're trying to get to the bottom of what it's of and who it's of." - Anthony Weiner

Mike Whitney Opines: Hitler vs. Bernanke

Friend and colleague Ari Michelsen (an economist) sent me this item from Mike Whitney. I am posting it 'as is'. Comments are welcomed! 

************* 

Why was Adolph Hitler able to lift Germany out of the Great Depression, when policymakers in the US–particularly the Fed–have failed so miserably?

Let’s look at the facts: When Hitler came to power in 1933, the German economy was in a shambles. Millions of people were out of work, a number of large banks had collapsed, the market for German exports had dried up overnight, and a US-led lending freeze (withdrawal of credits under the Young Plan) had thrust German industry and finance into a severe slump. By 1932, German industrial production was nearly half of what it had been a year earlier. Unemployment soared from 1.5 million in 1929 to more than 6 million in 1933.

Enter Hitler, who had been sworn in as chancellor under President Paul von Hindenburg in January, 1933. Hitler appointed German economist and banker, Hjalmar Schacht, as President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics. Schacht, in turn, launched a groundbreaking fiscal stimulus program that rebuilt the nation’s worn infrastructure and put millions of people back to work. At the same time, Schacht took steps to strengthen the currency, jettison the gold standard, and impose capital controls, all of which served to reinforce Germany’s economic independence. Here’s a little background from C.K.Liu’s Asia Times article “Nazism and the German Economic Miracle”:

The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (“Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Henry C. K. Liu, Asia Times)

Clearly, “Depression expert” Bernanke’s performance pales in comparison to Schacht’s and for obvious reasons. While zero rates and bond purchases (QE) have been good for risk assets, (Stocks are up more than 140 percent since their March 2009 lows.) unemployment is still above 7 percent, real wages are trending lower, GDP has shriveled to below 2 percent, 47 million people are on food stamps, and inequality is greater than anytime since the Gilded Era. The facts speak for themselves; Bernanke’s policies have only benefited the investor class. The real economy is still flat on its back.

That’s not to say that Hitler was not a murderous psychopath. He was, but there’s also reason why his policies have been applauded by leftist intellectuals, like Counterpunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn, who spoke admiringly of Hitler’s “progressive economic policies.” Here’s a quote from Cockburn:

Hitler, genocidal monster that he was, was also the first practicing Keynesian leader. … There were vast public works, such as the autobahns. He paid little attention to the deficit or to the protests of the bankers about his policies. … By 1936, unemployment had sunk to 1 percent. (Alexander Cockburn)

Cockburn is not alone in his admiration for Hitler’s (or should we say Schacht’s) fiscal policies. Keynes himself praised the policies although he despised Hitler and Nazism. Writing in the foreword of the German edition his magnum opus The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keynes said:

The theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of production and distribution of a given output produced under the conditions of free competition and a large measure of laissez-faire.

This doesn’t mean that Keynes supported autocratic government. He didn’t. He was merely acknowledging that “demand management” (which is essential for minimizing the negative effects of the business cycle) is more easily achieved with a strong central government, since government spending is required to take up the slack in aggregate demand during a slump. Government has an important role to play when demand is weak and the economy slumps. The government can (and should) use deficit spending to increase activity, put idle resources to work, boost output, lower unemployment, and put the economy back on a solid growth-path. Hitler may not have grasped this, but surely Schacht did. Here’s more from Liu’s article:

From the very outset of his rule, Hitler, whose main short-term goal was the economic revival of Germany with the help of German nationalist bankers and industrialists, won popular support of the nation. Hitler adopted an aggressive full-employment campaign. Between January 1933 and July 1935 the number of employed Germans rose by a half, from 11.7 million to 16.9 million. More than 5 million new jobs paying living wages were created. Unemployment was banished from the German economy and the entire nation was productively engaged in reconstruction. Inflation was brought under control by wage freeze and price control. Besides this, taking into account the lessons learned during 1914-18, Hitler aimed at creating an economy that would be independent from foreign capital and supply, and be well protected from another blockade and economic war. For Germans, all of the above was proof that Hitler was the one who had not only brought Germany out of economic depression but would take it directly to prosperity with new pride. German popular trust in the Fuehrer rose dramatically.” (“Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Henry C. K. Liu, Asia Times)

Hitler was no friend of labor, but he knew that full employment would widen his base of popular support. In contrast, Bernanke and his colleagues at the Fed could care less about popularity or jobs. What they want is to slash critical safetynet programs that protect the old, the sick and the needy. That’s what QE is really all about; it’s a way of redistributing wealth upwards (through rising stock prices) while Congress and the Obama administration “starve the beast” via budget cuts. Reactionary elites have created a bogus deficit crisis so they can impose their neoliberal agenda of deregulation, privatization, low taxes, and austerity on working people.

Hitler garnered support for militarization through labor intensive public works projects that transformed the nation in an economic powerhouse. Schacht played a crucial role in the recovery. Along with strict capital controls and other protectionist policies, Schacht stopped the private issuance of money and “launched a new land-backed currency”. Here’s how author Ellen Brown sums it up in a passage from her masterpiece Web of Debt:

Hitler began his national credit program by devising a plan of public works. Projects earmarked for funding included flood control, repair of public buildings and private residences, and construction of new buildings, roads, bridges, canals, and port facilities. The projected cost of the various programs was fixed at one billion units of the national currency. One billion non-inflationary bills of exchange, called Labor Treasury Certificates, were then issued against this cost. Millions of people were put to work on these projects, and the workers were paid with the Treasury Certificates. This government-issued money wasn’t backed by gold, but it was backed by something of real value. It was essentially a receipt for labor and materials delivered to the government.

Hitler said, “for every mark that was issued we required the equivalent of a mark’s worth of work done or goods produced.” The workers then spent the Certificates on other goods and services, creating more jobs for more people…

Within two years, the unemployment problem had been solved and the country was back on its feet. It had a solid, stable currency, no debt, and no inflation, at a time when millions of people in the United States and other Western countries were still out of work and living on welfare. (“Thinking Outside the Box: How a Bankrupt Germany solved its Infrastructure Problems”, Ellen Brown, Web of Debt, Third Millennium Press)

This is the largely unknown story of Hitler’s rise to power, an ascent that depended on “an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit” rather than the issuance of loans by privately-owned banks. (Public money vs private money) Hitler took the bankers out of the equation and rebuilt Germany in just four years.

Why doesn’t Bernanke do the same thing? Why doesn’t Bernanke purchase Infrastructure bonds or Education bonds instead of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) which only benefit the bankers. Why doesn’t Bernanke practice what he preached to the bigwigs at the Japan Society of Monetary Economics, in May 2003 when he outlined steps for monetizing tax cuts. Here’s what he said:

The Bank of Japan should consider increasing still further its purchases of government debt, preferably in explicit conjunction with a program of tax cuts or other fiscal stimulus… Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental BOJ purchases of government debt–so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation.

Now there’s a novel idea; printing money to help the average working stiff. That ought to increase activity and boost growth, don’t you think? So why is Bernanke still dumping $85 billion per month into a black-hole financial system instead of following his own advice and using his power to put people back to work and get the economy back on track?

Why?

The economy is in the doldrums because that’s where Bernanke and Co. want it to be.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. Whitney’s story on declining wages for working class Americans appears in the June issue of CounterPunch magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

*****************

 "Don't shoot the messenger." - Unknown

Michele Bachmann: No One To Kick Around Anymore?

Still more good stuff from Tom Toles. 

 "Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas." - Rep. Michele Bachmann, April, 2009

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX): 'If Babies Had Guns, They Wouldn't Be Aborted'

From Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) via Huffington Post:

They might also shoot moronic Congressman.

"And he's even using children! It reminds me of Saddam Hussein would use kids to..." - Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX), referring to President Obama

Republicans Embrace Inclusiveness. How's That Working Out?

I am enjoying the Republicans' efforts to portray themselves as being more inclusive. Unfortunately, it's not working too well, at least if they are seeking to recruit gays, Latinos, and women.

1) Check out this item from Politico about Dave Agema, Republican National Committeeman fron Michigan:

Dave Agema, who served as a state representative from 2007 until December posted an excerpt from an article titled "Everyone Should Know These Statistics On Homosexuals" on his Facebook page Wednesday. A group of 21 Michigan Republicans, including local precinct delegates and members of the University of Michigan College Republicans, has called it "deplorable."

But Agema told The Associated Press he maintains his belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, and said he will "absolutely not" resign. Agema said he posted the excerpt in light of the arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court this week on California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

Among the claims in the article by Dr. Frank Joseph is that gay people "account for half the murders in large cities." The article, which cites studies from the 1980s for many of its claims, also attributes high medical insurance rates to caring for AIDS patients.

The article includes the statement that “part of the homosexual agenda is to get the public to affirm their filthy lifestyle.”

2) Then there's Rep. Don Young (R-AK), cut from the Ted Stevens mold. From NPR:

"My father had a ranch. We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks and — to pick tomatoes," Young said. "You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It's all done by machine."

3) Now there is a bill being introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) that would ban Federal documents from using any language other than English. You go, guys! 

Today's quotes (read more here):

”I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.” - State Senator Chuck Winder (R-ID), March 2012

 “I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you… rape victims should make the best of a bad situation.” - Rick Santorum, January 2012

"Some girls rape easy." - State Rep. Roger Rivard (R-WI)

 Probably will pick up some more OWGs (Old White Guys)!

Poor Marco Rubio: His 'Watergate Moment'

Pity poor Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)! He's been thrust onto the national stage with an eye towards the 2016 election and now everything he does gets scrutinized to the nth degree. 

Stay thirsty, Marco -  but don't drink bottled water!

 

"I'm not a scientist, man." - Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), when asked if he knew the age of Earth

So Mitch, Can You Tell Me Again About Those Free-Spending Democrat Presidents?

From Paul VanDevelder.

 

"Will we default on our debt, and will Canada let us crash on their couch for awhile?" –Stephen Colbert

 

Four More Years...Herding Cats in DC

Barry Blitt's cover of the current issue of The New Yorker.

Here is what Blitt said about the cover:

I’m allergic to cats—even pictures of cats make me wheeze. But I like the expression “herding cats” to describe organizing uncoöperative characters, and it’s also a nice metaphor for this President dealing with this particular Congress over the so-called fiscal cliff (among other things). So I took one for the team.

 

Enjoy!

"Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function." - Garrison Keillor

Bromance: And They Finished Each Other's Sentences

"Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland, or on windmills in China? Was it a good idea to borrow all this money from countries like China and spend it on all these various different interest groups?"-- Paul Ryan

"We can’t expect entrepreneurs and businesses large and small to take their life savings or their companies’ money and invest in America if they think we’re headed to the road to Greece. And that’s where we’re going right now unless we finally get off this spending and borrowing binge." - Mitt Romney

Time for Fantasyland! Where's the Fiscal Cliff Ride?

Thanks to Jerry Sehlke and the Christian Science Monitor.

"We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror." - Marshall McLuhan

Amy Frey: A Nate Silver Failure on Election Day (@amybethfrey @fivethirtyeight)

One that got away from Nate Silver. 

Thanks to the Huffington Post.

Had Ms. Frey run on this platform in Campanastan, I would no longer be President-for-Life! I have only so much control over my subjects. 

What, no kitties?

"I predict God will smite Portland, Oregon, for voting against puppies, beer, happiness, sex and rainbows." - Chris, one of Amy's Tweeps

@TheOnion: Filthy Mitt Romney Delivers Campaign Speech To Confused Ohio Safeway Shoppers

Breaking news from The Onion!

CANTON, OH—According to eyewitnesses at the scene, an unkempt and thoroughly disheveled Mitt Romney gave an impassioned campaign speech Monday to a group of bewildered shoppers inside a local Safeway.

Sources confirmed the filth-covered former presidential candidate walked into the store unannounced early yesterday evening, went to the store’s cereal aisle, and started to play Kid Rock’s “Born Free” on a portable boom box, enthusiastically waving and pointing to no one in particular.

Read more!

 Sad!

 "As president, I will create 12 million new jobs." - Mitt Romney, during the second presidential debate

"Government does not create jobs. Government does not create jobs." - Mitt Romney, 45 minutes later (Oct. 16, 2012) 

Texas Secession Letter from President Obama

Got this from Joe Dellapenna's Facebook page, written by Dianne Self Wing.

If only it were true....

“To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you too.” - Sam Houston

Over-The-Top Romney - Sandy Ad

This one comes from the 'good folks' at ClimateSilence 

 

C'mon, man - we don't need this crap.

Make sure you vote today.

From David Roberts at Grist.

"The ads they run are not generic party ads or issue ads—they are 'Bill-Clinton-is-the-best-thing-since-twist-off-caps' ads and 'Bob-Dole-is-the-cause-of-halitosis-and-genital-warts' ads... (I personally doubt the genital wart claim, but...) — Jim Hightower, If God Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates