[Fallows post] ‘When we can’t talk about what we’re really doing, and when we penalize politicians for speaking the truth, we’re asking for trouble. Of the sort many people will encounter at the airport tomorrow — and in months ahead. ‘
The question I’m always left with after reading this is this: How do you get to a place where, as a society, we cultivate a mature approach to risks facing us?
(Via Ta-Nehisi Coates :: The Atlantic.)
Indeed I’ve been asking that for some time now.
Axis of Depression – NYTimes.com:
“So what’s really motivating the G.O.P. attack on the Fed? Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues were clearly caught by surprise, but the budget expert Stan Collender predicted it all. Back in August, he warned Mr. Bernanke that ‘with Republican policy makers seeing economic hardship as the path to election glory,’ they would be ‘opposed to any actions taken by the Federal Reserve that would make the economy better.’ In short, their real fear is not that Fed actions will be harmful, it is that they might succeed.
Hence the axis of depression. No doubt some of Mr. Bernanke’s critics are motivated by sincere intellectual conviction, but the core reason for the attack on the Fed is self-interest, pure and simple. China and Germany want America to stay uncompetitive; Republicans want the economy to stay weak as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House.”
(Via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.)
I long suspected this when I saw the GOP opposing its own policies when they came from a Democrat in the White House. They know that opposition to Obama is more about high unemployment than support for the GOP. It’s party before country which is all pretty disgusting until I realized that the real blame lies with us, the fools. We are the ones who should laugh in Mike Pence’s face when he suggests that The Fed should focus only on stabilizing prices against the law that created it amidst the worst unemployment we’ve seen in decades. To quote the Federal Reserve Act, the purpose of The Fed “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” Nope. Instead, all too many of us cheer and then blame the Obama Administration for high unemployment!
You get the government you deserve. Always.
Three Steps Toward a Balanced Budget:
“Our personal and national relationship to debt is indeed a moral issue. Leaving our children to pay the bills for excessive spending cannot be justified. But, if a budget really is a moral document, how we reduce the deficit is also a moral issue. Our budget should not be balanced on the backs of the poor. Cuts should not come from the services and programs that people rely on now more than ever. The reality is that we have a lot of wasteful spending in our federal budget, but most of it does not come from things that help the most vulnerable people in our society.”
(Via God’s Politics Blog.)
In short, he suggests cuts to:
We’d save billions upon billions and we’d have a more moral budget to boot.
“Apparently, though, Dr. Harris has never needed to purchase insurance, at least until now. He wasn’t aware that COBRA allows him to purchase insurance for himself and his family so that they won’t be without insurance until the new policy kicks in. Because of that, he apparently went ballistic when he found out that his new government subsidized health insurance would not kick in until February 1st. He, like all of us, does not want his family to go without health care insurance coverage. I’m guessing he is intimately aware of what surgery and anesthesiology services cost to people who don’t have insurance — or how difficult it is for people without insurance to get care if they have an accident, injury, or illness while they are uninsured.”
(Via God’s Politics Blog.)
Like I said in the past, you get the government you deserve. If you want better government, vote for better people. Harris is just one more example of why I don’t trust GOP rhetoric or ideology. It’s just a cover for selfishness in its many forms based on ignorance.
Why Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican, Ever: “
Ezra Klein watches newly-elected Republican House member Andrew Harris (R-MD) demonstrate why he should immediately resign his post and let himself be replaced by somebody who is more intelligent:
GOP legislator frets over 28 days without insurance — but what about 30 million he’d leave uninsured?: It’s worth dwelling for a moment on the reaction of Rep. Andy Harris, an incoming legislator who staunchly opposes the new health-care law and ran promising its repeal, to news that he’d had to wait a month for his government-funded health-care benefits to kick in:
Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health-care policy would take effect Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in. ‘He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,’ said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. … ‘Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,’ added the aide.
The point is… Harris’s fear at being uninsured… whatever else you think of the health-care law, it really does keep people from being uninsured…
“
“But if you are the rich people in a democratic society where most people believe in reduced inequality, what kind of tax code do you want? You want to start with an overall progressive structure (so the people won’t revolt), and then you want a boatload of exceptions to that structure that (a) favor the rich and (b) can be individually defended on plausible (and sometimes even reasonable) grounds. Which is what we’ve got.”
(Via The Baseline Scenario.)
Best summary of our tax code I’ve ever heard or read. Democracy is chess, not checkers. If you aren’t playing, you get played. Simple as that.
SugarSync Increases Free Storage Account to 5GB:
“SugarSync joins Box.net in offering 5GB free; SugarSync enables home or business users to store files in personal folders in its secure storage and then synchronize them among desktop, laptops and smartphones. – In the fast-growing world of personal online storage, one major item has been static: the amount of free space given away by companies trying to lure you to buy lots more storage space.
That freebie standard of 2GB — offered by several reliable services that include DropBox, Carbonite, Mozy, …”
(Via eWeek – RSS Feeds.)
Just waiting for my 2GB at DropBox to be increased now.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| MSNBC Suspends Keith Olbermann | ||||
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The rename of the fake rally is genius.
UPDATE: Here he is on Rachel Maddow of MSNBC.
Comparing Democratic and Republican tax plans:
SOURCE: Joint Committee on Taxation
(Via The Washington Post.)
Reason #4080 to vote against the GOP: rational economic self-interest.
‘What Shall I Say to You?’ | Commonweal magazine: “What did that Latin quotation say to me that afternoon nearly half a century ago? It began, surely, in the notion that God was no mere Big Someone or Something outside of me, the anonymous Ground of Being. Rather, in the words of the great Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, God was a fathomless, transcendent ‘Thou’ with whom, even in my moment of wavering, I was still wrestling. But what of it? What, really, did I hear, in the chanted Latin running through my mind that afternoon, to reverse the bleak intuition of the utter emptiness of myself and the mysterious absence of God?”
(Via Commonweal Magazine.)
I can relate. I’m reminded of Genesis 32:29 when Jacob wrestles with God.
Then the man said, “You shall no longer be spoken of as Jacob, but as Israel, because you have contended with divine and human beings and have prevailed.”
