Atrios makes an excellent point that we should not assume, despite certain appearances, that the “super rich” are orchestrating the conditions of our economy with complete awareness:
That rich elites weren’t begging the government to take the health care nightmare off their hands taught me that they often don’t have any idea what they’re doing.
President Obama seems to have finally figured out that the Republicans in Congress are going to oppose him no matter what he does, and now that he doesn’t have to run for president again, he might as well call it like it is. Things got pretty epic, though, when he pulled out a Scorsese/Wahlberg reference:
The truth is, even with all the actions I’ve taken this year, I’m issuing executive orders at the lowest rate in more than 100 years. So it’s not clear how it is that Republicans didn’t seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did. Maybe it’s just me they don’t like. I don’t know. Maybe there’s some principle out there that I haven’t discerned, that I haven’t figure out. You hear some of them — “sue him,” “impeach him.” Really? Really? For what? You’re going to sue me for doing my job? Okay.
I mean, think about that. You’re going to use taxpayer money to sue me for doing my job — while you don’t do your job.
There’s a great movie called “The Departed” — a little violent for kids. But there’s a scene in the movie where Mark Wahlberg — they’re on a stakeout and somehow the guy loses the guy that they’re tracking. And Wahlberg is all upset and yelling at the guy. And the guy looks up and he says, “Well, who are you?” And Wahlberg says, “I’m the guy doing my job. You must be the other guy.” Sometimes, I feel like saying to these guys, I’m the guy doing my job, you must be the other guy.
So rather than wage another political stunt that wastes time, wastes taxpayers’ money, I’ve got a better idea: Do something. If you’re mad at me for helping people on my own, let’s team up. Let’s pass some bills. Let’s help America together. [Emphasis added.]
Jason Easley at PoliticusUSA remarks, “When Obama starts quoting Marky Mark, it’s getting real.”
Shit might’ve just gotten very real.
I’d not heard of Secret before, but it apparently contains this bit of “political wisdom” (via Doug Henwood):
Who knew Secret contained political wisdom? https://t.co/NZhMDYabqj pic.twitter.com/RJyIV32QXD
— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) July 6, 2014
In case the image doesn’t embed with the tweet, here is a link to the Secret post, and here’s the image.
The birth control debate is really about the housing market, Eric Garland, Eric Garland Blog, March 4, 2012
All of this debate is about the housing market. And unemployment. And Afghanistan. And health care for Baby Boomers. And Netflix. And drones. And the bankruptcy of Greece. And more. None of this spontaneously vomited national debate has a thing to do with healthcare or birth control or morals. It has everything to do with a nation that is afraid to discuss its real future, so it would much prefer to re-fight the great debates of the 20th century.
As somebody who discusses the future professionally with leaders of organizations, I will tell you that people everywhere are so terrified of what is coming next that they are fundamentally incapable of having a discussion about it. The American Mindset is almost entirely about Growth and Winning, and the simple fact is that we are likely unable to grow geographically or economically due to fiscal and demographic constraints. Thus, our steady-state economics, or even steadily receding economy, will not look like winning, either on a balance sheet or in people’s minds. Americans are addicted to seeing the Dow Jones go up every year. They want their houses to be worth more and more, forever. They want to stay “number one,” whatever that means, at all costs. And virtually none of that is likely in the near future. It is so difficult for Americans to consider that they are reverting to all manner of fantastic, irrational thinking to avoid the painful realities that may be ahead.
A Fascinating Study of How Creationists Understand Early Human Fossils, Mark Strauss, io9, July 2, 2014 Continue reading
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has a solution to the humanitarian crisis brewing at the U.S.-Mexico border, as thousands of unaccompanied minor children flee horrific atrocities in Mexico and Central America. Send the little lawbreakers back.
Cruz asserted that “the most heartbreaking aspect of this is you look at some 90,000 little boys and little girls coming in illegally, the people bringing them in, they’re not well-meaning social workers.”
“These are hardened, transnational, global carters,” he insisted. “They are cruel, vicious men. These little boys and little girls are being subjected to physical violence, to sexual violence.”
According to Cruz, drug cartels “cut off and send back body parts” of children to try and force their families to pay a ransom.
“They will force one little boy or one little girl to cut off the fingers or ears of other little boys or little girls,” he pointed out, adding that officials told him that children immigrating to the U.S. had been “maimed.”
“This is heartbreaking, and it is the direct result of President Obama’s lawlessness,” Cruz said.
But the senator proposed a solution: Send the children back to the countries where they had been mutilated and raped.
“The children will not stop coming, and will not stop being subjected to this horrific physical violence and sexual violence unless and until this administration begins enforcing our laws,” he warned. “That is the opposite of a humane policy.”
I’m still unclear how President Obama is wholly to blame for everything going on in various parts of Latin America right now, but I suspect that clarity is not the point for the Senator that my state shamefully elected.
I just want to know—specifically—which laws Senator Cruz thinks President Obama could enforce that would somehow end all of this and, presumably, allow all of these children to return to their homes on a wave of flowers and puppies. (Of course there are no such laws, or at least none that could offer any sort of solution to the conditions as they currently are. The Senator is just using whatever scenario presents itself to bash the President. If a group of children from, say, El Salvador had marched up to a border crossing in California requesting asylum in exchange for a verified cure for cancer, Senator Cruz would want to know why Obama hadn’t come up with the cure himself, since he’s supposed to be smart and stuff. Then he’d suggest he bomb the capital of El Salvador for withholding vital medical knowledge from American pharmaceutical companies. Then he’d eat a live goat as a sacrifice to the bald eagle god he secretly worships……okay, I’ve said too much.)
![Fir0002 at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons](http://crypticphilosopher.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/800px-Goat_face.jpg)
“Wait, what was that last part?”
Photo credit: Fir0002 at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0], from Wikimedia Commons.
Think of it this way: the U.S. Supreme Court basically just created a way for people and/or corporations to get out of following laws with which they disagree based on religion. There is considerable concern among many in this country, justified or not, that people are voting, obtaining government assistance, and engaging in other activities fraudulently.
The proposed remedies for these alleged acts of fraud tend to involve paperwork, photo IDs, and large amounts of red tape. Why should the invocation of religious faith to obtain exemptions from laws that apply to everyone else be any different?
I fully expect American conservatives to take a firm stand against religious exemption fraud any minute now.
Dear Neocons: Why we’re not Sending Combat Troops to Iraq no matter how much you Pout, Scott Corey Informed Comment, June 27, 2014
Self-limited commitment gives US power the flexibility to craft actions to fit real world needs. It finally tears the US out of the isolationism/empire dilemma that our most troublesome friends have exploited all to long, and all too well.
***
If we can get moderation and negotiation, we should not miss the chance. If we cannot, we should keep the flexibility to tilt as we see fit, depending on the context, for as long as we are able to sustain our options. Now is the time to work for the best, be prepared for the worst, and ignore the advocates of impulsive war.
In the Deaths of 3 Israeli Teens, Likud Policies are also Implicated, Juan Cole, Informed Comment, July 1, 2014 Continue reading
Facebook’s Unethical Experiment, Katy Waldman, Slate, June 28, 2014
Facebook has been experimenting on us. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that Facebook intentionally manipulated the news feeds of almost 700,000 users in order to study “emotional contagion through social networks.”
***
The upshot? Yes, verily, social networks can propagate positive and negative feelings!
The other upshot: Facebook intentionally made thousands upon thousands of people sad.
***
Over the course of the study, it appears, the social network made some of us happier or sadder than we would otherwise have been. Now it’s made all of us more mistrustful.
Christian right secession fantasy: Spooky neo-Confederate talk grows louder at the fringes, Paul Rosenberg, Salon, July 1, 2014 Continue reading
Years ago, I wrote about how certain factions in this country were trying to turn us into a nation of pants-piddlers, fearful of some of the very things that makes America what it supposedly is. I’m sorry to say that, as the case of Ahmed Abu Khatallah demonstrates, nothing much has changed.
While the suspected mastermind of the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi is now on U.S. soil, the political fallout related to his prosecution may just be beginning.
The criminal complaint against Ahmed Abu Khatallah was filed nearly a year ago, and he was nabbed two weeks ago in eastern Libya. He appeared in a federal court in Washington on Saturday – much to some Republicans’ chagrin.
© Berkeley Breathed, via thecomicstrips.com
They’re afraid to entrust this guy—or any other alleged terrorist—to the criminal justice system of what they so often claim is the greatest country in the world. It’s a great country, I guess, for only so long as they control the narrative and the outcome.
Over at Booman Tribune, BooMan laments the cowardice shown by so many of our leaders:
I’m not a rah-rah macho kind of guy, but I do expect my government to demonstrate some testicular fortitude. It embarrasses me when American elected officials act scared of anything, even when it is in some way understandable. This country is known for its can-do attitude, and I like that.
***
On most political issues, I disagree with the Republicans because I have different values than them. But when it comes to folks who are afraid to hold trials for terrorists, it’s much more personal. I feel like these people are destroying my country’s reputation. They’re cowards. They’re cowards and they’re the face of my country. I have a really hard time abiding that. I don’t want anyone else in the world to see or even know that some of my countrymen are this pathetic because it shames me.
***
I want these people to shut up not because I care about whatever political points I think they might be scoring but simply because I am ashamed of them. I am ashamed that they are Americans.
The Tea Party’s Embarrassing Irony: Its Ideal Nation Rejects Basic American Beliefs, Elias Isquith, Salon, via AlterNet, June 23, 2014
What I’d argue…is that the Tea Party’s philosophy of government (again, as understood by [conservative pundit Reihan] Salam) has embedded within it an aversion to basic democratic principles that goes far beyond a typical contempt for Washington, politicians and pundits. When Salam writes that Teatopia is founded on a commitment to a “robust federalism” intended to let “different states … offer different visions of the good life” and allow citizens to “vote with their feet” by moving to whichever state best reflects their values, he’s not describing a common aversion to corruption or a distaste for political theater. He’s describing a childish and essentially anti-political belief that a return to an Articles of Confederation-style U.S. order — in which each state is more of a sovereign unto itself than a member of a larger American whole — will produce 50 mini-nations where everyone basically agrees.
Have Conservatives Abandoned Rationality, Skepticism and Truth? Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet, June 19, 2014 Continue reading