"...We're Gonna Hurt Some People"

The Tell: Proof Of The Little Rupert Effect

Telling for what was Not Said: Per TPM, The Washington Post reported

...it's hard to imagine who was thinking what when House aides leaked to the Washington Post this eye-popping anecdote about a House GOP caucus meeting today in which leadership got their troops pumped up to support the Boehner debt bill with a scene from a gangster film where loyalty trumps morality and justifies brutal assault.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the party's vote counter, began his talk by showing a clip from the movie, "The Town", trying to forge a sense of unity among the independent-minded caucus.

One character asks his friend: "I need your help. I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later."

"Whose car are we gonna take," the character says.

After showing the clip, Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), one of the most outspoken critics of leadership among the 87 freshmen, stood up to speak, according to GOP aides.

"I'm ready to drive the car," West replied, surprising many Republicans by giving his full-throated support for the plan.

The problem with this is (as TPM's Brian Beutler points out), the full comment made by Ben Affleck is, I need your help. I can't tell you what it is; you can never ask me about it later; and we're gonna hurt some people.

The other problem is that the man standing up to say, "I'll drive the car" is Representative Allen West of Florida. That would be the same Allen West who, in Iraq in August of 2003 as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army, brutalized a detainee in an interrogation and was forced out of his 22-year service career as a result.

But the Tell was -- the Post dropped the last part of Affleck's line (and we're gonna hurt some people) from their reporting of the story.

Why would they do that? The inference is obvious -- a bunch of Republican Congressmen, bonding around a film clip that equates loyalty with brutality; why didn't the Post report that?

The Post was once one of the three best journalistic organizations in the world, together with the New York Times and the UK's Times of London. However, Little Rupert bought the London Times in the mid 1980's; always conservative, its current journalistic standards aren't far above the now-defunct News Of The World; the Crafty Ol' Digger believes all the Public should be interested in are the Tits 'n Tattle his media provides.

The New York Times is still "the paper of record". It it still hasn't made up for Little Judy Miller, and often provides a little cheerleading for The Powers That Be; or contorts itself to report oh-so-neutrally when it should go for the jugular (and they don't print my online comments to articles, either; the bastards). However, the NYT is, along with the McClatchy papers, the last serious major media outlet left in America that generally practices a trustworthy reporting of facts once called "journalism".

Not so the Post. In the face of the dumbed-down, Beck and O'Reilly-smeared, Drudge-culture of our era, the newspaper which made "investigative journalism" a household phrase has stumbled on from printing lies to mislead Congress and the nation to support Lil' Boots' invasion of Iraq, to become just another right-leaning media outlet, trying to compete with Little Rupert's business model.

You won't hear Fox Faux News reporting that a bunch of Republicans geared up to support NEW AUSTERITY NOW! by listening to a film clip that equates the President Boner deficit plan with committing violence for revenge, supported by a former military officer cashiered because of his violent actions.

And why didn't the Post report it? Because that's exactly what the Rethugs want to do to the People of the United States of America: Hurt us.

I suppose that's no longer news. But it's time we all woke up to that fact.

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How We Live Now

What's Happening With The Manufactured Debt Crisis Today?

(Photo: UK Telegraph 7/25/11 [No Other Attribution])

• The Rethugs have firmly maintained that if they vote to raise the debt ceiling, the Democrats must not raise taxes in any way ever ever.
• The Rethugs have said that cutting the deficit to reduce the National Debt must come through a Magic Plan that includes some combination of (a) Raising the age at which a person may begin to draw Social Security payments; (b) Freezing or providing for much smaller Cost Of Living Adjustments for Medicare coverage; (c) Cutting some government and defense spending (but not much); and (d) Reduce or eliminate many social programs funded by the Federal government.
• The Rethugs have also said that when totaled, these cuts must be at least $2.4 Trillion dollars. When it was pointed out that this meant in essence that the wealthiest Americans would continue to reap huge benefits, while everyone else paid the cost in reduction of services and a lowered standard of living, the Rethugs chuckled. One or two may have smiled and said, "Of course". Originally, the Rethugs refused to consider any deviation from this Magic Plan.
• Grudgingly, it seemed if the Rethugs couldn't get their Magic Plan, they might agree to some Rube Goldberg, stopgap measure which only kicked the can down the road: In less than a year, there would be another vote to raise the debt ceiling again, and we would be right where we are today with the Tea Partei holding a gun to the head of the country.
• The Rethugs did this to provide maximum distraction and disruption to the Democrats, because they know Obama isn't a liberal and can be pushed; and, if he agrees to what they want, Progressives may desert him in 2012 and the Rethugs put Grand Turtlebear Bachmann in the White House. Or, Mittens; or Huntsman; or Reinhard Heydrich or Little Sarah; it doesn't matter to them who it is.
• President Obama is a person of vision. He wanted a "Grand Bargain" which somehow magically cut things but not all things and made the Rethugs and our Owner Class happy, and solved all the problems and paved the way for a great Democratic victory in 2012.
• The Rethugs smiled at this, and played him -- using a combination of their classic 'Lucy and the Football' routine, and constant threats of forcing the U.S. to default and then blaming it all on the Democrats' inability to compromise.
• Over weeks of negotiation, the Democrats have apparently decided (a) It's permissible to cut Social Security and Medicare -- no matter what language they use to describe it; (b) They are also fine about cuts to social programs, and (c) Asked for new taxes to raise revenue, or allowing the fabled Bush Tax Cuts to expire; the Rethugs said no and Obama and the Democrats said okay. So much for a defense of social principles.
• At some point between Wednesday and Friday of last week, apparently the Rethugs came back to the White House and threw a change-up (they're good for that) -- now, they couldn't agree to negotiate unless changes were made to the Health Care legislation Obama spent time and political capital to pass in 2009 (when he should have been trying to create jobs).
  
  We're playing chicken, all right. We have you in a bind, the Rethugs were telling him. Agree to what we want, or the country defaults and international markets plummet. Or, all you'll get is bridge funding that will ensure we keep this issue hot right into 2012. So give us everything -- and lose. Agree to stopgap funding while we 'negotiate' more cuts -- and lose. Or, refuse -- and lose. That's where we have you.
  
  Herr Obama understood he had been played for a chump. He may have understood that he doesn't have the communications skills (nor does his staff or Democrats generally, it seems) to explain to the Country how this happened, or why agreeing to what the Rethugs want is bad, and that this was all a manufactured crisis. So Obama became unhappy. President Boner got himself one, smiled, and walked out.

That's where we are now. No matter what happens from here, it's already been decided that you and I will pay for all of this. In ten years, the country we live in will be different -- even radically so -- than the America you see now.

And as we circle the drain, Paul Krugman has a few words.

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Mehr: The Great Curmudgeon says also, too:

I think the largely unacknowledged bit of all of this nonsense is that most Republicans in Congress don't really want to cut spending, or more specifically they don't want to own cutting spending.

Their main concern is tax cuts for rich people, spending is secondary, and the deficit matters not at all to them. Sure they want to be seen as wanting to cut spending, in the abstract, because that's their brand, but they don't actually want to be responsible for the spending cuts.

Their position is: give us the cuts and don't make us vote for them. Their problem is that while the crazy teabaggers in Congress would generally be happy to vote for all kinds of spending cuts, they won't vote for them if they're attached to the debt ceiling. So that means Republicans more concerned with elections will have to vote for them, along with some Democrats.

by Atrios at 10:35

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Ein Mensch Ist Kein Tier!

The People Twitter
(A Person Is Not An Animal! -- Kurt Weill / Berthold Brecht, from the musical, Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahogony [1929-1930])

People Text (Click To See Big Graphic -- It's Easy And Fun!)

Jeff Jarvis "is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program and the new business models for news project at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism."

He's also pissed at the Kabuki circle jerk going on in that Village On The Potomac.

So I was angry. Watching TV news over dinner — turning my attention from scandals in the UK to those here and frankly welcoming the distraction from the tragedies in Norway — I listened to the latest from Washington about negotiations over the debt ceiling. It pissed me off. I’d had enough. After dinner, I tweeted: “Hey, Washington assholes, it’s our country, our economy, our money. Stop fucking with it.”

...That’s all I was going to say. I had no grand design on a revolution. I just wanted to get that off my chest. That’s what Twitter is for: offloading chests. Some people responded and retweeted, which pushed me to keep going, suggesting a chant: “FUCK YOU WASHINGTON.” Then the mellifluously monikered tweeter @boogerpussy suggested: “.@jeffjarvis Hashtag it: #FUCKYOUWASHINGTON.” Damn, I was ashamed I hadn’t done that. So I did.

The Very Serious People in Washington are, even now, determining that "shared sacrifice" means digging up the body of FDR to burn it in public, give the Rethugs what they want (even more, perhaps), and ensure that Our Top 2% are not made cross, are soothed and contented, and have Treats -- always.

The fact that Our Leaders have ignored creating jobs, and concentrated instead on Fluffing The Banksters and doing everything possible not to piss off any rich people, tells you that they're arrogant enough to ignore the 76-plus per cent of Americans who will be screwed by what they intend to do.

The poll percentages of voting-age people who disapprove of both parties (and the number who believe the Democrats, and Obama, aren't liberal enough) have never been higher since political opinion polls began to be taken. I'd recommend Our Serious Leaders pay attention to the Twitter machine, even if they believe it is Unserious and just a toy for dirty hippies and fringoids. I truly suggest it.

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A Reprint: Debt Ceiling Russian Roulette

Fear Hunter: Gun Su Mao, America

Something about the game of 'Debt Chicken' being played out between the Rethugs, and the Democrats (Aber Ganz Ohne Rücken), reminded me of Michael Cimino's 1978 film The Deer Hunter -- which included a long sequence where Robert DiNiro and Christopher Walken, taken captive by the VC/NVA, are forced to play Russian roulette (see the whole clip here at UTub).

The NVA cadre commander slaps the GI's, shouting GUN SU MAO! -- which, I assume, means "No tax increase! Bush Tax Cuts forever! Gut Social Security and Medicare NOW!"

The idea of someone being forced to play a game that involves putting a gun to the country's head, just for hysterically stupid political posturing, was an image I couldn't get rid of...

Mehr: This post is based on one, small part of an earlier creation by Max Udargo, which you should definitely see here. Max is the creator of Burton & Jefferson (long may they wave), and Peterbuilt Nixon, and is a much funnier dog than I am.

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Norway Nightmare

I want to say this, right up front: In the United States, domestic terrorism is in fact committed by those on the Right. Period.

Don't agree? How many dirty hippie leftists plotted to destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? How many bombs have been set off by "left-wing extremists"? How many family planning clinic doctors and nurses have been stalked and murdered by Buddhists? Or Progressives? Come on; how many?

How many organized groups of dirty hippies (some with illegal heavy weapons) publicly hail Marx and Lenin and claim they are "at war" with an illegal, 'occupation' government? How many churches, and alleged 'pastors', preach messages of exclusion, intolerance and hate towards Evangelicals? How many radio stations in America spew out a never-ending stream of hatred and bile towards conservatives, caucasians, and christians?

How many? How many?

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You've probably seen something about yesterday's (apparent) car bomb in downtown Oslo, followed not long after by the massacre -- because that's precisely what it was -- of children and young adults at a summer camp organized by Norway's current majority Labor (i.e., liberal) party on Utoya Island just outside the Norwegian capital.

The New York Time's David Jolly reports that

The Norwegian police on Saturday charged a man they identified as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian in connection with a bombing in central Oslo and a shooting attack on a nearby island that killed at least 92 people. Officials said the death toll could climb as they continued to search for the missing...

Most of the 600 campers, many from political families, had gathered in the main assembly building for a briefing on the bombing in Oslo. Relatives of many of the youths worked in the vicinity of the blast.

As soon as the shooting started, people panicked, witnesses said, running in all directions, tumbling down the island’s rocky hill in an attempt to reach the sea. Even after many made it into the water, the gunman calmly and methodically shot at those who were swimming.

“People right behind me were shot,” said Helen Andreassen, 21, a political adviser for the Labor Party’s youth wing. “I heard shots right behind me. He was standing just by the water, using his rifle, just taking his time, aiming and shooting. It was a slaughter of young children.”

...“We are not sure whether he was alone or had help,” a police official, Roger Andresen, said at a televised news conference, adding: “What we know is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”

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Your Moment Of Teh Not Funny

Lucy Triumphant. Again.

I agree with The Great Curmudgeon: There is no debt ceiling crisis. There never was.

Just a reminder that there is no debt ceiling crisis. There's a fake crisis started by Republicans and then embraced by the White House so that everyone gets to use the fake crisis to try to do unpopular things in such a way that nobody, in theory, actually gets the blame.

A few people need to show up in Congress in the middle of the night, cast a voice vote, and we can move on to the next fake crisis.
by Atrios at 14:56

Then, What Digby said.

... And next time, when Republicans ask for the total destruction of the Federal Government we must pray that they "surrender" again and agree to only destroy Medicare and Social Security. But the good news is that [the Democrats] have every right to fight your little hearts for what you believe in as long as you understand that it's inevitable you will lose.

The problem with all this is that we know that the president wanted to do a Big Transformational Deal To End All Deals since before he came into office and it is equally clear that he saw this as an opportunity not a roadblock to his agenda. So this idea that it was thrust upon the poor hapless president and his party is wrong. All negotiations have at least two parties or they aren't negotiations. And in our government system one of the parties holds the White House and one half of the congress. They are not powerless and they do have leverage over the Republicans. The idea that one faction in the House of Representatives trumps everything else is simply not true.

If that were true, Bill Clinton would never have survived impeachment. Indeed, plenty of Villagers insisted that he simply had to resign because it was all just so very awful. But he knew he had something on his side -- the power of the presidency itself and the backing of the American people. And until Barack Obama started pounding the drum for his Grand Bargain, a majority of the American people were indifferent to spending cuts and wanted him to focus like a laser beam on jobs. But he got on that bully pulpit and convinced them that he was elected to do Big Things and that a "balanced approach" to the horrors of deficits was imperative and they've come around quite smartly.

They also came around on the fact that raising the debt ceiling was absolutely necessary --- just in time for the House Democrats to be tarred as the crazed obstructionists if they object to this massive, unnecessary slashing of government at the worst possible time. I suspect that was sheer luck, but I will give the President credit for his timing.

One can only wonder what might have happened if he had done the same thing to convince the public that a clean debt ceiling vote was imperative instead and never put these cuts on the table in the first place.

As I'm writing this, Boehner is said to be walking away from the White House's offer to give them the moon and the congress is going to try to hammer out a deal over the week-end. The deadline really is looming now.

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Your Moment Of Teh Funny

This must be shared with a wider world (courtesy of a comment by the Freddy el Desfibradddor [accept no imitations] at Fafblog!):

'Depressed' Ferret Flees Siberian Circus
15 July 2011
The Moscow Times

When Not Raining In Exciting Downtown Chita, Siberia, It Snows

A ferret has escaped a circus in the East Siberian city of Chita along with a monkey and a red-breasted parakeet — apparently because they all were feeling down due to bad weather.

"We believe the creatures have fled because of their depression — the rain in Chita just doesn't stop," the circus' art director, Zhanna Lazerson, told Interfax on Thursday.

"We found the monkey in a doghouse in the morning, and the two animals were cuddling in their sleep," she said. "But the search for the ferret and the parakeet goes on."

She said the escape has added to the animals' depression in the circus because the male parakeet was partnered on stage with a female parakeet who is now missing him.

The ferret is less missed, with Lazerson calling him a "terrible glutton, idle to the core."

Nevertheless, the troupe hopes that the animals will return to their circus home once they get really hungry.

Weather forecasts say the rain won't let up in Chita this week.

The Moscow Times welcomes your comments and invites you to discuss topics with other readers. Your comment will be posted automatically to enable a live discussion. If you aren't familiar with our comments policy, you can read it here.

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It's not the weather the animals are depressed about; it's their captivity and forced detainment. They are depressed because they get restless leg syndrome. They are depressed because they get claustrophobic more often than not. They are depressed because -- well, you get the idea.
- Caroline Stumm; Torpedo, Texas

Actually, no; I don't. But, hey -- what are the Intertubes for?

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Congress Continues Debate Over Whether Or Not Nation Should Be Economically Ruined

Welcome To The 1930's

It is a question worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?
-- House Guy Eric Cantor (R-Disneyland)

Edge of the Volcano. Funny ha ha ha ha ha.

Only, not so much. In the main, most people don't seem to understand this, which makes me wonder why we don't just change the name of our country to The Deutschland and start speaking German so that when Grand Turtlebear Bachmann and the Tea Partei come to power they can call it the New Deutschland, a godly nation, where the malcontents will be silenced, the children will be taught the real approved history of Things, and women will be barefoot, and the dirty hippies and unclean abomoinations LGBT people will be sent to her husband's clinics for The Cure, or they will be quietly and humanely put down in places where no one can see.

And the rest of us will go along because we will be Good New Deutschlanders. Just say Ja!

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Seeing A Pattern Here, Mebbe?

This Murdoch Guy

История Ниццы старик и его маленьким мальчиком. Если вы считаете, Там ли мост через Неву, я могу продать вам, очень дешево.

By I.Rabschinsky

Old Guy, And Nize Little Boy Helps His Papa (Foto: The England TV)

So everybody is looking when this Guy, Rupert Murdoch Guy, shows up on television from the British Place (His little boy comes with him also, so that old man will not feel lonely; Good Boy, Nice Boy, maybe). Big, big story of the Oligarch Media Guy whose newspapers paid all kinds money to the Polizia and political guys and listened to the voicemail of everyone in the England.

Okay this is joking I make with you, but is not so far from the Truth.

So Old Rupert (who is younger than my Great-Uncle Yehudi but makes less sense), and his Little Boy, talk to people in Sports Commission of the British government. This was interesting, because I did not know that in the England, television and radio and the orchestral konzert and theatre and puppet show on street and Intersnet are sports. It would be nice to see which are winning and losing.

(Actually, these days is not so difficult to tell -- if News Corporation or News International are owning parts of media, they are losing. This is guarantee.)

Where Big Sewage Come From: The News Corp Headquarters

Old Guy and Little Boy tell Sports Commission they are like madonna saint kind of Guys: We don't know things, never saw things, didn't do things and nobody speaks to us even though we own and run everything. Like, the most incompetent guys from the history of all places and people. Then, some guy tries to assassinate Old Rupert with pie tin of shaving cream and Chinese Wife in pink jacket attacks Guy With Pie. Oy -- but, good theatre.

(Later, I tell this to Uncle Yehudi, who asks if Guy With Pie succeeded in assassination. I tell him, no! Is just shaving cream; how will he be killing That Guy? "We killed fascists in the Great Patriotic War with wood shavings and a bedroom slipper," says Yehudi. "Howitzers, also.")

They run almost all media on planet that does not belong to that Putz Berlusconi; but, they don't know things? Right; sure. They are so innocent that religion should spring up from them, like new airport, or bird feeder or yoghurt stand.

Great-Uncle Yehudi watched Old Rupert and Little Boy for three minutes. Then he stood up from his reclining chair, and changed channel to "The Mister Ed". What is you are doing? I'm asking -- this is like the history, and we get to see. Yehudi said to me, "You are my favorite great-nephew; but, look: The Mister Ed is funny. Oligarchs are not funny guys. When News Corp is run by talking animals, I will watch."

Only 26 Episodes: Great-Uncle Yehudi Knows Them All. By Heart.

So now that the Sports Commission Guys have heard from Old Rupert and the Nice Little Boy, stories start to show up. That maybe Son of Old Rupert is not the nize little boy, goot boy, like he says. That maybe he did know things; bad things. But that is not all. Not the Big Story, I am thinking.

Look: American FBI Guys are investigating now old lawsuit by business against Old Rupert -- a business, kind of small competitor guys, said they could prove that News Corp guys hacked into their computers like 11 times, and stole things.

And the minute they say this, Old Rupert is like, "Well, we will pay to settle this case with you" -- Like, $29 Million Dollars the US; plenty lots, you bet. That stops the whole thing from growing to be animal which can bite Rupert's personal ass. Plus, later, Rupert buys the little company ("There! Now I am showing you who is Big Guy!").

Uncle Yehudi makes drool on his sweater when he takes the Nap in his reclining chair, but he is That Guy, so I am listening: "People are like the chicken," he says. "If they learn that they get the food from humans by doing things, then they will keep doing those things, all the time, everywhere -- do this trick, get this food. You think Old Man and the Little Boy are different from chicken? Go away; it is time for Leaving It To The Beaver House."

Beaver: Very Good For You, Very Nice For You (Foto: Komradnik)

But my Great-Uncle, as usual, is making his point. It looks like there are lots of lawsuits out there, which Old Rupert paid altogether big money to settle. Because all his life, Little Rupert has not been The Good Guy, Nice Guy -- this is somebody wants to be like Joey Goebbels, Fascist Guy. And maybe, there are lots of stories in these lawsuits of breaking into computers or email or voicemail and stealing the things. And maybe there is pattern here to see.

Kind of like what happened in the England -- bad television, bad politik; bad police, and lots of money. The tricks of the chicken to get what it wants are always the same, no matter which farmyard it goes in. Britain, America, Australia; Old Rupert ran his businesses the same. He ain't being A Nice Guy. So; if this is Truth, then I am believing Old Rupert's business (which sells vomit from donkeys) is like a boat with bottom made out of newspaper (Hey; this is my joke. You like; you don't like; I don't care).

Once people are knowing hey, this how Old Rupert got to be so rich, because he is just Criminal Guy, and News Corp thinks they are like KGB which owns television, then his business will be be worth Kopecks, and his Chinese wife will say, "No bouncy-bouncy for you, Aussie Boy", and nobody will talk to him at the supermarket because he is That Guy.

Little Rupert Chicken Soup: Good For You, Nice For You

My Great-Uncle Yehudi is Smart Guy, even if he likes you to hit him with telephone directory until he falls down. And chickens may do tricks, and look like clever -- but they are still stupid birds. And when stupid birds pay so much attention to their own tricks and how pretty their feathers look, they don't see that the Fleischer has come to remove their heads and hang them up by their feet.

I, Rabschinsky, say this -- to Moldavish Guy; you also.

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Murdoch Piekill

Teensy Security Lapse In UK

Little Rupert was hit by a shaving-cream pie this morning, wielded by a member of the audience to his testimony before the Parliamentary inquiry into the phone hacking and police corruption (and lying to Parliament, though that's rather obvious) scandal.

TPM Media posted their own review of the BBC camera feed of the incident. The piekill assailant apparently got the Ol' Digger pretty good (you can see shaving cream on the right shoulder of his suit coat).

His second (trophy) wife, Wendy Deng, in the pink jacket, leapt up to hit the piekiller; ah, the rage of the wealthy.


(via TPM / UTub: See the non-dog-sized version here)

I tried watching the New York Times' live feed of testimony before the commission, and began watching the Murdoch's appearance as Lil' Rupert's son asked to read a statement before answering questions (he was told, politely, no). With his first response to a question, he said, "Let me begin by saying, we are sorry --"

I shut it off, right there. This is the Murdoch's scripted, planned response. Just as Fox in America repeats misinformation over, and over, and over until it's indistinguishable from the truth, that is Lil' Rupert's plan here. You will hear the phrase "We are sorry" (which just happens to be the phrase in large, bold type at the top of News International / New Corp's full-page ads in every newspaper in England) at every turn. Everyone in NI and NC will be "On message".

And when they aren't?

And I'm not saying that somebody should have told me. To my knowledge certain things were not known. And when new information came to light, with respect to my knowledge of these events, when the new information came to light, the company acted on it, and the company acted on it in a right and proper way as best the company could. But it's difficult to say that the company should have been told something if it's not known that a thing was a known fact to be told.
-- James Murdoch, COO Of News International, Replying
To A Question At The Parliamentary Inquiry

It's the sound of an Eel, twisting with a hook in its mouth.

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