News Items

Nation Of Ex-Junkie Losers Begins Its Weekend

Yeah; by the way, Standard & Poors (the same bunch of assclowns who said the Too Big To Fail banks were "A-OK!", and that Countrywide Financial was super-duper for the nation, and that AIG was, too) has declared United States in the same category as ex-junkies who need to call their sponsors and social case workers and parole officers on a regular basis until they can prove they aren't, you know, going to lose it and shoot up a Dairy Queen or anything.

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.

And the Commie Chinese are saying we'd better watch it and get our financial house in order and not see their massive cyber penetrations into the U.S. government or corporations, and their continuing to purchase access to the world's strategic raw materials -- or they'll cut off our supply of The Great Helmsman brand Moo Goo Gai Pan plum sauce, dump a bunch of Treasury bonds and invade the West Coast. Or something.

China, the largest foreign holder of United States debt, said Saturday that Washington needed to “cure its addiction to debts” and “live within its means,” just hours after the rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.

The harshly worded commentary, which was released by China’s official Xinhua news agency, was Beijing’s latest effort to express its displeasure with Washington.

In Washington, Tea Partei leaders said the statement by the Chinese government was "fulla shit", and that America "is strong and has Jesus", and foreign government criticism that the debt crisis they and the GOP created affects the world financial community are "just a buncha shit".

Well, perhaps they didn't say those things. But they were thinking them.

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Quote Of The Day

Wherein The TPTB Appear Manifestly Full Of Shit

Kevin Drumm in Mother Jones:

I opened up my LA Times this morning and here's what I read (the headline is from the print edition):

Stocks Sink As Market Fears Mount

Two years after the last recession ended, Wall Street is showing rising fear that the U.S. economy could be headed for a new downturn...

"Investors are looking past the budget situation and realizing this is an austerity plan," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "We have an economy that's struggling to stay afloat and we don't have the ammunition to keep prodding it forward."

Oh really? Now you tell us?

There are really only two options here. (1) The Times is wrong. (2) The Times is right and America has the stupidest goddamn investors on the planet. For months they sat around cheering on the tea partiers and declaring solemnly that the federal budget was just like a household budget and we needed "real action" on the debt in order to build confidence in the economy.

Then, suddenly, when they got it, they realized that what they really wanted wasn't dumb slogans but actual policies that would help spur the recovery. And that means looser monetary policy and fiscal stimulus.

So which is it? Has Wall Street really been sitting idly by during the whole debt ceiling debacle and has only now realized what it really means? Can they really be so steeped in the Fox News fantasyland that it never occurred to them until now that cutting federal spending during an economic downturn wasn't really a great idea? Seriously?

Sadly, I believe so. Not that Our Owners will actually do anything, of course. Pas du Tout.

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Any Questions?

A Day On The Intertubes: More Fun For YOU

The New York Times reports that happy days are here, for some:

Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves

Nordstrom has a waiting list for a Chanel sequined tweed coat with a $9,010 price. Neiman Marcus has sold out in almost every size of Christian Louboutin “Bianca” platform pumps, at $775 a pair. Mercedes-Benz said it sold more cars last month in the United States than it had in any July in five years.

Even with the economy in a funk and many Americans pulling back on spending, the rich are again buying designer clothing, luxury cars and about anything that catches their fancy. Luxury goods stores, which fared much worse than other retailers in the recession, are more than recovering — they are zooming. Many high-end businesses are even able to mark up, rather than discount, items to attract customers who equate quality with price.

“If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?” said Arnold Aronson, managing director of retail strategies at the consulting firm Kurt Salmon, and the former chairman and chief executive of Saks.

And too, also, The Great Curmudgeon:

The Bank Account Is Too Empty

A couple months ago there was an article about how what really worries cable TV execs is the fact that people don't have any goddamn money. It was stunning because it was about the first time I remember noticing any of our Galtian Overlords speaking this way. And, yes, hollowing out the middle class hollows out demand for products that those people purchase. This isn't rocket science.

by Atrios at 13:47

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

And the Dow is down another 2.31%. The only way forward is, of course, spending cuts and tax cuts for rich people. It's our only hope.

by Atrios

And then came KRUGMAN!

The Wrong Worries

In case you had any doubts, Thursday’s more than 500-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average and the drop in interest rates to near-record lows confirmed it: The economy isn’t recovering, and Washington has been worrying about the wrong things.

It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.

For two years... Every setback was attributed to temporary factors — It’s the Greeks! It’s the tsunami! — that would soon fade away. And the focus of policy turned from jobs and growth to the supposedly urgent issue of deficit reduction.

But the economy wasn’t on the mend...

...Not only are vast numbers of Americans unemployed or underemployed, for the first time since the Great Depression many American workers are facing the prospect of very-long-term — maybe permanent — unemployment. Among other things, the rise in long-term unemployment will reduce future government revenues, so we’re not even acting sensibly in purely fiscal terms. But, more important, it’s a human catastrophe.

And why should we be surprised at this catastrophe? Where was growth supposed to come from? Consumers, still burdened by the debt that they ran up during the housing bubble, aren’t ready to spend. Businesses see no reason to expand given the lack of consumer demand. And thanks to that deficit obsession, government, which could and should be supporting the economy in its time of need, has been pulling back...

...Republicans won’t stop screaming about the deficit because they weren’t sincere in the first place: Their deficit hawkery was a club with which to beat their political opponents, nothing more — as became obvious whenever any rise in taxes on the rich was suggested. And they’re not going to give up that club.

But the policy disaster of the past two years wasn’t just the result of G.O.P. obstructionism, which wouldn’t have been so effective if the policy elite — including at least some senior figures in the Obama administration — hadn’t agreed that deficit reduction, not job creation, should be our main priority. Nor should we let Ben Bernanke and his colleagues off the hook: The Fed has by no means done all it could, partly because it was more concerned with hypothetical inflation than with real unemployment, partly because it let itself be intimidated by the Ron Paul types.

Well, it’s time for all that to stop. Those plunging interest rates and stock prices say that the markets aren’t worried about either U.S. solvency or inflation. They’re worried about U.S. lack of growth...

Earlier this week, the word was that the Obama administration would “pivot” to jobs now that the debt ceiling has been raised. But what that pivot would mean, as far as I can tell, was proposing some minor measures that would be more symbolic than substantive. And, at this point, that kind of proposal would just make President Obama look ridiculous.

The point is that it’s now time — long past time — to get serious about the real crisis the economy faces. The Fed needs to stop making excuses, while the president needs to come up with real job-creation proposals. And if Republicans block those proposals, he needs to make a Harry Truman-style campaign against the do-nothing G.O.P.

This might or might not work. But we already know what isn’t working: the economic policy of the past two years — and the millions of Americans who should have jobs, but don’t.

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Teh Funny

Do They Think We Can't Tell They're Lying?

Seeing something in the MSM this morning, about where Prestitent Obama is still talking about raising revenue through new taxes, or getting rid of the Lil' Boots Bush Forever Tax Cuts, and that this is all going to be part of the continuing debt reduction plan negotiations by Catfood II, or the New Justiz League Of Super Congress Heroes, or Our Galtian Overlords or whatever they're called.

That, after the Pestitent helped the Tea Partei to throw the entire country over the hood of a 1957 Chevy and allow them to put it to us without the benefit of Vaseline ©, any of that is somehow even possible.

Gosh that's funny. Ha ha ha ha ha. And... ...go to commercial.

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Alarms And Excursions

Economic Snapshot

An article posted yesterday by Brayden Goyette at Pro Publica provided a brief and unsettling list of the current benchmark numbers in the U.S. economy:

• Annual rate at which the GDP grew this year: 1.3 percent, between April and June; 0.4 percent between January and March;
• Average annual GDP growth from 1998-2007: 3.02 percent
• Total jobs lost since January 2008: 8.7 million
• Total jobs recovered since January 2008: 1.8 million
• Recession technically ended: Over two years ago, in June 2009
• Current unemployment rate: 9.2 percent
• The "natural unemployment rate": 5 percent
• Months that the unemployment rate has been around 9 percent or more: 28
• Number of unemployed people in June, 2011: 14.1 million
• Growth in number of unemployed people since March, 2011: 545,000
• Number of long-term unemployed people in June, 2011: 6.3 million, or 44.4 percent of the unemployed
• Pace at which jobs were added throughout the late 1990s: 350,00 per month
• Jobs that were added in June: 18,000
• Jobs the U.S. needs to create to 5 percent unemployment rate: 6.8 million, as of January, 2011
• Years it will take to get back to an unemployment rate of 5 percent: Four years, if we're adding jobs at 350,000 per month; 11 years if we're adding jobs at the 2005 rate of 210,000 per month
• Unemployed workers per job opening: 4.98
• Number of people who weren't in the labor force, but wanted work, as of June, 2011: 2.7 million
• The last time the labor force participation rate was lower than it is now: 1984
• The amount of state budget spending that comes from the federal government: about 1/3, or $478 billion in 2010
• Increase in before-tax corporate profits in the first quarter of 2011: $140.3 billion
• Percentage of Americans' total personal income that comes from federal funds: almost 20 %
• Spending cuts in the proposed budget: at least $2.3 trillion, over a decade from 2012-2021
• How long you can currently receive unemployment benefits: up to 99 weeks
• The number of those weeks funded to some extent by federal aid: up to 73
• People currently relying on federal unemployment benefits: 3.8 million
How long you'll be able to receive unemployment benefits if you lose your job after July 1, 2011: 20 to 26 weeks, depending on your state
• Recovery-funded jobs, according to recovery.gov: 550,621
• Amount of stimulus money left to be spent: $122.8 billion of the original $787 billion

My favorite part is where the people on unemployment have it run out after five-and-a-half months, and then what happens to them? Or the long-term unemployed, who have their benefits suddenly cut off?

Guess the Tea Partei and our Owners didn't think about that, huh.

Or, don't care. But, hey; somebody's gettin' a bonus on Wall Street! So -- s'all good. Right?

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America: An Oligarch Playground

Just Doing His Job

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:

The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside...

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs... The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House... didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time -- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did -- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening.

Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

And then, the, uh, Money Quote:

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

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Noch Einmal: Digby, unsurprisingly, got to the same money quote by Taibbi before I did, and added:

Ironically, Taibbi isn't saying anything here that isn't also being whispered in the corridors of Democratic Party politics. I just returned from a long weekend at the California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting in Anaheim, with about 150 decision-makers from around the state.

As the outlines of the "deal" started to become clear on Saturday night, speculations similar to those made by Taibbi were not uncommon--if only mentioned in private and with much grumbling. The mood was more than grim. It was angry, and many board members sought answers: why was this happening? Was it weakness? Corruption? A simple consequence of hostage-taking on the Right?

These discussions were eerily parallel to those playing themselves out within the online community. It's an argument about President Obama's motivations. Does Obama truly want to implement conservative policies, or is he being forced to adopt them by a combination of an intransigent Republican Party and his own overaccommodating negotiating style?

...But ultimately this argument that consumes so much energy and passion within progressive circles both online and offline is irrelevant [Boldface in the original]. Because in the end it matters little if conservative policies are brought about under Democratic administrations through weakness or ill intent. The end result is the same, as are the difficult decisions faced by progressives: attempt to change the Democratic Party both from within and without, or attempt to destroy it and subvert the two-party system.

Regardless, attempting to peer into the President's soul is a fairly fruitless exercise either way. The only real question from here is: "So now what?" It's a loaded question, and there are no easy answers.

Now What?

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Weimarer Zeit

There isn't anything more that needs to be said.

A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status...

Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.

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David Atkins at Digby talks about the two paths to deal with aggression -- the To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus Finch method, where no matter what one suffers at the hands of real crazy and true evil, you seize the moral high ground and persevere. This has been what Congressional Democrats have done for decades now, and what the current President has done over and over: capitulate.

And the long series of escalations by the Rethugs, and now the Tea Partei brownshirts, has taken us right to the brink: These asshats were really willing to destroy the economy of the entire planet to get what they wanted -- and they'll do it again.

That isn't Democracy. It's giving the bully your lunch money. And over and over, you hand him your fifty cents until one day, the bully says, "This ain't enough. Gimme a dollar or I'll beat you up." So you pay the dollar, and things go along -- until the bully says, "This ain't enough. Gimme a dollar-fifty."

This is what's been happening since the early 1990's.

Then, there's the 'Chicago Way' of dealing with the bullies -- ironic, given where the President is from. Since Washington likes to reduce life to movie-clip sound bites, Atkins added an edited clip from a 1987 film, "The Untouchables", in his post.

In 1920's Chicago, the city is effectively run by pudgy psychopath Al Capone (Robert DiNiro). Sent in to clean up the situation, Dudley Do-Right FBI agent Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) tries to enlist the help of John Malone, a grizzled Chicago police veteran (Sean Connery). At first, Malone refuses to assist Ness, but ends up sitting in a Catholic church and telling Ness precisely what time it is.

This is the full scene:

MALONE: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see, what I'm saying is: What are you prepared to do?
NESS: Anything within the law.
MALONE: And then what are you prepared to do? If you open this can of worms, you must be prepared to go all the way. Because they're not gonna give up the fight -- until one of you is dead.
NESS: I want to get Capone! I don't know how to do it.
MALONE: You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital; you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way! And that's how you get Capone. Now; do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I'm offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?
NESS: I have sworn to capture this man with all legal powers at my disposal and I will do so.
MALONE: [Sighs] Well... the Lord hates a coward. [offers NESS his hand; NESS shakes it] Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Ness?
NESS: Yes.
MALONE: Good, 'cause you just took one.

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Move Along; Nothing To See Here

It's Not A Sentence; It's An Adventure

Bargains For The Owner Class (Click To Enlarge; Easy And Fun!)

What Digby Said [Some paragraphing added for emphasis]:

So you've probably heard about the Big Deal that's (surprise!) congealing today, at the very last minute... I'm a little surprised at how shocked people seem to be. I'ts [sic] about what I expected: trillions in cuts, no revenue, a Super Commission with a mandate to cut even more and an up or down vote requirement, and a trigger with mandated cuts if that Commission vote fails. It's pretty much a combination of the worst aspects of all the Republican plans that have been floated...

Unfortunately, the trigger means there will be "entitlement cuts" in the next round:

[Inset quote from HuffingtonPost]Under the new proposal, if the new legislative body composed of 12 members of both parties doesn't come up with a bill that cuts at least $1.8 trillion by Thanksgiving, entitlement programs will automatically be slashed.

The Super Congress will be made up of six Democrats and six Republicans from both chambers. Under the reported framework, legislation the new congressional committee writes would be fast-tracked through the regular Congress and could not be filibustered or amended.

The parties are negotiating the outlines of the super panel's mandate, deciding roughly how much in cuts must come from defense spending, how much from seniors, how much from veterans, etc.

For me this isn't a shocking disappointment. I have felt that this whole process was a disaster from the beginning and it really doesn't matter to me if the Democrats eke out a couple of concessions about defense cuts or close a few loopholes "in return" for these cuts.

That isn't "shared sacrifice," it's asking the poorest, oldest and sickest among us to give up a piece of their meager security in exchange for the wealthy giving up some tip money and the defense industry giving up a couple of points of profit.

It's stripping the nation of necessary educational, safety and environmental protections while the wealthy greedily absorb more and more of the nation's wealth and the corporations and financial industry gamble with the rest.

The idea that they are even talking about this at a time of nearly 10% official unemployment with the economy looking like it's going back into recession (if it ever left) makes this debate surreal and bizarre. To cut the safety net and shred discretionary spending in massive numbers at a time like this is mind boggling.

That it's happening under a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate is profoundly depressing.

But it's happening. And sadly, I still think it will be mostly Democrats who end up voting for it.

But, hey; who cares about a few cripples and old farts, anyway? Fox's fall lineup should be full of entertainment -- and there will be new apps for your new iPhone; and there will be new iPads, and Kindles; and cool new clothes!

Of course there will be, silly. There always has been, hasn't there? And the price of alcohol will be pretty stable, so it'll be a good time to PAR-TAY! Sure it will. That will just make up for everything.

Everything.

Won't it?

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Noch Einmal, Mit Schwein (via Drudge Lite):

“If the final bill is passed by establishment Republicans and House Democrats and does not include a balanced budget amendment as a requirement, it will be completely unacceptable and will be seen as a violation of the mandate that the tea party and likeminded people gave Republicans in 2010,” said Ryan Hecker, the leader of a crowd-sourced tea party effort called the Contract From America.

“The tea party didn’t help elect Republicans because they liked Republicans. They elected Republicans to give them a second chance. And if they go moderate on this, then they have ruined their second chance, and there will be a real effort to replace them with those who will stand up for economic conservative values,” said Hecker, who helped conservative House Republicans rally support for the amendment.

And as Digby also said, "Just keep in mind that progressives should want to do all this."

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Und: Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont):

Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement today after he voted against a Senate deficit- reduction proposal:

The Republicans have been absolutely determined to make certain that the rich and large corporations not contribute one penny for deficit reduction, and that all of the sacrifice comes from the middle class and working families in terms of cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, LIHEAP, community health centers, education, Head Start, nutrition, MILC, affordable housing and many other vitally important programs.

I cannot support legislation like the Reid proposal which balances the budget on the backs of struggling Americans while not requiring one penny of sacrifice from the wealthiest people in our country. That is not only grotesquely immoral, it is bad economic policy.

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The Lowlights

Tea Partei Minority Victorious In Reichstag

(© Mr Fish - Clowncrack.com)

The Tea Partei has asserted itself as the new and dominant force within American Rightist politics.

The traditional power behind the Republican Party has been stymied in doing business as usual, and it appears the Tea Partei will force the nation off the cliff next week, reports the New York Times:

The Republican freshmen of the 112th Congress may never see the legislation of their dreams become law, but the scope of their victory in reshaping the debt ceiling bill to reflect the fiscal hawkishness of the most conservative House members cannot be overstated.

This victory was presaged by a fight over a short-term spending plan earlier this year in which the freshmen demanded far larger spending cuts than the Republican leaders would have imagined. The power of the 87 freshmen appears sealed, at least for now.

"Certainly there’s satisfaction in it," Mr. Brooks said of his legislative victory. "That’s why I ran for office. You want to help your country."

Und, es ist Richtig to maintain strong Partei principles. To stand together in Bruderschaft and against the crazy dirty hippie socialist liberals who control everything. Because if you don't, your Sturmabteilung bretheren may come after you:

Tea Party leaders from the Tea Party Express, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Founding Fathers, and United West are targeting their hero Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and three other GOP freshman for supposedly trading in their Tea Party principles to support House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) debt ceiling plan.

Chaffing under his new title of “Tea Party defector,” West scoffed at his supporters’ derision this morning on the Laura Ingraham Show. “If [Tea Party] folks, one minute they are saying I’m their Tea Party hero and three, four days later I’m their tea party defector, that kind of schizophrenia I’m not going to get involved in,” he said.

The Tea Partei seems composed of people like its most public leaders, such as Little Sarah Palin and Grand Turtlebear Bachmann. Their issues so far have been Obama's birth certificate and protecting the "sanctity of marriage", and saying No!! and I Kill You!! to Democrats at every opportunity.

Democrats Encountering The Unfamiliar Thing (© Mr Fish)

The Tea Partei has succeeded in derailing the Congress into considering the gutting of social Security and Medicare; that's what this has been about. Period. A reasoned discussion could have been had with the Democrats about lowering the deficit at any time -- and Social Security or Medicare isn't sacred to Obama (hell; he loved the Bowles-Simpson Catfood plan). The Rethugs know Obama is practically one of them. So, some compromise could have been reached.

Obama Reassures The Little Folk About The Economy (© Mr Fish)

But this wasn't about fiscal conservatism. It wasn't about the National Debt. Doing the right thing by the country is not the goal of the Partei. The past several months, leading up to the events of this week have been tactical moves by 87 House Representatives (and rightist interests, many very wealthy) to push a rightist and extreme social agenda upon the country which a majority of the American people do not want.

The overwhelming majority of Us reject the Tea Partei's goals. We don't want Social Security and Medicare cut. We don't want other social programs terminated. We don't want to continue subsidizing the playful lifestyles of the wealthiest Americans, simply because they are rich and deserve so much more, and the other 98% can live with less. We believe that a compromise should be fair, and that includes raising taxes on corporations and the top 2%; let them pay their fair share.

But, the last month of manuvering by Partei has been to take Speaker Bohener and Yertle the Turtle by the balls; within the GOP, its been one long, slow squeeze. And two days ago, the Speaker of the House had to give in -- putting a bill up for a House vote which reflected the Tea Partei's demands (some, laughable; in particular the one about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution), and allowed for no possibility of compromise with Senate Democrats.

So, the Lumpen 23% of the country which believe everything Lard Boy and Mikey Wiener and Bill-O tell them can say yeah; that'll show the dirty hippies. But along with the assumed fiscal conservatism of the Tea Partei comes... other things, primarily intolerant and stupefyingly ignorant points of view.

If the Tea Partei minority feels Just Fine about stuffing their idea of the New Austerity down the throat of the country -- even if the country doesn't want it -- what's to stop the rising new power from doing so from, let's say, a 'faith-based' view, like Little Sarah's, or Grand Turtlebear Bachmann's?

What's to stop these persons from performing the same tactics next year, or in 2013; shutting down the government, threatening to blow the lid off the world's precariously balanced economies, just to demand the government enact legislation to achieve goals which The Majority Of The American People don't want?

Is that where we are? Will the tyranny of the minority become the way we're governed, now? This is the same kind of paralyzed, polarized, politics-of-the-extreme governments which occurred in Europe in the 1930's before... things became very unpleasant.

The Democrats in Congress will, of course, tut-tut and say how unfair and difficult it all is, before talking about 'bipartisanship' and 'compromise' -- and bending over, again. Gosh, they are so good at that now.

Meanwhile, the cliff is that way; just ahead.

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Things By Their Right Names

David Atkins (thereisnospoon on DailyKos and elsewhere) spells it out for you [via Digby]:

Back in the days before euphemisms came in vogue for such things, they used to call that moral evil. Nowadays a professional psychiatrist might call it antisocial personality disorder, except that we know there aren't that many actual clinical sociopaths out there.

What it is, is a culture of sociopathy, made possible by a 30-year-long echo chamber of right-wing radio, Fox News, corrupted church propaganda, and astroturf think tanks. Back in the days before the conservative echo chamber, it used to be deeply embarrassing to hold these sorts of views. Now, the more extreme your devotion to the sociopathic line, the better proof of your membership in the right-wing cult.

Read the rest. Go. Now.

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