Black Hole....errr The Political Roundtable

[hands11]

Maddow reporting tonight on the Wisc St Sen who got protested at
his supposed house only to have his estranged wife come out and informed
them he didn't live there (or in the dist) anymore, he was living in Madison
with his 20 something mistress. It would be funny/sad enough if that
was the end of the story but it turns out that (according to Maddow)
this Sen got his mistress a job making $10K a year more than her
predecessor had been paid. This in the midst of the budget crisis.
I wonder what his reelection prospects are now. Can the Kochs
buy enough votes to salvage this guy? I kinda doubt it. But I
almost hope they try.

Senator Hopper

Seriously. That is his name.

[verbal8]

Maddow reporting tonight on the Wisc St Sen who got protested at
his supposed house only to have his estranged wife come out and informed
them he didn't live there (or in the dist) anymore, he was living in Madison
with his 20 something mistress. It would be funny/sad enough if that
was the end of the story but it turns out that (according to Maddow)
this Sen got his mistress a job making $10K a year more than her
predecessor had been paid. This in the midst of the budget crisis.
I wonder what his reelection prospects are now. Can the Kochs
buy enough votes to salvage this guy? I kinda doubt it. But I
almost hope they try.

Senator Hopper

Seriously. That is his name.

I guess the protesters found "where the bodies were buried" in that case

[nate33]

Where are the constitutional purists when we repeatedly
go to war without a congressional declaration? Where
are the deficit hawks when we launch $100 million
worth of cruise missiles. Did the deficit hawks get
eaten by the warhawks?

Apparently so. I'm as mad about it as you.

Isn't Obama supposed to be against this kind of stuff? From my perspective, the one positive of the Obama election was that at least he'd make an effort to get us out of so many foreign conflicts. Boy was I wrong.

[dobrojim]

me too -

seems the military-industrial-congressional complex ALWAYS
gets what it wants.

[Wizards2Lottery]

The people of Middle East are making their voices heard and need all the help they can get. This is a prime opportunity for the rest of the international community to help out one of the most oppressed portions of the world.

I'm proud of all the revolutionaries all across the ME. It's taken time but the world will come out a better place out of all of it.

This isn't Iraq. We aren't entering on the basis of a bunch of lies, wrong information and mass confusion. I don't remember people being upset about Afghanistan. We had a plan and a mission that was clear to the public. Libya has a plan and a mission as well, along with STRONG world wide assistance. The entire city of Benghazi would have been wiped out by now had international forces not intervened. Considering that we have been championing ourselves as the pillars of liberation, it would have been a cowardly move to not assist other countries in stopping Gaddafi and the genocide he wants to carry out. One swift kick to any future US international diplomacy in regards to democracy and spreading democracy around the world.

[hands11]

Yet you have Sarah, Mit, Newt, Boner, etc are out there actually saying that the Dems are playing politics with War.

That's a good one. These people have no shame. The masters of spin.

He didn't act soon enough and should have gone in harder and and faster chest thumping. We followed the French. Boo hoo.

or

He shouldn't have done it at all and is doing it for the political gain.

Which is it ?

Same thing they did with Clinton. Just non-stop BS. Meanwhile Newt and Sarah act like they are running for President just to keep the money coming in. Neither is actually going to run. What a total joke. Oh, and that doesn't even include Trump.

[hands11]

The people of Middle East are making their voices heard and need all the help they can get. This is a prime opportunity for the rest of the international community to help out one of the most oppressed portions of the world.

I'm proud of all the revolutionaries all across the ME. It's taken time but the world will come out a better place out of all of it.

This isn't Iraq. We aren't entering on the basis of a bunch of lies, wrong information and mass confusion. I don't remember people being upset about Afghanistan. We had a plan and a mission that was clear to the public. Libya has a plan and a mission as well, along with STRONG world wide assistance. The entire city of Benghazi would have been wiped out by now had international forces not intervened. Considering that we have been championing ourselves as the pillars of liberation, it would have been a cowardly move to not assist other countries in stopping Gaddafi and the genocide he wants to carry out. One swift kick to any future US international diplomacy in regards to democracy and spreading democracy around the world.

Exactly.

And Egypt is right next to them and they just did their thing. If this went unchecked, it would have emboldened people like Gaddafi. Lets not forget Cuba is going to go through a transition like this also. Iran is still in play. The fact we went back to working through the UN is a good thing and helps reestablish us a non imperialist don't go it alone or who leave people out to dry. It's going to take more than the US alone to help these countries transition and stand up and you can't miss out on an opportunity to get ride of a Gaddafi. That was smart money spent doing this attach. When the people rise up, that is a good time to support them with the international community.

Obama did the right thing.

I'm pretty confident history will repeat itself. The Republican and Tea Party will dig themselves enough holes between now and the next election to piss people off. Then with the remaining votes they would get will split. Obama gets a second term and the country goes on a good run like they did under Clintons second term. Only this time, I pray people aren't stupid enough to elect someone like Bush once we get back on track. That was the biggest mistake I have seen this country make in my life time.

[hands11]

Republicans want IRS to audit abortions

http://rt.com/usa/news/usa-republicans- ... abortions/

Now that what I call small government and creating jobs.

[hands11]

Diablo Nuclear Plant What a mess.

[W. Unseld]

Libya is kind of tricky, it strikes me from afar as a series of bad choices with no real obvious good one in sight. Who exactly are the rebels we are supporting? I'm not a fan of Col. Q (no clue which way to spell his name) but there is the devil you know for the devil you don't know argument.

I would have to disagree with the thought that there is and has been a clear mission in Libya however, it might be emerging now but I don't think it was there at the outset.

[dobrojim]

The people of Middle East are making their voices heard and need all the help they can get. This is a prime opportunity for the rest of the international community to help out one of the most oppressed portions of the world.

I'm proud of all the revolutionaries all across the ME. It's taken time but the world will come out a better place out of all of it.

This isn't Iraq. We aren't entering on the basis of a bunch of lies, wrong information and mass confusion. I don't remember people being upset about Afghanistan. We had a plan and a mission that was clear to the public. Libya has a plan and a mission as well, along with STRONG world wide assistance. The entire city of Benghazi would have been wiped out by now had international forces not intervened. Considering that we have been championing ourselves as the pillars of liberation, it would have been a cowardly move to not assist other countries in stopping Gaddafi and the genocide he wants to carry out. One swift kick to any future US international diplomacy in regards to democracy and spreading democracy around the world.

Exactly.

And Egypt is right next to them and they just did their thing. If this went unchecked, it would have emboldened people like Gaddafi. Lets not forget Cuba is going to go through a transition like this also. Iran is still in play. The fact we went back to working through the UN is a good thing and helps reestablish us a non imperialist don't go it alone or who leave people out to dry. It's going to take more than the US alone to help these countries transition and stand up and you can't miss out on an opportunity to get ride of a Gaddafi. That was smart money spent doing this attach. When the people rise up, that is a good time to support them with the international community.

Obama did the right thing.

I'm pretty confident history will repeat itself. The Republican and Tea Party will dig themselves enough holes between now and the next election to piss people off. Then with the remaining votes they would get will split. Obama gets a second term and the country goes on a good run like they did under Clintons second term. Only this time, I pray people aren't stupid enough to elect someone like Bush once we get back on track. That was the biggest mistake I have seen this country make in my life time.

You seriously should read you some Bacevich.

see: Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War ISBN 0805091416
or

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism ISBN 0-8050-8815-6

Is it your contention that we should always intervene everywhere every time?
One doesn't have to think too hard to come up with an impressive list of other
countries where similar rationales for intervention can be made.

I applaud that BHO worked with allies. But why wasn't there the same
effort at home to involve the Congress which has the sole power to declare
war? The reason the pubs are able to try to have it both ways is because
of the submission of the legislative branch in its designated powers to
the executive. They can talk all they want but no one is demanding them
to cast any actual votes. This is wrong.

read: Bomb Power by Garry Wills

this is what Sen Obama, the constitutional scholar, said in 2007

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally
authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an
actual or imminent threat to the nation.

He was right then. But like in a number of other areas, the status quo
(which really means special interests) is in charge. He is as captive to
that as any pol in Washington, at least on the most important issues
facing the country (war and peace has to be at the top of that list).

as for history repeating itself - I certainly hope not. Afghanistan - 10 years
Iraq - 8 years. Dollar cost of untold trillions, the significant portions of which borrowed.
What would the national debt be today if not for the 2 wars we haven't ended yet?
Human cost unknowable but immense.

Obama seems likely to win reelection mostly because there doesn't
seem anyone not certifiable that could win the nomination of the GOP.
That said 18 month is a long time from now. An eternity.

[Spence]

If states, counties and municipalities are strapped for cash, they might think about knocking off the expensive corporate welfare as an alternative to imposing 19th century labor laws on public workers.

The city spent $1.6 million in federal grant money to bring Borders into the Pico Rivera Towne Center and to help pay its rent for nearly eight years.

Now the bookstore at 8852 Washington Blvd. is among the 200 Borders stores closing by April in the wake of the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.

But the city still faces paying rent on the soon-to-be vacated 18,100-square-foot site, along with other costs associated with 2002 agreements it made with Borders and with Vestar Development Co., which owns the Towne Center.

If Borders leaves, the contract with Vestar requires the city to pay the company $33,932.91 a month for 72 months until a new tenant comes in. Vestar will get the money on the condition it is making "commercially reasonable efforts" to secure a new tenant for the site, according to the wording of the agreement.

Read more: Pico Rivera faces paying rent even with Borders leaving - Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/c ... z1HTMIwTfg

[NewYorkDon15]

I worked in the public sector for a few years and I personally saw the waste. I imagine there must be a lot of people on this board that have experience in the government. Seeing what you see in DC how can you honestly believe that the current model doesn’t have a lot of waste. Here is a prime example of the sublime:

A GS-13’s wife was constantly working late, so he came down there and had a very sexual talk to her while she was working. The person in charge of that office heard it an Attorney General. He then stormed up to the GS-13’s Bosses office and told him this behavior is not acceptable. The boss then called the GS-13 into his office and yelled at him forbidding him to go on that floor again. The GS-13 then walked out told him to F-off and sent a resignation email to everyone in that division which is around 3000 people. This happened on a Friday so I was a little surprise when I came in on Monday and saw that the guy was at work pretending nothing happened. I though this would only happen with George on Seinfeld.

One example doesn’t speak for the whole group, but you can look at this and reflect on the system. Solidarity is about protection of the weakest link. If you allow the weakest link to fall then a new weak link is created so there is a believe of protection with in that group. What this ends up doing is destroying accountability which results in hurting that organizations ability to improve and add more value. (You don’t have to agree with my statement but I don’t care but it is making me a lot of money right now.) This forces that agency to have spend big dollars to outsources pieces of its mission to people it can make accountable. This ends up costing the tax payer more then it should but given the system it is the best way to handle the situation.

The government also has a lot of jobs around here where it is very difficult to gage results. When you are dealing with a union you need the ability to look at metrics since you are supposed to be treating everyone equally. A lack of metrics makes it very difficult to discriminate the difference between whether or not someone is performing to par.

As far as the private side a lot of it is measurable. Manufacturing is a good place for unions to exist, very concrete and easy to measure performance. Yet we still see problems over there because unions reduce the agility of an organization to adjust to the current business environment. No matter what your size is you can’t expect to be accurate on your future output and labor needs. Being forced to keep the group employed is not realistic. You have ups and downs that the risk of your business and organized labor makes it difficult to mitigate the supply chain side. In the most recent GM agreement in 2007 when they were on the brink of bleeding into bankruptcy you saw a contract with an increased number of temporary workers but GM was not able to leverage that until they were basically bled to death.

The other aspect I don’t like in the private sector is the believe of the union that there needs to be a strong separation between the union and management, but the union should be entitled to profit sharing if management succeeds. If the union wants the concrete wall and doesn’t want to absorb any of the risk then they don’t deserve any of the profits. If anything I think ESOP is a far better way to take care of workers then a union. Give the employees ownership and allow them to share the good and the bad.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Where are the constitutional purists when we repeatedly
go to war without a congressional declaration? Where
are the deficit hawks when we launch $100 million
worth of cruise missiles. Did the deficit hawks get
eaten by the warhawks?

Apparently so. I'm as mad about it as you.

Isn't Obama supposed to be against this kind of stuff? From my perspective, the one positive of the Obama election was that at least he'd make an effort to get us out of so many foreign conflicts. Boy was I wrong.

The instant Obama as President made his first statements about Afghanistan I lost a lot of confidence and hope in him that I had when I voted for him. He's no more insightful than George W. Bush on some things that I think should be common sense.

Some conflicts you simply cannot win. If the Soviets got their butts kicked over there so will we. I guess we just have to spend lots of money and years and lives finding this out, too. Obama IMO didn't have the wisdom to refrain from committing lives and troops to IMO a conflict that won't be won.

I'm not negative about everything, but on that issue I'm sorry he didn't choose another course.

[Nivek]

Saw just a snippet of a documentary about Ronald Reagan and it included a split-second clip of a black-face performer doing what appeared to be a minstrel show at the party the night before the inauguration. Other performers included big names (including Sinatra), but that brief clip stopped me. Anyone here happen to know what that was? Who was the performer? Why was he there? Very curious.

[barelyawake]

It was Ben Vereen as Bert Williams. Ben caught alot of flack for it, as many black folks were outraged.

[Nivek]

Thanks, BA. I was a small kid and totally missed the performance and the controversy. Just did some reading, and apparently Vereen was attempting to do a tribute to Williams AND send Reagan a message not to turn the clock back on race relations. That wasn't what came across to a number of viewers, however.

Very interesting.

[dobrojim]

Glenn Greenwald on the Koch brothers

http://tinyurl.com/4bvsk4q

well worth a read

That said, this Weekly Standard interview shows how delusional and extreme the Koch Brothers are -- though in ways quite representative of other resentful elites. Let's begin with this:

Ask Charles Koch what he thinks about Obama and he looks like he’s just bit into a lemon. "He's a dedicated egalitarian," Charles said. "I'm not saying he's a Marxist, but he's internalized some Marxist models -- that is, that business tends to be successful by exploiting its customers and workers."

David agreed. "He's the most radical president we’ve ever had as a nation," he said, "and has done more damage to the free enterprise system and long-term prosperity than any president we’ve ever had." David suggested the president’s radicalism was tied to his upbringing. "His father was a hard core economic socialist in Kenya," he said. "Obama didn’t really interact with his father face-to-face very much, but was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view. So he had sort of antibusiness, anti-free enterprise influences affecting him almost all his life. It just shows you what a person with a silver tongue can achieve."

So Barack Obama is a "dedicated egalitarian" who has "internalized Marxist" ideas in the Kenyan socialist tradition. Just compare that to actual facts.
Despite high unemployment and a largely languishing real estate market, U.S. businesses are more profitable than ever, according to federal figures released on Friday.

U.S. corporate profits hit an all-time high at the end of 2010, with financial firms showing some of the biggest gains, data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis show. Corporations reported an annualized $1.68 trillion in profit in the fourth quarter. The previous record, without being adjusted for inflation, was $1.65 trillion in the third quarter of 2006.

Many of the nation's preeminent companies have posted massive increases in profits this year. General Electric posted worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, while profits at JPMorgan Chase were up 47 percent to $4.8 billion.

Some of these trends pre-date Obama, but few have been (Please Use More Appropriate Word) during his presidency, while many have accelerated. Whether one finds this state of affairs desirable or not, no rational person can describe them as the by-product of a Marxist, business-hating egalitarian. Quite the opposite. The political power of America's richest has never been greater, and the level of their responsibility and collective burden has never been less. Meanwhile, for ordinary Americans, the remaining remnants of their financial security and middle class comforts rapidly erodes. It's true that the U.S. Government has little regard for the free market: they intervene constantly in the free market on behalf of the nation's wealthiest and most powerful business interests; it's crony capitalism, corporatism: government run by corporations (or, as Dick Durbin said of the Congress in which he serves: "the banks own the place").

finally

This is exactly the psychological affliction that leads Wall Street plunderers and tycoons and billionaires to see themselves as the victims of the resentful lower-classes and the "radical egalitarians" who run the U.S. Government. Even as they get richer and everyone else gets poorer, even as the very few remaining restraints on their political power are abolished, even as the disparities in wealth and power grow ever-larger, they become increasingly convinced that everything is stacked against them, that there is a grand conspiracy to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. All of this could be confined to a fascinating, abstract psychological study if not for the fact that the people who think this way exercise the most political power and continue to exercise more and more.

[montestewart]

^
Nice article, but the comparison (in the full article) of the Koch brothers sense of victimization to the nation of Israel's sense of victimization is a bit of a stretch.

[DCZards]

Speaking of GE, check this out from Bob Herbert's March 25 column in the New York Times. It was his last column for the Times after 18 years as a columnist.

A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year.

As The Times’s David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”

So much for American corporations being "burdened" by high tax rates.