GOP: The More Candidates, The Scarier

From my friend David Frist over at AHI, a piece on "Real Clear Politics."

Excerpt:

An important factor in lengthening the candidate roster and also making a quick winnowing unlikely is a long decline in political discipline among conservatives, who for many decades have dominated the Republican electorate. One notable result of this indiscipline is trouble judging who is most worth backing in a presidential race – the proliferation of fuzzy thinking about who is most likely to win a general election, remain true to conservative principles, and deliver for conservatives as president. This situation results from at least two causes. One is conservatives' and libertarians' ambivalent attitude toward power and therefore toward practical, as distinct from merely expressive, politics. The other is their long record of frustration with presidential power and federal authority.

Contradictoration?

(I'm sure GWB never used the non-word "contradictoration."  But he should have, so I will).

There seems to be some confusion about marijuana.

First, the Democrats and some others who are pushing to legalize marijuana are trying to make tobacco illegal.  What's up with that?  Our President, himself a long-time smoker, favors this approach.

Second, the Republicans who opposed legalizing marijuana and want people to use less of it are now trying to lower the taxes on that same marijuana. 

Third, our President, also a long-time pot smoker, has said that he will never favor marijuan legalization.  Until he said that pot was "no more dangerous" than tobacco.  Let's suppose they are equally dangerous.  Then why has Obama cracked down sharply on medical marijuana? 

The point being that if they are equally dangerous, then why has Obama cracked down hard on legal prescription marijuana, advocated for legal recreational marijuana, and smoked tobacco while pushing to make tobacco illegal, or at least unavailable?

You know what?  Politicians are crazy.  Mr. Obama said "inhaling was the point."  I guess he just was using a metaphor for sucking.

You can't make Chicken Salad out of Chicken Shit

The hopeless pile of hypocrisy that is the Republican party is spinning up a storm on the latest budget deal. Here's one such attempt at alchemy from the National Review.

It's full of LOLZ, but here's the craziest part of all:

"70 percent of the sequester remains in place in those two years, and after those two years the entire sequester remains in place."

This of course is 100% stupid.

They are modifying the sequester right now after it being in place ONE YEAR and this guy is assuring us that it won't get touched again in all the many budget deals that will have to be struck over the next 8 years.

Either he's a dope or he thinks all his readers are dopes.

People, the current deal isn't for 10 years. Once you establish a precedent of going back and undoing the sequester, it will just become easier and easier and easier to undo more and more and more of it.

I would love to wager the author, Yuval Levin, $1000 on whether or not this deal will be the only legislated change to the original sequester over the next 8 years, but I think he is actually smart enough to know that he's full of it.

Hat tip to LeBron.

"is" not "was"

The generally reliable LeBron messes up this morning by proclaiming that "The Sequester Was A Really Good Idea"

But the truth is that the Sequester still IS a really good idea.

People, I love the sequester. We are actually getting a slowdown in the rate of military spending (and perhaps an actual cut this coming year). We are actually getting a slowdown in the growth of overall Federal Spending. The deficit is coming down, and the economy is finally showing some signs of life.

Alas, it appears that it lasted exactly one year. Yikes. Even Gram-Rudman lasted longer than that!

Next year, according to the budget control act, discretionary spending was supposed to be $967 billion. But now Paul Ryan appears to be signing off on $1.05 trillion. After all, what's $38 billion among friends? They may even put 2015 up to $1.05 trillion as well which would be another $19 billion or so.

Remember that while in some years some numbers did go down temporarily, overall spending rose a fair amount under the terms of the Budget Control Act (sequester). But we could only take one year out of the 10 before the charade of discipline disintegrated.

At least maybe this will shut the yaps of all the "stimulus now, discipline later" advocates. It is nigh unto impossible for any kind of long term budget discipline to last.

Heck, this is not even a future congress undoing the actions of a previous congress. It's the same stupid bunch of hacks that enacted the thing!

So please pay no attention to the "offsetting cuts down the road", that's just smoke for the marks. Spending discipline is again over, the Republicans stand for absolutely nothing, and even Tyler has gone over to the dark side.

Less Government! (NOT)

Man, I really do dislike our Republican congress.

Democrats say they will take money from some people who earn it, and use it to bribe some other people to vote Democrat.  And then they do exactly that.  Honesty.  Sure, it's theft, but it's good honest theft, Chicago-style.

Republicans constantly whine about big government, and letting "the market" work.  But when they say "the market," they mean, "large corporations that pay us to protect them from competition."

This is one of the most egregious examples I have seen...since noon or so.  Wow.  Excerpt:


“By allowing more foreign sugar into the United States, we create unnecessary and hurtful competition.” What left-wing hater of business and free markets could have said such a thing on the House floor Friday? 

It was Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, who over his nine-year career in Congress has accumulated a 93 percent rating from the American Conservative Union. On Friday, he was thundering absurdly about the danger “of becoming dependent on foreign countries for what we eat.” 

 In mid-September, Poe became one of the early co-sponsors of a bill that would have funded regular government operations on the condition that all funding for Obamacare was cut off. He proudly posted on Facebook his vote to defund Obamacare. In that fight, where Republicans lacked the votes to win or even move the ball, Poe talked the conservative talk and helped mire Congress in a lengthy shutdown that at least one poll suggests is already hurting the conservative movement's Image and helping Obamacare's popularity rebound. 

But in the fight over America's agri-socialist sugar program – a fight conservatives could have actually won with considerable bipartisan support if they'd stuck together – Poe was helping lead the charge on the wrong side. 

The Repubs call ACA socialism...when it isn't.  Then they vote FOR socialism, as soon as they get a chance, supporting our state-owned agriculture system.  

Republicans Are Hopeless Hypocrites

A surprisingly fact-based and useful article in WaPo, by David Fahrenthold.  Worth reading in full.

"To assess what the first six [budget battles since 2010] accomplished, The Washington Post tried to measure the government in four different dimensions: federal expenditures, federal workers, federal rules and federal real estate. The first two were down, slightly. The third was way up. And in the fourth case, the government itself wasn’t sure what happened...The administration now counts 226 separate programs that aim to promote education in the 'STEM' fields: science, technology, engineering and math. Many overlap, according to outside audits. Some overlap substantially. This year, the administration proposed to consolidate them in the name of efficiency. The number should shrink, they said. All the way down to 110. Even in the deficit-obsessed House, many legislators thought that might be too few. 'A little overlap and a little duplication may not be bad,' said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), whose appropriations subcommittee considered the White House plan. Wolf said the White House didn’t have good data on which of the 226 worked and which didn’t. So why take the risk of cutting a good one? 'I would rather err on the side of not doing something that puts us behind' other countries, Wolf said. Other legislators worried about institutions back home — museums, schools, hospitals — which got grants from this maze of overlapping programs. If it got simpler, they might get nothing. So the House said no. The Senate did too. The idea fizzled." [Washington Post]

Is this why I hate Republicans?  It's not the only reason, of course.  But, yes. Partly because if there is any evidence, it's that the whole "STEM crisis" is actually a hoax anyway.  Republicans just want to make sure they don't give money to POOR people.  Giving away money to rich people and corporations is no problem at all.

Nod to Kevin Lewis.

You have to laugh...

The Repubs sat on their hands the whole time that GW Bush grossly expanded the de facto powers of the Presidency.  It was clearly unconstitutional, but they said nothing, because it was THEIR jerk running things.

Now that Obama has seen everything that Bush did, and then decided to raise, the Repubs are making some tepid noises of protest.  Nothing really big, nothing that would be effective, just whining in the background.  Which is a shame.  The Prez would back down in a heartbeat.  He's bluffing.  But he wins hand after hand, because the Repubs are worthless.  They actually LIKE a powerful, autocratic Presidency.

The Bloody Video Game Company

I like Curt Schilling.  I like Rhode Island.  But what Curt Schilling did to Rhode Island...or rather what Rhode Island apparently begged Curt Schilling to do to Rhode Island...well, it's just what a whole bunch of other "limited government" people have done as soon as they get a chance to have unlimited government help.  Excerpt from the NYTimes story:


Even in a state that long served as New England’s Mafia headquarters — and a state whose best-known modern political figure, Buddy Cianci, the former Providence mayor, was sent to prison in a federal corruption case known as Operation Plunder Dome — the 38 Studios debacle has registered as a painful embarrassment. (When I called influential Rhode Islanders and told them I was writing about 38 Studios, virtually all of them, even if they had opposed the deal, answered with some version of, “Do you have to?”) 

 Rhode Islanders are used to being played by their politicians. What makes them cringe is the suspicion that virtually all their elected leaders might have been played by someone else. 

More people on the right need to recognize the truth of this statement:


“There is some justification at least in the taunt that many of the pretending defenders of “free enterprise” are in fact defenders of privileges and advocates of government activity in their favor rather than opponents of all privileges. In principle the industrial protectionism and government-supported cartels and agricultural policies of the conservative groups are not different from the proposals for a more far-reaching direction of economic life sponsored by the socialists.” - F.A. Hayek, page 107 , Individualism and Economic Order

In some ways, I prefer the folks on the left.  They say they are going to use the state to run the economy, and they do that.  The phonies on the right say they favor free enterprise, but that quickly turns into a different kind of "favor."

Nod to Webster and Main

Do What We Say, Not What We Do

The requirements of disclosure are inconvenient, intrusive and onerous.  But we impose disclosure on lots of people.

Members of Congress?  Not any more.  They find it inconvenient, intrusive, and onerous.  So they passed a bill, and the President signed it.   I'm going to guess you haven't really heard much about it.

Does He Actually Get It?

Is this just an accidental use of the right word, or does Senator Michael Bennet really understand what is going on?  From an NYT piece by Maureen Dowd -  

He thinks the trouble is not so much a clash of Democratic and Republican orthodoxies as it is a clash of past and future.  “I think the inhabitants of the past are fighting hard to keep the rents they acquired in the 20th century,” he said.

The story is about why Michael Bennet   - a Democratic senator  - voted against the cliff deal.  He gets a smiley face, from KPC.  If more senator talked about rent-seeking, instead of doing it, we would be better off.

Is this the way 2013 is going to be?  Going to Maureen Dowd for good information, and Democratic senators for wisdom?  Golly.

P-Kroog on the Death of the Republican Party

P-Kroog in the NYT...

He makes two points.  One is that we are NOT having a debt crisis.  And he's clearly right,
in an unimportant way.  It's important to keep track of a distinction.  If I open a line of credit with a banker, then I get (say) $250k of "credit."   Then, I borrow $50k.  Compare me to someone else who has only borrowed $20k.  Who has more of a debt crisis?  It depends on the remaining credit of the other guy.  If he has a credit line of $20k, and he has borrowed ALL of it, then he has a debt crisis.  I have borrowed far more, $50k, but my credit is still fine, because lenders believe that I have a capacity to repay even more.

The amount of CREDIT the US has with the world is much, much bigger than the amount we have borrowed.  So, no one is seriously worried about us repaying.  Because a company that is bankrupt has no way of getting more revenues.  But the US could easily collect enough revenues to service its debt, just by raising taxes by 20%.  I think PK is underestimating the temporary effects of the Eurozone crisis, and our borrowing costs are artificially low because people just want to hold dollars and get out of Euros.  So the reason people are buying T-bonds is NOT because they are US debt, but rather because they are US dollars.  Still and all, sure, he's right about that.  I worry that we are going to raise taxes in the future to pay for stupid spending now, but there is no "Crisis".

As for the Republicans, his second point....gosh, I hope so!

Bret Stephens

I don't always agree with Bret Stephens.  But he nails so many things in this post...well, it's good.  That's what I'm sayin', it's good.  Excerpt:

Can we, as the GOP base, demand an IQ exam as well as a test of basic knowledge from our congressional and presidential candidates? This is not a flippant suggestion: There were at least five Senate seats in this election cycle that might have been occupied by a Republican come January had not the invincible stupidity of the candidate stood in the way.

On the subject of idiocy, can someone explain where’s the political gold in demonizing Latin American immigrants? California’s Prop 187, passed in 1994, helped destroy the GOP in a once-reliable state. Yet Republicans have been trying to replicate that fiasco on a national scale ever since.

If the argument is that illegal immigrants are overtaxing the welfare state, then that’s an argument for paring back the welfare state, not deporting 12 million people. If the argument is that these immigrants “steal” jobs, then that’s an argument by someone who either doesn’t understand the free market or aspires for his children to become busboys and chambermaids.

And if the argument is that these immigrants don’t share our values, then religiosity, hard work, personal stoicism and the sense of family obligation expressed through billions of dollars in remittances aren’t American values.

ATSRTWT

I like EVERYTHING about this

I like everything about this web site / blog.  Mostly this particular post, which is a work of genius, but overall.... outstanding.  I don't agree with everything, but I like everything.  Something to make everyone uncomfortable.

Well, maybe not  everyone.  Tommy the Tenured Brit might enjoy the guy in the jeans.  That guy in the jeans, even *I* think he's pretty hot.

The point is that the author of that post is a real conservative, almost an extremist conservative.  He wonders if perhaps Rush Limbaugh is not sound on fundamentals.  If even that guy voted for Gary Johnson...well, then the Republicans have their heads so far up their voting boxes they can't even see a sliver of daylight.
 

Ill Doctrine on Romney

This is pretty amusing.


I found the "Condi Rice as smoke bomb" idea to be pretty clever.

With a nod and respects to my good friend and colleague Mark Anthony Neal, @newblackman  

My Guy Tom Ferguson Analyzes Rick Santorum

From Alternet.... Tom makes a lot of sense.

Blind mole rat.... heh. Heh heh.

Americans Against Logic

Okay, so a tactical tip: If the Jon Stewart show wants to interview you, say no. Because not only will you be reamed, you will be complicit in your own reaming. I cannot understand how JS can find such self-important idiots. The Republican here... wow.

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I think Republicans are hypocrites, yes I do.
I think Republicans are hypocrites, how 'bout YOU?

(Nod to Anonyman)

Big Corporations in Overdrive: Regulation NEVER Helps Consumers

Proof # 456,987,321 that regulation never helps consumers.

Because it is actually not SUPPOSED to help consumers. It is supposed to help corporations.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.-- In June 2010 the Nashville Metropolitan City Council passed legislation raising the city's minimum fee for limo and sedan rentals, bumping it from $25 to $45. Drivers were prohibited by law from charging less. Other new regulations forbid limo companies from using leased vehicles, require cars to be dispatched only from the place of business, compel companies to wait 15 minutes before picking up a client, and ban parking in front of hotels and bars to wait for customers. More laws that take effect in January 2012 would also require companies to replace all sedans and SUVs over seven-years-old, and all limos 10-years-old and older. Vehicles older than five years cannot enter into service.

Passed under the guise of consumer protection, the net effect is to give large, existing car companies (also known as livery services) a huge advantage over smaller companies, and to effectively prevent any new companies from entering the market. Prior to the new laws, Tennesseans could purchase transportation from downtown Nashville to the airport in a limo or sedan for the same price as an average taxi ride. Nashville residents and visitors will now pay almost double for the same service.

Nashville folks in need of an affordable ride, and drivers looking to earn an independent living in a sagging economy, join a long line of people caught on the wrong end of a nationwide effort by big car services to squeeze extra profit by regulating competitors out of business. It's a case of regulations actually costing jobs and driving up costs, just as Republicans charge they always do. But this time, the regulations are being pushed by the GOP's so-called "job creators," the new name given to big business.

Two interesting things:

1. HuffPo admits "it's a case of regulations actually costing jobs and driving up costs..." Note the scare quotes implicitly surrounding "actually." Regulations really DO always cost jobs and drive up costs. There is no "actually" needed in that sentence. But HuffPo can't help itself; as a corporation herself (proving corporations are NOT human), Arriana may need her a slice of that good ol' regulation herself sometime. So there is that ridiculous, sarcastic "actually." Goofballs. (UPDATE: Radley B says the author is his intern. So perhaps I'm overreacting to the "actually." Mea culpa.)

2. On the other hand, the idea that "this time" the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue is as naive as the "actually" was cynical. Of course the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue. They are REPUBLICANS! Hypocrites.

Both of the state sponsored parties shake down corporations for campaign funds and support. Since the corporations aren't going to pay that, someone has to pick up the tab. Bend over, consumers! We are here to regulate you right up the gazotch.

Here's a fun game: Keith O and Arriana H talking about regulation. The object of the game...how long can you go before poking sharp sticks in both ears? I made it about 45 seconds. Perhaps YOU can do better.

(Nod to Joel R., who knows I'm right)

Man, I Hate Republicans

So, check this out:

How is it that a Republican House that claims to be pro-jobs can't pass a regulatory reform so modest that even President Obama's jobs council endorses it? Part of the answer is that the accounting cartel fighting reform has one of its own in the Republican ranks. A GOP presidential candidate also can't be bothered to show up for a critical vote.

In September we told you about Tennessee Representative Stephen Fincher's plan to relieve small public companies from Sarbanes-Oxley's most burdensome and duplicative accounting rules. "Useless" might be a better description for these rules, after MF Global became the latest company in the Sarbox era to hide catastrophic transactions outside its balance sheet—exactly what the law was supposed to prevent.

On Tuesday night, the House Financial Services Committee had to yank the Fincher reforms from a scheduled Wednesday vote. With all committee Democrats expected to vote against reducing paperwork, the Republicans would need almost all hands to send the measure to the House floor.

But House sources say Michele Bachmann wouldn't return from the campaign trail to vote. Meanwhile, California Republican John Campbell has been leading an effort to water down or kill the Fincher reforms. Mr. Campbell is an accountant carrying water for his former industry colleagues. New Mexico Republican Steve Pearce, who styles himself an opponent of federal regulation, is also blocking reform.

Sarbox was supposed to punish accountants, but like much regulation in practice it guarantees a lucrative business to a cartel dominated by four big firms. The mandate for an external audit on top of the traditional financial audits has helped accounting fees rise as fast as the bureaucratic burden.

That editorial was not from the WaPo or the HuffPo. That's the Wall Street Journal. Could the idiot Republican possibly be any more worthless? Every chance they get they vote for anti-competitive regulation increases and bailouts for their campaign contributors. They vote against millions for widows and orphans, but support billions in tax money for corporations. Man, I hate Republicans.

(If you are thinking of offering a "yeah, but Dems are bad, too!" defense....just shut up. The Dems are honest. They say they are going to take money from people who earned it and use it to buy votes. Despicable, but honest. The Republicans are LIARS on top of being thieves.)

(Nod to Kevin Lewis)

What We Have Here....Is a Failure....to ComMUNicate.

Henry Olsen speaks a bitter truth.

I have been saying that BHO can't possibly lose in 2012, because he will be running against the idiot Republicans. Not the one chosen as Prez candidate, but the US House.

Repubs insist on making the same mistake over and over again. When the voters see what the Dems are actually like, the voters go "ewwwwww!" But that is NOT an endorsement of the bunch of whack jobs that the Repubs trot out, or the ideas they have for running our wars, our bedrooms, our borders, or our trade policies.

Anyway, I think O, Henry has this right.

The Town

A couple of folks sent the link to Jon Stewart's bit on the motivating tactics of the Repubs. Pretty funny. And a solid bashing of Chuckie Schumer at the end.

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