Equal Opportunity Pain

I haven't been able to find an official transcript of President Obama's press conference yet, but here are some salient points that managed to find their way into my numbed and disbelieving brain:

-- The shared sacrifice mantra.  We can't ask the "less fortunate" to suffer even more without asking the millionaires and billionaires to also suffer just a tad.  Because misery loves company.  And if Grandma has to endure starvation and eviction and want, then Billionaire Corporate Jet Owner should have to pay "just a little more" to pretend we are all fellow travelers in this Great Journey of Austerity.  Again, Obama reminds us that as a wealthy fellow himself, he too will be selflessly paying a little bit more.  So everybody shut the hell up and suffer with joy.

-- The false family-government equivalence, again. " A family doesn't run up a credit card bill because otherwise they can't send Junior to college or fix the boiler.... so neither should the government".  Bullshitsky.  Families can't print money or sell their debt to China.

-- If we Do Something Big It Will Send a Signal.  A signal to whom?  He didn't say.  The mythical fence-sitting independent voters of the Heartland?  Nah.  Wall Street and corporations making about a third more in obscene profits this quarter and thus are so skittish they're afraid to hire?  Yep.

--" I am willing to let my base hate me, so the Republicans should just welcome their base's hatred too."  Because even corrupt politicians can totally embrace the misery-loves-company meme?  No.  Obama doesn't care about Democratic voters because they will hold their noses and pick him over Michele Bachmann.  Republicans do care about their base, because it's made up in equal parts of  crazy Tea Partiers and K Street lobbyists.  More proof that Obama is the antithesis of FDR, who welcomed the hatred of the bankers and was thus labeled a "traitor to his class."  Obama kisses the feet of the base bankers who basically are his new base.

--" I am still puzzled by the Republican pattern of voting against all my proposals".  Ever heard the word disingenuous, Mr. O?  But wait, he also said he never reads articles or watches news shows about himself, so I guess he has virtually no clue about the reality of anything.  He said he has a thick skin so the articles he never reads have no effect on him anyway.  He has no idea that Mitch McConnell has said the GOP's sole goal is that he not be given a second term.  Because he doesn't watch TV.  He has no idea.....

-- We should be sure that current beneficiaries of Social Security, "as much as possible", are not effected by changes to the program.  So current recipients may be affected just a little and future ones a lot?  How very reassuring.  Raising the retirement age is just one of many measures that are on the table.  No specifics, of course.  He is open to means-testing Medicare.  He again refers to his own looming 50th birthday and golly, he is going to be getting his AARP card soon, and yep, he's one of those millionaires who might have to be means-tested!  (He fails to mention that his health care needs, present and future, will be taken care of by a VIP retirement/benefits package shared by all the miscreants of Congress).  But the stenographic press corps chuckles appreciately anyway.

-- Chuck Todd marks the 493rd time he has been called on to the exclusion of 99 percent of the other reporters in the room.  Jake Tapper may be tied with him.  I don't know.

Did I leave anything out? 

Body Language Open to Interpretation (AP )

And Now for Something Completely Silly

As Act II, Scene 74 in the melodrama that is Debt Ceiling Monster Horror Chiller Theater grinds on in Swamplandia, D.C., there's a burlesque act with really cheap seats playing out in the Heartland.  It's known as Michele Bachmann Runs for President.  In the latest episode, Michele signs an anti-pornography pledge and states that marriage is the fundamental unit of government. 

Then she has a dream in which God tells her she is destined to become Pope Queen of America.  Here, direct from her dream to our nightmare, is a sneak preview of what Michele will be wearing to her Inaugural Ball in January 2013:




Warrior Queen of the New American Theocracy

So while Barack Obama is casting himself as the second coming of Ronald Reagan and offering to sacrifice his very presidency in a heroic act of martyrdom for something not quite clear, Michele is offering us her own version of fantasy politics.  If you're bored with the roguish antics of geeky Eric Cantor, the vapid smiling of Nancy Pelosi ("President Obama was so gra-a-a-a-cious"), the tortoise-like, face-saving blinking of Mitch McConnell of the KickCan faction of the GOP, here are a few of my favorite Bachmann pearls of wisdom to get you through these hazy crazy days of summer:

I think marriage is very important, it's the fundamental unit of our government.

I'm not a deep thinker on all of this.  I wish I was.  I wish I was more knowledgeable, but I'm not a scientist.

But we also know that the very Founders that wrote these documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.

 It would be fun to have someone in the WhiteHouse who has worked in the private sector... and someone who understands that wealth creation is a good thing and they want more of it. Wealth is good.

We're running out of rich people in this country.

It isn't that I was born thinking I had to be president. I'm getting a lot of encouragement to run from people across the country. I don't believe this is a rash decision.

I think you may see again a rise at the federal government level for a call for the federal constitutional amendment, because people want to make sure that this definition of marriage remains secure, because after all, the family is the fundamental unit of government. 

Notice that the first and last quotes seem to equate the words "marriage" and "family" as the fundamental government units in Michele's brain --  possibly displacing the executive and judicial branches.  Of course, these words are thinly disguised code in the right wing dictionary of homophobonics. "Ex-gay" is another fun phrase. It makes about as much sense as unwed mother Bristol Palin's revirgination abstinence miracle.  But as Michele readily admits, she is no deep thinker and no scientist, and therein lies her populist appeal.  Freedom from thought is one of the hallmarks of fascism. 

Biblical Rope-A-Dope or Grand Guignol Bargain?

Biblical Brinkmanship (Caravaggio)

The ongoing melodrama of Debt Ceiling Armageddon reminds me of the Old Testament legend of Abraham and Isaac.  Obama the sage patriarch is acting on a dare from the magical Deity (Republican Deficit Hawk) to sacrifice his beloved son (the New Deal social safety net) on the  altar of austerity to prove his worthiness.  At the last minute, of course, a deal is reached. "Never mind," chuckles some Better Angel. "The Wall Street god hath blinked. Thou just established thy cred.  Now goest thou and lead the people through the desert of a second term." 


The latest horror story to emerge from the closed-door talks is that Obama is offering to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67, in keeping with the recent shocking proposal from Sens. Joe Liebermann and Tom Coburn.  Lawrence O'Donnell has an interesting theory on why the president is seemingly out-partying the Tea Party -- it's all part of what he calls "the most masterful rope-a-dope ever performed by a president against an opposition party in Congress." 


I wish I could believe that, but I don't.  Even if true that Obama is only pretending to put Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block to bluffingly appease the gods of a supply-side economic theory that was debunked decades ago, it's a cruel tactic.  There are millions of uninsured and underinsured people just counting the days till they reach 65.  Raising the retirement age, cutting benefits through a bait and switch change in cost of living calculations,  cavalierly suggesting that as long as we're trimming the waste, we might as well throw the New Deal under the bus too -- it's just boggles the mind.  It is either the most complete betrayal of democracy by a Democratic president in history, or it's a giant practical joke/game of chicken at the expense of the peace of mind of countless suffering people. From Monday's press conference:

"We keep on talking about this stuff and we have these high-minded pronouncements about how we've got to get control of the deficit and how we owe it to our children and our grandchildren. Well, let's step up. Let's do it. I'm prepared to do it. I'm prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. And I expect the other side should be willing to do the same thing -- if they mean what they say that this is important."

The Raise-the-Age plan would not even put that much of a dent in the deficit -- so just like the phony Reaganomics talking point that tax cuts pay for themselves, the Obama Trial Balloon serves mainly an ideological purpose.   The Congressional Budget Office found that raising the Medicare age to 67 would save only $124.8 billion between 2014 and 2021.... sounds like a lot, but it's really only a drop removed from the Medicare budget.


And if the provision ends up in Obama's so-called Grand Bargain, or even the Half-Grand Boehner Bargain, Democrats not only will lose any political capital they gained from their defeat of Paul Ryan's Mediscare voucher plan -- they'll be partially accepting it.  Raising the age would force 65 and 66-year-olds (or, if they're lucky, their employers) to continue buying private insurance . According to the Kaiser Family Foundation,  raising the eligibility age would  “result in an estimated net increase of $5.6 billion in out-of-pocket costs for 65- and 66-year-olds, and $4.5 billion in employer retiree health-care costs.” Also, the influx of older people into the state exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act would increase premiums by an estimated three percent.

Obama to Ryan: Can I Borrow This?

 Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal would not even decrease Medicare spending that much, because younger Medicare beneficiaries are healthier than older ones and don't cost the system nearly as much as the average beneficiary. 

In other words, keep the statistically healthier mid-60s age group in the claws of private insurance companies for the longest possible time to maximize their profits while they're pretending to save taxpayers money. It's a classic case of bait and switch.  Heads they win, tails we lose.  All the "savings" (premiums) go to the predatory private insurers and the politicians they have bought and paid for.  Only the people will pay -- assuming, of course, they have any money.


Make no mistake.  The Grand Bargain, if it passes, should be renamed the Grand Guignol Bargain. Under it, more people will unnecessarily die waiting for their Medicare to kick in. If Obama had any humanity, he'd call for lowering the age, not raising it. If we as a nation had any humanity, we would have Medicare for All.

A Plan of Gruesome Grandiosity

A Futuristic Movement of Monstrous Proportions

Barack and Michelle Obama today announced they are combining their theme songs -- "Winning the Future" and "Let's Move" into one all-purpose slogan in keeping with the current austerity campaign to trim government waste.

The President wants to Win the Future by investing in green jobs -- preferably low-wage and non-union, so we can out-compete the rest of the Third World.  Michelle wants us to eat less and exercise more.  As the President is so fond of obsessively and fallaciously saying, families and governments are exactly the same -- overweight slackers who need to tighten our belts.

So what if this month's spike in the unemployment rate is mainly due to the massive national layoffs of teachers and other public workers?  So what if boards of education throughout the land are being forced to shorten the school week to three or four days?  The kids are becoming nothing more than bloated desk potatoes anyway.  They need to get out more, stay healthy for the below-minimum wage jobs of the future. 

And what about those senior citizens?  Everybody knows your metabolism slows down as you get older. So that's why Obama and his Republican co-conspirators bipartisan negotiators have come up with the nifty idea of chained consumer price formulae.  Once you start collecting your Social Security -- if the politicians have their way, at around 68 or 70 -- you will oh so gradually see a decrease in  benefits.... say, about the cost of only a bite of that candy bar you know you don't really need, every single month for the rest of your life.  So if and when you make it to 95, you'll be as thin as a rail and down to only one meal a day on the few hundred a month you'll then be collecting.  You see, the President cares about your well-being.  He knows change is hard.  Father Knows Best.  ( And if you didn't sign his fatherhood pledge last month, you're just being a selfish ideologue.)

That's why the President is not sweating the rising unemployment rate.  The headwinds of the crappy economy are evaporating all his sweat, and they should be cooling you down too.  By Election Day, joblessness may be up to 13 percent -- but not to worry.  It's a structural thing, the new normal, and it's all according to plan.  The corporations really do want to keep jobs here, but they just don't have the confidence yet.  Wages here are still way too high.  Why pay somebody $8 an hour when they can get a Bangladeshi child to do the same thing for pennies?

The idea is to turn the United States into such a great Third World Country that other nations will start offshoring their jobs to us.  It's already happening in Sweden and the "right to work" (anti-union) state of Virginia:

Swedish corporate leaders, ironically, are now trying to exploit those wider U.S. gaps. IKEA pays its factory workers in Sweden a minimum $19 an hour. In Virginia, IKEA workers doing the same exact work start at $8. IKEA looks on the United States, local union organizer Bill Street matter-of-factly observed earlier this month, “the way that most people in the U.S. look at Mexico.” (Labor Notes).

Anti-immigration advocates love to complain that Mexicans cross the border to steal our low-paying restaurant and migrant farm jobs, have their anchor babies and grab up all our wonderful free health care.  How ironic that Mexico is a major medical tourism destination for Americans with no or crappy health coverage.  For example, the cost of a knee replacement in Mexico is $10.500 compared to $25,000 here. And there are recovery center options at seaside resorts, too.  Anyway, illegal immigration is actually slowing down because word is finally getting out in Mexico that the American economy really, really stinks. Again, all according to plan. Immigration reform legislation may not even be needed.

But I digress.  This is all a Grand Plan, for our own good.  The Social Safety Net is overrated.  We're just trapped in that net like a bunch of flailing fish who are too stupid to know what's good for us.  The President is going to slash that net and allow us to escape into the Deep, free at last.



Flagellation of the Willing





Unemployment Figures Won't Hurt Obama: David Plouffe

Okay, I was half-kidding when I called Obama "evil" in my last post.  But today I have a new diagnosis:  deluded sociopath.  The jobless figures just came out this morning, and as usual, they're worse than expected.  And if you're wondering why the Administration doesn't seem all that concerned, it's because they are in fact not at all concerned.

According to White House Advisor David Plouffe:

The average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly jobs numbers. People won’t vote based on the unemployment rate, they’re going to vote based on: ‘How do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family? (Bloomberg News)

Translation: Americans are so selfish they are only in it for themselves.  Ask not what you can do for your country or fellow men, but ask what my President can do for the top two percent of wage earners, corporations, the Wall Street elites, and the Military-Industrial complex.  It'll all trickle down eventually.

Paul Krugman thinks we should be more aghast than usual at the new monthly report:

Almost no job creation, with slow private-sector growth offset by falling public-sector employment; a falling employment-population ratio; and (I don’t know how many people have picked this up), an actual decline in wages, albeit a small one.

The politicians are all buying into Reagan voodoo economics at this point, confident that cutting trillions from the budget will miraculously create the Confidence Fairy and inspire the money-hoarding tax-evading multinationals to create jobs, jobs, jobs.  They are wrong, wrong, wrong.  And I think they know it and just don't care.

Arriving Soon... From Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue

Yanking the Chain

Both the New York Times and The Washington Post have stories today on The Unthinkable.  Social Security is very much on the table, the once-sacred cow of all self-interested politicians is about to be butchered into chunks.  It's Big!  It's Sweeping! It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to really do something huge to tackle the deficit!


The whole thing seems to be tied to something called the "chained Consumer Price Index" -- which would change the way, for instance, Social Security cost of living increases are determined.  Here and here are some explanations. In a nutshell, chained CPI would result in any beneficiaries making it to age 95 receiving such reduced benefits that they'll  either starve to death or wish for death. Judging from the controlled leaks coming from the semi-permeable budget negotiations, this proposed chained CPI would also have the effect of stealthily changing the tax code and raising billions more in revenue -- but apparently Republicans are having none of it, even if it means giving up the twisted David Brooks fantasy of getting rid of Granny so the grandkids can get theirs. 


This whole story may, after all, be nothing but a hot air balloon powered by the White House propaganda engine to make us all breathe a huge sigh of relief when it comes to pass that President Obama was only bluffing the Republicans, to be able show a grateful nation how craven and intransigent they truly are.... that they are such fools that they turned down his brave machete to save their precious corporate jet loophole.  He is trying to out-Tea Party the Tea Party, and still they aren't buying what he is selling.  Even David Brooks has been reduced to a quivering mass of fear. 

Still, the very fact that Social Security "improvement" is being bandied about at all, when it has nothing to do with the almighty deficit and the totally contrived debt crisis, should have us worried. The rumor I really want to be hearing is how the cap on FICA taxes is going to be raised above the current first $105,000 of income.  But I'll wait awhile before hitting the panic button and launching a full-scale attack on Obama for being the worst of all possible evils. Right now he is merely equivalently evil with None of the Above, Generic Republican, or Blank. 

** Update: From Bold Progressives, here is a petition to be delivered to Obama Campaign HQ in Chicago, with a handy box to write your own personal message, should you be so inclined. I was, I did. 

And thanks to James T. and Jay for the Glenn Greenwald heads-up.  Read it and weep. And realize that signing the petition above will make you feel better but will probably just cause gales of derisive laughter in Chi-town.

Polluted Politics

The CEO of a multinational conglomerate with one of the country's worst pollution records, and the perpetrator of one of the most egregiously punitive union lockouts in United States history, is now advising Senate Democrats on job creation.  Translation: he is going to tell a cadre of Senate Democrats how to make it easier for him and his corporate cohort to "stimulate" those ephemeral jobs by not raising taxes and maybe even cutting some taxes.  And the Senators might also want to ease some of those pesky environmental regulations that have resulted in the slew of fines and criminal convictions plaguing his company lately. Oh, and maybe he can whisper a few sweet nothings in their ears over dessert about that annoying union blowing the whistle on his illegal radioactive sludge storage last year, and who just can't take the hint and leave him the hell alone after being locked out of their jobs for over a year now.

David Cote, head honcho of Honeywell International, is actually being  deployed to tomorrow's lunch with the Dems by his buddy Barack Obama, just as he was deployed to the Cable TV news circuit to talk up the president's accomplishments this week, just as he was deployed to sit on the infamous Cat Food Commission to slash the social safety net, just as he was deployed to quell the rumblings from the United States Chamber of Commerce over health insurance reform, just as he was deployed to work with Health and Human Services to run a PR campaign on Medicare waste, just as he was deployed to travel with the president to India last year to help ship even more American jobs overseas. Cote has been described as one of the President's closest business advisors. 

(You can read my previous posts on the Obama-Cote connection here and here.) 

Honeywell is the number one political contributor in the country. According to labor journalist Mike Elk, it has increased its contributions by 400 percent since Obama took office in 2008.  It has received $13 billion in government contracts, mainly in defense, in the past 10 years.  Honeywell also has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of "Superfund" toxic waste sites in the country.

The company was convicted of a felony this spring for improperly storing radioactive waste at its Metropolis, IL uranium processing plant, and was ordered to pay a multimillion dollar fine.  No humans were convicted.  But if you thought this would have made them clean up their act, or have made even the slightest dent in their bottom line, you would be wrong.

Just two weeks ago, OSHA slapped the plant with still another fine  stemming from a release of dangerous gas from the plant. To add insult to injury, Honeywell further broke the law by barring federal investigators from inspecting the plant. 

Also about two weeks ago, Honeywell settled with environmental officials over its role in contaminating a large swath of Northern New Jersey with cancer-causing hexavalent chromium.  Along with Occidental Chemical and PPG Industries, Honeywell also agreed to accept responsibility for 42 other "orphan" sites contaminated with the pollutant. 

The Obama White House, from all indications or lack therof, has not addressed  the criminal convictions, the flaunting of the law, the pollution. But, according to Mike Elk, it has vehemently refused all comment on the union lockout in Metropolis, which just marked its first anniversary.  The national mainstream corporate media have not covered the Honeywell abuses, neither the labor aspect nor the pollution aspect.

And you might think that Obama critic, pollution victim, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would be all over this Cote Connection with the White House.  Again, you would be wrong. Honeywell contributes to the GOP coffers too, hedging its bets like any good monolithic corporate person. And let's face it, the Republicans are simply not that into the environment.  Just ask Rick Perry of Toxic Texas.  Deep in the heart of Texas is a lot like deep in the heart of Jersey, where as the old song goes "even the flies can't breathe in the skies." So what's a little more chemical crud.

But there has been plenty of happy-talk news about how phenomenally well Honeywell is doing from an investment standpoint. Wall Street cheerleader Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money" today projected a big increase in profits for the company, which with all its many parts resembles a "beautiful mosaic". (my thought is a writhing mass of slimy snakes, but what do I know?) Zacks.com, a Forbes blog, is also waxing rhapsodic about Honeywell's skyrocketing and surprising growth and earnings. Look at the Honeywell charts, compare with the unemployment charts, and then ask yourself where on earth Cote will find the chutzpah to ask the Senate for more concessions, even as his government contracts continue pouring in during this Age of Contrived Austerity.

Besides profiting mightily from the ongoing Forever Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and parts unknown, Honeywell was recently awarded a $213 million government contract to expand the energy infrastructure at the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration outside of D.C.  The irony is literally dripping like the nuclear sludge leaching from those cheap containers in Metropolis into the ground and toward the Ohio River.



Cote Calls Shots from Presidential Podium as Obama Looks On