The Best of All Possible Evils

So Paul Krugman was talking to some of his liberal friends recently, and was somewhat aghast when they expressed disappointment in President Obama. And thus, after delving deep into the Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman emerged in full Pangloss mode. He has written a column addressed to all those cynics, rubes and ingrates out there being unduly influenced by "the prevailing media narrative." (Warning -- before you read any further, make sure you have swallowed any food or drink still in your mouth:)

The truth is that these days much of the commentary you see on the Obama administration — and a lot of the reporting too — emphasizes the negative: the contrast between the extravagant hopes of 2008 and the prosaic realities of political trench warfare, the troubles at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the mess in Iraq, and so on. The accepted thing, it seems, is to portray Mr. Obama as floundering, his presidency as troubled if not failed.

But this is all wrong. You should judge leaders by their achievements, not their press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. Obama is having a seriously good year. In fact, there’s a very good chance that 2014 will go down in the record books as one of those years when America took a major turn in the right direction.

Let's start with those "extravagant hopes," which Krugman forgets were foisted upon the electorate by the candidate himself. For a full tally of the president's early broken promises and outright lies, please refer to the "Obama Scandals List".  It's old, but I keep it on my Blog Roll because it's unrevised history, and therefore extremely valuable for those of us who are picky about such things. There is that little extravagant matter of the promise of a public option for health care, for instance.

And then Krugman brushes aside the "troubles" at the V.A. as though they were pesky Republican mosquitoes and not a humanitarian crisis, and the "mess" in Iraq as if thousands of innocent people haven't been killed..... and so on and so forth. Because, America, this promises to be not only a Sinatra-like very good year for America, but a seriously good year for Obama. Well, at least the good professor is honest when he says 2014 will be the year the country took a major turn in the right (as opposed to left) direction.

As I began in my uncharacteristicly bilious published NYT comment: "So, seriously, Candide, as long as Obama is having a seriously good year, who are you to complain? It's all for the best in the best of all possible worlds."

The Krugglossianism continues,

First, health reform is now a reality — and despite a shambolic start, it’s looking like a big success story. Remember how nobody was going to sign up? First-year enrollments came in above projections. Remember how people who signed up weren’t actually going to pay their premiums? The vast majority have.

Not half an hour before Krugman's column appeared, his newspaper's website published an article by Robert Pear, describing how hundreds of thousands of Obamacare subscribers have received notices informing them that their documented proof to qualify for government subsidies is lacking or faulty. And that they might owe the government money as a result. The clawbacks and the bait and switch surprises are coming even earlier than expected. Fully one quarter of the eight million newly-insured might be on the hook for an average of $4,000 come tax time next year if they can't prove their worthiness to the Market God. They may be joining the estimated 30 million Americans who will remain uninsured despite the Affordable Care Act. Krugman forgets about them, too. But his column forges on:

Then there’s climate policy. The Obama administration’s new rules on power plants won’t be enough in themselves to save the planet, but they’re a real start — and are by far the most important environmental initiative since the Clean Air Act. I’d add that this is an issue on which Mr. Obama is showing some real passion.

As long as there's vocal passion, then the coughing, the wheezing, the chest pains, the pollution will fade in comparison to Obama's soaring oratory. As I mentioned in my Times comment, while the carbon emissions rules are a good start, they're largely aspirational and rely over-much on the ephemeral good intentions of individual states. And, of course, it ultimately hinges on the Market God, whose dire rumblings cannot be ignored by politicians sensitive to them. And then there are the other major pollutants getting a free pass from the passionate Mr. Obama. You may remember the ozone rules he scrapped a few years ago to shore up his re-election chances in the heartland. so as not to rattle the "confidence" of polluters. Unhealthy, man-made  levels of ozone are still causing thousands of pragmatic asthma attacks in children while environmental groups are suing Obama in federal court.

Meanwhile, DeSmogBlog reports that Obama is "quietly coddling Big Oil on bomb train regulations." You know.... that highly flammable Bakken crude hurtling down a railroad track near you.

 

Oil Train Explosion, Lynchburg, VA (DeSmogBlog)

And then there's his embrace of the fracking industry and deepwater drilling. (Just days before he made his carbon emissions announcement, his administration awarded ExxonMobil a brand new Gulf of Mexico drilling lease.) No need, either, to disclose all those chemicals being injected into the earth, poisoning our drinking water. The passionate president is confident that Halliburton has the public health as its highest priority.

Sorry, Doctor Pangloss. That glass is not only not half-full -- it's toxic.

And last but not least, Krugman turns to financial deform:

 Oh, and financial reform, although it’s much weaker than it should have been, is real — just ask all those Wall Street types who, enraged by the new limits on their wheeling and dealing, have turned their backs on the Democrats.

Krugman is being far from candid here. Wall Street types may howl in public about criticism thrown their way by Democrats pretending to be for the little guy, but they continue throwing money at Democratic politicians only too happy to do their bidding and take their bribes. Even the toothless bill that is Dodd-Frank is being delayed and defanged (or should I say de-gummed?) For a more honest overview than Krugman is willing to give, there's the recent Bill Moyers interview with Stanford economist Anat Admati, author of "The Banker's New Clothes." I also recommend Ryan Grim's article on how even a good chunk of the "progressive" Congressional Black Caucus is now in the pocket of Wall Street.

Krugman concludes with some criticism of Bowles-Simpson centrists without even acknowledging that Obama himself is a centrist (aka "New Democrat") who appointed their pro-plutocracy cat food commission. 

So what the hell is in Krugman's pocket? I wouldn't be surprised if it was a souvenir from the "polish it yourself"  bowl of apples that Obama keeps in the Oval Office.

A Week of American Pathology

Nothing expresses the shallow narcissism and brutal arrogance of the American political/media complex so much as its reaction to the cataclysm that is Iraq. To wit:

"Over the past decade, American troops have made extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis an opportunity to claim their own future.... Obviously our troops and the American people and the American taxpayers made huge investments and sacrifices in order to give Iraqis the opportunity to chart a better course, a better destiny.”   -- Barack Obama. He delivered his Friday remarks with obvious impatience and haste, Marine One ostentatiously revving up in the background. It sent the cynical message that he has better things to do.... like head off for a luxury vacation weekend in California, while the country that the US invaded is now indistinguishable from the last circle of Hell.

No mention at all from Obama of the extraordinary sacrifices that Iraqi civilians have made over the past eleven years. Instead, the dead, the maimed, and the dispossessed are blamed for being ingrates. From the Iraq Body Count website, here are statistics from just this month so far:

Friday 13 June: 34 killed Mosul: 17 by gunfire. Baghdad: 2 by IEDs. Tarmiya: 3 by car bomb. Baiji: 7 policemen by government shelling. Tikrit: 3 policemen by government shelling. Falluja: 2 poisoned after shelling of water plant. JUNE CASUALTIES SO FAR: 758 CIVILIANS KILLED.

Thursday 12 June: 23 killed Baghdad: 4 by gunfire. Falluja: 3 by shelling. Diyala: 2 by gunfire. Muqdadiya: 2 by gunfire, IED. Kirkuk: 1 photographer in clashes. Riyadh: 1 by IED. Al Debes: 1 by IED. Baiji: 1 child by gunfire. Balad: 2 professors by gunfire. Latifiya: 1 policeman in clashes. Tikrit: 3 border guards, 2 bodies. JUNE CASUALTIES SO FAR: 724 CIVILIANS KILLED. The total Iraqi body count stemming from the US invasion in 2003 varies, with some estimates going as high as 200,000. This contrasts with 4,486 American deaths in the war. But hey -- it's all about US:

“Iraq’s unraveling should come as no surprise. We and others predicted that would happen as a result of the President’s decision to prematurely withdraw all American forces from Iraq. As early as 2011, we said this decision would be a strategic victory for our enemies, and that is what it has become. The President and his national security team in Washington are responsible for this catastrophe, and he should bring in a new team with a proven track record of success in Iraq – leaders like General David Petraeus, General Jack Keane, General James Mattis, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and others. --- Neocon Nincompoop John McCain, who never started a war he wanted to end, who forgot who started the war, who forgot that Petraeus is now diversifying his destruction by fracking up the millions for a shady private equity outfit. And, that it was George Bush who set the timetable for ending the war.

"Will the United States be destroyed?"-- Wolf Blitzer, fulfilling his destiny of drumming up mindless fear to prop up tanking CNN ratings and to contribute to the endless profit of his diverse destructive corporate sponsors.

"We now have two administrations in a row that committed their worst foreign policy blunders in Iraq. By withdrawing too quickly from Iraq, by failing to build on the surge, the Obama administration has made some similar mistakes made during the early administration of George W. Bush, except in reverse. The dangers of American underreach have been lavishly and horrifically displayed." -- David Brooks, one of the original New York Times armchair warriors, getting his perverted jollies by describing death and destruction in "Doctor Ruth" terms of sexual dysfunction.

And then there are the headlines of the major outlets, all framing the crisis around how it will affect the personal fortunes and legacies of self-seeking American politicians. Some examples:

Obama Finds He Can't Put Iraq Behind Him -- Peter Baker, NYT, twists logic on its ear in this piece:

He opposed the invasion as a state senator in Illinois, and many of his decisions as president have been measured against the lessons he took from Iraq. To him, the war proved that military intervention more often than not made things worse, not better.

When he agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan, he insisted on a timetable for pulling them out. When he decided to intervene in Libya, he used only air power and made sure that NATO allies took the lead. When the Syrian civil war broke out, he resisted calls to step in even with air power or, for a long time, arms for the rebels. The longer he has been in office, the more skeptical he seems to have grown about the utility of force as a means of changing the world for the better.

Wow, what a relief. When Obama invades countries, he makes up a timetable. (just like Bush.) When Obama bombs countries, he makes sure only foreigners get killed.  Baker conveniently forgets to mention that it was Obama who wanted to bomb the hell out of Syria, but was thwarted at the last minute by Putin's diplomatic intervention in getting Assad to remove his chemical weapon stockpile.

Moving on, how can we forget how badly Iraq has affected Hillary Clinton's grand roll-out of a book tour?  The Hill, purveyor of all things insider-Beltway, has the cataclysmic scoop: Iraq Casts Shadow Over Clinton: 

The growing crisis and threat of all-out civil war in Iraq has cast a cloud over Hillary Clinton’s book tour touting her accomplishments as secretary of State.

The release of “Hard Choices” was supposed to remind people of the foreign policy credentials she burnished in the Obama administration.

 On Tuesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest even said Clinton’s greatest accomplishments at the State Department included ending the war in Iraq and “decimating and destroying” al Qaeda.

Well, it was only the Eve of Destruction and his name is Josh Earnest.And then The Hill quotes something truly bizarre that Hill said in 2011:

“Are the Iraqis all going to get along with each other for the foreseeable future? Well, let’s find out. We know that there will be continuing stresses and threats as we see in many of the countries that we work,” she said then. (bold is mine.)

But let the narcissistic weirdness continue. As Iraq was exploding, Hillary was touring. And she is having the time of her life! From Buzzfeed's account of a staged Friday night interview with former aide and (current?) ghostwriter Lissa Muscatine:

“You’re traveling all over the place. You’re doing all these interviews. You’re keeping a pretty frenetic pace,” Muscatine said before an audience of 1,500. “I’m wondering, just as I’ve watched you, in these past four days — you’ve had some tough interviews — you seem like you’re having a really good time.”

“Well, Lissa, I am having a good time.”

“You’re really free to speak your mind these days,” Muscatine said.

“Maybe it’s just the wonderful wealth of experience that I now have,” Clinton went on. “Maybe it’s because I am truly done with, you know, being really careful about what to say because somebody might think this instead of that.”

“It just gets too exhausting and frustrating and it just seemed a whole lot easier to just put it out there and hope people get used to it. Whether you agree with it or not, you know exactly where I come from, what I think, what I feel.”

“It feels a little bit liberating, to be honest.”

“And it’s great to watch,” Muscatine said. “I have to say.”

Can't you just hardly wait for the next decade or so of this vicarious freedom and liberation as Hillary works the countries of the globe? Stay tuned for the corporate media-rehabbed George's next self-portrait of his feet. Then thrill to the awarding of the location of Obama's legacy-burnishing shrine to himself.

Update: Chelsea Manning has written an op-ed for the NYT on the disconnect between the reality of the Iraq War and the USG-controlled media reporting of it. Journalists who are cozy with the military and report favorably on its activities are given special access. Others are shut out. Journalists in Iraq were even forced to sign something that sounds suspiciously like a "loyalty oath."

Obama Bombs

By Alice Ross

Cross-posted from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Two drone strikes have hit North Waziristan in Pakistan’s tribal northwest, reportedly killing 16 people and ending the longest pause in drone strikes of Obama’s presidency.

Prior to these attacks there had not been a drone strike in Pakistan since Christmas Day. The Pakistani government had requested that the US stop carrying out strikes to allow peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) to take place, sources close to the negotiations told the Bureau in February.

But terrorist attacks and retaliatory air strikes by the Pakistani military continued throughout the peace talks, killing hundreds including civilians.

Any hope of the talks continuing ended on Sunday when the TTP launched an audacious ‘joint operation‘ attacking Karachi airport, with members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group with a strong presence in North Waziristan. The five-hour assault killed at least 39, according to the BBC.

On Wednesday evening, the drone strikes resumed.

Get the data: Obama 2014 Pakistan drone strikes

The first attack hit a vehicle and houses in a village to the west of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan Agency in Pakistan’s tribal belt. A local told NBC News the attack targeted a moving vehicle but also damaged two houses. A security official told AFP the vehicle was parked outside a house and both were hit in the strike. Up to six were reportedly killed. Unnamed local officials told reporters the dead included Uzbek militants and either members of the Punjabi Taliban or the Haqqani Network.

An unnamed ‘senior intelligence official’ told AFP that following the strike, intercepted communications revealed: ‘One of the militants was asking others to reach the site and search for any one injured in the strike and also to dig out the dead bodies.’

Hours later drones attacked again, reportedly killing at least 10 alleged militants in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Reports disagreed over the details of this second strike, with AFP reporting that the drones targeted men who were digging out bodies at the site of the previous strike – a tactic previously exposed by the Bureau. ‘Three US drones fired six missiles on militants who had gathered to dig the debris of a compound,’ a security official told AFP. Two vehicles were also hit, he added. PTI also reported that the strike was at the site of the earlier attack, although it did not mention an attack on rescuers.

Related article - Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers

NBC News also reported that the attack took place in the same village as the previous strike, adding that it hit a house where explosives were being stored. ‘I never heard such a huge and deafening blast,’ Miranshah resident Javed Khan said. ‘It jolted the entire tribal region, and everybody thought [the] house was targeted.

But other reports, citing locals, said missiles hit four separate houses and a pick-up truck in Dande Darpakhel. Intelligence officials and locals described seeing five to ten drones overhead.

None of the dead were identified by name.

Unnamed intelligence officials told Associated Press the attack targeted the Haqqani Network, the militant group that held US soldier Bowe Bergdahl captive until his release in a controversial prisoner swap earlier this month. The LA Times and others suggested the release had eased the way to a resumption in strikes as US officials had previously feared drone strikes could ‘result in Bergdahl’s death’.

The strikes come shortly after the Pakistani defence minister called for a full-scale military operation against the TTP in North Waziristan, telling a TV interviewer: ‘The talks option has been pursued with sincerity by the government, but no result has come.’

The Pakistani foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the attacks as a ‘violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty’ – a step that has become routine in recent years. The statement added: ‘Additionally, these strikes have a negative impact on the Government’s efforts to bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region.’

But two unnamed ‘top government officials’ told Reuters the strikes were ‘launched with the express approval of the Pakistan government and army’. 

One told the agency: ‘It is now policy that the Americans will not use drones without permission from the security establishment here. There will be complete coordination and Pakistan will be in the loop. We understand that drones will be an important part of our fight against the Taliban now.’

UPDATE: The first line originally stated that this was the longest pause of the 10-year campaign. It wasn’t. This has been amended.

The Revolving Undead

If you're still suffering from your bad case of Hillary fatigue, you can look forward to a respite. For one more day, at least, the queen-in-waiting's grand tour is being pre-empted by the media/political complex's post-mortem of the "stunning"" defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

 It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about Eric Cantor's sleazy financial wheelings and dealings through his shadowy Young Guns Super Pac, which finagled its way into a glowing op-ed by David Brooks.

So, Cantor's defeat at the hands of a locally popular but nationally unknown  economics professor named David Brat (probably with the aid of his Hate, Inc. media enablers) could not have happened to a more deserving specimen. Suffering defeat at the hands of an impoverished guy named Brat is also sweet, giving lie to the Supreme Court canard that money is speech, all by itself. It turns out that you still occasionally need the hideous larynxes of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham to give dark money an actual voice.

Brat seems to be as surprised by (and unprepared for) his victory as anyone. Talking hacks, nostalgic for their Sarah Palin "gotchas," are already having a field day with him. Chuck Todd, for example, sabotaged him with a trick question on the minimum wage. (He asked Brat for his position on it. Brat admitted he hadn't given it a second thought.) Like I said.... they (and we) can take a brief break from those tiresome Hillary gotcha questions on Benghazi and her three houses and her million-dollar speaking gigs.

 Plus, let's give Eric the Dread a little credit where it's due. Were it not for him once toadying up to the cannibalistic Tea Party, that hideous Grand Bargain in which President Obama had offered up the New Deal on a platter to John Boehner would actually have come to pass. We would be gasping for toxic air in Austerity 1.0 instead of shallowly breathing in Austerity Lite. The eligibility age for Medicare would have risen to 67. Our Social Security benefits would have been cut through chained CPI. The Medicaid health insurance program for the poor would have been slashed. All kinds of programs for the public good would have been sacrificed on the Free Market altar, in the name of oligarch-enriching deficit reduction. The duopolists and the various crisis-creating "Gangs" of the political syndicate figured they could screw over the regular people by touting a token amount of revenue from the rich to balance our pain. Those closed tax loopholes could always be ripped open at a later date, snuck into a bill somewhere under cover of darkness. But cuts to Social Security would have been forever.

  And then the crazy Tea Party balked at even one more penny of token new revenue. Cantor took full credit as the spoiler of a deal made in plutocratic hell and serendipitously delayed the demise of what's still left of the New Deal and the Great Society.

We should also give him a tiny bit of credit for now forcing Obama's hand on immigration. Obama, you may recall, had again gone his weasely Bartleby the Scrivener route, stating he would "prefer not to" take unilateral action on the fraught issue without bipartisan cooperation. Cantor was part of that bipartisan cooperation. That he betrayed the Tea Party xenophobes in favor of the corporate interests who wanted their cheap imported IT labor and other servants was the death knell for him. On the surface, anyway.

 Stay tuned. Everybody loves a Nixonian political comeback. Maybe Eric Cantor will explore pretend-running for president or vice president as he helps wreak havoc for the rest of his official tenure, raking in the cash in preparation for his leadership position at a think tank or his own Super Pac. It's the magic of the revolving door. It's the magic of a whole panoply of mystery sugar daddy billionaires anxious to own a personal stake in our pseudo-democracy.

Eric the Dread is decidedly undead. He will always be a member in good standing of the entrenched ruling class. He's already sneering all the way to the bank.

Update: More theories on Eric's downfall: Thom Hartman (h/t Pearl) suspects that the allegedly penniless Brat had a mighty big wad of dark money secretly propping him up (via the professional hate-mongers of the Limbaughsphere as I referenced above), while Lee Fang says Cantor was defeated primarily because of voter disgust with political corruption.

Here is my response to Gail Collins' column on Putting a Cap on Cantor:

 The media characterizing Eric Cantor's loss as an earthquake reminds me how Cantor treated his own constituents after a real earthquake rocked his district in 2011.

As he sneeringly surveyed the damage, he told voters that disaster relief would have to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. But not for the banks (his wife's bank had gotten a TARP bailout). the war machine, or for his corporate cronies. If regular people didn't have the foresight to purchase earthquake insurance in a region that never gets earthquakes, he said, then tough cookies for them.

A nurse friend of mine was in a contingent of protesters who traveled by bus a month or so later seeking a meeting with Cantor. Was it the fact that all of them were wearing matching "Can'tor Won't" tee shirts that made him lock the door and call the cops on them? He was such a coward, he even staffed his town halls  with paid bouncers in order to eject people whose pointed questions he didn't like.

His "surprise" defeat was likely a serendipitous mixture of apathy, disgust with Wall Street, Democrats gleefully crashing a GOP primary, xenophobia fomented by Hate Media, Inc. and the fact that Cantor views non-rich people with blatant contempt. Who knows -- it could even have been David Brooks' primary day column praising the phony "New Right" manifesto put together by Cantor's odious dark money Young Guns SuperPac.

As "Delaware Dem" blogged:

" ‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah."
 

‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah - See more at: http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/06/cantors-defeat-wittiest-one-liners/#sthash.7iaDwqjA.dpuf

‘Brat Upsets Cantor’ . . . The headline sounds like a failed Bar Mitzvah - See more at: http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2014/06/cantors-defeat-wittiest-one-liners/#sthash.7iaDwqjA.dpuf

Tighty Whitie Righties

Since you're all probably suffering from a severe case of Hillary Clinton fatigue by now, I thought I'd give everybody a break and and discuss that equally dapper white centrist -- David Brooks of the New York Times.

With lesser-evil Democrats throwing out such tasty morsels as aspirational cap-and-trade (just in time for Doomsday), and bestowing student debt forgiveness upon a chosen few lucky duckies, the Republicans are desperately playing catch-up, in hopes of winning a seat (or fifty) on the pseudo-populist bandwagon. So they're doing what they always do -- they're plastering a shady new shade of lipstick on a pig. They've issued a manifesto called "Room to Grow," and the reliable Mr. Brooks has obligingly given it penthouse column space in which to luxuriously metastasize.

The fact that he labels the agenda "The New Right" is your first clue.The next clue is that when you click on the link he so thoughtfully provides, you discover that the propaganda e-book he's touting is a product of something called the YG Network. No, it isn't Why???? Gee!!!!  It stands for "Young Guns" -- now initialized, probably because they don't want readers to confuse them with those white supremacist mass murderers. Because, the Republicans are merely white supremacists who don't want to take the guns away from the mass murderers.

Brooks also forgets to mention that the manifesto is the production of one John Murray, former deputy chief of staff to original Young Gun Eric Cantor. Before heading to Congress, Murray had lobbied for both AHIP, the health insurance cartel, and Big Pharma. The manifesto that Brooks is shilling for is actually a front for a gigantic SuperPac that Murray started when he left government "service" to cash in. From Politico:

Murray, with the help of former Cantor aide Rob Collins, is launching the new PAC as a fundraising vehicle that will be able to accept unlimited contributions from corporations and individuals and spend money to elect “free-market, pro-business” candidates.

Alongside the super PAC, Murray is launching two nonprofits: a 501(c)(4) that will be able to run issue advertisements and a 501(c)(3) that will commission studies and run educational programs.

The common thread running through all three organizations: the Cantor-Ryan-McCarthy brand, which got so much attention in the 2010 elections and will try to capitalize on the new world of lightly regulated, unlimited corporate and individual money.

With the super PAC, Cantor’s former aides will be able to pour money into the election efforts of candidates who are in the Young Guns’ mold — conservative and ready to challenge the establishment.

So, I guess the "Room to Grow" (Pinocchio noses)  manifesto must fall into the category of tax-deductible educational program for ruling class fun and profit. Don't you just love it when studly young establishment types pretend to pack heat as they pretend to challenge the establishment and educate the masses?

But meanwhile, it is David Brooks's task to cover up such greed and dishonesty with his usual concern-trolling gobbledygook. He enthuses,

In the first essay of the book, Peter Wehner moves beyond the ruinous Republican view that the country is divided between hearty entrepreneurs and parasitic “takers.” Like most reform conservatives, he shifts attention sympathetically to the struggling working and middle classes. He grapples with the fact, uncomfortable for conservatives, that the odds of escaping poverty are about half as high in the United States as in more mobile countries like Denmark.

You may remember nouveau-compassionate conservative Wehner as the bloodthirsty Bush speechwriter/attack dog who beat the war drums for the Iraq invasion while spewing "Christian" values. You also may remember him (Brooks pretends not to) as an enthusiastic member of Mitt Romney's "makers vs. takers" campaign team!

Brooks, meanwhile, avoids giving a mention to the manifesto contributor writing about the unemployment crisis.

Since Congress recently condemned millions of long-term unemployed Americans to destitution by refusing to extend their jobless benefits, I was anxious to read the chapter on how the "New Right" plans to help them. Boy, was I ever in for a treat.

Michael Strain, of the American Enterprise Institute, thinks that kicking people when they're down is just the ticket.

For starters, he wants to give them a one-way ticket out of town.... to wherever those great mystery jobs are rumored to be there for the taking.

Then, Strain suggests that "the federal minimum wage requirement that forces employers to take a $7.25 risk on an unemployed worker" should be scrapped in favor of a sub-minimum wage for people out of work six months or longer.... until such unspecified time that they can prove themselves. Meanwhile they may qualify for a short-term loan, with interest, that they can pay back while they're raking in their pitiful wages. Feudalism, much?

Strain also thinks that work-related licensing requirements (enacted for the public's welfare) should be scaled back or scrapped altogether.

Of course, this blatant brutality makes the Dems' own measly $10.10 minimum wage proposal look like manna from heaven. Which, after all, is the whole point of the bait and switch political duopoly owned and operated by a de facto plutocracy. The proles are allowed to go to the polls and choose the best of all possible evils.

And as always -- follow the $$$, all the way to the pockets of the .01%

Zombie Resurrection

New York Times restaurant critic turned op-ed columnist Frank Bruni has reanimated the long-discredited generational theft blame game -- accusing  Boomers rather than Banksters of creating the dire straits a whole lost generation of young Americans finds itself thrashing in.

The cult of plutocratic austerians, who'd temporarily retreated to their crypts when Thomas Picketty and wealth inequality became all the rage, are back on another rampage, this time trying to disguise themselves as fun young hipsters.

From their money pit they arise, clawing their way into Bruni's Sunday column. He swiftly pivots from a righteous condemnation of the national failure to address the looming climate catastrophe to yet another baseless condemnation of old people who are supposedly gobbling up Social Security and Medicare at the expense of Millennials. For some reason, he thinks that the older generation spends all its epic free time making fun of the selfie craze and other fads, when it should be apologizing to the 20 and 30-somethings for gross malfeasance and neglect:

Among Americans age 40 and older, there’s a pastime more popular than football, Candy Crush or HBO.

It’s bashing millennials.

Oh, the hours of fun we have, marveling at their self-fascination and gaping at their sense of entitlement! It’s been an especially spirited romp lately, as a new batch of them graduate from college and gambol toward our cubicles, prompting us to wonder afresh about the havoc they’ll wreak on our world.

We have a hell of a lot of nerve, considering the havoc we’ve wrought on theirs.

For decades they’ll be saddled with our effluvium: a monstrous debt, an epidemic of obesity, Adam Sandler movies. In their lifetimes the Atlantic will possibly swallow Miami Beach (I foresee a “Golden Girls” sequel with dinghies and life preservers) and the footwear for Anchorage in February may be flip-flops. At least everyone will be saving on heating bills.

Now that he's created his straw man (the narcissistic middle-aged and elderly who have nothing better to do than to torment their own kids) Bruni seamlessly glides to the alleged crimes of the middle-aged and elderly. To wit: becoming poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, and getting old enough to qualify for Medicare and Social Security. This generational theft, in Bruni's world, is the prime cause of mountains of crushing student debt. He thinks our retirement program is just another part of the federal budget. (Because that's what the deficit hawks who want to privatize it would like us to think.) He quotes centrist multimillionaire and former senator Bob Kerrey to make his point. Bob Kerrey apparently has a young trust fund son who he is worried about, because somewhere out there, an octogenarian scapegoat is breathing, eating more than its share, and filling too many prescriptions. Bruni blunders on,

And there’s too little money for that even now. Talk to physicians and other scientists who have long depended on research grants from the National Institutes of Health to keep the United States at the forefront of invention and innovation and they’ll tell you how thoroughly that spigot has closed over the last 10 years. They’re defeated, despondent.

Oh, the humanity. Oh, the irony. So much medical care is being wasted on diseased people that the best and the brightest scientists who study disease have thrown up their hands, descended into the Slough of Despond. This has nothing, of course, to do with the rampage of bipartisan budget cuts and the recent bipartisan Sequester that hammered the NIH. It's all because of Grandma. (defined, of course, as a Special Interest Group. Right up there with the Exxon Mobil lobbyists.)

So, Bruni enthuses, younger voters are Fighting Back! These young people are not, however, to be confused with the rabble-rousers of Occupy Wall Street. Bruni's Millennials ("they deserve our compassion") are the well-heeled young professionals who gathered in Washington last week to celebrate something called Millennial Week. He doesn't bother telling his readers that this gathering was the brainchild of a marketing pro, or that it was funded by banks and corporations -- and a millennial astroturf group called "The Can Kicks Back." That group in turn, is funded by the discredited Fix the Debt campaign, headed up by deficit codgers Al Simpson and Erskine Bowles, in turn funded by Wall Street titan Pete Peterson, who, incidentally, also provided financial backing for Obama's anti-New Deal Cat Food Commission. These people are not only zombies -- they're incestuous zombies.

You can almost see the $$$ signs flashing behind every stale reanimated talking point in Bruni's essay. Economist Dean Baker has a similar reaction and ably eviscerates Bruni's social spending data as dictated to him by the Urban Institute think tank.

My published Times comment:

 The zombie lie of generational theft just keeps shuffling along. This column is nothing but warmed-over Bowles/Simpson cat food.

It's not the Boomers who are stealing from the Millennials, and ruining their future. It's the super-rich and the polluting corporate welfare queens who are robbing all of us, from the cradle to the grave.

Fact check: Social Security is not part of the budget-- it's a self-funded insurance program. And since the 900 richest Americans already reach the taxable maximum of $117,000 by Jan. 2, why not just scrap the cap altogether? Solvency problem disappears.

Plus, raising the benefit and lowering the eligibility age to 55 would both ease the burden on tired older workers and open up the shrinking job market to millennials.

But as polls show, the super-rich are strongly opposed to social spending. To avoid looking like callous misanthropes, therefore, they and their media/political enablers spread the lie that the older people are leeching off younger people.

Despite what austerian billionaire Pete Peterson (a proud sponsor of that "Millennial Week" marketing confab) says, the country is not broke.

The Federal Reserve Board now reports that total US net worth rose to a record $81.8 trillion, up $1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2014 and up nearly $13 trillion from the previous peak, pre-2008 crash.

Of course, those gains are clenched tightly in the fists of the real culprits, who think the rest of us have not suffered enough.

The Sarcasm Dragnet

 

 

The folks of the Surveillance State are shocked, shocked that snark and symbolism and smoldering emotions are going on in the chat-o-sphere. They just can't keep up with the jokes, the irony, the pissed-offiness, the double-entendres, the parodies, the satire that are running rampant in cyberspace. It's jamming up their poor brains as they constantly troll, in real time, the communications of every man, woman, child, boojum, bandersnatch and jubjub with an internet connection.

Is that a terrorist sicko they're monitoring, or just a sicko with a terrific sense of humor? It's hard out there for the spooks. Their reading comprehension scores are falling far, far behind their reading speed scores. And thus, the Department of Homeland Security has just put out a work order for special software to help our minders detect sarcastic blog posts, hidden meanings, deleted or altered Tweets, and snarky online comments. They are procuring what they call a "Computer Based Annual Social Media Analytics Subscription."

For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't

   Be caught in a commonplace way.

Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:

   Not a chance must be wasted to-day!

Here, if you choose to accept it, is your Mission Implausible from Uncle Sam:

HSSS01-14-Q-0182

This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format prescribed in Subpart 12.6 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. A subsequent solicitation document will not be issued. Solicitation HSSS01-14-Q-0182 is issued as a Request for Proposal (RFP) though FAC 2005-72.  The NAICS is 511210. The United States Secret Service  intends to award a ( FFP) Firm Fixed Price competitive contract on the basis of Best Value to the Government

STATEMENT OF WORK

UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS TOOL

1.0       INTRODUCTION

This requirement is for procurement of a social media analytics software  tool to be used by the United States Secret Service (USSS) Office of Government and Public Affairs (GPA).

2.0       MISSION

The Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency with headquarters in Washington, D.C. and over 140 offices domestically and internationally.  Although, the USSS was established in 1865, solely to suppress the counterfeiting of United States currency, its mission has grown to include: safeguarding the nation's financial infrastructure and payment systems; preserving the integrity of the economy; and to protecting national leaders, visiting heads of state and government, designated sites, and National Special Security Events (NSSE).

3. 0      OBJECTIVES

Procure a social media software analytics tool with the ability to:

• Automate the social media monitoring process;
• Synthesize large sets of social media data;
• Identify statistical pattern analysis;
• Visually present complex data in a clear, concise manner; and
• Provide user friendly functionality to multiple staff members.

4.0       TASK ORDER/PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

One (1)BPA (Blanket Purchasing Agreement) with a period of 5 years. 

5.0       SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

The software tool must possess the following capabilities/functionality:

• Real-time stream analysis;
• Customizable, keyword search features;
• Sentiment analysis;
• Trend analysis;
• Audience segmentation;
• Geographic segmentation;
• Qualitative, data visualization representations (heat maps, charts, graphs, etc.);
• Multiple user access;
• Functionality to have read-only users;
• Access to historical twitter data;
• Influencer identification;
• Standard web browser access with login credentials;
• User level permissions;
• Compatibility with Internet Explorer 8;
• Section 508 compliant;
• Ability to detect sarcasm and false positives;
• Functionality to send notifications to users;
• Functionality to analyze data over a given period of time;
• Ability to quantify the agency's social media outreach/footprint;
• Vendor-provided training and technical/customer support;
• Ability to create custom reports without involving IT specialists; and
• Ability to search online content in multiple languages.

All proposals must be submitted via email to Contract Specialist via Email at ivy.meadows@associates. usss.dhs.gov and charles.keeney@usss.dhs.gov   NO LATER THAN 9 June  2014, at 5:00 PM EST

 Don't you feel safer already? Robbie the Robot (aka Big Brother) will be constantly scanning, never sleeping, with a preternatural ability to detect nuance and hidden meanings in every digitized word.  He/it will be able to create custom reports without the need for human eyes or human brains. Softy Ware be able to measure his own spooky footprints wherever he dares to tread! If he feels like it, he can even send notifications to the perpetrators of suspected irony! Like, "Duh, could you explain the punchline again? Does not compute...ute...ute. The Blue Screen of Death will come knocking if you don't knock off the snark!" 

Taking a tip from the snark-hunters of yore, they will use all the means at their disposal in their search for meaning:

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

   They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share;

   They charmed it with smiles and soap.

So, what could possibly go wrong? What could possibly be the potential for abuse? 

As NextGov observes, those honchos of the Homeland have gotten into hot water for this kind of stuff before:

A couple of years ago, the Homeland Security Department, the agency's parent, got in trouble with lawmakers and civil liberties groups for a social media program that would work, in  part, by having employees create fake usernames and profiles to spy on other users.  

A House Homeland Security Committee panel called DHS officials into a hearing after reports the department tasked analysts with collecting data that reflected negatively on the government, such as content about the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to a Michigan jail. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued DHS for more information on the program.

The likely defense this time will be that the software made them do it. No actual communications will be intentionally collected on purpose willingly. Besides, the software isn't merely collecting your words. It's collecting your meaning, your emotions, even your subliminal thoughts. It's a whole new job description for the Secret Service.

Oh, and before I forget: we just marked the first anniversary of the Edward Snowden revelations. 

So, stick a fork in it, Spooks! You're done. (I mean that literally, Bro.)